[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 149 (Tuesday, September 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5513-S5537]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          GUN CONTROL MEASURES

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I rise this evening with many of my 
Democratic colleagues to speak about an issue that is on the minds of 
families all across our country. I thank Senator Murphy for organizing 
this very important action this evening.
  Back-to-school always brings back such great memories of my own 
children, my son and daughter. I remember them packing crayons and 
paper in their new backpacks and eagerly heading off to meet their new 
teachers and catch up with friends to talk about what they did during 
the summer. It had always been such an exciting time of year for them. 
Unfortunately, it is not the same now for their children, my 
grandchildren.
  I have two grandsons and a granddaughter who are now in school. The 
first new question that was asked when buying their backpacks was: Do 
you want a bulletproof backpack? Do you want a bulletproof backpack, 
was one of the questions in buying their backpacks for school.
  I also think of 2 weeks ago when my youngest grandson started second 
grade. My daughter and I were talking about the fact that in addition 
to all of the excitement and the energy around starting school, there 
were changes--like a new front door and bulletproof windows and a new 
way to get into the school, walking in and having to stop and buzz and 
go through another door, and all of the changes and the costs that have 
gone into reconfiguring the school so you can't walk directly into 
classrooms.
  It was important for the school to do that, but I am sure that what 
they would rather have been doing is adding more music and art classes 
and teachers and technology and other things for the children in that 
elementary school, rather than bulletproof windows and safety doors to 
stop a gunman from getting into the school.
  Americans have learned that whether it is a school, a store, a 
church, a country music festival, a movie theater, or even sitting on 
your front porch, no place is safe anymore. Thanks to this country's 
epidemic of gun violence, even a child playing football in his own 
backyard or doing her homework at the kitchen table in her own home can 
become the target of a stray bullet.
  Last week, Senate Democrats released a report that shows 100 
Americans are killed by guns every single day--100 people every single 
day. That is enough people to fill every desk in this Chamber day after 
day after day--100 people killed by gun violence every single day.
  In fact, since the House passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, 
there have been an estimated 20,200 people killed by gun violence, 
12,322 suicides using a gun, and 808 children--808 children--killed by 
firearms.
  Those are some of the numbers, but we are not here tonight to just 
talk about numbers. We are talking about people's lives. These people 
have names like Judy and Barbara, Mary Jo and Mary Lou, and Richard and 
Tyler. These six people were killed in 2016 when an Uber driver went on 
a shooting spree across Kalamazoo County, MI. Two other people, Abigail 
and Tiana, were gravely wounded.
  Tiana watched the car coming toward her and saw the driver pull out a 
handgun. Tiana told her daughters to run and stood still to shield 
them. Once she knew they were safe, she tried to get away too. The 
gunman pulled the trigger 15 times. Tiana was shot four times. Only 
when she laid on the ground and played dead did the bullets stop.
  Broken bodies, shattered families, grieving communities. This story 
is one that is repeated across this country every single day now, and 
it has to stop.
  The American people expect the Senate to do its job and take action 
to make their lives better and safer. Unfortunately, that isn't 
happening, and the American people are paying the price.
  Two hundred and two days ago--202 days ago the Democratic House 
passed the Bipartisan Background Checks Act--202 days ago--which would 
require a background check for every gun sale, something pretty simple 
and common sense. That could have stopped the shooter in West Texas who 
killed 7 innocent people and wounded another 25. It makes you wonder 
how many of the 301 mass shootings that have happened since January 1 
could have been prevented and how many lives could have been saved.
  Requiring a background check for every gun purchase isn't 
controversial. In fact, it is what Americans are asking for. It is 
pretty common sense.
  I come from rural Michigan, and in Northern Michigan my whole family 
is involved in hunting and all of the great outdoor sports. I have 
lived with legal, safe gun ownership my whole life. No one in my family 
believes that someone should be able to buy a gun without getting a 
background check. It is just common sense.
  That is why more than 90 percent of Americans want Congress to do 
just that--to pass universal background checks. Yet the bill sits on 
the Senate Republican leader's desk, Senator McConnell's desk, waiting, 
waiting, waiting for action for 202 days. While Mitch McConnell and 
President Trump wait for approval from Big Money special interests, 
Americans are dying. It is time to act.
  The beginning of school should be something our young people look 
forward to, not fear.
  Next year, students at Fruitport High School in West Michigan will 
attend a brandnew school in a brandnew building. It has all sorts of 
amenities--10 science classrooms with spacious labs, a drafting lab 
with a 3D printer, and art studios complete with pottery kilns. It will 
also feature curved hallways to reduce a shooter's sight line, 
shatterproof glass, and wing walls that will provide places for 
students to hide in classrooms.
  It is great that the school district is investing in the safety of 
its students, but it is also heartbreaking that they have to do so. 
Students in Fruitport and across Michigan should be focused on next 
week's math test or tomorrow night's football game, not where they can 
duck and take cover in their school.
  It is time for America to stop failing our young people. Majority 
Leader McConnell, what are you waiting for?
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Michigan and 
those who have joined together on the Democratic side to speak out on 
the issue of gun safety this afternoon and this evening.
  I guess one of the real blessings in life is to have a grandchild, 
and I have got six really good ones. One is a little girl who has just 
entered the third grade in a public school in Brooklyn, NY. She is a 
sweetheart, and I love her to pieces.
  She came home to tell her mom and dad last year, when she was in the 
second grade, that they just had a drill in her classroom, and they 
told her what to do if someone showed up in the hallway or outside with 
a gun: hide under the desk, stay away from the windows.
  To think that little 7-year-old girl had to receive that kind of 
warning in America today breaks my heart. Why?
  Does anyone really honestly believe that when the Second Amendment to 
the Constitution was written they envisioned the fear that would go 
through the minds of children who, after Connecticut, worry that some 
shooter will come in with a semiautomatic weapon and kill dozens of 
kids in one moment? That is the reality of gun violence today. That is 
one of the realities, and it is one that just breaks my heart as a 
father and grandfather.
  Over the past few weeks, our Nation has been rocked by mass shootings 
in El Paso, Dayton, and Odessa, TX, that left 38 victims dead and 
dozens more injured.
  According to the Gun Violence Archive, so far this year there have 
been 300 mass shootings. That means shootings where more than four 
people were shot in one event. This is in addition to

[[Page S5514]]

the daily toll of gun homicides, suicides, and accidents that kill 
nearly 40,000 Americans a year.
  Every week, I see the grim statistics of people killed and wounded by 
gunfire in my home State of Illinois. Just this past weekend--just this 
past weekend, in Chicago, at least 8 people were killed and 19 more 
injured by gunfire.
  Gun violence is an epidemic in America. It affects communities large 
and small. I have met countless people who have lost loved ones or who 
have been traumatized by gun violence.
  Millions of Americans now live in fear that when they send their 
kids--or grandkids--off to school, when they go to a movie theater, a 
concert, or to church, or even when they sit on their front porch, they 
could be shot. This is unacceptable. America is better than this.
  There are many people in this great Nation who are doing all they can 
to try to reduce the epidemic of shootings--parents, community leaders, 
teachers, faith leaders, law enforcement, the medical community, and 
public officials, but what are we doing in the U.S. Senate? The answer 
is nothing--nothing.
  There is no single reform that can prevent every shooting, but we 
know there are big gaps in our gun laws that make it easy for felons, 
abusers, and mentally unstable people to get their hands on guns. 
Closing these gaps and loopholes in our background checks system would 
significantly reduce shootings and save lives.
  It is estimated that 22 percent of gun sales nationwide currently 
occur without a background check. Now, I know the critics say: Oh, 
great, Senator. You are going to have better background checks. Let me 
tell you, the people who want these guns are not going to go through 
that process. It turns out that, last year, 100,000 of them were 
ignorant enough to try, and they were caught in the act. They had been 
disqualified from purchasing a firearm under Federal law, and yet they 
made that try. Why would we ever let them successfully buy a firearm? 
Without a real background check, they will.

  Gun show and internet loopholes are the problems that haunt us today. 
They enable unlicensed sellers to make sales without even checking on 
the background of the buyer. According to news reports, the gunman in 
the Odessa, TX, mass shooting bought his gun through a private sale 
with no background check because he previously failed a check. Clearly, 
there is a gap in the law that needs to be closed.
  Polling consistently shows that 90 percent of Americans support 
closing these gaps in the background check system. How many other 
issues do 90 percent of Americans agree on, to have that kind of 
number, for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents?
  The people of America are trying to tell the Senators to do 
something, and yet Senator McConnell refuses. Even the conservative 
Republican Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick, has called for 
closing these gaps in the background check system. I hope the Senators 
from Lieutenant Governor Patrick's State are listening. The House of 
Representatives have listened, and they have done so.
  The bipartisan House background check bill, H.R. 8, passed the House 
240 to 190, on a bipartisan rollcall on February 27. Here we are, over 
200 days later. The Senate, which does virtually nothing every single 
day, through Senator McConnell's leadership, refuses to even consider 
this bill. Senate Republicans refuse to even consider the bipartisan 
House-passed gun safety legislation that Americans of both political 
parties overwhelmingly support.
  In fact, they are avoiding taking up any bills at all. Week after 
week after week, we vote on nomination after nomination after 
nomination. We hardly ever debate. We hardly ever vote on legislation 
to address the needs the American people say are the primary concerns 
on their minds.
  While Republican leadership in the Senate these days doesn't seem to 
like to vote, they do like to tweet. Perhaps we shouldn't have been 
surprised when one of our Republican colleagues, the junior Senator 
from Texas, responded to a recent mass shooting by tweeting criticism 
of gun laws in the city of Chicago.
  There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding by this Senator and 
some other Republicans who believe that, despite what the maps show us, 
Chicago is actually an island. Well, it is not. They seem to think 
there is no way that people could actually drive 20 minutes into 
northwest Indiana, go to a gun show, buy a truckload of guns, and sell 
them in the alleyways of the city of Chicago at night. It happens. It 
is the reason why a State law can't solve the problem.
  Chicago's mayor--my friend--Lori Lightfoot, pointed out the obvious 
to the junior Senator from Texas. Sixty percent of illegal firearms 
recovered in Chicago come from out of State. That is why we need a 
Federal background check reform bill like the one that passed the 
House.
  Mayor Lightfoot is right. She graciously invited Senator Cruz, our 
colleague, to come visit Chicago, to see that it is not an island--it 
is connected to other States--and to see what the city is doing, trying 
to work to reduce the scourge of gun violence, and how Republican 
Senators, if they really want to help, can help by passing legislation 
for true background checks. I hope that the Senator from Texas accepts 
the invitation. It is a great town. We would like to show it to him.
  Another area in which this do-nothing Senate has fallen short is when 
it comes to public safety threats posed by violent White supremacists. 
I have introduced the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act. It is the only 
legislation pending in the Senate to address White supremacist 
violence.
  The gunman in the August 3 mass shooting in El Paso posted a White 
supremacist manifesto before he shot and killed 22 people and injured 
24 others at a Walmart. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated 
incident.
  An unclassified May 2017 FBI-DHS joint intelligence bulletin found 
that ``white supremacist extremism poses [a] persistent threat of 
lethal violence.'' It also found that White supremacists ``were 
responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 . . . more 
than any other domestic extremist movement.''
  At a July hearing, FBI Director Mr. Wray told me that the majority of 
domestic terrorism arrests this year involved White supremacists, White 
nationalists--and now they call themselves White identitarians, 
whatever that means.
  It is clear that violent White supremacists are the most significant 
domestic terrorism threat facing America today. What have we done to 
address this? Nothing. Just like H.R. 8, just like the gun safety 
legislation, which we should be considering, Senator McConnell refuses 
to bring anything before the Senate.
  My bill, cosponsored by 21 Senators, including the Democratic leader, 
Senator Schumer, would establish offices to combat domestic terrorism 
at the Justice Department, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security. 
These offices will be required to take concrete steps to prevent 
domestic terrorism, including assessing and publicly reporting on 
domestic terrorism threats, focusing limited resources on the most 
significant threats, and providing information, training, and resources 
to assist State and local and Tribal law enforcement.
  This would produce a sustained and coordinated effort with 
significantly more resources directed towards combating White 
supremacist violence. It would make America safer.
  It is time for the Senate Republican majority leader, Senator 
McConnell, to let the Senate be a Senate, to actually debate. I stand 
tonight on the floor--and I am honored to be here, but let's face it, I 
am giving a speech to a largely empty Chamber in the hopes that some 
following the speech on C-SPAN or reading it later may take some 
information of value from it. I would much rather be engaged in a 
debate at this very moment on H.R. 8, how to pass it--if necessary, how 
to amend it--but to do something to respond to gun violence in Chicago, 
in Illinois, and across the entire United States.
  It is time for Senator McConnell to let the Senate be the Senate and 
vote on the House-passed gun background check bill. We need to take up 
other critical legislation as well to prevent gun violence and domestic 
terrorism. I hope he will consider my bill to address White supremacist 
violence. This legislation can make us safer and save lives if we can 
just bring it to a vote.

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  I yield the floor.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
calling on Leader McConnell to immediately bring to the floor 
commonsense gun violence prevention legislation that is supported by 
the majority of the American people.
  We must take action in response to the tragedies that have touched 
too many communities across the country, including in Gilroy, El Paso, 
Dayton, Midland, and Odessa just this summer. Time and again, we saw 
the American people respond with courage--the courage of a mother who 
shielded her child from gun fire, the courage of first responders who 
ran into the line of fire to save lives. It is time for the United 
States Senate to find the resolve to act with courage; the American 
people cannot afford any more inaction.
  There are three bipartisan bills sitting on Leader McConnell's desk 
that will help to save lives: the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, 
which requires a background check for the sale of all guns; the 
Enhanced Background Checks Act, which closes the Charleston loophole 
and gives law enforcement more time to complete a background check; and 
the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which includes a 
provision based on my bill, the Protecting Domestic Violence and 
Stalking Victims Act, to keep domestic abusers and convicted stalkers 
from buying or owning a gun.
  We should also take action to ban the sale of assault weapons and 
high-capacity magazines and encourage States to enact extreme risk 
protection order laws to allow law enforcement or family members to 
intervene when a person is a danger to themselves or others. In a 
nation plagued by gun violence, passing these commonsense provisions 
will help save lives.
  There are more shootings and more tragic losses all too often, and 
every time, we hear expressions of sympathy, but we have yet to see 
votes or action. The time has come to act, and we must act now.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. McSally). The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, as we grieve with the communities of El 
Paso, Dayton, and Midland, I can't help but be reminded of the Seattle 
Jewish Federation, Marysville, Seattle Pacific University, Freeman High 
School, and so many other communities in my home State of Washington 
and nationwide that are suffering as a result of tragic and tragically 
preventable gun violence.
  After each of these heartbreaking events, families in Washington 
State ask me, Why does this keep happening, and why can we not stop it?
  The answer is the same every time: We can't stop it because 
Republicans, led by Leader McConnell and, now, President Trump, will 
not let us. Because of this inaction, we have entered a very 
destructive cycle. People going about their days--to school, a movie 
theater, place of worship--to places where they should feel safe--lose 
their lives to gun violence.
  Communities and Democrats speak out and call for commonsense reforms, 
such as the universal background checks, which the vast majority of 
Americans support. Meanwhile, Republicans stand by and refuse to take 
any meaningful action to stop these violent, senseless, preventable 
deaths, so nothing happens in Congress.
  And then, months, weeks, days, or even hours later, the cycle starts 
all over again. Every time we have seen this cycle--across all of the 
terrible shootings that have plagued our country in recent years--there 
are two common threads. The first is that, in response to tragedy, 
communities have banded together to make their voices heard and press 
for change. I have been proud of gun advocates in Washington State, 
like the Alliance for Gun Responsibility and Moms Demand Action 
chapters in Spokane and across the State, who are leading the way and 
staying determined.
  The second common thread is Senate Republicans. Every time we push 
for lifesaving reforms, it always ends at the same place, with the same 
thing standing in the way of change. The most frustrating part of this 
is that there are steps we could take right now--today--that will save 
lives.
  The House has passed the universal background check legislation, H.R. 
8, with bipartisan support. It is now languishing in the Senate, 
despite our calls for a vote, all because the majority leader just will 
not bring it up.
  President Trump, who is so willing to use his bully pulpit for far 
less worthy causes, hasn't used it to take action in ways that could 
save lives right now. In other words, the President and Senate 
Republicans continue to make clear they are more interested in 
protecting the NRA than the families in my home State and across the 
country. That is simply unacceptable. Democrats are not going to stop 
calling for action.
  Leader McConnell should break the cycle here and now by putting H.R. 
8 up for a vote, which would implement universal background checks and 
close inexplicable gun show and internet loopholes.
  Considering that more than 80 percent of Americans support universal 
background checks, this bill should be a no-brainer. It is the first 
step we need to take to curb gun violence in our country, but it can't 
be the only one. If we are serious about truly putting an end to this 
epidemic, we should look at legislation to expand access to extreme 
risk protection orders--which has, by the way, been implemented in my 
home State of Washington--to get guns out of the hands of those who are 
in crisis. We should limit magazine sizes. We should revive the assault 
weapons ban and invest in gun violence research prevention.
  These commonsense reforms can help us begin to break this cycle. We 
have to take action now to curb gun violence. That means starting with 
the universal background check legislation that is waiting right here 
in the Senate to take action.
  My Democratic colleagues in the Senate and I have repeatedly called 
for a vote on H.R. 8, and we are going to keep putting pressure on 
Republicans in the Senate until we get one. We can't do it alone. We 
need to keep lifting up our voices together to demand change, as we did 
after Sandy Hook, after Parkland, after Marysville, and now following 
the terror in Texas and in Ohio.
  It is not easy. I am not going to give up, and I know the millions of 
parents and grandparents and students and so many across our Nation are 
not going to give up either. Together, we can break this senseless 
cycle. It starts with the majority leader.
  While we often disagree on the steps we believe need to be taken, I 
believe that all of us who are elected in the Senate would say that we 
came here to make a difference and certainly to do whatever we could to 
ensure the people we represent are safe. Right now, far too often, they 
are not. So the Senate is not doing its job.
  I call on the majority leader to let us vote on H.R. 8. Let's send it 
to the President's desk. Let's do what the vast majority of Americans 
want us to do and take this first step to stop gun violence so we can 
finally begin to put a stop to this terrible deadly cycle.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Madam President, we are all coming to the Senate floor 
this evening to demand that we finally take real steps to address our 
Nation's gun violence epidemic. This epidemic is wide-reaching and 
knows no bounds. We need to listen to the students and to the young 
people who have grown weary from so many shootings at our schools.
  In my home State of New Mexico in recent years, we have seen gun 
violence tragically take the lives of high school students in Aztec and 
Clovis and, just last month, college students in Hobbs. Every student 
and teacher should feel safe at school. No parent should have to live 
in fear of their child not coming home at the end of the day.
  Across our Nation, we have witnessed, with grave horror, mass 
shooters armed with assault rifles gun down Americans in churches, in 
synagogues, in concert venues, and in shopping centers. Amid our grief 
and anguish, Americans have come together to call on their leaders to 
not let this senseless, heart-wrenching violence continue 
unabated. They are calling on us to do something. We can no longer 
accept these horrific shootings as the status quo.

