[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 34 (Tuesday, February 23, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S823-S825]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself, Mr. Rubio, Ms. Cortez Masto, Mr. 
        Scott of Florida, Mr. Manchin, Ms. Collins, and Ms. Hassan):
  S. 391. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to reauthorize 
and expand the National Threat Assessment Center of the Department of 
Homeland Security; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to reintroduce a 
bill that didn't get passed last Congress, a bill that deals with 
safety in our schools, a bill aimed at the disasters that come when 
schoolchildren are killed by shooters and to deal with this problem 
through a program that the Secret Service has had for decades and 
asking the Secret Service to see what they can do to apply the 
principles of that program to stop mass killings at our schools.
  Three years ago, on February 14, 2018, an unspeakable tragedy 
occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. In 
less than 4 minutes, 14 students and 3 staff members were killed, and, 
consequently, their families' and friends' lives were shattered forever 
by such a senseless act.
  Today, along with my colleagues Senators Rubio and Scott of Florida, 
Senators Cortez Masto, Collins, Manchin, and Hassan, I am proud to 
reintroduce legislation that will proactively mitigate threats of 
violence on school campuses by reauthorizing and expanding the U.S. 
Secret Service's program called the National Threat Assessment Center.
  The National Threat Assessment Center studies targeted violence and

[[Page S825]]

develops best practices and training to identify and manage threats 
before they result in violence like we saw at that school 3 years ago.
  The bill establishes a Safe School Initiative, a national program on 
school violence prevention, that will include expanded research on 
school violence. Most importantly, this legislation allows the Secret 
Service to directly equip communities and schools with training and 
best practices on recognizing and preventing school violence.
  This bill, which I hope will help us to recognize the signs of a 
potential attack way long before such an attack occurs, carries the 
namesake of those it couldn't save, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High 
School mascot, so this bill is called the EAGLES Act because that is 
the mascot of that school.
  Two years ago, the Secret Service conducted a review of school 
shootings and made a very pivotal finding: All attackers exhibited 
concerning behaviors prior to engaging in an act of violence. In other 
words, it should be easy to identify these people, and, if identified, 
intervention is possible. So had these signs been recognized at an 
early enough stage, these attacks could have been stopped.
  In the wake of the Parkland shooting in 2018, Congress took steps to 
protect schools and to prevent gun violence, including the passage of 
the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act, 
which provided funding to schools to strengthen their infrastructure to 
make it more difficult for shooters to enter schools.
  At that same time, we passed the Fix NICS Act, a law which penalizes 
Federal agencies that fail to comply with legal requirements to report 
dangerous individuals and violent criminals to the National Instant 
Criminal Background Check System so that if they are so reported, then 
they won't be able to purchase a gun. However, by passing the EAGLES 
Act, we are entering a vital third step in addition to those other two 
bills to protect our schools.
  I would like to encourage all of my Senate colleagues to support this 
bipartisan and, I think, a very commonsense bill. I hope that we can 
focus on productive measures like these rather than unfocused efforts 
to undermine lawful gun ownership

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