[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 91 (Wednesday, May 25, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2679-S2680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PETTY OFFICER 1ST CLASS CHARLES JACKSON FRENCH POST OFFICE
A bill (H.R. 4168) to designate the facility of the United States
Postal Service located at 6223 Maple Street in Omaha, Nebraska, as the
``Petty Officer 1st Class Charles Jackson French Post Office'', was
ordered to a third reading, was read the third time, and passed.
Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, 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. CASEY. 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for the quorum call be rescinded.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. CASEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business for up to 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Robb Elementary School Shooting
Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to speak about yesterday's
horrific tragedy in Texas, and I won't be long; I know we have votes
coming up.
But I wanted to start by expressing, I think, both the grief and the
outrage that we see all across the country that,
[[Page S2680]]
yet again--and not just another tragedy. In this case, the death of the
19 children and 2 adults, at least that is the latest reporting, but
also indicating that the deaths took place because an armed gunman came
into a school with body armor protecting him from the response from any
law enforcement.
So we have another example, in barely less than a week, where a
gunman goes into a setting in a grocery store in Buffalo, NY, and now
into a school where second graders, third graders, and fourth graders
are killed because he has a high-powered weapon, and he is fully
protected from any law enforcement or any other response. And we are
supposed to just get used to this, I guess. That seems to be the
response here in Washington.
Now, this isn't a problem of Congress, more broadly, or the executive
branch of our government. This is a problem--the failure to address
this problem, even to pass something as simple as background check
legislation--this is a problem in the Senate of one side. You have got
50 U.S. Senators who are Republicans who have refused now for years to
pass anything remotely resembling commonsense gun measures.
I would support a whole series of bills that we could talk about. We
don't have time today. But at least the U.S. Senate should be able to
pass a background check bill supported by 90 percent of the American
people.
And you have to ask, why is that? And it is not simply that you have
so many Republicans who are beholden to the gun lobby. That is obvious.
That is right in front of us.
The other problem is--and I think it is related to the question of
the power of the gun lobby in one party--you have got a whole party
that seems to want to surrender to this problem, to throw up their
hands and say: ``There is nothing the most powerful Nation in the world
can do, nothing at all the most powerful nation in the world can do to
stop the killing, over and over again, of Americans,'' and especially
in the context of the horror--the unspeakable horror--yesterday of
second, third, and fourth graders being gunned down in a manner that is
so horrific that some of them can't be identified because of the power
of the weapon and the number of bullets that can be discharged in a
matter of seconds. So even if law enforcement gets there and isn't
confronting body armor, no law enforcement is fast enough to get to a
scene in seconds to prevent a horrific mass shooting.
So we are supposed to accept the fact, as Americans--I guess this is
what the Republican position is--that we should surrender to this
problem. The most powerful Nation in the world can't stop second,
third, and fourth graders from being murdered in schools. The most
powerful country in the world, I guess, can't prevent the shooting we
saw in Buffalo. And you can go down the list of other tragedies.
This is a uniquely American problem. No other country that is
similarly situated--has an economy like ours as a country even close to
what we have--no other country has this problem and has any kind of
change or reform or action being blocked by one side. And I know there
is work that has to be done at the State legislative level and all
that.
But right here, we could vote this week on a background check bill,
and it would be supported overwhelmingly.
But think about this, and I will end with this. Think about if we had
the same attitude about 9/11. What if someone said right after 9/11:
``You know what, there is really nothing we can do as Americans to stop
a foreign terrorist from taking an airplane into a building or crashing
an airplane into the Pentagon or the plane that went down in
Pennsylvania. There is nothing we can do about that so we just have to
get used to that reality of terrorists doing that to our country''? No
one would say that--then or now. We created an entire new Agency, the
Department of Homeland Security. And guess what, a lot of those reforms
that we made to protect Americans against terrorism worked. Just like
no one said years ago, when we had these viruses and the potential of
pandemics, that we shouldn't do anything about it even though we have
the knowledge and the skill to create a vaccine.
We invested. We did what Americans do--confronted a big problem and
did something about it.
What if during World War II, what if everyone stood up and said:
``You know, the Axis nations are pretty powerful. Those nations are
pretty powerful. They have the most well-funded, sophisticated armies
in the world, and there is nothing we can do in 1941 to take on the
Axis powers''? We didn't say that.
It is un-American to surrender--to surrender to a problem. Now you
have an entire political party in this Chamber that has not just
surrendered to the lobby--that is objectionable and insulting enough--
but they surrendered to the problem; that there is nothing we can do
about it. That, I would submit, is un-American. And it is about time
that the Republicans in the Senate begin to be part of the solution to
do something that Americans do all the time--confronting evil, like we
did after 9/11; confronting terrorism or disease or whatever it is; and
in this case to confront gun violence and do something about it, not
sit around and pretend that there is nothing we can do. That is un-
American.
We don't surrender. We are Americans. We take on tough problems like
our entire history has shown. But we haven't taken on this problem.
What we should be saying to these families, in addition to offering
our sympathy, is: Your government has failed you. Your government at
the Federal level and your government at the State level, it has failed
you. And in this case and in this Chamber it has failed because one
side will not even entertain the idea of passing any gun measures. They
have surrendered.
I yield the floor.
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