  In my hometown of Albuquerque, just last Thursday night, five people,

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including three teenagers, were shot to death in multiple shootings 
across our city, and six others were wounded. While police are still 
investigating these senseless acts of violence, no one can tell me that 
this level of gun violence is somehow acceptable.
  There are things we can do. There is no doubt that this debate brings 
up very emotional and difficult questions, and there are large 
challenges we need to grapple with that are fueling gun violence in 
America. Many of the most horrific acts of violence and terror that we 
have witnessed have been inspired by hateful ideologies, by racist 
bigotry, and by divisive rhetoric. But we need to acknowledge that they 
were carried out with deadly weapons, weapons that we are clearly not 
doing enough to keep out of the hands of those who would seek to cause 
us harm.
  We may not all agree on what steps should be taken at the Federal 
level to address this crisis, but can we at least agree that something 
needs to be done to combat the epidemic of gun violence in this 
country?
  We need to listen to our Nation's students and mothers who are 
calling for us to come together on the things we can agree on. At the 
very least, that includes universal background checks. There is 
bipartisan legislation on background checks that passed out of the 
House and is sitting on the majority leader's desk right now. Let's 
vote on that bill.
  Someone who can't pass a background check should not be allowed to 
purchase a firearm. We shouldn't be putting guns in the hands of those 
convicted of domestic violence or sexual assault who continue to be a 
threat to their victims. Someone who has been found by family and 
friends to be a danger to themselves and their community should not be 
in possession of a deadly firearm. If our government has put someone on 
a no-fly list because of the risk that they pose, we should not allow 
that potential terrorist to buy a gun. I can't, frankly, understand how 
any of that is controversial.
  The Senate majority is refusing to act. They are hoping that if they 
hide long enough--if they hide long enough--this will just blow over. 
Can we at least agree that more public health and scientific research 
is needed on this gun violence epidemic?
  All of us in some way are grasping for answers on our Nation's 
unparalleled violence, but even funding research into gun violence is 
being vetoed by the NRA. It is hard to believe that Senate Republicans 
could find a way to be against so many commonsense solutions. Nearly 
every solution is being rejected. The overwhelming majority of 
Americans, including gun owners like me, agree that Congress needs to 
finally take these real steps to address gun violence.
  Look, this is not an issue I take lightly. Like many Americans, I am 
a gun owner, but with that privilege should come a great deal of 
responsibility. I am teaching my two sons how to responsibly use 
firearms. In fact, when our family sits down to a meal that includes 
red meat, it is almost always from the wild game we have harvested.
  I think you will find, when you talk to most gun owners and most 
sportsmen, they, more than anyone, know how much we need to respect the 
deadly force inherent in these tools. Most agree we should make sure 
that firearms are used responsibly and safely.
  Those of us in Congress should never hide behind phony arguments that 
use fear to intimidate us away from action. Americans are desperate for 
us to act.
  I join my Democratic colleagues once again in calling upon Majority 
Leader McConnell and President Trump: Enough is enough. It is long past 
time to do something and to stop hiding. It is long past time for us to 
finally turn our Nation's grief and frustration into meaningful action 
to protect our kids and our communities.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Madam President, I rise to join my colleague Senator 
Heinrich and others who have come before. I am calling on Senator 
McConnell to act now to address the gun crisis in our country.
  Every day that the Senate Republican leaders refuse to act, they are 
making a choice to be complicit as more lives continue to be lost. 
People across my State and the country want to see action, and they are 
tired of waiting for it.
  I have met with countless families across New York who have lost 
their children, spouses, friends, community members, and neighbors to 
gun violence. I have met people who have survived mass shootings and 
people who live every single day with the threat of gun violence in 
their neighborhoods. I have heard their stories and seen how their 
lives have been torn apart by gun violence. Today I want to tell some 
of those stories to you.
  Robert Gaafar, one of my constituents from Long Island and a father 
of young children, was at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las 
Vegas for work. He heard loud popping noises and soon realized they 
weren't coming from the performance on stage but from a gun. As the 
shooter fired round after round, Robert hid behind a metal vending 
machine for protection. The bullets being fired around him were so 
powerful he could actually feel the shock waves. He said that he would 
never forget the silence of 20,000 people at a concert or the horrific 
screams of grown men and women he could hear as the gunman reloaded. He 
was lucky. He survived. But 58 people did not, and many more were 
injured.
  Another New Yorker, Trenelle Gabay, had to make the unthinkable 
decision to take her husband off of life support after he was shot in 
the crossfire of two rival gangs at a community festival in Brooklyn. 
He was just an innocent bystander, and, ironically, he was an attorney 
for the State who helped draft the NY SAFE Act, which set a precedent 
for one of the strongest gun laws in the country. He was not immune 
from gun violence himself. As Trenelle told it, her husband's life and 
bright light were extinguished by guns.
  At the trial, Trenelle heard a criminal testify about how easy it was 
for him to purchase a gun and traffic it from Georgia to New York. It 
should not be this easy for criminals to get access to dangerous 
weapons. It should not be so easy for lives to be taken so senselessly.
  One mother I met in New York, Jackie Rowe-Adams, lost not one but two 
sons to gun violence. One of her sons was shot when he was 17 years old 
outside of a bodega in Harlem. The reason? Two men with a gun believed 
that her son was staring at them, so they killed him.
  Ms. Rowe-Adams lost her second son to gun violence during a robbery 
outside of her apartment. The boy who shot him was only 13 years old. 
He should never have had access to a gun. Imagine the horror of being a 
mother and losing two of your sons to gun violence.
  Then there is another one of my constituents, Edwin Vargas. His 16-
year-old son Luis was killed on Halloween when an unknown gunman 
decided to fire his weapon into the crowd in a neighborhood in the 
Bronx. The gunman was irritated by a group of teenagers who were 
throwing eggs in his neighborhood, so he began to randomly shoot into 
the crowd. The gunman hit three innocent bystanders, including Luis. 
Luis was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  These are the tragic and heart-wrenching stories that New Yorkers 
have shared with me. They are by no means unique. In every State around 
the country, there are too many stories just like these. The reality is 
that mass shootings can and have happened in every corner of this 
country in all types of places.
  Gun violence is becoming the new normal in America. Certainly it has 
happened in Arizona. We do not have to live in a country where mass 
shootings occur in our schools, our houses of worships, our movie 
theaters, our playgrounds, our stores, our community gatherings, at 
festivals, at concerts, at nightclubs, and at Congress on your corner.
  Madam President, I am speaking to you and to every other Republican 
in this Chamber. We all have a responsibility to do the right thing and 
stand up to the NRA and stand up to the greed and corruption that is in 
this country today that makes every decision about whether we have a 
vote on commonsense gun reform.
  I can poll your State for you. I can ask every NRA member in America: 
Do you support universal background checks, banning large magazines, 
military-style weapons? Leave them in the

[[Page S5517]]

hands of military members, not someone who walks into a store and buys 
them because he wants to shoot large numbers of people in minutes and 
seconds. That is what is happening in America today.
  I would like you to look up because I have to say this is something 
all of us should be caring about, especially from Arizona, where my 
dear friend Gabby Giffords was shot for doing her job and a young girl 
showing up for ``Congress on Your Corner'' to meet her Congresswoman 
died. It is not OK. The time for turning a blind eye is over.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. UDALL. Thank you for the recognition, Madam President.
  Last month, on August 22, an 86-year-old grandmother, born and raised 
in my hometown of Santa Fe, NM, was gunned down while she was shopping 
at Walmart in El Paso by a White supremacist with an AK-47 style 
assault weapon. The gunman said he ``wanted to shoot as many Mexicans 
as possible.'' The shooter told police he had purchased 1,000 rounds of 
ammunition.
  Less than 24 hours later, it took the shooter in Dayton, OH, only 32 
seconds to kill 10 people and wound 27 others with his .223-caliber, 
high-capacity rifle with 100-round drum magazines. Had the Dayton 
police not responded immediately, the numbers of dead and injured in 
the crowded Dayton downtown area could have been exponentially higher.
  On August 31, in Odessa, TX, a shooter killed 7 and injured 25, 
including a 17-month-old girl, who was shot in the face. The shooter 
had failed a background check in 2014 because a court had found he was 
mentally unfit to own a gun. He purchased his AR-15 style weapon in a 
private gun sale, which is not subject to a background check.
  Assault rifles, often paired with high-capacity magazines, were used 
to slaughter innocents at Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Aurora, Orlando, San 
Bernardino, the Sutherland Springs church, and the Tree of Life 
synagogue in Pittsburgh.
  According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 10,552 gun-
related deaths this year. That includes 2,681 children and teens. Mass 
shootings number 300. That is more than one mass shooting every day of 
this year.
  The American people support commonsense gun safety legislation in 
overwhelming numbers. Recent polls confirm that 90 percent or more 
registered voters support background checks for all gun sales--90 
percent. Think about that. The American people support a ban on high-
capacity magazines. They support a ban on assault weapons. They support 
keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.
  People all across the country are worried about their communities, 
their schools, their churches, and their children. They are worried 
that they will be caught in the next mass shooting, that their 
community will be the next El Paso, the next Sandy Hook, or the next 
Aztec.
  When I was in school, we had safety drills in the event of a nuclear 
strike from the Soviet Union. Children now have safety drills in the 
event of a shooter from within our own communities.
  The American people are demanding that Congress take action on this 
national crisis. After El Paso and Dayton, many of us implored Leader 
McConnell to call us back into session to vote on the gun safety bills 
sitting on his desk gathering dust. Leader McConnell says he will only 
bring bills before the Senate that the President will sign.
  We are the legislative body. We are sent here by our constituents to 
pass laws, to do their will, to protect their welfare. We do not depend 
on the President to pass gun safety legislation. We do not have to wait 
for him while the NRA lobbyists try to wear him down. He can take his 
cues from us for a change. We are not his lapdogs. Protecting our 
communities, schools, and churches cannot wait, cannot be relegated to 
the leader's legislative graveyard. Too many lives have been lost, and 
too many lives will be lost if we don't act.
  The fact is, too many Republican elected officials are beholden to 
the scandal-ridden National Rifle Association. The NRA no longer even 
represents gun owners; it represents the gun industry. Now we know it 
also represents dark campaign spending and internal corruption.
  There is no mystery why the Republicans refuse to take up gun safety 
legislation that Americans overwhelmingly support. The NRA has poured 
millions into campaign coffers, and they use that money to intimidate 
Members of Congress into opposing bills with 90 percent support 
nationally. This is yet one more example of why we need to overturn 
Citizens United and enact comprehensive finance reform. Our Democratic 
institutions are not representing the people.
  We need to pass the bills on Leader McConnell's desk, but we should 
not stop there. We also must halt the rise of White nationalism and 
White supremacy in our country. Hateful views have fueled too many of 
these tragedies--the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 
Charleston, SC; the Tree of Life synagogue; and in El Paso.
  The El Paso shooter's fear of ``the Hispanic invasion of Texas'' too 
closely echoes the President's repeated warnings of an ``invasion'' at 
our southern border. The shooter's anti-immigrant screed rings of the 
President's attacks on immigrants as criminals and rapists who need to 
be kept out of our country by a border wall. Las Cruces, NM, is only 45 
minutes from El Paso. El Paso is like a sibling to us. New Mexico, like 
El Paso, takes great pride in our diversity. Our diversity does not 
divide us. It defines us. It unifies us. The President's anti-
immigrant, nativist rhetoric is not only deeply offensive to New 
Mexicans, it also fuels the worst elements of our society--elements 
that now have ready access to military-style weapons.
  The FBI Director recently reported to Congress that the Bureau had 
arrested almost as many domestic terrorists as foreign terrorists this 
year. He said most of the racially motivated domestic terrorism cases 
were likely connected to White supremacy.
  It is up to this body to stand up to the President's anti-immigrant 
and racist rhetoric and unequivocally affirm this Nation's values--
equality, tolerance, and inclusiveness. It is up to this body to stand 
up to the NRA and stand with the American people.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, last month, over 50 Americans were 
killed in mass shootings in this country while we were on the August 
recess when we should have been here doing our job. One hundred 
Americans are killed every day from gun violence. There are 100 desks 
in this room. There are 100 chairs by those desks. And if these were 
the Americans killed by gun violence, they would add up to every single 
desk that is in this room. Yet the majority leader didn't bring us back 
during the August recess. He didn't say we should cancel our vacation 
and come back to work for the American people. He hasn't put a bill on 
the floor or given an opportunity for anybody else to put a bill on the 
floor now that we have been back in session for the last 2 weeks.
  In the last 18 months, Colorado alone has lost 885 people to gun 
violence. That is a record in my State.
  The House of Representatives has done their job. I think more than 
200 days ago, they passed background checks over there, and we haven't 
even taken them up over here. This isn't a matter of bringing up the 
bill and voting on the bill; we can't even get the bill to the floor. 
For 200 days, we haven't been able to bring the bill to the floor. Why? 
Because the majority leader of the United States of America says that 
he is only going to bring gun legislation to the floor if he knows what 
the President will sign. He is not capable, as the majority leader of 
the United States, to put an amendment on the floor for an up-or-down 
vote even when that amendment passed the House of Representatives 200 
days ago and 96 percent of the American people support it. Ninety-six 
percent of the American people support it.

[[Page S5518]]

  Why can't he bring it to the floor? He says that only if the 
President tells him that he will sign it will he bring it to the floor. 
We all know how hard it is for the President to make up his mind about 
anything--particularly about guns when he has one thing to say right 
after a tragedy has happened, and then 2 days later, after he meets 
with the NRA, he is singing from a completely different song sheet.
  Here is what Mitch McConnell said in 2014:

       The Senate should be setting national priorities, not 
     simply waiting on the White House to do it for us.

  I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. This is an independent 
branch of government. The 100 people sitting in this room have been 
sent here to represent the people who voted for us and the people who 
didn't vote for us. And 96 percent of them say they want background 
checks on guns, but we can't even have a vote.
  I would like to see a vote just so I could see who in this Chamber 
wants to vote against background checks. I think it would be amazing 
for the American people to learn that, instead of just hiding behind 
this myth that the President of the United States gets to decide what 
comes to the floor. He is not the majority leader. There is one person 
in America who gets to decide what comes to this floor--one person in 
America--and that is the majority leader, Mitch McConnell from 
Kentucky. It is not Donald Trump. He knew that in 2014, and he knows it 
today. But the NRA is too scared to see this thing come to the floor 
because they know that it will pass and that they will lose as a result 
of that. It is long past time for us to beat the NRA on this issue.

  I know my colleague from Washington State is here, so I will not go 
on for too long, but if I could, I will just take a couple of minutes.
  I am also from a Western State, the State of Colorado, and 20 years 
ago, we had one of the very first school shootings in this country. It 
was at Columbine High School. In the wake of that, we passed background 
checks. We passed the same bill that Mitch McConnell will not bring to 
the floor--the same bill almost 20 years ago.
  My oldest daughter is 20 years old. She was born right after 
Columbine. Our two other daughters are 19 and 15. Like so many children 
across this country, they have grown up thinking that going to school 
is unsafe, that they could be shot at school. They have had to do 
drills that we never had to do when we were kids--never had to do. They 
have the knowledge that the U.S. Congress doesn't care about them 
because for 20 years we have done nothing.
  In Colorado--a Western State, a Second Amendment State--we passed 
these background checks. As a result, every year, 2 or 3 percent of the 
people who come to buy a gun can't buy a gun because they are murderers 
or they are rapists or they are domestic abusers. They are people who 
shouldn't have a gun. I would like to see anybody come to this floor 
and tell me why Colorado would be safer if we didn't have those 
background checks; why we would be safer if murderers got guns and 
rapists got guns and domestic abusers got guns. They can't come here 
and do it.
  They are hiding from the vote, and it is their responsibility to 
vote. There is only one person in America who can hold that vote, and 
that is Mitch McConnell. I can tell you this: It is not because we are 
too busy around here. We were in session last week for 27 hours. That 
is not even a French workweek. That is pitiful--pitiful--27 hours. Do 
you know how many amendments we have considered in the 9 months that we 
have been here this year? We have considered 18. That is two amendments 
a month. We have passed four amendments in this broken place. It is 
pitiful.
  Before he became majority leader, Mitch McConnell came down here and 
said that we were going to work on Fridays, that we were going to have 
regular order. We had a 27-hour workweek. I can tell you this: It is 
not because we are considering the election protection legislation, 
which is one of the bipartisan bills the Senators in this Chamber want 
to vote on to respond to the Russian attack on our democracy. It is not 
because we are too busy with those bills. We are doing nothing here 
except for confirming judges for Donald Trump.
  I think I speak for my colleagues when I say I am willing to work 
more than 27 hours. I am willing to work a French workweek or a U.S. 
workweek if it means we could actually have votes on amendments that 96 
percent of the American people support.
  I close by saying there is no one else to do this job but us. The 
House has done its job. Donald Trump can't make up his mind about 
anything. Maybe he would like us to send him the background checks to 
help him make up his mind about what he can do for the American people, 
but I can tell you this: Our kids can't do this. They are too busy. 
They are in school. They are trying to learn reading and math. They 
should not be asked to try to figure out how to stop these mass 
shootings in this country or what it would look like to have a 
representative body of the United States actually represent the people 
who sent us here instead of sitting around in our offices, trying to 
avoid hard votes. How is it a hard vote when 9 out of 10 Americans 
support it? It is only a hard vote because the NRA is taking names and 
watching this.
  I say to my colleagues: We would be so much better off, Democrats and 
Republicans, with our ripping this bandaid off and getting on with the 
business that the American people sent us here to do. Mitch McConnell 
should put on this floor these background checks.
  I thank my colleagues for their patience.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I join my colleagues on the floor 
tonight.
  I thank the Senator from Colorado for an articulate and very 
passionate speech about the reasons the U.S. Senate should be voting on 
sensible gun laws.
  That is what we are really here to say tonight--that it is past time 
we take action and that we in the U.S. Senate should let the American 
people know where Members of the U.S. Senate stand on these important 
issues.
  Too many Americans have been impacted by gun violence, and too many 
places have been the sites of these attacks, whether they be churches, 
synagogues, or mosques or whether they be our schoolchildren or people 
just going about their everyday lives with their shopping, going to a 
concert, or even watching a movie. Too many families and friends are 
left waiting, trying to understand whether their loved ones are going 
to return home, and too many have been devastated to find out that 
their loved ones aren't coming back.
  It is time that we act here in the U.S. Senate and support 
legislation that we know the American people support. In my home State, 
there are places like the Seattle Pacific University and the Jewish 
Federation of Greater Seattle, Freeman High School outside of Spokane, 
Marysville Pilchuck High School, the Burlington shopping mall in Skagit 
County, and White Swan. All of these communities have taught us that we 
need to act. It is past time for us to act here.
  The good news is that the people of Washington State did act. Those 
people rose up and helped to support legislative initiatives that went 
to a vote of the people. Not only have they been successfully passed, 
but they are showing successful results.
  In the State of Washington, we passed universal background checks by 
a popular vote in 2014, and we saw amazing results in just the first 14 
months. They helped to prevent over 50 gun sales to felons. My 
colleague from Colorado mentioned a similar thing in his State. And 
after closing private sale loopholes, it resulted in 144 denials to 
those with expanded background checks. It does mean that the people of 
Washington State are at least safer in this regard because we have more 
tools in our toolbox with which to deal with this.
  I also want people to understand that we passed a law to allow 
extreme risk protection orders. That was passed in 2016 with nearly 70 
percent of Washington State voters helping and voting in that election. 
What we saw was that in a State where we probably have 27 percent gun 
ownership, we saw in 32 out of 39 counties people supporting this 
measure to say that people who pose an extreme risk should not be 
allowed to get their hands on a gun. This

[[Page S5519]]

was supported in rural communities, suburban communities, and urban 
communities.
  In front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, King County 
Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kimberly Wyatt testified. She called 
this measure a ``critical, evidence-based, harm reduction tool.'' Now, 
how does that sound so threatening--a tool that law enforcement is 
telling us is critical and evidence-based that is going to help us to 
reduce harm to our fellow citizens?
  Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kimberly Wyatt told a story of a 
doctor who contacted police because a patient who had wanted to obtain 
a concealed weapon permit had repeatedly talked about making a hit list 
and ``doing harm to people.'' In using the extreme risk protection 
order, we are allowed to help to keep these people from getting their 
hands on gun and doing harm to themselves and to fellow citizens.
  These measures supported in my State are initiatives by the people. 
As I said, they are supported by wide majorities across all geographic 
areas of our State. Yet we can't find out here in the U.S. Senate how 
our Senate colleagues would vote on these very important measures.
  I hope those on the other side of the aisle will consider these. We 
will go State by State if necessary. We will get the people involved in 
passing these laws. Why? It is that they know they are common sense, 
and they work, and we want to keep the public safe. We know that we 
want to have these tools so law enforcement and others can do their 
jobs. It is long overdue to have a vote in the U.S. Senate on these 
issues, and I hope our colleagues will give us that opportunity.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam President, I rise to echo the sentiments of the 
Senator from Washington State. She has absolutely articulated the 
reasons this Senate should just stop what it is doing and bring these 
bills to the floor for a vote so we can begin to make it more difficult 
for the wrong people to be able to buy guns in our country. We have no 
background checks, no ability to identify who they are.
  This debate is one that should have already taken place in August 
after what happened in El Paso and after what happened in Dayton. We 
should have had the debate out here on the Senate floor. The House has 
already passed legislation that deals with the background checks of any 
person who wants to buy a gun in our country. That is the least we 
should be able to do.
  By the way, it polls out at 89 percent. There aren't many issues that 
poll out at 89 percent. The reason it does is that the country is 
horrified by what it is seeing day after day on its televisions as the 
carnage continues to rise, as the hemorrhaging of communities continues 
unabated across our country.
  The NRA retains a vice-like grip on the Senate of the United States. 
It is almost as though it is able to put a lock on these doors--
courtesy of the Republican leadership--so that no bill can come down 
here into the well of the Senate to be debated on background checks. 
The NRA just refuses to allow those bills to come out here. So we have 
no debates. We have no votes. We have no accountability. This is the 
status of the U.S. Senate in September of 2019 as we see an epidemic of 
violence across our country.
  Bring those bills onto the floor, Republican Party. Forget the money 
from the NRA. Forget all of its spending. Let us not put a price on the 
lives of 34,000 Americans who died just last year on top of the lives 
of those who died the year before and the year before and those who 
will be part of a preventable epidemic in our country next year and the 
year after and the year after into the future.
  After we finish debating background checks, we should then have a 
debate on military-style assault weapons and whether they should be 
sold in our country and a debate on high-capacity magazines and whether 
they should be sold in our country. Those were the weapons that were 
used in Dayton. Those were the weapons that were used in El Paso. Let's 
have a debate here on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
  Let's have people have to be made accountable for allowing these 
dangerous weapons that belong on battlefields but not on the streets of 
our country. In fact, when they are on the streets of our country, they 
turn our streets into battlegrounds, whereby the criminal--whereby the 
bad person--has a weapon, in many instances, that is more powerful than 
that of the police. That is just plain wrong. We can do something about 
it if the Senate allows these doors to open, if the Republicans allow 
this debate to take place. Of course, it will not because the NRA 
controls access to the floor of this Senate.
  Then let's have a debate on the loopholes that allow abusers--
domestic abusers and terrorists--to be able to purchase guns in the 
United States. Let's have that debate here on the floor of the Senate.
  Let's have people have to vote on whether or not they want domestic 
abusers to be able to purchase guns in our country or if they should be 
able to keep their guns if they have already been identified by the 
local police as being a danger because they are domestic abusers, and 
the same thing is true for safeguards against terrorists purchasing 
weapons.
  And when are we going to have the debate on research at the Centers 
for Disease Control on the causes of gun violence in our country?
  I have introduced that bill for 10 years to have that research done. 
The House has now moved legislation to deal with that issue, but over 
here, so far, these doors are locked. That legislation cannot make it 
to the well of the Senate so that we can have a debate.
  The NRA guards these doors. The NRA will not give permission to have 
a debate on whether or not we do research on gun violence in our 
country. What are the causes? Why are we the highest among 
industrialized countries? What is it that differentiates us from other 
countries in the world?
  So for me, I say it is time for us on this floor to ensure that NRA 
stands for not relevant anymore in American politics, in senatorial 
politics, and that the doors are open, that the legislation can come 
down, and that we can have a full debate here on the Senate floor after 
all that we have learned in these last weeks and months and years about 
how unnecessarily easy it is for people to be able to purchase these 
weapons.
  This is a debate that the American people want, and we are either 
going to have that debate in the course of regular Senate business or 
we are going to have it next year in the Presidential and House and 
Senate races all across our country, because this issue now is 
completely changed in terms of how the public views it except among the 
Republican leadership in our country.
  So if that is how they want it, then, just be sure that young people 
especially are outraged across our country. They are outraged that we 
don't debate climate change in the well of the Senate. They are 
outraged that we don't debate gun safety legislation in the Senate.
  So there is a kind of a ``sow the wind, reap the whirlwind'' 
political consequence that is going to occur, and all I can say is that 
we can hope and pray that the Senate Republican leadership allows for 
this debate and does not wait for Donald Trump to give them permission 
to have this debate. There shouldn't have to be a complete and total 
excision of senatorial prerogatives to another branch of government. We 
should be able to do this ourselves--the Senate.
  This issue goes right to the core of the safety of every family in 
our country, and if we do it, I actually think that almost every 
Senator here will be praised for ensuring that we have background 
checks. That is what the polling says.
  If we don't, then perhaps a small handful of Republican Senators will 
be praised by the NRA, but it will be at a terrible price in terms of 
the lives that are lost.
  In Massachusetts, we have the lowest gun fatality rate in the 
country. If Massachusetts' laws were the laws for the whole country, 
34,000 people would not have died last year, but only 6,000 people 
would have died.
  And what is our key law? If you want to buy a gun and get a license 
in Massachusetts, you have to go into the police station and talk to 
the police chief. We have 351 cities and towns. That is how you get a 
gun license. It is the police.

[[Page S5520]]

  So we know how simple it is to have a background check to make sure 
that we know who is buying these guns. Down in Parkland, the home of 
that young man had been visited over and over and over by the police, 
but he didn't have to go to the police to get a license. He got right 
around that system.
  Who knows you best? The local police do. We don't want to keep guns 
out of the hands of those who should be able to purchase them--hunters 
and others--but you do want the police to be involved. You do want 
background checks to make sure that the wrong people can't buy them. We 
know that is at the heart of this problem.
  So for me, this is an absolute necessity for the Senate to have to 
have dealt with before the end of this session. It would be 
historically inexcusable for us to have avoided having that debate 
here.
  I just say that enough is enough. Let's just end business as usual. 
Let's put in place the process by which this Senate--this greatest 
deliberative body in the world--reclaims the reputation that it has 
lost, and let's debate gun safety legislation here on the floor of the 
Senate.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I am here after talking to my good 
friend Fred Guttenberg, who visited my office just minutes ago to talk 
about what we are doing here on the floor of the Senate--what we are 
failing to do, more precisely, and what we have an obligation to do at 
this moment in history.
  Fred Guttenberg lost his precious, beautiful daughter Jamie in 
Parkland at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in a tragedy that we 
all recall--at least I do--as though it happened yesterday.
  Fred Guttenberg has made it his life's mission now, in his daughter's 
memory, to fight for commonsense steps to save other children from that 
kind of violence and other parents from all of our worst nightmare--I 
say that as a father of four.
  But Fred Guttenberg, being the enormously hopeful, energetic, and 
positive person that he is, talked to me about Florida's extreme risk 
protection order statute--or, as it is known there, red flag statute--
and about how it is working to save lives and how it has been used more 
than 2,000 times since it was passed barely a year ago and how it, in 
fact, worked most recently in the case of a young man who made threats 
online with a stash of firearms in his home that were turned over to 
law enforcement voluntarily when they came to his home. They were 
turned over voluntarily by his parents.
  They didn't need to use the warrant because his parents knew that a 
risk warrant was telling them something they already knew, which is 
that their son was dangerous and that firearms in that home posed a 
clear and present and urgent threat of another Marjory Stoneman Douglas 
tragedy.
  So using that red flag or emergency risk protection order statute was 
actually unnecessary there, but it provided the police and law 
enforcement with a means to an end, and it has been used more than 
2,000 times.
  In fact, in our Judiciary Committee, a nominee for the Southern 
District of Florida, who is now a sitting State court judge, related to 
us how he has applied this statute. What he said to us is it works. It 
saves lives. It prevents suicides. It helps stop domestic violence that 
can lead to fatalities. These laws work.
  These laws work to save lives, as we have seen in Connecticut, where 
proudly we have led the Nation in adopting a comprehensive set of gun 
violence prevention laws. The experience of Connecticut, the empirical 
evidence, the facts on the ground, the testimony of law enforcement all 
tell us these laws work. It isn't just one law. There is no single 
panacea. There is no one solution. It is a comprehensive set of 
commonsense measures.
  The opponents of these measures will point to one tragedy or another 
that could not have been prevented by one law or another, and that is 
the reason that it has to be comprehensive, and it will never prevent 
all of the tragedy. There will still be gun deaths in this country, but 
these laws work to save lives.
  And as Fred and I said to each other, if one life has been saved in 
the State of Florida by its emergency risk protection order statute, it 
was worth doing. If one daughter of one potentially grieving parent was 
saved, it was worth doing.
  But it is many more than one life that will be saved if we adopt the 
measures that are before us. Ideally, H.R. 8, universal background 
checks that has come to us from the House, the closing of the 
Charleston loophole, which I have long championed and I have introduced 
as a separate measure here, emergency risk protection order or red flag 
statutes that my colleague and I, Senator Lindsey Graham, have worked 
on, negotiated over months and now is on the verge of introduction--we 
know that the task before us is to keep guns out of the hands of 
dangerous people, to prevent people who will kill or injure themselves 
or others from having those firearms.
  The universal background check goal is to enforce a statute that was 
adopted many years ago that keeps guns out of the hands of specific 
people who are dangerous because they are convicted felons or drug 
addicts or fall into other categories, keeps guns out of the hands of 
dangerous people before they are hurt.
  An extreme risk protection order statute keeps guns out of the hands 
of people who, like the shooter in Parkland, as my colleague Senator 
Graham says, all but took out an ad in the newspaper saying he was 
going to kill people--as this young man did in Coral Springs, when he 
went on the internet.
  Under our statute, there is complete due process because not only 
must a statutory standard of proof be met for the warrant--the risk 
warrant, much like an arrest warrant or a search warrant--but then, in 
a subsequent hearing within a week or 2 or 3 weeks under other 
jurisdictions, there is a right to a hearing, and the burden of proof 
is even higher for that gun to be kept away. Then the order itself 
lasts for a specific period of time.

  There are guarantees of due process here. Every one of these 
proposals--universal background checks and extreme risk protection 
orders--is within the Heller decision, consistent with the Second 
Amendment. We respect the Second Amendment. It is the law of the land, 
but they can help save lives.
  That is why 90 percent of the American people support universal 
background checks, and they support extreme risk protection order laws. 
They know lives can be saved if guns are kept out of the hands of 
dangerous people.
  These stories are so common and so tragic:
  A young man exhibits disturbing behavior. He is clearly troubled. His 
friends, relatives, teachers, even law enforcement are aware of his 
hateful rants. He posts pro-Nazi photos online. We know the end of this 
story too. It is the story of Dakota Reed that started like so many 
others--Charleston, Pittsburgh, Orlando, Dayton, El Paso. He posted on 
November 11, 2018: ``I'm shooting for 30 Jews.'' Except here is how 
that story ended: When this young man threatened an anti-Semitism-
fueled massacre, law enforcement was granted an extreme risk protection 
order. Dakota Reed was online, threatening to kill people, and law 
enforcement seized his 12 firearms.
  For so long, we have been told there is nothing that can be done, but 
this one example, like the young man in Coral Springs, shows there are 
effective solutions. These laws work.
  As so many Americans know, there is no shortage of ideas to stop 
preventable gun violence. There is only a shortage of courage. There is 
only a dearth of will.
  For too long, Congress has been complicit. Congress has blood on its 
hands if it continues to fail in meeting this basic responsibility to 
keep Americans safer than they are now.
  Almost every community has been affected by this national epidemic of 
gun violence. Massacres in El Paso and Dayton within a 24-hour period 
left 31 dead. Before Congress returned from its recess, a shooter in 
Odessa, TX, killed another seven. Communities are forever changed by 
these events. The fear that is engendered and the trauma of these 
shootings affects a community and tears it apart in ways that take 
years to recover from it.
  Like my colleagues from Connecticut in the House and in the Senate, I 
will

[[Page S5521]]

live forever with the sights and sounds of that day in Sandy Hook, the 
cries of grief in that afternoon and afterward, when 26 beautiful 
people--6 great educators and 20 young children--were killed. I was at 
the firehouse where parents went to find out if their children were 
dead or alive. They found out by waiting as the children arrived--but 
not all of the children. That is how the parents who lost their 
children found out.
  Those anguished cries, the sobbing, the grief have been repeated 
2,226 times since in mass shootings. They have left 2,000 communities 
grieving, but more than those mass shootings, there are the deaths--
every day, 90 deaths; 36,000 Americans killed by gun violence every 
year. That is about 100 every day, and gun deaths are on the rise, not 
reducing. There were 39,773 gun deaths for 2017, the most recent year 
for which it is available. That is not even counting the physically 
wounded, those who escaped mass shootings physically unscathed but with 
lifelong mental scars, and the thousands of friends and family members 
of victims and near-victims whose lives are forever altered by these 
incidents of gun violence.
  Despite this unconscionable loss of life, Congress has done nothing, 
complicit in the mass shootings but also in the suicides and domestic 
violence.
  Lori Jackson's death in Connecticut was at the hand of her estranged 
husband. Her children were traumatized losing their mother, and her 
parents became active advocates--courageous and strong advocates for a 
change in the law.
  We have an obligation to act regardless of whatever the President 
says or does. There is nothing in the Constitution that says the U.S. 
Senate can act only if the President commits to signing some law. There 
is nothing in the Constitution that says we can act only if the 
President endorses a specific measure. We have that duty, independent 
of the President. We have a constitutional duty. We have already ceded 
too much of our power in too many areas. We cannot, we need not, we 
must not cede that independent obligation we have to act and act now.
  Medical research tells us that 80 percent of the perpetrators of mass 
violence exhibit clear signs that they are going to carry out an 
attack, often including explicit threats of violence. The Parkland 
shooter is one of the latest examples. In all of those jurisdictions 
that have extreme risk protection order statutes, the experience is 
that they work.
  I have introduced Jamie's Law that would provide for background 
checks on ammunition purchases--there should be universal background 
checks on purchases--in honor of Fred Guttenberg's daughter, Jaime. I 
have supported a ghost gun statute that would take account of the need 
to act on weapons that are literally made in people's homes using kits 
like the one used by the Rancho Tehama gunman. They are referred to as 
``ghost guns'' because they possess no serial number or any kind of 
traceable identification or registration. One scholar estimates that at 
least hundreds of thousands of unmarked receivers already have been 
sold in the United States.
  Of course, we need an assault weapons ban. There are some weapons 
that no one should ever be able to use as they were in El Paso, Dayton, 
Las Vegas, Parkland, Orlando, Newtown, Aurora, Columbine. These 
tragedies alone account for 211 people lost to gun violence.
  Assault weapons are literally weapons of war. Assault-style weapons 
can fire hundreds of rounds in a minute, and until recently they could 
be converted to automatic weapons. A recent study found that when 
assault-style weapons are used with high-capacity magazines, 155,000 
more people are shot and 47 percent more are killed than in other 
instances.
  Earlier this year, I was pleased to join dozens of my colleagues in 
introducing the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, making the sale, 
manufacture, transport, and importation of 205 specific military-style 
assault weapons, by name as well as by a number of features and 
modifications, illegal--banned under our law.
  I was pleased, also with my colleague Chris Murphy, to introduce a 
safe storage law named after Ethan Song of Guilford, CT, who was killed 
while playing with a weapon in his friend's home. This legislation 
would enact Federal requirements for safe storage, penalties for 
violators, and a grant program to help States establish their own safe 
storage law.
  The SECURE Firearms Storage Act would require firearms importers, 
manufacturers, and dealers to safely store their inventory and, as 
well, individual gun owners to use standards that in fact have been 
endorsed by the NRA. Safely securing firearms prevents theft and 
unintended use of lawfully acquired and possessed owned guns.
  In 2016, alone, 238,000 firearms were reported stolen in the United 
States. These kinds of laws are championed by Michael and Kristin Song 
because they know these laws work. Their child, their young son, was 
accidentally killed by a gun stored in a friend's closet, accessible to 
those two teens without any impediment. In many cases, including Sandy 
Hook, safe gun storage could have prevented mountains of grief and 
heartache and a river of tears. Gun owners who fail to safely store or 
secure their firearms must be held accountable, as this law would do in 
honor of Ethan Song.
  Of course, high-capacity magazines--which is to say magazines that 
can fire more than 10 rounds--to help stop mass shootings should be 
banned as well.
  There are other measures--and my colleagues have talked about them--
to keep gun dealers honest, to prevent hate crimes, to stop domestic 
and gender-based violence, to require development of smart gun 
technology. That is why also, on smart gun technology, with Senator 
Murphy, I introduced the SAFETY Act, which would encourage manufactures 
to develop and consumers to purchase smart gun technology.
  Smart gun technology is actually one that I championed as attorney 
general. A number of gun manufacturers--at least one agreed to 
implement it, and he was nearly drummed out of business by other gun 
manufacturers at the time.
  The firearm industry and responsible gun owners should already be 
embracing innovations that have been developed, inventions that are 
feasible, smart gun technology that has already created locks that 
prevent accidental shootings and fingerprint scans that can disable 
firearms for anyone but their lawful owners. We need to harness the 
power of American innovation and create smarter, safer firearms.
  There is no reason to wait another day before passing these laws. We 
know there is a political movement that is gaining strength from groups 
like Moms Demand Action, Everytown for Gun Safety, Students Demand 
Action, Brady, Giffords, the Coalition Against Gun Violence, the 
Connecticut Coalition, the New Town Action Alliance, and Sandy Hook 
Promise. So many of these organizations are coming together to create a 
seismic change, a tectonic groundswell of support. That is the reason 
we are here tonight and the reason the President is even talking about 
a measure or set of measures that will help prevent gun violence.
  We can do this. We can pass this measure. The President can stand up 
to the gun lobby and the NRA. The Republican leadership has it within 
their power to seize this moment made possible by the American public 
expecting and demanding that we act and saying to us: Enough is enough. 
Truly, enough is enough.
  On December 14, 2012, I pledged that I would do everything I could do 
to make sure no more parents have to bury their children, as did those 
courageous and strong families in Newtown who have come to us asking 
for action, as have survivors and loved ones from countless other 
families. No other parent should have to bury children as a result of 
preventable gun violence. I have fought as long and as hard as I know 
how, and I will continue because we are not going away. We are not 
giving up. Nothing could persuade me to break that pledge.
  I have been proud to stand with my colleague Chris Murphy in our 
partnership as a team that has brought together so many of our 
colleagues who are speaking tonight. The only question before us now 
is, How long will it take? How many more children and lives will be 
lost? How many more communities have to be added to that dreaded list 
of mass shootings? How many more suicides, including veteran

[[Page S5522]]

suicides--20 every day, not all from gun violence but many of them due 
to firearms. How many more grieving families? How many more lives lost 
needlessly and senselessly? I thank my colleagues for being here 
tonight. We all hope the answer is fewer. We all hope that lives will 
be saved, as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible. That is 
why I have been willing to engage in discussions with the White House, 
as well as with my colleagues, along with my colleague Chris Murphy and 
others who are here--Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey. That is why we 
have spared no effort and left no stone unturned.
  How many more days will go by before we fulfill our duty? The answer 
really should be ``none.'' We all have an obligation to fulfill our 
constitutional duty as a Congress to act--whether or not the President 
does. But to the President and to the Republican leadership, my message 
is this: Please, please work it out. Please lead. Lead or get out of 
the way. Please lead or at least give us a vote on H.R. 8, on universal 
background checks, on emergency risk protection, on commonsense steps 
that we know work. These measures work. They save lives.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
  Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, our country demands that we take action 
to confront the crisis of gun violence. One hundred people die from gun 
violence in our country every single day. If 100 people died every day 
because of any other single cause, even Republicans would call it an 
epidemic and demand that we do something about it.
  Think about it. The lives of 100 men, women, and children are cut 
tragically short by someone using a firearm every single day in our 
country. Some of them are killed sitting in church, others while 
shopping for school supplies, and others while sitting in their 
classrooms. Some are targeted because they are Latino, Jewish, Muslim, 
Black, gay, or transgender. Some are killed for reasons we will never 
know.
  Victims of gun violence come from all walks of life and different 
circumstances, but they were all struck down by someone with a 
firearm--firearms which in many cases were purchased legally because we 
have gaping loopholes in our gun safety laws; firearms which, even when 
purchased legally, too often end up in the hands of someone who has 
absolutely no business owning a gun.
  There are a lot of steps Congress can take--and my colleague just 
articulated some of them--to combat the crisis of gun violence in our 
country. We can ban assault weapons. We can ban high-capacity 
magazines. We can look at requiring gun licensing at the national 
level.
  Each of these steps would make a major difference in combating gun 
violence, but I acknowledge that they would be controversial and are 
unlikely to pass, to become law, in the current Congress. But there is 
one step the Senate can take right now to confront the gun violence 
epidemic in our country. The Senate can take up and pass H.R. 8, the 
Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, which passed the House nearly 
7 months ago.
  This legislation passed with a strong bipartisan vote to close the 
loopholes in our background check system. It would require checks not 
just for firearms purchased from licensed dealers but also from 
unlicensed individuals at gun shows, between friends, and between most 
unrelated people. Some people say that will not do much and that it 
will just be a drop in the bucket, but when that bucket is overflowing, 
as it is now, with the blood of innocent people, anything we do will 
help curb this epidemic.
  At a time when our country is deeply divided on so many issues, it is 
noteworthy that 90 percent of Americans support universal background 
checks--90 percent. The American public knows a sensible gun safety 
bill when they see one, even if too many Members of Congress remain 
blind.
  Sensible gun safety laws work. I know that because Hawaii, which has 
some of the most restrictive gun laws on the books, is, according to 
the Centers for Disease Control, the State with the lowest rate of 
death by firearms in the Nation. Anyone in Hawaii wanting to buy a gun, 
whether from a licensed dealer or private seller, must apply for a 
permit in their county, and they cannot receive a permit unless they 
pass a background check. The permit applicant has to sign a waiver 
allowing the county to access their mental health records, and, of 
course, there is a check of the Federal National Instant Criminal 
Background Check System, or NICS. If they fail a background check, they 
can't purchase a gun. They are reported to law enforcement and 
prosecuting officials in the State in case they try again to purchase a 
gun.
  Being this careful about who can own a gun has resulted in Hawaii 
being the most gun-safe State in the country. In Hawaii, the CDC 
reported 2.5 firearm deaths per 100,000 people for 2017, the most 
recently available data. Compare that to Texas, with 12.4 deaths per 
100,000; or Kentucky, with 16.2 deaths; or, sadly, Alabama, with 22.9 
deaths per 100,000 people. Of course, there are many factors at play in 
these statistics, but we can't deny that being more careful about who 
gets to own a gun is a contributing factor. It is common sense.
  To be clear, Hawaii is not a State devoid of guns. We have nearly as 
many guns as we do people. Hunting is one of the most popular outdoor 
activities in Hawaii. Some hunting seasons in our State are year-round. 
We have a number of shooting ranges and gun clubs in our State, and 
both they and our hunting opportunities are important drivers of 
Hawaii's tourism economy.
  Clearly, gun safety, gun ownership, and hunting are compatible. 
Hawaii is showing the way. So knowing that we can balance commonsense 
gun safety laws with responsible gun ownership, as we do in Hawaii, we 
are left with a few simple questions. Why hasn't the Senate passed H.R. 
8, a bill that would expand background checks for gun purchases? Why 
has the Senate let this House-passed bill languish for 200 days? Why is 
the Senate failing the American people?
  In normal times, we would have a majority leader who would rush to 
pass a law favored by 90 percent of the people of our country. In 
normal times, we would be anxious to restrict firearms ownership to 
those who can pass a background check, just as we are anxious to ban 
flavored e-cigarettes that target children with addictive products. But 
these are not normal times. In these times, we have a majority leader 
who is sitting around waiting for Donald Trump to tell him what to do 
or doing the bidding of the NRA.
  Instead of waiting around for the erratic, inconsistent, always-
changing-his-mind Donald Trump to make up his mind--we should live so 
long--the majority leader should take action. It is time for the Senate 
to reassert its role as a separate branch of government, stand up to 
the NRA, and pass H.R. 8. It has been 200 days. One hundred people a 
day die in our country by firearms. Do the math. That is 2,000 firearm 
deaths since the House passed the bill.
  It is way past time for the Senate to do something, but as we wait 
for the majority leader and the President to summon the fortitude to 
act, we are treated to a familiar refrain from the NRA and their allies 
in Congress. You have heard it before. ``Guns don't kill people; people 
kill people.'' Well, a person with a gun killed 58 people at a music 
festival in Las Vegas. A person with a gun killed 49 people at the 
Pulse nightclub in Orlando. A person with a gun killed 32 people at 
Virginia Tech. A person with a gun killed 27 people, including little 
children, at Sandy Hook Elementary. A person with a gun killed 17 
people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. A 
person with a gun killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in 
Pittsburgh. A person with a gun killed 26 people at the First Baptist 
Church in Sutherland Springs, TX. A person with a gun killed nine 
people at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC.
  Since the beginning of August, a total of 113 people have been killed 
in mass shootings across the country, including incidents where a 
person with a gun killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, a person 
with a gun killed 9 people outside a bar in Dayton, OH, and a person 
with a gun killed 7 people in a shooting spree across Odessa-Midland, 
TX.
  Obviously, people with guns kill people.
  It is a sad day in our country when elementary school children have 
to

[[Page S5523]]

practice drills in how to escape a masked shooter. Our country's 
continuing tragedy of these deaths has resulted in an entire industry 
of companies that come to schools and tell the schools: We can build 
you a safe school. We could end up with citadels for schools instead of 
the places of learning they should be. That is what is happening in our 
country.
  It is past time to retire the NRA's old canard that ``guns don't 
kill; it is people that kill.'' It is people with guns who kill people. 
It is time for us to act.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Madam President, I rise today to once again call for 
this body to act on commonsense gun safety legislation. Time and again 
we have witnessed unfathomable carnage at the hands of assault-style 
rifles and high-capacity magazines. It is a horror movie we have seen 
over and over.
  As parents bury children, as infants lose parents, as America grieves 
the senseless loss of life, the NRA just tightens its grip on the 
President and the majority leader.
  I am heartened by the grassroots movement that has grown across our 
Nation in recent years, and, likewise, I am encouraged by the many 
polls indicating that Americans overwhelmingly want action.
  Americans are tired of having their voices drowned out by the NRA. 
They are tired of a Congress that fears NRA attack ads more than the 
next mass shooting, and they are tired of being told time and again 
that this is a mental health problem or a violent video game problem 
when we know it is a gun problem. It is time for real action in the 
Senate.
  Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed universal 
background checks for every gun sale--the kind of measure that would 
have stopped the shooter in Midland, TX, from bypassing a criminal 
background check if it had been a law.
  Just last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed the Keep 
Americans Safe Act, my legislation to limit the sale of ammunition to 
no more than 10 rounds. We know that a magazine that holds 30 or 60 or 
even 100 rounds of ammunition, like the Dayton shooter's did, is not 
for hunting or self-defense or protecting your home. High-capacity 
magazines are designed for one thing, and that is high-capacity 
killing.
  It is true that no single law is going to prevent all gun deaths. It 
is also true that we can prevent some gun deaths, and reducing magazine 
size is a proven way to do so.
  What will it take for the majority leader to take action? I am not 
the only one asking this question. Indeed, on September 3, the 
Washington Post published an editorial calling on the majority leader 
to act. They asked: ``Would any volume of bloodshed convince the 
Kentucky Republican that Congress faces a moral imperative to act?''
  Alongside their call for action, the Post also published a staggering 
list of names--names of fellow Americans who have lost their lives in 
mass shootings, many involving high-capacity ammunition. I will read as 
many of these names as I can in my allotted time today: Cassie Bernall, 
Steven Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matthew Kechter, Daniel 
Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, William ``Dave'' Sanders, Rachel Scott, 
Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend, Kyle Velasquez, Jennifer 
Bragg Capobianco, Janice Hagerty, Louis ``Sandy'' Javelle, Rose 
Manfredi, Paul Marceau, Cheryl Troy, Craig Wood, Derrick Brun, Dewayne 
Lewis, Chase Lussier, Daryl Lussier, Neva Rogers, Chanelle Rosebear, 
Michelle Sigana, Thurlene Stillday, Alicia White, Naomi Ebersol, Marian 
Stoltzfus Fisher, Lena Zook Miller, Mary Liz Miller, Anna Mae 
Stoltzfus, Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Christopher James Bishop, Brian 
Bluhm, Ryan Clark, Austin Cloyd, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Daniel Perez 
Cueva, Kevin Granata, Matthew G. Gwaltney, Caitlin Hammaren, Jeremy 
Herbstritt, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Emily Hilscher, Jarrett Lane, 
Matthew J. La Porte, Henry Lee, Liviu Librescu, G.V. Loganathan, 
Partahi Lumbantoruan, Lauren McCain, Daniel O'Neil, Juan Ramon Ortiz, 
Minal Panchal, Erin Peterson, Michael Pohle, Julia Pryde, Mary Read, 
Reema Samaha, Waleed Shaalan, Leslie Sherman, Maxine Turner, Nicole R. 
White, Beverly Flynn, Janet Jorgensen, Gary Joy, John McDonald, Gary 
Scharf, Angie Schuster, Dianne Trent, Maggie Webb, Parveen Ali, Almir 
Alves, Marc Henry Bernard, Maria Sonia Bernard, Hong Xiu Mao, Jiang 
Ling, Layla Khalil, Roberta King, Lan Ho, Li Guo, Dolores Yigal, Maria 
Zobniw, Michael Grant Cahill, Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, Justin Michael 
DeCrow, John Gaffaney, Frederick Greene, Jason Dean Hunt, Amy S. 
Krueger, Aaron Thomas Nemelka, Michael S. Pearson, Russell Seager, 
Francheska Velez, Juanita L. Warman, Kham See Xiong, Christina Taylor 
Green, Dorothy Morris, John M. Roll, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard, 
Gabriel Zimmerman, Demetrius Hewlin, Russell King, Jr., Daniel 
Parmertor, Tshering Rinzing Bhutia, Doris Chibuko, Sonam Choedon, Grace 
Eunhea Kim, Katleen Ping, Judith O. Seymour, Lydia Sim, Jonathan Blunk, 
A.J. Boik, Jesse Childress, Gordon Cowden, Jessica Ghawi, John Thomas 
Larimer, Matthew McQuinn, Micayla Medek, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, Alex 
Matthew Sullivan, Alexander Teves, Rebecca Ann Wingo, Satwant Singh 
Kaleka, Suveg Singh Khattra, Paramjit Kaur, Prakash Singh, Ranjit 
Singh, Sita Singh, Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Rachel D'Avino, 
Olivia Engel, Josephine Gay, Dylan Hockley, Dawn Hochsprung, Madeleine 
F. Hsu, Catherine V. Hubbard, Chase Kowalski, Jesse Lewis, Ana G. 
Marquez-Greene, James Mattioli, Grace McDonnell, Anne Marie Murphy, 
Emilie Parker, Jack Pinto, Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica 
Rekos, Avielle Richman, Lauren Russeau, Mary Sherlach, Victoria Soto, 
Benjamin Wheeler, Allison Wyatt.
  My time is almost up, but I haven't even reached the names of those 
who died after Newtown nearly 7 years ago.
  I will close with one last point. It is heartbreaking to know that 
some of the people on this list might be alive today if we only had the 
courage to pass the Keep Americans Safe Act or to establish universal 
background checks or a new assault weapons ban. It is just as 
heartbreaking to know that more names of more sons and daughters, 
mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues will 
end up on this list in the days ahead should the Senate continue to 
fail to act. That is the truth. That is the truth.
  Every day without action is another closer to America's next mass 
shooting. The time to save lives is now.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Post's entire list of 
mass shooting victims be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2019]

 How Many More Names Will Be Added to the List Before Mitch McConnell 
                             Acts on Guns?

                        (By the Editorial Board)

       Rodolfo Julio Arco, 57; Kameron Karltess Brown, 30; Raul 
     Garcia, 35; Mary Granados, 29; Joseph Griffith, 40; Leilah 
     Hernandez, 15; Edwin Peregrino, 25.
       Add those seven individuals, randomly slaughtered Saturday 
     by a shooter in the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa, 
     to the toll of those lost to America's gun insanity. And then 
     pose this question:
       What if there was a mass shooting in the United States not 
     once or twice or four or six times monthly, but every single 
     day, a big one, the kind that electrifies social media and 
     squats for days on Page 1--would that be enough to move 
     Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from his insistent 
     inertia on gun safety? Would any volume of bloodshed convince 
     the Kentucky Republican that Congress faces a moral 
     imperative to act? Thirty-eight people were slain in three 
     such shootings in August--in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, as 
     well as West Texas--and still Senate Republicans and 
     President Trump refuse to act.
       The list below, far from comprehensive, is tragic, in part, 
     because it is so far from inevitable. No, no single law would 
     end gun violence. But there are reasonable, obvious measures 
     that would help.
       For example: Ban the sale of military-grade assault 
     weapons. Unneeded by civilians, they are a blight on the 
     nation, their ready availability a national disgrace. 
     Eliminating them would slow the growth of this list. It would 
     save lives.
       April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, 
     Colo.: Cassie Bernall, 17; Steven Curnow, 14; Corey DePooter, 
     17; Kelly Fleming, 16; Matthew Kechter, 16; Daniel Mauser, 
     15; Daniel Rohrbough, 15; William ``Dave'' Sanders, 47; 
     Rachel Scott, 17; Isaiah Shoels, 18; John Tomlin, 16; Lauren 
     Townsend, 18; Kyle Velasquez, 16.
       Dec. 26, 2000, at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Mass.: 
     Jennifer Bragg

[[Page S5524]]

     Capobianco, 29; Janice Hagerty, 46; Louis ``Sandy'' Javelle, 
     58; Rose Manfredi, 48; Paul Marceau, 36; Cheryl Troy, 50; 
     Craig Wood, 29.
       March 21, 2005, at Red Lake High School on the Red Lake 
     Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minn.: Derrick Brun, 28; 
     Dewayne Lewis, 15; Chase Lussier, 15; Daryl Lussier, 58; Neva 
     Rogers, 62; Chanelle Rosebear, 15; Michelle Sigana, 32; 
     Thurlene Stillday, 15; Alicia White, 15.
       Oct. 2, 2006, at an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, 
     Pa.: Naomi Ebersol, 7; Marian Stoltzfus Fisher, 13; Lena Zook 
     Miller, 7; Mary Liz Miller, 8; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12.
       April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.: Ross 
     Abdallah Alameddine, 20; Christopher James ``Jamie'' Bishop, 
     35; Brian Bluhm, 25; Ryan Clark, 22; Austin Cloyd, 18; 
     Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, 49; Daniel Perez Cueva, 21; Kevin 
     Granata, 46; Matthew G. Gwaltney, 24; Caitlin Hammaren, 19; 
     Jeremy Herbstritt, 27; Rachael Elizabeth Hill, 18; Emily 
     Hilscher, 19; Jarrett Lane, 22; Matthew J. La Porte, 20; 
     Henry Lee, 20; Liviu Librescu, 76; G.V. Loganathan, 51; 
     Partahi Lumbantoruan, 34; Lauren McCain, 20; Daniel O'Neil, 
     22; Juan Ramon Ortiz, 26; Minal Panchal, 26; Erin Peterson, 
     18; Michael Pohle, 23; Julia Pryde, 23; Mary Read, 19; Reema 
     Samaha, 18; Waleed Shaalan, 32; Leslie Sherman, 20; Maxine 
     Turner, 22; Nicole R. White, 20.
       Dec. 5, 2007, at the Westroads Mall in Omaha: Beverly 
     Flynn, 47; Janet Jorgensen, 66; Gary Joy, 56; John McDonald, 
     65; Gary Scharf, 48; Angie Schuster, 36; Dianne Trent, 53; 
     Maggie Webb, 24.
       April 3, 2009, at the American Civic Association 
     immigration services center in Binghamton, N.Y.: Parveen Nln 
     Ali, 26; Almir O. Alves, 43; Marc Henry Bernard, 44; Maria 
     Sonia Bernard, 46; Hai Hong Zhong, 54; Hong Xiu Mao, 35; 
     Jiang Ling, 22; Layla Khalil, 57; Roberta King, 72; Lan Ho, 
     39; Li Guo, 47; Dolores Yigal, 53; Maria Zobniw, 60.
       Nov. 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, near Killeen, Tex.: Michael 
     Grant Cahill, 62; Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, 52; Justin Michael 
     DeCrow, 32; John P. Gaffaney, 56; Frederick Greene, 29; Jason 
     Dean Hunt, 22; Amy S. Krueger, 29; Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19; 
     Michael S. Pearson, 22; Russell Seager, 51; Francheska Velez, 
     21; Juanita L. Warman, 55; Kham See Xiong, 23.
       Jan. 8, 2011, in the parking lot of a grocery store near 
     Tucson: Christina Taylor Green, 9; Dorothy Morris, 76; John 
     M. Roll, 63; Phyllis Schneck, 79; Dorwan Stoddard, 76; 
     Gabriel Zimmerman, 30.
       Feb. 27, 2012, at Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio: 
     Demetrius Hewlin, 16; Russell King, Jr., 17; Daniel 
     Parmertor, 16.
       April 2, 2012, at Oikos University in Oakland, Calif.: 
     Tshering Rinzing Bhutia, 38; Doris Chibuko, 40; Sonam 
     Choedon, 33; Grace Eunhea Kim, 23; Katleen Ping, 24; Judith 
     O. Seymour, 53; Lydia Sim, 21.
       July 20, 2012, at the Century Aurora 16 movie complex in 
     Aurora, Colo.: Jonathan Blunk, 26: A.J. Boik, 18; Jesse 
     Childress, 29; Gordon W. Cowden, 51; Jessica Ghawi, 24; John 
     Thomas Larimer, 27; Matthew McQuinn, 27; Micayla Medek, 23; 
     Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6; Alex Matthew Sullivan, 27; 
     Alexander Teves, 24; Rebecca Ann Wingo, 32.
       Aug. 5, 2012, at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, 
     Wis.: Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65; Suveg Singh Khattra, 84; 
     Paramjit Kaur, 41; Prakash Singh, 39; Ranjit Singh, 49; Sita 
     Singh, 41.
       Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, 
     Conn.: Charlotte Bacon, 6; Daniel Barden, 7; Rachel D'Avino, 
     29; Olivia Engel, 6; Josephine Gay, 7; Dylan Hockley, 6; Dawn 
     Hochsprung, 47; Madeleine F. Hsu, 6; Catherine V. Hubbard, 6; 
     Chase Kowalski, 7; Jesse Lewis, 6; Ana G. Marquez-Greene, 6; 
     James Mattioli, 6; Grace McDonnell, 7; Anne Marie Murphy, 52; 
     Emilie Parker, 6; Jack Pinto, 6; Noah Pozner, 6; Caroline 
     Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Avielle Richman, 6; Lauren 
     Russeau, 30; Mary Sherlach, 56; Victoria Soto, 27; Benjamin 
     Wheeler, 6; Allison N. Wyatt, 6.
       Sept. 16, 2013, at the Washington Navy Yard in the 
     District: Michael Arnold, 59; Martin Bodrog, 54; Arthur 
     Daniels, 51; Sylvia Frasier, 53; Kathy Gaarde, 62; John Roger 
     Johnson, 73; Mary Frances DeLorenzo Knight, 51; Frank Kohler, 
     51; Vishnu Bhalchandra Pandit, 61; Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 
     46; Gerald Read, 58; Richard Michael Ridge11, 52.
       June 17, 2015, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal 
     Church in Charleston, S.C.: Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45; 
     DePayne V. Middleton Doctor, 49; Cynthia Graham Hurd, 54; 
     Susie Jackson, 87; Ethel Lee Lance, 70; Clementa C. Pinckney, 
     41; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Daniel Simmons, 74; Myra Thompson, 
     59.
       July 16, 2015, at an armed services recruiting center and a 
     Navy reserve center in Chattanooga, Tenn.: Carson A. 
     Holmquist, 25; Randall Smith, 26; Thomas J. Sullivan, 40; 
     Squire K. ``Skip'' Wells, 21, David A. Wyatt, 35.
       Oct. 1, 2015, at a community college in Roseburg, Ore.: 
     Lucero Alcaraz, 19; Treven Taylor Anspach, 20; Rebecka Ann 
     Carnes, 18; Quinn Glen Cooper, 18; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59; 
     Lucas Eibel, 18; Jason Dale Johnson, 33; Lawrence Levine, 67; 
     Sarena Dawn Moore, 44.
       Nov. 27, 2015, at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado 
     Springs: Jennifer Markovsky, 36; Ke'Arre M. Stewart, 29; 
     Garrett Swasey, 44.
       Dec. 2, 2015, at an office park in San Bernardino, Calif.: 
     Robert Adams, 40; Isaac Amanios, 60; Bennetta Betbadal, 46; 
     Harry Bowman, 46; Sierra Clayborn, 27; Juan Espinoza, 50; 
     Aurora Godoy, 26; Shannon Johnson, 45; Larry Daniel Kaufman, 
     42; Damian Meins, 58; Tin Nguyen, 31; Nicholas Thalasinos, 
     52; Yvette Velasco, 27; Michael Raymond Wetzel, 37.
       June 12, 2016, at Pulse nightclub in Orlando: Stanley 
     Almodovar III, 23; Amanda L. Alvear, 25; Oscar A. Aracena 
     Montero, 26; Rodolfo Ayala Ayala, 33; Antonio Davon Brown, 
     29; Darryl Roman Burt II, 29; Angel Candelario-Padro, 28; 
     Juan Chavez Martinez, 25; Luis Daniel Conde, 39; Cory James 
     Connell, 21; Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25; Deonka Deidra Drayton, 
     32; Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31; Leroy Valentin 
     Fernandez, 25; Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26; Peter Ommy 
     Gonzalez Cruz, 22; Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22; Paul Terrell 
     Henry, 41; Frank Hernandez, 27; Miguel Angel Honorato, 30; 
     Javier Jorge Reyes, 40; Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19; Eddie 
     Jamoldroy Justice, 30; Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25; 
     Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32; Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 
     21, Brenda Marquez McCool, 49; Gilberto R. Silva Menendez, 
     25; Kimberly Jean Morris, 37; Akyra Monet Murray, 18; Luis 
     Omar Ocasio Capo, 20; Geraldo A. Ortiz Jimenez, 25; Eric Ivan 
     Ortiz-Rivera, 36; Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32; Jean Carlos Mendez 
     Perez, 35; Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25; Jean Carlos Nieves 
     Rodriguez, 27; Xavier Emmanuel Serrano-Rosado, 35; 
     Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24; Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 
     24; Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34; Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33; 
     Martin Benitez Torres, 33; Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24; Juan 
     Pablo Rivera Velazquez, 37; Luis Sergio Vielma, 22; Franky 
     Jimmy DeJesus Velazquez, 50; Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37; 
     Jerald Arthur Wright, 31.
       Jan. 6, 2017, at the baggage claim of Fort Lauderdale-
     Hollywood International Airport in Florida: Mary Louise 
     Amzibel, 69; Terry Andres, 62; Michael Oehme, 57; Shirley 
     Timmons, 70; Olga Woltering, 84.
       June 5, 2017, at an awning company near Orlando: Kevin 
     Clark, 53; Kevin Lawson, 46; Brenda Montanez-Crespo, 44; 
     Jeffrey Roberts, 57; Robert Snyder, 69.
       Oct. 1, 2017, on the Las Vegas Strip: Hannah Ahlers, 34; 
     Heather Alvarado, 35; Dorene Anderson, 49; Carrie Barnette, 
     34; Jack Beaton, 54; Stephen Berger, 44; Candice Bowers, 40; 
     Denise Burditus, 50; Sandy Casey, 35; Andrea Castilla, 28; 
     Denise Cohen, 58; Austin Davis, 29; Thomas Day Jr., 54; 
     Christiana Duarte, 22; Stacee Rodrigues Etcheber, 50; Brian 
     Fraser, 39; Keri Galvan, 31; Dana Gardner, 52; Angela Gomez, 
     20; Charleston Hartfield, 34; Christopher Hazencomb, 44; 
     Jennifer Topaz Irvine, 42; Teresa Nicol Kimura, 38; Jessica 
     Klymchuk, 34; Carly Kreibaum, 33; Rhonda LeRocque, 42; Victor 
     Link, 55; Jordan McIldoon, 23; Kelsey Breanne Meadows, 28; 
     Calla-Marie Medig, 28; Sonny Melton, 29; Patricia Mestas, 67; 
     Austin Meyer, 24; Adrian Murfitt, 35; Rachael Parker, 33; 
     Jennifer Parks, 36; Carolyn Parsons, 31; Lisa Patterson, 46; 
     John Phippen, 56; Melissa Ramirez, 26; Jordyn Rivera, 21; 
     Quinton Robbins, 20; Cameron Robinson, 28; Rocio Guillen 
     Rocha, 40; Tara Roe, 34; Lisa Romero-Muniz, 48; Christopher 
     Roybal, 28; Brett Schwanbeck, 61; Bailey Schweitzer, 20; 
     Laura Shipp, 50; Erick Silva, 21; Susan Smith, 53; Brennan 
     Stewart, 30; Derrick Taylor, 56; Neysa Tonks, 46; Michelle 
     Vo, 32; Kurt Von Tillow, 55; Bill Wolfe Jr., 42.
       Nov. 5, 2017, at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland 
     Springs, Tex.: Keith Allen Braden, 62; Robert Michael 
     Corrigan, 51; Shani Louise Corrigan, 51; Emily Garcia, 7; 
     Emily Rose Hill, 11; Gregory Lynn Hill, 13; Megan Gail Hill, 
     9; Crystal Marie Holcombe, 36; John Bryan Holcombe, 60; Karla 
     Plain Holcombe, 58; Marc Daniel Holcombe, 36; Noah Holcombe, 
     1; Dennis Neil Johnson, 77; Sara Johns Johnson, 68; Haley 
     Krueger, 16; Robert Scott Marshall, 56; Karen Sue Marshall, 
     56; Tara E. McNulty, 33; Annabelle Renae Pomeroy, 14; Ricardo 
     Cardona Rodriguez, 64; Therese Sagan Rodriguez, 66; Brooke 
     Bryanne Ward, 5; Joann Lookingbill Ward, 30; Peggy Lynn 
     Warden, 56; Lula Woicinski White, 71.
       Feb. 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 
     Parkland, Fla.: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Scott Beigel, 35; Martin 
     Duque, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Aaron Feis, 37; Jaime 
     Guttenberg, 14; Chris Hixon, 49; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara 
     Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina 
     Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alex 
     Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; Peter Wang, 15.
       May 18, 2018, at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Tex.: 
     Jared Black, 17; Shana Fisher, 16; Christian Riley Garcia, 
     15; Aaron Kyle McLeod, 15; Glenda Ann Perkins, 64; Angelique 
     Ramirez, 15; Sabika Sheikh, 17; Christopher Stone, 17; 
     Cynthia Tisdale, 63; Kimberly Vaughan, 14.
       June 28, 2018, at the Capital Gazette newsroom in 
     Annapolis: Gerald Fischman, 61; Rob Hiaasen, 59; John 
     McNamara, 56; Rebecca Smith, 34; Wendi Winters, 65.
       Oct. 27, 2018, at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh: 
     Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 
     97; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Cecil Rosenthal, 59; David 
     Rosenthal, 54; Bernice Simon, 84; Sylvan Simon, 86; Daniel 
     Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; Irving Younger, 69.
       Nov. 7, 2018, at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand 
     Oaks, Calif.: Sean Adler, 48; Cody Coffman, 22; Blake 
     Dingman, 21; Jake Dunham, 21, Ron Helus, 54; Alaina Housley, 
     18; Dan Manrique, 33; Justin Meek, 23; Mark Meza Jr., 20, 
     Kristina Morisette, 20; Telemachus Orfanos, 27; Noel Sparks, 
     21.
       Jan. 23, 2019, at the SunTrust Bank in Sebring, Fla.: Debra 
     Cook, 54; Marisol Lopez, 55; Jessica Montague, 31; Ana Pinon-
     Williams, 38; Cynthia Watson, 65.

[[Page S5525]]

       Feb. 15, 2019, at the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, Ill.: 
     Russell Beyer, 47; Vicente Juarez, 54; Clayton Parks, 32; 
     Josh Pinkard, 37; Trevor Wehner, 21.
       May 31, 2019, at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center, in 
     Virginia Beach : LaQuita C. Brown, 39; Ryan Keith Cox, 50; 
     Tara Welch Gallagher, 39; Mary Louise Gayle, 65; Alexander 
     Mikhail Gusev, 35; Joshua O. Hardy, 52; Michelle ``Missy'' 
     Langer, 60; Richard H. Nettleton, 65; Katherine A. Nixon, 42; 
     Christopher Kelly Rapp, 54; Herbert ``Bert'' Snelling, 57; 
     Robert ``Bobby'' Williams, 72.
       July 28, 2019, at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California: 
     Trevor Deon Irby, 25; Stephen Romero, 6; Keyla Salazar, 13.
       Aug. 3, 2019, at a Walmart Supercenter in El Paso: Andre 
     Anchondo, 24; Jordan Anchondo, 25; Arturo Benavides, 60; Leo 
     Campos, 41; Angelina Englisbee, 86; Maria Flores, 77; Raul 
     Flores, 83; Jorge Calvillo Garcia, 61; Adolfo Cerros 
     Hernandez, 68; Maribel Hernandez, 56; Alexander Gerhard 
     Hoffman, 66; David Johnson, 63; Luis Juarez, 90; Maria 
     Eugenia Legarreta, 58; Ivan Filiberto Manzano, 45; Gloria 
     Irma Marquez, 61; Elsa Mendoza, 57; Margie Reckard, 63; Sara 
     Esther Regalado, 66; Javier Amir Rodriguez, 15; Teresa 
     Sanchez, 82; Juan de Dios Velazquez, 77.
       Aug. 4, 2019, at the Oregon Historic District in Dayton, 
     Ohio: Megan K. Betts, 22; Monica E. Brickhouse, 39; Nicholas 
     P. Cumer, 25; Derrick R. Fudge, 57; Thomas J. McNichols, 25; 
     Lois L. Oglesby, 27; Saeed Saleh, 38; Logan M. Turner, 30; 
     Beatrice N. Warren-Curtis, 36.

  Mr. MENENDEZ. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I am rising to speak tonight as a 
Senator that comes from a passionate Second Amendment State. The 
citizens of my home State of Oregon value their guns for collecting, 
for target practice, for personal defense, and, certainly, for hunting. 
But it is also a State where citizens have said they do not want 
individuals who are deeply disturbed or individuals who have felony 
backgrounds to get ahold of guns because we have a responsibility to 
make sure that guns don't end up in the wrong hands and that guns are 
not abused.
  Our State then proceeded to do a series of things to strengthen a 
background check system. It was in the year 2000 that the citizens drew 
a ballot measure supported by almost 62 percent of the State that chose 
to close the gun show loophole that previously had allowed purchasers 
to buy guns at gun shows without completing a background check, making 
a background check in gun stores essentially irrelevant.
  It was in 2015 that the citizens of Oregon closed the Craig's List 
loophole, and it was in the year 2018 when they closed through the 
legislature the ``boyfriend'' loophole, saying that if an individual 
had a restraining order against them or a stalking conviction, they 
shouldn't have the ability to buy a gun in our State.
  Now, I do a lot of townhalls. I do one in every county every year. At 
the end of this year, I am hitting about 400 townhalls since the time I 
have been in the Senate. Of the 36 counties I go to each year, 22 of 
them would be what you would describe politically as being very red 
counties, and gun violence comes up all the time. Yet even in those 
conservative red counties, people are incredibly supportive of having a 
background check system nationally like Oregon has created, because 
right now in Oregon it is kind of a big hole if somebody just ignores a 
background check and goes across the border to another State to buy 
guns.
  Then we have the challenges of straw buyers, and we need to have 
rigorous enforcement of that. It is only with a national system that 
this works.
  Every year, thousands of people go to more than 4,000 gun shows held 
across America, and they purchase between 4 to 9 percent of all the 
annual firearms that are sold in America at these events. Because gun 
shows in most States don't require background checks, people who 
couldn't pass a background check simply can go and acquire their weapon 
in that fashion.
  For this reason, guns purchased at gun shows are disproportionately 
the ones that are used in criminal activities. The same is true for 
individuals purchasing guns in other States through websites like 
Craig's List. Just like gun show purchasers, individuals purchasing 
firearms online from private sellers are exempt from background checks 
in all but 12 States and the District of Columbia.
  So, nationally, there is powerful support for a solid background 
check system that doesn't have loopholes that just make it irrelevant--
closing of the loophole for gun shows, closing the loophole for Craig's 
List, and closing the loophole for stalkers and domestic abusers.
  Speaking of domestic abusers, in just an average week, about 17 
women--about 17 women--are fatally shot by former or current romantic 
partners.
  As we talk about the challenge with guns and violent deaths in 
America, we have the names of various cities ringing in our ears--
cities like Dayton, 9 dead and 27 wounded; El Paso, 22 dead and 24 
wounded; Odessa and Midland, 7 dead and 21 wounded. But recognize this: 
While those extra traumatic events capture the headlines, there is a 
mass shooting in America more than once per day. As of September 1 of 
this year, which was the 244th day of the year, there have been 283 
mass shootings.
  What is a mass shooting? It is a situation in which more than four 
people are hit by gunfire.
  So it is time to act. Right now, this is the moment that demands 
action because 92 percent of Americans favor a background check for all 
gun sales. We owe it to Americans to support background checks for all 
gun sales and to actually act. We owe it to our children, who are now 
scared of going to school and who are forced to practice hiding from a 
crazed murderer in active shooting drills. We owe it to our teachers, 
who are prepared to put their lives on the line for their students in 
case of an emergency. And we owe it to the families of the countless 
Americans who have lost their lives to gun violence--to the mothers, 
fathers, sisters, and brothers, and the loved ones of those who are 
lost. They have an unhealable pain.
  One of those individuals, Fred Guttenberg, is here tonight. On 
Valentine's Day 2018, Fred's 14-year-old daughter, Jamie Guttenberg was 
gunned down at her school in Parkland, FL. Jamie was, in her father's 
words, ``tough as nails,'' but also ``silly, funny, energetic . . . 
wherever she went, she was the energy in the room.''
  She wanted to be a pediatric physical therapist and work with 
children to make their lives better. She was a 14-year-old with her 
whole life ahead of her. She was a competitive dancer. She was a 
freshman in high school with so many life chapters to be written.
  But she didn't get to write those chapters--chapters having fun with 
her friends, chapters getting stressed out by back-to-school homework 
or planning for the prom or making plans for the future or deciding 
what path to go in life and where to attend school. All of it was 
stolen from her and stolen from her family.
  Her father Fred has said:

       ``Everybody thinks this gets easier as time goes on. It 
     actually doesn't. It gets harder, because every day there's 
     just going to be a new reminder of what you lost.''

  She was the second to the last to be shot. She was shot in the spine 
running away from the shooter. Fred notes that it was his daughter, but 
it could have been your daughter. It could have been your son. It could 
have been the child of any one of us.
  (Mr. BARRASSO assumes the Chair.)
  Mr. President, we are here in the Chamber to help make life better. 
We are here to keep Americans safe, but we are doing nothing, and doing 
nothing with 90-plus percent of America crying out and saying: Have the 
guts to act.
  Mr. President, let's have the guts to act. Let's have the guts to put 
the bill here on the floor. The House passed H.R. 8, the basic 
background check bill. We are not here to do the interests of big 
corporations. We are not here to do the interests of special interests. 
Ninety-plus percent of Americans say to act on the basics of doing a 
background check when people buy a gun, no matter where they buy it.
  Let's act. Let's hold a debate. Let's actually talk to each other. 
Let's make the arguments pro and con. Let's hear why we shouldn't 
listen to the vast majority of Americans. It is the vast majority of 
Democrats, it is the vast majority of Independents, and it is the

[[Page S5526]]

vast majority of Republicans, with virtually no difference in the level 
of support between the Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. All of 
America is saying that background checks make sense.
  The American people deserve safety in their homes, workplaces, 
schools, and their communities, but all I have heard is a majority 
leader who says that he will only allow a bill on the floor when the 
President says it is OK.
  Well, the last time I checked the Constitution, it is our 
responsibility here in the Senate and House to act, not to hide behind 
the skirts of the President. This President, we know, has been 
spineless--absolutely spineless. One call from a special interest 
group, one meeting with the NRA, and suddenly his conviction dissipates 
like light rain on hot asphalt.
  Are we going to abdicate our responsibility to legislate to a 
spineless President? It is not his role to decide what bills are passed 
in this country. It is our responsibility here in the Senate. I believe 
that if Democrats and Republicans come together and honor their 
responsibility to act and pass the bill, the President will be in the 
Oval Office signing it because all of America is crying out for him to 
do so.
  It has been a long time since the bill was passed in the House. It 
has been 202 days. That is 202 opportunities that we have had to debate 
the House bill and take a vote on it. It has been 202 opportunities in 
which the leadership of this Chamber has failed the American people by 
refusing to have a debate on this floor.
  When I came here, not long ago, virtually any Senator could get any 
issue before the Senate. Suddenly, we have a dictator in the Senate. 
The majority leader says only the bills that he wants will be 
considered and only the amendments that he wants will be considered on 
the floor of the Senate.
  What happened to my Republican colleagues who believed in the right 
to amend and the right to legislate, who now yield to one individual in 
the Senate dictating what is considered in this august Chamber? We are 
not much of a legislative chamber if only one person can determine what 
is considered here on the floor of the Senate.
  The American people are asking for better. Let's deliver much 
better. Let's consider H.R. 8. Let's get it on the floor. Let's debate 
and let's vote.

  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Braun). The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their indulgence 
this evening and those of you who help us keep this floor open.
  I will make some longer remarks later this evening, but while we have 
a short break on the floor and await Senator Brown, I want to say a 
word of appreciation to all of my colleagues who have decided to join 
us this evening on the floor.
  This is my first appearance here to talk about the imperative of 
changing the Nation's gun laws, recognizing that this number--100 
Americans killed by guns every single day--is not inevitable. Almost 
every single one of these murders and suicides and accidental shootings 
is preventable if we make different choices here on the floor of the 
U.S. Senate.
  Our purpose tonight is to try to bring some consistency of effort to 
a case that we have been making for a very long time. So I will be back 
here later this evening to walk through the case, as far as I see it, 
for universal background checks in particular but also for a host of 
other measures that are broadly popular amongst the American public.
  One point I will make right now is that this issue is really unique 
in American politics today. It is not a controversial issue out in 
America. It is only controversial here inside the political process. In 
fact, there are very few matters in public life today that are, 
frankly, more controversial than this issue. When you go out and ask 
people if they support universal background checks, which is the 
measure that passed the House of Representatives by a 9-to-1 margin, 
they support universal background checks. There is almost nothing else 
in American politics today--I would endeavor to say there is nothing 
else in American politics today that is as popular as this measure; yet 
it has this reputation of being a third rail of political discourse 
here in Washington.
  I would simply encourage my colleagues to get out there and have 
conversations with their constituents, to have conversations with 
members of their own parties, to have conversations with gun owners. 
You will find that there is a consistency of opinion at least on a 
large number of pieces of legislation that are before this body. At the 
top of that list are universal background checks. I have this 
conversation over and over and over again--and then I will leave the 
floor to Senator Brown and return later--with the President's 
supporters, with supporters of the Second Amendment, and with members 
of the NRA in my State.
  Of course, I have acquired a reputation of being a forceful and vocal 
advocate for stronger gun laws in this Nation, and the NRA often 
targets me in its advertisements and its emails. I will often be 
confronted by my constituents who will see me at a public event. They 
will come on a beeline over to me and start confronting me about my 
agenda to confiscate their weapons or to take away their guns. Of 
course, I try to disabuse them of that notion, and as soon as I can, I 
take the conversation to background checks.
  I say: Listen, let me ask you a question. Do you think that everybody 
who is buying a gun in this country should have to go through a 
background check?
  Almost invariably, the individual, who just moments ago was so 
confrontational with me about the issue of guns--his defenses drop, and 
he says: Well, yes. Of course, I support that. Of course, everybody 
should get a background check before buying a gun.
  I said: You got one, right?
  He said: I got one. It was 3- or 4-minutes long. That is not what I 
am talking about. I object to all of the other things, but, of course, 
I want background checks.
  Gun owners support background checks by an 80- to 90-percent margin. 
NRA members support it. Polls suggest that 75 to 80 percent of NRA 
members support background checks. This is just one of the least 
controversial issues that exists out there in the American public 
today.
  We are going to have a conversation today about the efficacy of these 
measures, but we should remember that there are many times when we get 
deluded into believing something is much more of a vexing political 
conversation than it truly is, and background checks are on that 
agenda.
  At this point, I yield the floor, and I will come back down later for 
longer remarks. I am glad to be joined this evening by Senator Brown 
from Ohio.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I am also joined by Senator Casey, of 
Pennsylvania, who has been a leader as Senator Murphy has been. We look 
to Senator Murphy every day in this body because he has seen this 
tragedy up close in the most vivid, awful ways. We appreciate how he 
has represented victims and people who might end up being victims. If 
we do this right, they won't end up being victims. His leadership has 
really mattered.
  On a Sunday morning 6 weeks ago, Connie and I woke up, checked our 
iPhones, and immediately called out to each other and said: Oh, my 
gosh. Look what has happened in Dayton.
  It was the first Saturday night in August. At 1 o'clock that Sunday 
morning, a local man with an assault weapon walked into the Oregon 
District in Dayton, as people were out having fun that night, and just 
opened fired. He killed his sister, and he killed eight others. He 
wounded more than 20. In the space of 32 seconds, he had fired 41 
bullets. It tells you the kind of gun he had. Heroically, six police 
officers descended on him. They shot him and killed him before he could 
walk into this nightclub where he would have probably killed 20 other 
people.
  I called Mayor Nan Whaley that morning, probably at 8:30. It was 
pretty incredible. This happened at 1 o'clock in the morning. I called 
her at 8:30--7\1/2\ hours later. The first thing she said to me was 
that she had gotten emails and texts and calls--in her words--from 
several dozen mayors around the country who had either had to deal with 
this, as many had, or had had situations in which they had had gun 
violence and had just offered to help her in any way they could.

[[Page S5527]]

  We know what happens. We know that every time there is gun violence--
every time there is a mass shooting--the first thing the Republicans 
say is: My thoughts and prayers are with the victims.
  How can you not agree with that? We all think that.
  Then they say ``Now is not the time to talk about it'' as if they 
ever want to talk about it.
  Then they say: You know, we have to do something about mental health 
in this country.
  Ask Senator Casey about his efforts on Medicaid and my efforts on 
Medicaid. The people who sit on this side of the aisle--where the 
Republicans sit here--are the ones who stood a year ago at every one of 
these desks, all of the Senators having their health insurance paid for 
by the government, paid for by taxpayers, and tried to take away health 
insurance for millions and millions of Americans.
  Senator Casey told me today that 1.1 million people in Pennsylvania 
now have health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. In my 
State, where my daughter Elizabeth Brown is a councilperson in 
Columbus, 900,000 people have insurance because of that. On this side 
of the aisle, every single Senator except for three--one of whom has 
passed away--voted to take away the insurance, to repeal the Affordable 
Care Act. Then they have the gall to say we have to do more on mental 
health. If that had passed--if they had repealed the Affordable Care 
Act--hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians and Ohioans wouldn't have 
had the mental health services they are getting now. So spare me that 
whining. Spare me that ``oh, we want to take care of mental health 
issues.'' No, they don't. They just want to do the NRA's bidding.
  Look down this aisle. Look down this hall. Right down this hall is 
Senator McConnell's office. I am not going to say that gun lobbyists 
walk down that hall and walk into his office and hand him money. I 
don't think they do that. Yet I do know that until we break the 
addiction that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell and most of the 
Republicans--most of the people in this body--have to gun lobby money, 
campaign contributions, we will never solve this problem.
  We heard that. That is what we heard the first day in Dayton. My wife 
and I drove to Dayton that afternoon. The President came to Dayton 2 
days later. I joined President Trump at the bottom of Air Force One. As 
he got off the plane, I stood with Mayor Whaley.
  We both looked President Trump in the eye and said: Mr. President, I 
hope you will call Senator McConnell and ask him to bring the Senate 
back.
  This was in early August. The Senate was out of session for 5 weeks.
  I hope you will ask Senator McConnell to bring the Senate back into 
session and pass the House bill that sets up something very simple--
universal background checks.
  As Senator Murphy said, 90 percent of the American public supports 
background checks. You know, the only people who don't support 
background checks are professional lobbyists for the NRA and the people 
who sit over here. Other than that, it is over 90 percent. A majority 
of gun owners in Ohio support universal background checks. A majority 
of Republicans support universal background checks. A majority of NRA 
members in Ohio support universal background checks. The only people 
who don't are Members of this body and that tiny group of NRA 
professional lobbyists. It is not NRA members who are stopping 
background checks from passing. It is that narrow group of millionaire, 
NRA, highly paid, professional lobbyists. That is why we can't pass it 
here. That is what we have had happen.
  Mayor Nan Whaley and I asked President Trump to pass it, and he said: 
I am going to do big things. We are going to do big things and fix 
this.
  Then we saw him later at the hospital. President Trump went around 
the hospital with the First Lady. They were kind and generous and 
empathetic, I believe, with the patients who were there who had been 
injured and with their family members. Then we met the police 
officers--the six heroic police officers. We thanked them profusely--
all of us--for their courage in saving lives.
  Then we walked out of the room, the Governor and the other Senator 
from Ohio and the local Congressman and the mayor, and he said: We are 
going to have the biggest awards ever. We are going to give them the 
biggest Presidential medals ever made for these heroes.
  I said: That is really good, Mr. President, but do you know what they 
would really like? What they would really like is for us to pass 
background checks and make their jobs a little easier, so when they 
walk in, they are not ambushed by people with illegal guns.
  The President said he was going to do something, then he talked to 
the NRA, and then he talked to the gun lobby. It is the same story.
  Again, when I open this door and look down the hall, I don't expect 
to see--well, it is late in the day, but I don't expect to see gun 
lobbyists lining up handing Mitch McConnell money. It is illegal. I 
don't think he does stuff like that, take money in this body.
  I do know, again, that until we break the addiction, until the voters 
or the Congress or somehow we break the addiction to gun lobby money 
that Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump and the majority party have, we 
can't solve this.
  This is just too important. For every mass shooting that makes a 
headline, there are so many other Americans whose lives are taken by 
gun violence but don't get the same attention. This has to end.
  No more stigmatizing people with mental illness. We should stop 
stigmatizing people with mental illness. Congress should stop taking 
orders from the NRA and start acting to keep people safe.
  I will close with this before Senator Casey speaks: The shooting was 
at 1 in the morning on a Sunday. Sunday night, people gathered in the 
Oregon District--heartbroken people, relatives, friends, community 
people, just people who were just shellshocked and felt awful about 
what happened to their city and to those victims--gathered in the 
Oregon District in Dayton. The Governor was there, and the mayor was up 
front, and one or two people started yelling: Do something. Do 
something. Then more and more people joined in, and they started 
chanting: Do something. Do something.
  They were chanting it to local officials. They were chanting it so 
the Governor heard it and maybe even some State legislators in Ohio 
heard it. They were shouting loud enough that in this body we should 
hear that shout to do something.
  It starts by taking the bill that passed the House down the hall, 
bringing it to the Senate floor, debating it, voting on it, passing 
strong, reasonable background checks. That is the step we need to take. 
There is simply no excuse for not doing it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise tonight to speak about the issue 
that has been consuming a lot of our time, and appropriately so, not 
only tonight but for many weeks, since some of the tragedies of this 
summer, starting in early August and continuing but also an issue that 
has occupied the time of the American people over the course of not 
just weeks or months but years and even decades now.
  I thank our colleague from Connecticut, Senator Murphy, for 
organizing this time to bring Members of the Senate together.
  I thank my colleague from Ohio, Senator Brown, the senior Senator, 
for his words tonight, his passion about this issue, and his commitment 
to change. That should be a commitment that is shared by everyone here, 
but we will be talking about what has not happened here tonight as much 
as what has happened.
  When I think about this issue, the issue of gun violence, which is an 
epidemic, it is also uniquely an American problem. No other country has 
this problem. In fact, America didn't have this problem for all of its 
history. Depending on where you start the clock, it is years old, if 
not a lot longer than that.
  When I think about the issue and think about the debates we are 
having, sometimes we start with the names of communities, and we, 
unfortunately, have them memorized. So many communities are known for 
so much--so much that is positive about their culture, about their 
history, and about

[[Page S5528]]

their future, and the dynamism of some of our great communities.
  There are some communities that have all that but also now have 
attached to their history--I hope not forever but certainly for a 
period of time--that that city, that community, was a place where an 
act of gun violence occurred that was of such a scale that the American 
people focused on that one community for a sustained period of time 
because of a mass shooting.
  Of course, we should be remembering all of the examples on a night 
like tonight, where it doesn't reach the level of a mass shooting by 
way of victims or carnage but also as a place we should remember when 
one person dies on a dark street in the middle of the night or a child 
is injured or in fact killed, but it may not be counted as a mass 
shooting.
  You know all the names now. Just this summer we have added several 
more, as everyone knows. I will not go through all the events--these 
horrific, tragic events--but it is important to remember the names of 
the communities, and then, of course, I want to talk about some of the 
people.
  Whether it is El Paso or Dayton or Odessa-Midland--many years ago, it 
was Columbine, it was Newtown, CT, Virginia Tech, Las Vegas, Parkland, 
Aurora, CO, Orlando, and, more recently, Gilroy, CA, and Virginia 
Beach. I have left a lot off. That is just a handful in the last number 
of years.
  So we think about this issue in terms of those who were lost or those 
whose lives have been irreparably damaged, sometimes irreparably 
damaged, permanently damaged because of the injury--an injury they will 
carry with them for the rest of their lives.
  Of course, you don't have to be physically injured to sustain an 
injury by way of the impact on your psyche. I can't even imagine, can't 
even begin to imagine, nor can most people imagine the horror of being 
anywhere near a mass shooting.
  Tonight we remember those victims and their families and those 
communities. We also remember the individual people who were lost, the 
individual families who were affected--mothers and fathers and brothers 
and sisters, children. In so many of these instances, children are 
directly affected or indirectly, but that indirect affect means they 
lost a parent or they lost a sibling or they lost something in that 
moment that they will be permanently scarred by for the rest of their 
lives.
  I want to focus on two groups of people tonight. We could spend hours 
talking about so many Americans. One will be parochial in the sense 
that it is about my home State of Pennsylvania, and the other will be 
at the other end of the age scale about children who were lost in 
December of 2012.
  I will start with the most recent for Pennsylvania. We have had, 
obviously, example after example--too many to count, hundreds and 
hundreds--over the last couple of years where someone was killed or 
injured.
  We, thankfully, have not had multiple mass shootings, but just a 
couple of weeks ago in the city of Philadelphia, on about the same day 
that a guy was gunned down in Philadelphia, there was a standoff in a 
Philadelphia neighborhood, where one gunman--because of the power of 
his weapon and because of the advantage he had of being behind closed 
doors--was able to hold off part of a police force because he was 
shooting indiscriminately with a high-powered weapon.
  Thankfully, those six police officers who were injured--the injuries 
turned out to not be serious, and the police officers were released 
virtually on the same day. So we were blessed on that day.
  Right across the street, a very narrow street, there was a childcare 
center that could have been the scene of horrific carnage if it had 
gone another way. Thankfully, those children were safe in that 
childcare center that wasn't a block away. It wasn't a half a block 
away. It was barely yards and feet away. That childcare center was less 
than the width of this Chamber away from where that shooter was 
stationed.
  I will start with folks who were worshiping in the Tree of Life 
synagogue on a Saturday in October of 2018. I will not go through all 
of the details, but I think everyone by now knows what happened there. 
It was the worst act of violence against the Jewish community in 
American history that we know of.
  In this case, these were the victims. My wife Terese was kind enough 
to suggest to me that when you have a list or something you want to 
remember an event by, you should probably frame it or preserve it in 
some fashion. She was kind enough to help me get this framed.
  What I am holding here--you can't see it from any distance--is just a 
framed card with names of the victims. I will just read what it says so 
you know what I am talking about.
  This card came from a newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the 
date is October 29, 2018. They put this on the front page of the paper. 
All it says is ``Victims of the Synagogue Shooting,'' and then it lists 
each individual and their ages: Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 
65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Cecil Rosenthal, 59; 
David Rosenthal, 54; Bernice Simon, 84; Sylvan Simon, 86; Daniel Stein, 
71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.
  So this was a group of Pittsburghers worshiping on the Sabbath in a 
synagogue. They were lost on that day because a hate-filled person came 
into that synagogue, intent by way of things he said and intent by way 
of the weapons he had and the ammunition he had, intent on killing as 
many members of that congregation as possible--so, basically, a 
congregation where the victims were ages 54 to 97.
  That was one incident in my home State, and it seems like every State 
has a day like that where a community is torn apart.
  Those folks were obviously at the other end of the age scale. How 
about folks a lot younger? This just happens to be a matted copy of a 
page in the Wall Street Journal from December of 2012 after the 
Newtown, CT, shooting that we all know, unfortunately, so much about--
Sandy Hook Elementary School.
  This is dated December 17, 2012. What the Wall Street Journal did was 
put a picture of each child with their name and their age and a little 
vignette about their young life.
  I will not go through all of them tonight. I have referred to them in 
the past, and not every child had a picture ready at the time of this 
publication. These 20 children and 7 adults listed here are part of 
what we are talking about--the carnage that has enveloped our country 
over these last number of years.
  I want to read their names tonight, and then I want to get to the 
legislation: Charlotte Bacon, 6; Daniel Barden, 7; Olivia Engel, 6; 
Josephine Gay, 7; Ana Marquez-Greene, 6; Catherine V. Hubbard, 6; Jesse 
Lewis, 6; Grace McDonnell, 7; Emilie Parker, 6; Noah Pozner, 6; 
Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; Madeline F. Hsu, 6; Chase 
Kowalski 7; and James Mattioli, 6.
  Then, there were several children who didn't have pictures at the 
time of this publication for the Wall Street Journal: Dylan Hockley, 6; 
Jack Pinto, 6; Avielle Richman, 6; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; and, Allison N. 
Wyatt, age 6.
  When we talk about what we should do here and what we must do, we 
have to remember more than just a list of communities, which in a sense 
is about place, and it is about geography. We also have to remember 
those who were lost. I think we have to begin to ask ourselves some 
really fundamental questions, maybe in ways we don't often do even in 
this Chamber, even in this body, which is supposed to be the greatest 
deliberative body in the world.
  This is a place where we should ask some of the questions that many 
of us have been asking. When we remember what those children suffered 
and what their families suffered, is it too much to ask if we can pass 
a background check bill that, as Senator Brown and so many others have 
noted, is supported by more than 90 percent of the American people? Is 
it too much of a lift for the Senate to pass just one bill?
  It is not a bill that is going to solve all the problems. We know 
that. Nobody is arguing that. But we know a recent example of where a 
background check bill might have been the difference between the gunman 
having a weapon and killing a number of Americans or not. That was 
Odessa and Midland. We have to do a lot more than

[[Page S5529]]

background checks, but let's start with what is in front of us.
  You have a piece of legislation that has been sitting here for over 
200 days--over 200 days. It came over from the House, H.R. 8. H.R. 8, 
in my judgment, is the best background check bill we have. There are 
other proposals, and we should debate them. But is it too much of a 
lift to say that we are going to debate and vote on H.R. 8, which 
closes the loopholes on these background checks and I think would do 
the best job of any proposal? Then, if someone has another proposal--I 
know that Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey have a proposal--let's 
debate that and vote on that too. If there is a third proposal, let's 
debate and vote on that. Let's get it right, or at least let's give the 
American people a chance to see whether or not this legislative body, 
this Senate, reflects the will of the American people--the overwhelming 
percentage of American people who support background checks.
  We should also make sure there is an opportunity to debate and vote 
on the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act or another version of that. 
Let's make sure that happens.
  I don't think we are asking the majority leader to take on a 
challenge that he hasn't already committed to. What I heard Majority 
Leader McConnell say in August was that when we come back, we will 
debate and vote on at least those two measures. I think that was a 
pretty clear promise. If we did that, would every problem be solved? 
No. Would gun violence be substantially reduced in a matter of weeks or 
months? No. No one is making that claim. But at least we could say that 
we made some progress in reducing the likelihood of greater gun 
violence.
  I think the bigger question here that we have to ask over and over, 
until we act or at least begin to act, is this: Is there nothing that 
we can do? Because that is part of the argument by those who say no on 
background checks, those who say no on extreme risk protection orders, 
no on a limitation on the magazines and the number of bullets you can 
shoot at any one time, which Senator Brown referred to. In Dayton, in 
32 seconds, 9 people were killed and about 25 injured. In 32 seconds, 
the police officers got there faster than superman could get there, and 
that wasn't fast enough because of the power of the weapon and because 
of the amount of ammunition.
  There is nothing we can do about that, we are told. We are told over 
and over, here and around the country, where disciples of this point of 
view have their time to debate, that there is nothing that the most 
powerful country in the history of the human race can do to make sure 
that doesn't happen in another American city, or at least take action 
to reduce the likelihood that that would happen in another American 
city.
  So there is apparently nothing, according to this argument, that this 
great Nation of ours can do to prevent someone from, in 32 seconds, 
killing 9 people and injuring, I guess, about 25.
  What haunted me, among many things--and I am sure it haunted many 
Americans at the time of the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School 
in Newtown, CT, shooting--was that the evidence indicated, according to 
an NBC News report at the time, which I was watching on my television 
at home in Scranton, PA, that there was evidence that the killer, after 
killing 20 children and several adults, was moving to the next 
classroom. We know that hundreds of children were in that school. I 
don't know the exact number, but it wasn't just a school of 20 
children. A lot more than 20 were in that school.
  Again, as for taking this argument that there is nothing we can do 
except to enforce existing law, we hear over and over that we can't do 
anything and that we have to enforce existing law. That is the 
argument. They have been making this argument for decades. Based upon 
that argument, there is nothing we could have done in that instance, 
either, to prevent someone from killing 20 children or hundreds of 
children in 1 school, and then maybe several months later going to 
another school and killing hundreds of children.
  Does anyone really believe that there is no law, no action you can 
take to at least reduce the likelihood that that will not happen in the 
United States of America? We don't believe that because we call 
ourselves Americans. We have never had that attitude. Think of our 
history. Think of what happened in the last century, if we had that 
point of view: nothing we can do about this threat in Europe; nothing 
we can do to advance medical research, because we just have to accept 
the fact and try to nibble around the edges.

  No one really believes that. So that argument is getting pretty 
tired--that enforcement of existing law is the answer here.
  This is a uniquely American problem. No country has this problem. It 
has been building and building for years and decades. By inaction we 
allow the problem to get a lot worse, and it is about as bad as it gets 
right now. Huge numbers of Americans now--not like 5 percent or 8 
percent, but like 40 percent of Americans now--believe that they can be 
a victim of gun violence. Forty percent of a country of over 300 
million people believes that because of what they have seen. But again, 
the answer here from one side over and over is that there is nothing we 
can do, as more and more people believe they could be a victim next.
  You saw the footage for the news coverage of children going off to 
school at the start of this school year with their backpacks with a 
protective shield, like a Kevlar shield--I am not sure exactly what it 
is, but I saw the reports--in their backpack. An American child has to 
go to school and have armor-plated backpacks in America--that is not 
happening anywhere else--because their parents are worried about them 
going to school. Now we have to worry about where you go to school, 
where you worship, where you go for entertainment, and what public 
event do you not want to go to, because the U.S. Senate, for years now, 
hasn't voted on a series of gun bills in years. I guess people should 
get used to being afraid and wondering if they will be next or their 
children will be next.
  In essence, what they are telling us on the other side, when they say 
no to background checks, absolutely not--that is what they are saying--
and no to any kind of action, is that the most powerful country in the 
world should surrender to this problem. That is what it is. It is 
surrendering to this problem--that there is nothing that this country 
can do to make sure that you never have a full page of a newspaper with 
20 children listed there ages 6 and 7 years old. That is not America. 
That is not who we are or, at least, it is not who we claim to be.
  I would say in conclusion--and I know I am well over my time--that 
the least we can do--this isn't hard, guys--is to debate and vote. 
Debate and vote--is that hard? It is not that strenuous--to debate and 
vote on background checks, to debate and vote on extreme risk 
protection orders. I would go further than that, but we don't have time 
for that tonight. Let's debate and vote. We are not going to wait. Why 
would we wait for the President to give us the high sign about what he 
will sign into law?
  This Chamber should not wait for any other official. We should debate 
and vote and see where things are. The American people will sort it out 
after we vote, and they will know who is on the record voting which 
way. But at least let's give them something to indicate that we are 
Americans. We don't surrender to problems. We don't surrender to big 
problems. We don't surrender to problems from an enemy, from a disease, 
and from an epidemic called gun violence.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from 
Pennsylvania for his leadership on this issue and his very clear 
remarks and call to action. I am also very pleased to be here on the 
floor with my friend the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Murphy, who has 
been at the forefront of this battle for many years. We will not let up 
until we see meaningful action here in the Senate, because we have an 
epidemic of gun violence in this country.
  The only question is, What are we going to do about it? We have seen 
293 mass shootings in the last 9 months. We see people being killed by 
gun violence in our streets and in our neighborhoods every day. All 
told, 100 of our fellow Americans die from gun violence every day. It 
can happen anytime, anywhere, to anybody. It can happen in

[[Page S5530]]

our schools, our movie theaters, our homes, our concerts, our bars, our 
shopping centers, our streets. No one is immune or free from this 
violence.
  If this were an epidemic caused by a preventable disease, this 
Congress would convene on an emergency basis. We would be having a 
bipartisan gathering to immediately pass legislation to help discover 
new cures and vaccines for whatever disease was killing 100 of our 
fellow Americans every day. When it comes to gun violence, here in the 
U.S. Senate, there is nothing, no action.
  Inaction is complicity. It is complicity in the carnage when we know 
there are commonsense measures we can take together to reduce the gun 
violence. Are we going to stop every single gun death? No. But we know 
that these commonsense measures can save thousands of American lives. 
Yet we do nothing here in the Senate. That is despite the fact that we 
have at the desk a bill that was passed by the U.S. House of 
Representatives 202 days ago. I have a copy of that bill in my hand. It 
is H.R. 8. If you look at it, it says: ``Read the second time'' and 
``Placed on . . . Calendar.'' For people who may be listening in, what 
it means to be placed on the calendar is that it is here at the desk in 
the U.S. Senate. It means we could take it up anytime. We could take it 
up right now.
  In fact, now I am holding what is called the Calendar of Business for 
Tuesday, September 17, 2019. If you look at it--No. 29, H.R. 8--how 
does it describe H.R. 8? Very simply, ``An act to require a background 
check for every firearm sale.'' It is very simple. It is something 
supported by over 90 percent of the American people, regardless of 
party.
  I have in my hand a copy of the U.S. Constitution. I want to read 
article I, section 1, because it is very straightforward. It says: 
``All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress 
of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of 
Representatives.''
  The House of Representatives has acted. As I said, H.R. 8, a bill for 
universal background checks, is at the Senate desk. It is the Senate 
that hasn't acted. Yet I heard the Republican leader said as recently 
as today at a press event, when asked when the Senate was going to take 
up gun safety legislation, when we are going to take up universal 
background checks, ``Ask them,'' meaning ask the President, ask the 
executive branch. I don't know when we, the U.S. Senate, contracted out 
our constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch and to the 
gun lobby and others when we have it in our power right here tonight to 
take up a lifesaving measure.
  The majority leader also said that we are in a holding pattern. What 
are we holding for as more and more Americans die--100 per day--from 
gun violence?
  In my State of Maryland, we have been the victims, like every other 
State, of people dying by guns. We had a mass shooting. It was at the 
Capital Gazette newspaper. Five souls were taken. We had a school 
shooting in Maryland, at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland. 
Every day, we see people in Maryland being harmed by gun violence in 
our streets and neighborhoods.
  Maryland has actually done something about it. As a State, we passed 
some important gun measures. We closed the gun show loophole. We 
require universal background checks in Maryland. We have actually 
banned semiautomatic assault weapons--a law that was upheld by the 
Supreme Court of the United States. We require a permit to purchase a 
gun.
  Someone might ask: OK, well, Maryland has passed these laws, the 
State. Why do you have a gun violence problem?
  If you look at the figures from the ATF, if you look at their gun-
tracing statistics, you find that 54 percent of crimes committed in 
Maryland with a gun come from guns from outside the State of Maryland, 
from our surrounding States. Maryland is not an island; we are part of 
the United States of America. Our State can pass sensible gun laws. We 
can help reduce the carnage in Maryland, and we have. Until we act as a 
country, until we pass universal background checks, Maryland will 
continue to be vulnerable to the negligence of other States and most of 
all, the negligence of the U.S. Senate, which has refused to act.
  The President knows where the American people are on this issue. 
After we have a mass shooting, the President always makes public 
comments about how he is going to do something about it, including 
addressing background checks. After the slaughters in El Paso and 
Dayton, on his way to visit those grieving communities, the President 
said: ``I'm looking to do background checks. I think background checks 
are important.'' He went on to say: ``I think we can bring up 
background checks like we never had before.''
  After the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, he called 
some Members of Congress to the White House, including Senator Murphy. 
Senator Murphy talked about the importance of background checks. The 
President told him: You know, we have a new President now, and we are 
going to work together to get this done. We have a different attitude.
  That is what the President always says after a terrible shooting, but 
then the President gets a call from the NRA, gets a call from the gun 
lobby, and you get a headline like this one, which we saw on August 20, 
2019: ``NRA Gets Results . . . in One Phone Call With Trump.'' The 
President knows how the country feels. The President knows the country 
wants action. The President knows the country wants the Senate to act, 
so he says those things publicly, but then he gets a phone call from 
the gun lobby, and then he backpedals. That is where we are now, with 
the Senate stalling, pretending, going through these sorts of fake 
actions, pretending we are going to get there.

  I hope we do get there, but what the President has said and done in 
the past gives me no confidence, which is why I come back to the very 
place I started, which is that this body, the U.S. Senate, has its own 
responsibilities under the Constitution. The Constitution--article I--
gives the House and the Senate the lawmaking power, not the President 
of the United States. We shouldn't be looking down Pennsylvania Avenue 
and saying ``What is the President thinking?'' before we take action to 
help save lives.
  We are the U.S. Senate. We now have right in front of us at the desk, 
right here, a bill that will save lives, passed by the House of 
Representatives 202 days ago. It is for universal background checks.
  Senator McConnell and other Senators--if they don't want to support 
the position taken by 90 percent of the American people, then they can 
vote no on H.R. 8. If the majority leader doesn't think the people of 
Kentucky support H.R. 8, it is his prerogative to vote no. That is the 
right of every Senator. What is outrageous is blocking every other 
Senator in this body from exercising their right to represent their 
constituents and help save lives around the country.
  We support the voices of 90 percent of the American people, who want 
us to take action to reduce gun violence in the United States of 
America, to address this like the epidemic it is and to address it like 
we would address a disease epidemic that was killing 100 of our fellow 
Americans every day.
  Let's stop ignoring our responsibilities. Let's stop pointing to the 
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. There is really no time to wait. 
``Thoughts and prayers'' will not end the gun violence. Senate action 
and a vote on H.R. 8 can help save lives in the United States of 
America. Every single day that goes by that we don't take that vote is 
a day that this body is complicit in more deaths by gun violence.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hyde-Smith). The Senator from Hawaii.
  Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, I want to recognize my friend and 
colleague Senator Murphy for his moral leadership on this issue and for 
continuously demanding that all of us do better and that all of us do 
more to address what is an epidemic of gun violence.
  We are here tonight and through the night to call on Leader McConnell 
to do a very simple thing, which is to bring background check 
legislation and other gun safety legislation to the Senate floor for a 
vote.
  Forty thousand Americans had their lives cut short by guns last year. 
Forty

[[Page S5531]]

thousand Americans died. It is unthinkable that we would allow mass 
violence to occur in our country with this type of frequency. What is 
shocking is that not only do we accept this as part of the American way 
of life--as though it were enshrined in the Constitution that we must 
have this amount of violence in order to have our Second Amendment 
rights--but that we allowed the question of what to do to keep our 
people safe to turn into a partisan question. The Democrats are out 
here on the floor saying: Why don't we figure out what we can do to 
make people safer? And on the other side of the Chamber, there is no 
one.
  This isn't the first time this has happened or the second time or the 
third time or the fifth time. When we come down to the floor to demand 
action on gun safety, we have no dance partner.
  It shouldn't be this way, especially given where the public is.
  I don't just mean Democrats or Independents. Americans of all 
stripes, Democratic and Republican gun owners, agree that commonsense 
gun safety reforms are the way forward. This means background checks. 
It means no guns for violent criminals or domestic abusers and no guns 
for anyone who could endanger themselves or endanger others.
  About 90 percent of all Americans support these very sensible 
reforms. Here is the thing. They support them not for purely 
ideological reasons or partisan reasons; the reason these things pull 
85, 90 percent of all Americans, even among NRA members, is because, A, 
it doesn't infringe on your Second Amendment rights, and, B, it works.
  It is no coincidence that the two steepest drops in murder rates in 
our country came right after the passage of two sets of significant gun 
laws: The first were the national firearms control acts of 1934 and 
1938, and the second were the background checks and assault weapons ban 
bills in 1993 and 1994. Those legislative efforts, and the decrease in 
violence that followed their passage, prove that progress is possible.
  Here is the thing. Whenever we get into this conversation, we get 
into kind of trying to figure out whether whatever law we are trying to 
pass would retroactively be able to fix whichever moment of silence we 
are now focused on and sad about and despairing about. That is not the 
way to look at this.
  Sure, there are individual situations, where, if we pass background 
checks, it would absolutely help, but it is also a matter of the 
Federal Government putting some parameters on the kinds of guns that 
you can get and the requirements in order to own a gun.
  What is happening? Why are we still stuck? Why are we still stuck? 
Republicans in the Senate are just waiting on the White House. It is as 
simple as that.
  This isn't some partisan attack from me, a partisan Democrat. This is 
literally what Leader McConnell said. He said he will not schedule a 
vote or schedule a debate on the House-passed bill to expand background 
checks for gun purchases because President Trump has indicated he will 
not sign it. According to Leader McConnell: ``[I]f the President took a 
position on a bill so that we knew we would actually be making a law 
and not having serial votes, [he would] be happy to put it on the 
floor.''
  Let me just say, that is not actually how the Senate is supposed 
operate. We are supposed to originate the legislation. We are supposed 
to be the world's greatest deliberative body. We are supposed to 
determine what kind of law to make. We are not supposed to play 
``Mother, may I'' with the President of the United States and wait for 
clearance before we even initiate a debate.
  The idea that, in this body, where today we voted on the UAE 
Ambassador, the Ambassador to Sweden, I think--not that those are 
unimportant matters--but we had full postcloture debate time when, 
basically, we were in a quorum call--we were in a quorum call; no one 
was talking--we cannot afford to set aside 30 hours or 50 hours or 2 
weeks of Senate time to figure out what to do about the gun violence 
epidemic? Shame on us.
  Congress should be taking up bills, debating them, passing them, and 
the President can make his decision about whether to sign or veto them. 
We cannot wait for President Trump on this because he is deeply, deeply 
inconsistent, not just generally speaking but specifically on the 
question of gun safety.
  In the immediate aftermath of every horrific shooting, the President 
talked about doing something meaningful to address gun violence, but 
then he backtracked.
  In February of 2018, in the wake of the horrific shooting at 
Parkland, President Trump said: ``[W]e're going to be very strong on 
background checks.'' A year later and 2 days before the House passed 
legislation that would require universal background checks for most gun 
purchases and transfers, Trump threatened to veto the bill if it 
passed.
  In February of 2018, during a televised meeting with lawmakers, the 
President proposed raising the age for buying assault rifles from 18 to 
21, and then he backtracked.
  More recently, following the shootings in Texas and Ohio that left 29 
dead and dozens wounded, Trump tweeted on August 5 that Washington 
``must come together'' to ``get strong background checks.'' That sounds 
pretty good.
  On August 19, just 14 days later, he reversed course. When talking 
with reporters, he used an NRA-approved talking point: ``[J]ust 
remember, we already have a lot of background checks,'' and he warned 
of gun control's ``slippery slope.''
  The President has a long history of changing his position on guns. In 
2011, he was against gun control. In 2013, he supported background 
checks. A year after that, he protested against background checks for 
gun purchases in New York State. This is just how he rolls, 
specifically, on this issue but frankly on a lot of stuff. You could 
say the same thing about having an honest broker as it relates to 
immigration. He is just not reliable. That is how he rolls.
  We don't have to be downstream from all of that. We are the article I 
branch. We can do what we decide to do as the so-called world's 
greatest deliberative body.
  To make it worse, in the weeks since the attacks in Ohio and Texas, 
we keep hearing from Republicans that gun violence is not caused by 
guns. To quote the President directly: ``[M]ental illness and hatred 
pulls the trigger, not the gun.''
  ``[M]ental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.'' I 
want to spend a little time on this one because this one is really 
offensive and really deeply hurtful. Setting aside the lack of progress 
on guns, we are also losing 10, 20, 30 years of progress we have made 
destigmatizing mental health services.
  Mass shooters and regular people experience mental illness at the 
same rate. There is no indication that mass shooters or individual 
people who are homicidal experience mental illness at any higher rate 
than your general population. Blaming the mentally ill is just 
factually untrue, but it is more insidious than that.
  About 20 percent of all Americans at some point need some mental 
health services. The great difficulty in terms of getting mental health 
services is not just the availability of care; it is also that people 
still feel embarrassed to say: I need some help.
  Shame on the President of the United States to equate someone who may 
need care for postpartum depression or post-traumatic stress coming 
back from Iraq or Afghanistan, or who may experience bipolar disorder, 
or whatever it may be--a kid with autism--to imply that people who need 
mental health services are somehow dangerous and that they are the ones 
who should be cracked down on. That is a deeply, deeply dangerous thing 
to say about 20 percent of all Americans who simply need to get better 
and who simply need to not be characterized as crazy or dangerous or 
that they should be ashamed of what they are experiencing. Shame on the 
President of the United States for equating mental illness with being 
dangerous to society.
  Consider for a minute the progress we have made as a society to 
destigmatize mental health. We have fundamentally changed the way we 
talk about it, and because of that, we have helped to reduce the shame 
around living with mental health challenges, and more people are 
willing to prioritize their mental well-being. People should not be 
embarrassed or scared to seek the help they need, and

[[Page S5532]]

they certainly shouldn't be blamed for the gun violence epidemic in our 
country.
  I want to read a letter from a Hawaii resident, Elizabeth Sader from 
Lahaina, Maui. She writes:

       Two mass shootings in 24 hours. This cannot be our new 
     norm. We need change. . . . We can no longer assume heading 
     to the store, an event, or school is safe anymore.
       There are places in the United States that make it easier 
     to get a gun than it is to adopt a pet at a local animal 
     shelter. This is not right.
       We need sensible gun laws in this country. We need better 
     systems in place to prevent this from happening again. I 
     cannot imagine what the world is going to look like for 
     children growing up today.

  The Senate has the power to save lives and protect more of our kids 
by enacting sensible reforms. What we need is for Republicans to do the 
right thing and to rise to the moment. Thousands of people are dying 
every month. We cannot wait for the President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, let me thank, once again, my colleagues 
for being on the floor with us this evening, for the compelling 
testimony of Senator Schatz, Senator Casey, Senator Brown, Senator Van 
Hollen, and so many others who have joined us this evening. We have a 
few more who will come down later in the evening.
  I want to take a moment to put a face on this issue. There are 100 
Americans who are killed every day by guns. The majority of these are 
suicides, but many are homicides, and many are accidental shootings and 
domestic homicides.
  Shootings in this country happen at a rate 10 times that of any other 
high-income nation. This is a uniquely American epidemic. Senator 
Schatz very aptly pointed out that it can't be because of mental health 
because we have no more mental illness in this country than any other 
nation does. It can't be because of lack of law enforcement resources; 
we spend just as much money, if not more, on law enforcement than any 
other country in the world. It is not because we put less money into 
treatment for mental illness; we put more money, on a per capita basis, 
than other nations do.
  To explain our abnormally high rate of gun violence--10 times that of 
other high-income nations--you have to tell a story of the 
proliferation of dangerous weapons, of the ability of almost anyone, 
regardless of their criminal history or their history of mental 
illness, to get their hands on a weapon. Nowhere else in the high-
income world is it so easy to get your hands on a weapon and often a 
weapon of mass destruction.
  Leo Spencer was born an only child. He grew up in Bridgeport, CT, but 
he was far from an only child in his mind. His cousins were like his 
siblings. He spent summer after summer after summer with them in 
Boston, in Connecticut, in Cape Verde, and in St. Thomas. He was known 
as ``Lil Bill.'' His friends described him affectionately as an amazing 
person, a phenomenal soul, the greatest friend they ever had, and the 
best family member they knew.
  A family member said Leo was ``a simple man who loved to keep to 
himself, but deep down inside he was a free spirit that wanted nothing 
more than to make people laugh. Always joking around, he kept us on our 
toes, and his smile lit up the room.''
  Another friend said:

       Never one to follow trends, Leo was intent on making his 
     own path through hard work and unparalleled ambition. He was 
     a creative soul with a deep love for expressing himself 
     through music and loved fiercely without bounds.

  Leo placed a priority on making sure his family and friends were 
happy. He made each person feel like they were the most important 
person in the world. He loved his parents. He did everything he could 
for them. He wanted to take care of his mom the way she took care of 
him.
  On September 8 of 2019, just a few days ago, Leo was shot in the head 
and the neck while sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car. His 
friend hit the accelerator and drove him as fast as he could to 
Bridgeport Hospital, but he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
  Leo Spencer is 1 of the 100 Americans who die every day from gun 
violence. It is so much bigger than Leo. I mentioned Leo's cousins, his 
family members, and his friends. Their lives will never be the same 
either, forever altered.
  Studies show that when 1 person dies from a gunshot wound, there are 
20 other people who experience life-altering trauma. It becomes a cycle 
that becomes hard to get out of.
  I will talk a little bit later about Sandy Hook, CT, but Sandy Hook 
will never ever be the same--never--after what that community has been 
through.
  Leo, whether he knew it or not, may already have been affected by gun 
violence because when you grow up in places like Bridgeport, where kids 
literally fear for their lives when they are walking to and from 
school, the trauma associated with the fear of losing your life from 
gun violence ruins your brain. We call this a public health epidemic, 
not to be cute with our words but because that is exactly what it is.
  When you don't know whether you are going to make it through the rest 
of the week as a child--and studies show that, criminally, a high 
number of young people of color in this country living in urban 
environments that are violent don't believe they are going to live past 
25 years old--when that is your belief, something happens to your 
brain.
  Most of us in this Chamber have probably confronted only once or 
twice in our lives a fight-or-flight moment. That is a moment in your 
life where you face a risk that is so great, a danger that is so acute, 
that you have to make a decision in a split second: Do you fight or do 
you run? Our bodies are designed to rush into our brains a hormone 
called cortisol that helps us make that quick decision.
  Many of us may never have actually faced that moment, and, frankly, I 
don't hope that anyone ever has. But when you grow up in a place like 
the east end of Bridgeport, you face that decision: Fight or flee on a 
weekly basis.
  What doctors will tell you is that the brains of these kids who grow 
up in these neighborhoods are literally bathed in cortisol. Cortisol, 
when it comes in and out in an instant once or twice in your life, can 
be helpful. But when it is flowing through your circuitry on a regular 
basis, it literally corrupts your brain. It corrupts your brain. So it 
is no coincidence that all of the ``underperforming'' schools in this 
country are in the violent neighborhoods because these kids show up 
with brains that cannot learn, brains that cannot cope and cannot 
create lasting relationships, brains that have been atrophied by the 
daily fear for their lives and their daily experience. This Congress 
has done nothing--nothing--to address their reality.
  We are here on the floor today to tell you about people like Leo so 
that maybe our colleagues who aren't responding to the numbers may 
respond to the stories of those lives that have been lost.
  Let me tell you another one. Over the winter, we shut down the 
government for an unacceptable period of time. We were all figuring out 
what to do with our days when we weren't legislating. I decided one day 
to take a trip to Baltimore.
  Baltimore, in some years, has been the most violent city in the 
country with the most kids who are going through this life-altering 
cycle of trauma. But I had heard about a program in an elementary 
school that was teaching kids how to be entrepreneurs and was giving 
them a vision for their lives after growing up in one of the poorest 
neighborhoods in Baltimore. They are trying to give them a pathway or a 
ray of sunshine in their lives.
  I went up to talk to the person who ran that program. Her name is 
Joni Holifield. She and I sat down in a classroom on the second floor 
of Matthew Henson Elementary School, and she started to explain to me 
her path out of the corporate world into programming for kids at 
schools like Matthew Henson and what she thought that program could 
bring to those kids.
  In the middle of this conversation, the intercom starts blaring a 
recorded message: code green, code green, code green. I didn't know 
what a code green was. Joni didn't know what a code green was. Shortly 
thereafter, a teacher opened the door to our classroom and yelled: Shut 
the blinds. Turn off the lights.

[[Page S5533]]

  We did as instructed, and we sat there a little nervous, not knowing 
what a code green was. Shortly thereafter, someone from the main 
office, knowing that there was a U.S. Senator in a second floor 
classroom, called up. Joni answered the phone and was told that a code 
green means there has been a shooting in the proximity of the school 
and that the school is on lockdown.
  The day that I was there at this elementary school in Baltimore, 
there was a shooting within a block or two of the school. Here is what 
I found out. That morning there had been a delay in school starting. It 
had snowed that morning, so I walked in with all the rest of the kids 
at around 9:30, 10 o'clock. About the same time that I was showing up 
at the school that morning, a young man by the name of Corey Dodd 
brought his two little twin girls to school. He was doing the drop-off 
for his wife, who was home tending to their relatively newborn child.
  Corey decided to bring the kids to school that morning himself. He 
drove home a couple of blocks away after dropping the twins off, 
probably right about the time that I was walking upstairs to the second 
floor. When he got out of his car, he was shot to death.
  One of his other little daughters always sits at the door waiting for 
her dad to come home, and she was there waiting for Corey. Her mom had 
to tell her that her dad was never coming home. He had been shot 
outside of their house that morning.
  As that code green was happening inside that elementary school--and 
the kids were probably having a little bit of fun, wondering when the 
lights were going to come back on--there were two little girls who were 
never going to see their father again and who were going to be told in 
a matter of hours that this shooting had taken the life of their dad. 
And every single kid in that school was going to be wondering: Is it 
going to be my dad next? Is it going to be my mom next? That cycle of 
trauma and that cortisol that bathes kids' brains were going to be 
reality once again for all of these kids in this neighborhood. That is 
just one day that I happened to be in Baltimore.
  Imagine that it isn't just coincidence. Imagine that is the reality 
day after day after day for kids all across this country. Why are we 
doing nothing? Why are we sitting on our hands? Why are my Republican 
colleagues waiting for the President to give them direction?
  It would be one thing if we didn't know what to do--if we were 
overflowing with compassion for those two little twin girls in 
Baltimore, MD, and for the family of Leo Spencer in Bridgeport and we 
just couldn't figure out what would make the situation better. That is 
not the case.
  We know what will make the situation better. There is no mystery 
about it. In my State of Connecticut, we passed a law requiring all 
handgun buyers to pass a background check as part of the permit 
process. Studies show that there was a 40 percent reduction in the gun 
homicide rate after Connecticut passed that law.
  You might say: OK, well, that is just one State. And 40 percent--that 
is pretty serious. That is a pretty big return on one change in the 
law. Give me another State, you say.
  OK, let's take a look at Missouri, which did the opposite. A few 
years ago, it repealed its purchase permit law that requires you to get 
a background check with every sale of a weapon in Missouri. Guess what 
happened. A year later, gun homicides went up by 23 percent, 
controlling for every other factor that could have explained it. In 
fact, during that period of time, gun homicide rates were going down in 
all the States around Missouri, and they went up in Missouri.
  Then they found out that, in fact, in other States, what did go up in 
those other States was the number of weapons used in crimes that came 
from Missouri because all of a sudden you didn't need a background 
check in Missouri. So if you wanted to traffic guns from another State, 
Missouri was the place to get them.
  Across the board, when you look at all of the States' experiences, 
you don't get 40 percent and 23 percent everywhere, but, on average, 
States that have background checks have 15 percent lower homicide rates 
than States that don't have them.
  If we did this on a national basis, even States that have universal 
background checks would benefit. Why? Because the guns that are being 
used in Connecticut aren't coming from Connecticut. They are coming 
from States with--you guessed it--no universal background checks.
  The guns being used in Chicago don't come from Chicago. The guns 
being used for crimes in New York City don't come from New York City. 
One percent of guns used in crimes in New York City come from New 
Jersey. Do you know why? New Jersey has universal background checks. 
Those guns are coming up from South Carolina and Georgia and places 
where you can go to a gun show and get a whole truckload of guns 
without having to ever go through a background check.
  Background checks work. They are the most impactful public policy 
measure. Since the background check law was passed in the midnineties, 
over 3.5 million sales have been blocked to violent criminals and other 
prohibited individuals, and that is just the tip of the iceberg because 
those are the people who actually have the gall to set foot in a gun 
store, knowing that they have an offense in their history that would 
prohibit them from buying a gun--maybe not, knowing that. But these are 
the people who went into the gun store and tried to buy a gun and got 
denied. There are millions and millions more people who wanted guns but 
couldn't get them and didn't go into the gun store in the first place.
  The problem is, today, getting that denial from the gun store is not 
really a barrier to buying a gun because 20, 30 percent of gun sales 
now happen without a background check. They happen in a private sale 
between one person and another. They happen at gun shows, which are 
forums that don't require, under Federal law, background checks.
  A man in Odessa, TX, failed a background check because he had been 
diagnosed by a clinician as seriously mentally ill. That didn't stop 
him from getting a gun. He just found a private seller; he found 
another way. The private seller gave him a gun and didn't require him 
to go through a background check. He took that gun, and he used it to 
kill 7 people and injure 20 more.
  I don't think you have to pass a law to fit the last mass shooting. I 
think that is a ridiculous trap that people try to put us in. This 
isn't the only mass shooting in which universal background checks could 
have changed the outcome. One of the first mass shootings that sits in 
my consciousness is that in Columbine as another example of a shooter 
who got a gun outside the background check system who couldn't have 
gotten one through it.
  So whether you want anecdotal evidence or statistical data, I have it 
all. Background checks work. Here is what is so maddening. People love 
background checks. Apple pie, baseball, and grandma--none of them are 
as popular as background checks are. Ninety percent of Americans like 
background checks. Show me any other public policy today in the United 
States of America that gets 90 percent support in this country; 80 
percent of gun owners and 70 percent of NRA members, everybody wants 
background checks--universal background checks. They don't want 
Manchin-Toomey, which just expands background checks to commercial 
sales. They want H.R. 8. They want H.R. 8, which has passed the House 
of Representatives and has been sitting on the floor of the U.S. Senate 
for 202 days. That is what Americans want. Ninety percent of Americans 
support H.R. 8.
  Don't tell me that this issue is controversial. It is just 
controversial in this bubble. It is not controversial out in the 
American public, and it is not a blue State or a red State issue. 
Background checks are just as popular in Georgia as they are in 
Connecticut.
  As Senator Schatz said, we don't have to wait for the President to 
tell us what to do. Senator McConnell has a different copy of the 
Constitution than I have. My copy of the Constitution says that none of 
us are required to get permission slips from the President before we 
act or before we do something that we think is good for the country.
  It is wild to me how the Republican leadership is so eager to 
advertise that the Senate will do nothing unless President Trump gives 
it permission. He is not the most popular guy. I don't

[[Page S5534]]

know why my friends on the Republican side would just openly admit that 
they don't act unless the President tells them it is OK. That is not 
how it has to be. We can make the decision ourselves, and on this one, 
every single person here should do it because it is the right thing, 
and it is also going to win you a lot of support back home.
  I have a few more colleagues who want to say a few words, and then I 
may wrap up at the end. I want to finish, in my last 5 minutes or so, 
by reading something to you. I apologize to my friend Neil Heslin 
because I made a commitment to read this every Father's Day after the 
shooting in Sandy Hook. I forgot to do it this year. This is a makeup 
effort.
  I don't want to talk too much about what happened at Sandy Hook this 
evening. I have spent plenty of time talking to my colleagues about it.
  Unfortunately, there is a macabre club of Senators and Congressmen 
who have now had to walk with their communities through these horrific 
mass shootings. Maybe there is not another one like Sandy Hook where 26 
7-year-olds lost their lives in a matter of 5 minutes, but they are all 
terrible. They are all awful.
  One of the things that happens in the wake of these mass atrocities 
is that you get to know the victims' families. You get to know the 
parents, the brothers, and the sisters. They become friends of yours. I 
feel like I have a personal obligation to the families of Sandy Hook 
separate and aside from the global obligation I believe I have to human 
beings in this country to do something about the issue of gun violence.

  Amongst the parents, one of those whom I have become closest to is a 
gentleman by the name of Neil Heslin. Jesse Lewis was one of the 
children who lost their lives that day. Neil has had an up-and-down 
life--an up-and-down life. He would admit that to you. It hasn't been 
an easy life for Neil. Jesse was Neil's best friend, not just his son.
  I tell his story every Father's Day because it is a reminder to all 
of us who are fathers how none of us are protected from this. Neil 
thought he was. Neil never ever thought this would happen to him, but 
it did. It is a reminder that but for the good grace of God, any of us 
could be a victim, any of us could know a victim. So why sit on our 
hands and do nothing when we could do something?
  Let me finish by reading an excerpt from Neil Heslin's testimony that 
he gave to the U.S. Senate in February 2013, 2 months after his son was 
shot, and I will wrap up after I finish this page and a half of his 
testimony.

       My name is Neil Heslin. Jesse Lewis was my son. He was a 
     boy that loved life and lived it to the fullest. He was my 
     best friend. On December 14, he lost his life at Sandy Hook 
     Elementary because of a gun that nobody needs and nobody 
     should have a right to have. I'm here to tell his story. I 
     know what I am doing here today won't bring my son back, but 
     I hope that maybe if you listen to what I say today and you 
     do something about it--maybe nobody else will have to 
     experience what I have experienced.
       On December 14, Jesse got up and got ready for school. He 
     was always excited to go to school. I remember on that day 
     that we stopped at the Misty Vale Deli. It's funny the things 
     you remember. I remember Jesse got the sausage, egg and 
     cheese he always gets, with some hot chocolate. And I 
     remember the hug he gave me when I dropped him off. He just 
     held me, and he rubbed my back. I can still feel that hug.
       And Jesse said ``It's going to be alright. Everything's 
     going to be okay, Dad.'' Looking back, it makes me wonder. 
     What did he know? Did he have some idea about what was about 
     to happen? But at the time I didn't think much of it. I just 
     thought he was being sweet.
       He was always being sweet like that. He was the kind of kid 
     who used to leave me voice messages where he'd sing me happy 
     birthday even when it wasn't my birthday. I'd ask him about 
     it, and he'd say ``I just wanted to make you feel happy.'' 
     Half the time I felt like he was the parent and I was his 
     son.
       He had so much wisdom. He would know things, and I would 
     have no idea how he knew. But whatever he said, it was always 
     right. And he would remember things we'd done and places we'd 
     been that I had completely forgotten about. I used to think 
     of him as my tiny adult. He had this inner calm and maturity 
     that just made me feel so much better when I was around him.
       Other people felt it, too. Teachers would tell me about his 
     laugh, how he made things at school more fun just by being 
     there. If somebody was ever unhappy, Jesse would find a way 
     to make him feel better. If he heard a baby crying he 
     wouldn't stop until he got the kid to smile.
       Jesse had this idea that you never leave people hurt. If 
     you can help somebody, you do it. If you can make somebody 
     feel better, you do it. If you can leave somebody a little 
     better off, you do it.
       They tell me that's how he died. I guess we still don't 
     know exactly what happened at that school. Maybe we'll never 
     know. But what people tell me is that Jesse did something 
     different. When he heard the shooting, he didn't run and 
     hide. He started yelling. People disagree on the last thing 
     he said. One person who was there says he yelled ``run.'' 
     Another person said he told everybody to ``run now.'' Ten 
     kids from my son's class made it to safety. I hope to God 
     something Jesse did helped them survive that day.
       What I know is that Jesse wasn't shot in the back. He took 
     two bullets. The first one grazed the side of his head, but 
     that didn't stop him from yelling. The other hit him in the 
     forehead. Both bullets were fired from the front. That means 
     the last thing my son did was look Adam Lanza straight in the 
     face and scream to his classmates to run. The last thing he 
     saw was that coward's eyes.
       Jesse grew up with guns, just like I did. I started 
     shooting skeet when I was eight years old. My dad was vice 
     president for years at a local gun club. . . . Jesse actually 
     had an interest in guns. He had a bb gun. . . . I taught him 
     gun safety. He knew it. He could recite it to you. He got it. 
     And I think he would have got what we are talking about 
     today. He liked looking at pictures of army guns, but he knew 
     those [guns] weren't for him. Those were for killing people.
       Before he died, Jesse and I used to talk about maybe coming 
     to Washington someday. He wanted to go up the Washington 
     monument. When we talked about it last year, Jesse asked if 
     we could come and meet the President.

       [I'm a] little cynical about politicians. But Jesse 
     believed in you. He learned about you in school and he 
     believed in you. I want to believe in you, too. I know you 
     can't give me Jesse back. Believe me, if I thought you could, 
     I would be asking you for that. But I want to believe that 
     you will think about what I told you here today. I want to 
     believe that you will think about it and then you will do 
     something about it, whatever you can do to make sure that no 
     other father has to see what I've seen. You can start by 
     passing [legislation to take] these senseless weapons out of 
     the hands of people like Adam Lanza.

  Do something, he said. Do something. Seven years later, we haven't 
done anything.
  So we are down here on the floor tonight begging our colleagues to 
put a bill on the floor. Amend it, debate it, do whatever you want, but 
let's not stay silent any longer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. We are here tonight when we should not be, because 
the epidemic, the pageant of gun violence in this country should have 
been addressed by us by now. We have not acted. We have not acted in 
large part because we are engaged in a bizarre, self-inflicted 
political experiment in this country in which we allow big special 
interests to use secret money in elections to manipulate our politics.
  This ought to be easy. There have been 293 mass shootings since 
January 1, 2019--this year alone. These tragedies have galvanized the 
American public in support of sensible restrictions on guns, and the 
amount of agreement among the American public is astounding. Eighty-six 
percent of Americans support implementing what we call red flag laws 
that allow a judge to remove guns from someone who is determined to be 
a danger to himself or others. You could barely get 86 percent of the 
Senate to agree on the day of the week. Additionally, 89 percent 
support expanding Federal background checks to cover private sales and 
to close the gun show loophole, 86 percent support an assault weapons 
ban, and 70 percent support a ban on large-capacity magazines. These 
are large, popular majorities, and in a functional democracy, we would 
listen to them, we would hear them, we would honor them, and we would 
respond to this bloodshed. Why we have not done that takes us on a 
sordid crawl through the sewers of modern politics inhabited by the 
National Rifle Association.
  The National Rifle Association spent $30 million supporting President 
Trump. No wonder they can undo all of our work with a simple phone call 
to the Oval Office. But it is much worse than that. Reports emerged 
last year that the NRA accepted money from foreign sources, including 
Russian banker and Putin ally Aleksandr Torshin, and spent that money 
in politics in America.
  Senator Wyden sent letters to the NRA and to the Treasury Department

[[Page S5535]]

about these reports. The NRA responded maintaining that it properly 
segregates any foreign donations so that they are not used for 
political purposes. Fat chance of that, with money being fungible. I 
joined Senator Wyden on a followup letter renewing the request 
following the arrest of Maria Butina, an evident NRA go-between.
  The IRS, under President Trump, took no action against the NRA in 
response to these allegations. In August, the Federal Election 
Commission deadlocked 2 to 2 on whether to investigate this matter at 
all. The FEC is so locked up on this now that they wouldn't even 
investigate.
  FEC Commissioner Weintraub in desperation wrote:

       Some allegations are too serious to ignore. Too serious to 
     simply take [the NRA's] denials at face value. Too serious to 
     play games with. Yet in this matter, my colleagues ran their 
     usual evidence-blocking play and the Commission's attorneys 
     placed too much faith in the few facts [the NRA] put before 
     us.

  So we can't even look into the extent of Russian interference in our 
politics through the NRA.
  It goes on. Last fall, the Campaign Legal Center and Giffords Center 
filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission alleging that the 
NRA was evading the anti-coordination rules of our election between the 
Trump campaign and with various Republican Senate campaigns. The 
complaints allege that the NRA and the campaigns coordinated spending 
through a GOP media consulting firm. What had the media consulting firm 
done? It had set up a series of shell corporations through which the 
campaigns paid.
  We have all used media consulting firms in getting to the Senate. 
Which of those media consulting firms set up shell corporations?
  In fact, these shell corporations--these supposedly separate 
companies--shared staff, office space, and other resources, so that the 
firm coordinated the ad buys between the NRA and the campaigns. Once 
again, the FEC did nothing, so the Campaign Legal Center had to sue the 
Federal Election Commission in district court.
  The NRA's political spending has more than quintupled since the 
Supreme Court--I should say more specifically, since five Republican 
appointees on the Supreme Court--allowed unlimited, anonymous money 
into our political system--from $10 million in 2010, the year of the 
Citizens United decision, to about $55 million in the 2016 election. 
The NRA now spends unlimited amounts of dark money on political ads. 
They can come after people. They can threaten people. They can make 
promises to people. That is why 86 percent, 89 percent of the U.S. 
public gets ignored around here.
  When Representative Raskin and I wrote the NRA and the consultants 
about this coordination scheme, guess what the supposedly independent 
groups did? They wrote back to us in the same letter from the same 
lawyer--some independence. Of course, we are still waiting on the FEC 
to take any action at all.
  By way of a visitor's guide to the sewer of modern politics inhabited 
by the NRA, I ask unanimous consent that a September 17 article from 
The Trace titled ``Guide to Every Known Investigation of the NRA'' be 
appended to my remarks as an exhibit.
  I will close where I began. There have been 293 mass shootings since 
January 1 of this year, and the American public has an extraordinarily 
common voice for red flag laws, for expanding Federal background 
checks, closing the gun show loophole, banning assault weapons, and 
banning large-capacity magazines, and we don't listen to the popular 
will here because of the menace that the NRA has become in our 
politics--the anti-Democratic menace that the NRA has become.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                    [From the Trace, Sept. 17, 2019]

   Bang for the Buck--A Guide to Every Known Investigation of the NRA


 Here are the facts about all ten active inquiries into the gun rights 
                                 group

                            (By Daniel Nass)

       The National Rifle Association is caught up in a rapidly 
     expanding tangle of investigations--eight launched this year 
     alone. Investigators in the House, Senate, New York State, 
     and D.C. are scrutinizing the gun group's nonprofit status 
     following alleged financial misconduct exposed by The Trace, 
     while other probes have their sights on the NRA's ties to 
     Kremlin-linked Russians and to Donald Trump's presidential 
     campaign, as well as several potential campaign finance 
     violations.
       Because it's challenging to keep track of these probes, 
     we've rounded them up below. We included only investigations 
     that directly involve the NRA or its staff. We'll keep this 
     post updated to reflect the latest developments, and will add 
     new investigations to the list, should they arise.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       A fourth investigation of the NRA's nonprofit status is 
     underway, this one initiated by D.C. Attorney General Karl 
     Racine. Racine's office is seeking documents from the gun 
     group and its affiliated foundation regarding ``financial 
     records, payments to vendors, and payments to officers and 
     directors.'' The NRA Foundation is chartered in Washington, 
     D.C. NRA attorney William Brewer said in a statement that 
     ``the NRA has full confidence in its accounting practices and 
     commitment to good governance.''


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       Amid the ongoing strife between the NRA and its former 
     communications firm Ackerman McQueen, another congressional 
     committee is attempting to determine whether the NRA has 
     violated its tax-exempt status. In a letter to Wayne 
     LaPierre, House Ways and Means Committee member 
     Representative Brad Schneider demanded documents related to 
     internal audits, financial misconduct, and conflicts of 
     interest. It's the third probe of the NRA's finances launched 
     since The Trace and The New Yorker first reported on alleged 
     financial improprieties in April. In August, Schneider 
     expanded the inquiry, sending a letter to Ackerman CEO Revan 
     McQueen requesting documents related to the firm's past 
     relationship with the NRA.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       Three Democratic members of the Senate Finance Committee, 
     which oversees tax-exempt organizations, are probing alleged 
     financial impropriety within the NRA. Letters addressed to 
     NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and ex-President 
     Oliver North request documentation of alleged financial 
     misconduct raised by North during a public power struggle for 
     control of the gun group, which culminated with North's 
     ouster from his leadership role. A third letter requests 
     documentation from Revan McQueen, the CEO of top NRA vendor 
     Ackerman McQueen, due to LaPierre's claim that Ackerman had 
     prepared a damaging memo in order to blackmail him. The feud 
     erupted after reporting by The Trace and other news 
     organizations revealed a culture of self-dealing and 
     financial mismanagement within the NRA, particularly around 
     its relationship with Ackerman. The NRA has refused to 
     cooperate with the investigation, and a letter from Ackerman 
     McQueen to the senators indicates that the NRA has not given 
     the vendor permission to share relevant materials.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       New York Attorney General Letitia James has opened an 
     investigation into the NRA's nonprofit status, asking the 
     organization, its charitable foundation, and other affiliated 
     groups to preserve financial records. The probe, first 
     reported by The New York Times, also touches the gun group's 
     ``related businesses,'' although information about the 
     parties involved is not yet public. James has jurisdiction 
     because the NRA was chartered in New York in 1871. In August, 
     the attorney general's office expanded the inquiry, issuing 
     subpoenas to more than 90 current and former NRA board 
     members, including former president Oliver North.
       The probe follows a series of media reports about financial 
     misconduct within the NRA, including a Trace investigation 
     detailing allegations that former IRS official Marc Owens 
     said ``could lead to the revocation of the NRA's tax-exempt 
     status.''


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       The NRA is among more than 80 organizations and individuals 
     that received requests for documents as part of a wide-
     ranging House Judiciary Committee probe which aims to 
     establish whether President Trump and those in his orbit have 
     engaged in ``obstruction of justice, public corruption, and 
     other abuses of power.'' A letter from committee Chairman 
     Jerrold Nadler to NRA boss LaPierre demands information on 
     the gun group's contacts with and about Russia and the Trump 
     campaign during the run-up to the 2016 election. The NRA has 
     reportedly submitted nearly 1,500 pages of documents in 
     response to the request.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       Representatives Ted Lieu and Kathleen Rice, concerned by a 
     ``lack of transparency'' around the NRA's 2015 visit to 
     Moscow and its other ties to Russia, have launched a new 
     investigation intended to illuminate those connections. 
     Another probe of the gun group's Kremlin connections is 
     underway in the Senate, but House Democrats, unlike their 
     counterparts in the Senate, hold the majority required to 
     issue subpoenas.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       A joint House-Senate probe is investigating possible 
     ``illegal, excessive, and unreported in-kind donations'' made 
     by the NRA to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and 
     to several Republican Senate candidates. Sparked by The 
     Trace's reporting, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman 
     Jamie Raskin have contacted NRA

[[Page S5536]]

     Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and five campaign 
     advertising vendors to request information about the groups' 
     relationships. ``The evidence shows the NRA is moving money 
     through a complex web of shell organizations to avoid 
     campaign finance rules and boost candidates willing to carry 
     their water,'' Whitehouse told The Trace.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       As part of a probe into security clearances issued by the 
     Trump administration, House Oversight Committee Chairman 
     Elijah Cummings has requested documents from the NRA 
     regarding Trump national security advisor John Bolton's 
     contacts with Russia. In 2013, Bolton appeared in a video for 
     The Right to Bear Arms, the Russian gun-rights group linked 
     to Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin. He also headed the 
     NRA's subcommittee on international affairs, which Cummings 
     has also requested information about. The Oversight Committee 
     investigation came months after Cummings and Representative 
     Stephen Lynch first sought information from the White House 
     about Bolton's ties to Russia.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       An NRA delegation's trip to Moscow in 2015 is under the 
     scrutiny of the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by 
     Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner, which in November 
     requested documents about contacts with high-profile Russians 
     during the excursion. In January, investigators grilled 
     former Trump aide Sam Nunberg about the links between the 
     Trump campaign, the NRA, and Russian nationals including 
     Maria Butina. Burr, the committee's chair, has received ample 
     campaign support from the NRA.


                       WHAT'S UNDER INVESTIGATION

       Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance 
     Committee, has sent a series of requests to the NRA and the 
     Treasury Department seeking information about the gun group's 
     financial ties to Russian official Alexander Torshin and 
     other Putin-linked politicians. After the arrest of self-
     confessed Russian agent Maria Butina in July, Wyden and 
     committee members Sheldon Whitehouse and Bob Menendez 
     followed up with the Treasury requesting further information 
     about Butina's financial links to the NRA. Butina later 
     pleaded guilty to conspiring in the United States. Earlier 
     this month, the Finance Committee launched a separate probe 
     into a conservative think tank linked to Butina and Torshin. 
     Senator Charles Grassley, who chairs the Finance Committee, 
     has ties to the NRA.
       A few other investigations bear mentioning. An inquiry by 
     the House Intelligence Committee and the FBI's reported 
     investigation of Alexander Torshin both probed the gun 
     group's ties to Russia, although there is no hard evidence 
     that the NRA or its employees have been pulled into either of 
     those probes. Watchdog organizations have filed a series of 
     complaints with the Federal Election Commission regarding the 
     NRA's campaign finance activities, and two groups are now 
     suing the regulator for its failure to act on those 
     complaints.
       We'll update this post as new information comes to light.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise tonight to join the chorus of 
Democratic Senators in this Chamber demanding action to address the 
American gun violence epidemic. We stand here tonight on behalf of the 
tens of millions of Americans, from one end of the country to the 
other, who are crying out for change.
  Every few months, it seems that our Nation is rocked by another 
horrifying mass shooting. El Paso and Dayton are only the latest 
entries in our national register of tragedy, a list that stretches from 
Parkland to Pittsburgh, Charleston to Columbine, Aurora to Orlando, 
Blacksburg to Binghamton, San Bernardino to Sandy Hook, and to Las 
Vegas. Because that ever-growing list can sometimes seem abstract, 
let's not forget about the specific places where these awful shootings 
occurred: movie theaters and night clubs, shopping malls and office 
parks, music festivals and traffic stops, churches, synagogues, 
mosques, colleges, high schools, and an elementary school.
  Our hearts remain with the families of the victims and the survivors 
of these mass shootings whose lives were turned upside down in an 
instance by mad men who never should have had access to a gun. The 
touching letter that Senator Murphy read from one of his constituents 
whose child died in Sandy Hook is just one of many testaments to that 
turning upside down--instantly ruining your life forever by one of 
these horrible, awful incidents.
  At the same time, our hearts are with tens of thousands more whose 
lives were ended or forever altered by everyday gun violence. It 
doesn't make the headlines, but we remember them, too. They are no less 
tragic and no less painful for the parents who lost children, and 
brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who lost mothers and fathers.
  Whether it is a mass shooting or an individual shooting, people who 
shouldn't have guns are killing our fellow American citizens, and 
Congress just sits on its hands--the Senate does, anyway--and does 
nothing.
  Let me mention a few stories of New Yorkers whose lives were cut 
short by gun violence just this year. The list goes on and on, I assure 
you.
  Norzell Aldridge, of Cheektowaga in western New York, was a youth 
football coach. He was shot in the chest and killed a few weeks ago 
while trying to break up a fight at a park in Buffalo's East Side. 
Coach Aldridge's team had just finished playing the first game of their 
season.
  Rhyan Williams-Cannon, a 21-year-old from Syracuse, was shot and 
killed in March as he was leaving the corner store. He was the youngest 
of seven siblings. He had just earned his GED in October. Rhyan's 
family said he was like a father to his nephew, sneaking candies to him 
behind his mother's back.
  Shakeel Khan, of Johnson City, was murdered by a mass gunman in April 
while closing up his restaurant. Shakeel was the sole provider for his 
wife and his three children, aged 14, 12, and 8.
  May God rest their souls.
  I can stand here for hours and tell 100 more stories, each one as 
heartbreaking as the next. Each one is about senseless violence that 
might not have occurred if we had adequate laws on the books, all the 
people around them--their families, their friends, their communities--
devastated by the recklessness, senselessness of this gun violence.
  It is our solemn duty to the victims of those terrible tragedies who 
can't speak for themselves, but their memories call down to us for 
justice, to cure this terrible plague of gun violence that claims tens 
of thousands of lives every single day of every single year.
  I have been fighting this fight for such a long time. Back in 1993, I 
was in my sixth term representing Brooklyn and Queens in the House of 
Representatives. I knew the terrible toll of gun violence firsthand 
because the streets of my community were testimony to it. East New York 
and Cypress Hills were known as the Killing Grounds back then because 
someone was murdered an average of once every 63 hours, so I was more 
than eager to help write, introduce, and pass the legislation 
establishing our background check system that later became known as the 
Brady Bill.
  As we take stock of the legacy of that bill 25 years later, there is 
no question that it saved countless lives. There are literally 
thousands and thousands of people walking the streets of their 
communities who are alive today and would have been dead had the Brady 
Law not passed. We don't know who they are. They don't know who they 
are. But we know they are alive, and we are thankful for it.
  Ever since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System went 
online in 1998, there have been more than 1.5 million denials to 
disqualified buyers. The ability to keep guns out of the hands of 
convicted felons has helped lead to a steep drop in murder rates 
experienced by communities across the country.
  Take my hometown of New York City. In the early 1990s, before the 
Brady Bill was enacted, an average of 2,500 people were murdered every 
year in the five boroughs. Last year, that number was just 289.
  But that doesn't mean our work is done--far from it. What seemed like 
a minor compromise in 1993--allowing the sale of firearms without 
background checks at gun shows--has become a massive loophole. At the 
time when I wrote the Brady Bill, gun shows were a place for collectors 
to sell antiques, but gun shows have grown exponentially in popularity 
because people who don't want background checks know they can get guns 
there and people who want to sell guns to people who don't go through 
background checks sell their guns there. And even of greater dimension, 
the internet exploded to facilitate private sales between strangers, no 
questions asked.
  While some cities like New York have thankfully seen an overall 
decrease in gun deaths, there are still too

[[Page S5537]]

many pockets in cities across the country where this epidemic persists. 
At the same time, the frequency and lethality of mass shootings have 
rapidly increased.
  The internet allows for copycats. People up to no good see someone 
else has killed many people and think that maybe they should do the 
same. We have seen the frequency of these awful mass shootings continue 
on and on.
  We finally have an opportunity to close that loophole and keep guns 
from falling into the wrong hands in the first place. We have the 
opportunity to simply update the Brady Law--not change it, not expand 
it, just plug the holes that were punctured in it as time moved 
forward. No gun will be taken away from someone who is a law-abiding 
citizen by this law. No, only people who shouldn't have guns will not 
get them. And who could disagree with that? Certainly not the American 
people who are overwhelmingly on our side.
  We Senate Democrats are here tonight because the House of 
Representatives has finally passed legislation closing the private sale 
loophole, marking the first time that either Chamber of Congress has 
passed an overhaul of a background check system since the Brady law 
more than 25 years ago.
  What we are asking for is very simple and shouldn't cause us to come 
here at night. It should be an obvious thing to do: a simple up-or-down 
vote on legislation--an up-or-down vote on H.R. 8.
  Let me say it again. Leader McConnell, put H.R. 8 up for a vote on 
the floor of the Senate as soon as possible. Let us do what we were 
sent here to do by our constituents--what our constituents demand we 
do, which is fix the most pressing problems facing our Nation. If we 
fail to do so, it is plain and simple and terrible: More innocent 
people will die.
  Before I yield the floor, I want to thank the survivors and families 
of victims who have done so much to remind the American people of just 
what is at stake when it comes to gun violence. I keep on a desk in my 
office pictures of the children who were murdered in Sandy Hook given 
to me by their ailing and grieving parents. And those parents and the 
thousands and thousands of others like them--survivors who amazingly 
choose to light a candle to prevent greater darkness despite the 
darkness that had overcome their lives and that has surrounded their 
lives, these are beautiful people, saint-like people--and we thank 
them.
  A year and a half ago, we watched in horror as tragedy struck the 
Parkland community in Florida. Once again, the safety and sanctuary of 
a school was torn apart by the unthinkable, but this time felt 
different. Almost immediately, the students started speaking out, 
turning their immeasurable pain into courageous advocacy. Just 2 weeks 
later, I welcomed these Parkland teens into my office. My God, what 
courage, what fortitude, what inner strength. Even in the darkest of 
nights, some choose not to curse the darkness but to light a candle.
  A few weeks later, I joined millions of New Yorkers who were inspired 
to march for change by these Parkland teens. Millions more Americans 
across the country did the same. And now, a little more than a year 
later, this Senate has the opportunity to vote on H.R. 8, universal 
background checks, among several other pieces of legislation passed by 
the House that would save lives from gun violence.
  Times have changed. People forget that the Brady Bill was first 
introduced in 1987, 6 years after Jim Brady and President Reagan were 
wounded and more than 6 years before it was enacted into law. Now, we 
are moving from tragedy to action in a year. The movement that Jim and 
Sarah Brady started in the 1980s has reached a new era. The American 
people are no longer willing to wait months or years for change. Long 
gone are the days that Senate Republicans can just bury their heads in 
the sand and ignore that more than 30,000 Americans are killed by a gun 
every year. Politicians offering their thoughts and prayers just 
doesn't cut it anymore. It is put up or shut up.

  Leader McConnell, Senate Republicans, what will you do?
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________