[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 96 (Monday, June 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2773-S2774]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Gun Violence

  Madam President, 23 years ago, after the massacre at Columbine High 
School left 12 students and a teacher dead, the gun lobby and its 
allies insisted that ``Now is not the time'' to talk about gun laws. In 
shooting after shooting since, as America has been stunned and grieving 
and burying its children, the gun lobby has demanded that we not 
``politicize'' the issue of gun violence. They say we should wait until 
passions have cooled before taking any action to reduce gun violence in 
America.
  Well, the grim reality is this: It is no longer possible to wait 
months or weeks or even days after a mass shooting for passions to 
cool. The shootings just keep happening. So far this year, we have seen 
246 mass shootings in 157 days--more than 1 mass shooting every day. 
Just this past weekend, a string of 11 mass shootings left at least 15 
people dead and more than 60 others wounded in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, 
South Carolina, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, New York, and Michigan. No 
other developed nation on Earth has even a fraction of the mass 
shootings we have in the United States.
  President Lincoln once said famously that ``we cannot escape 
history.'' This Senate cannot escape its responsibility to do 
something. We cannot allow ourselves to grow numb and resigned to this 
mass murder.
  Negotiations are underway on a bipartisan basis to help reduce gun 
violence in America. I want to thank Senators Chris Murphy of 
Connecticut, John Cornyn of Texas, and the other Democrats and 
Republicans who are trying to find a way to reduce gun violence. But it 
takes 60 Senators for that to happen. I hope in good faith we can at 
least take a step forward from this awful situation.
  The House of Representatives already acted last year to close gaps in 
the gun background check system. This week, the House will vote on 
bills to support extreme-risk protection orders, or ``red flag'' laws, 
and other important measures.
  Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, will hold a 
hearing on the mass shooting that took place in Buffalo on May 14, just 
a few weeks ago, and the domestic terrorism threat it exposes. One of 
our witnesses is Garnell Whitfield, Jr., whose mother Ruth was murdered 
at Tops grocery store in Buffalo.
  Gun violence is now the leading cause of death among America's 
children and teenagers. It replaced automobile accidents.
  Next week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to hear 
from experts about the lasting trauma that gun violence leaves on 
children.
  Next month, the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the 
growing danger of gun violence to police, who increasingly find 
themselves outgunned on the streets.
  There was a retired police officer in that grocery store in Buffalo. 
His name is Aaron Salter. He served the community and the police force, 
and he was there to bring security to that grocery store. When the 
shooter came in with his military style weapon, this policeman did his 
duty. He pulled his handgun. He was outgunned by this killer and lost 
his life.
  Let's consider a few basic truths.
  No. 1, this crisis is not simply about school safety. It wouldn't be 
solved by turning every school into an armed fortress. It is much 
bigger than schools alone.
  Last Friday, I went to a grade school in Chicago. I won't name the 
name, but I have a granddaughter who is in the fourth grade there. 
There are 100 kids in the fourth grade in this school, and they all 
came to the assembly hall, where I gave them a little talk and answered 
their questions. I couldn't help but think as I stood there talking 
about my job and what is the hardest part and what is the best part. 
And I looked at those wonderful kids and I thought to myself, they are 
exactly the same age as the kids who died in Uvalde, TX. I couldn't 
imagine for a second the horror that the families must have felt when 
they heard the news that there was a shooter on the premises in their 
school. I can't imagine that this Nation is so cold and callous that it 
would ignore the reality of human suffering--not just the deaths of 
those children and the teachers but what it meant to those families and 
still means to them to this day.
  But it isn't just schools. Some people say: Well, if we just make a 
fortress out of the school, we will only have one door, and we will 
have metal detectors. And if the custodians and cafeteria workers and 
all the teachers and principals are all carrying guns, then we can keep 
our kids safe.
  Think about that for a moment. Is that the answer in the United 
States of America to gun violence, that we are going to outgun any 
madman who comes on the premises carrying an assault-type weapon? Is 
that as good as it gets in the United States of America? I think we can 
do better.
  Let's not kid ourselves. As heartbreaking as it is to hear of any 
violence in a school, schools are not the only places where this 
happens--grocery stores, Walmarts, Waffle Houses, bars and night clubs, 
hospitals, doctors' offices, churches, synagogues, Sikh gurdwaras, 
movie theaters, subways, street corners, baby showers, graduation 
parties, weddings, funerals, big cities and small towns, north, east, 
south, and west. Gun violence can be found in every corner of America. 
It can happen anywhere to anyone at any time.
  Point No. 2: As horrific as they are, mass shootings are only a small 
part of America's gun violence crisis. In 2020, the most recent year 
for which the CDC has statistics, 45,222 Americans died by gun violence 
in 2020--45,222.
  That total number of gun deaths was 14 percent higher than the year 
before, 25 percent higher than 5 years before, and 43 percent higher 
than 10 years. Counting only homicides, the 2020 deaths were 34 percent 
greater than just 1 year earlier, 49 percent over 5 years earlier, and 
75 percent greater than a decade earlier. How can we look at those 
numbers and do nothing?
  In 2020, 79 percent of murders in the United States were carried out 
with guns--79 percent. How about Canada? What percentage of their 
murders in 2020 were the result of guns? Thirty-seven percent. In the 
United States, 79 percent; Canada, 37 percent; Australia, 13 percent; 
United Kingdom, 4 percent. But it is 79 percent in the United States of 
America. It is horrible, and it is getting worse.
  Point No. 3: The changes the Senate is likely to consider pose no 
threat to the lifestyle of any law-abiding gun owner. Our goal is to 
save lives through responsible gun ownership.
  There is a website, and I am not going to mention its name, but it is 
sometimes viewed as the most prolific place to buy a gun on the 
internet. If you buy a gun on that site from a licensed firearms 
dealer, you have to pass a background check. But there are also what 
they call private sales on this site, one person selling to another 
person. Private gun sales on this website and at gun shows and other 
places require no background check.

[[Page S2774]]

The two parties meet, and the buyer hands over money and leaves with a 
gun.
  A recent investigation by the gun safety organization Everytown found 
that in 2018, there were 1.2 million ads on this website to sell guns 
without a background check.
  Last week, it listed an ad--listen to this--for a private sale in 
Buffalo, NY, of an AR-15--the same kind of weapon that that madman took 
into the grocery store and the same kind of weapon that was used 
against the schoolchildren in Uvalde, TX. Through that website, you 
could buy an AR-15 last week--no background check required. How long do 
these background checks take? In most cases, they take less than 5 
minutes, and no law-abiding citizen needs to worry about passing this 
test. We should close the deadly ``private sale'' loophole to help keep 
guns out of the hands of people who are legally prohibited from owning 
firearms.
  I support ``red flag'' laws that allow law enforcement to temporarily 
remove firearms from a person who is determined by the court to be at 
risk of hurting himself or others. There are 19 States, including 
Illinois, that have these laws, and they are an important tool for 
preventing violence. Even Florida's Republican-controlled legislature 
enacted a State ``red flag'' law after the Parkland massacre. We should 
support similar efforts.
  I will close with a story from my State.
  Three years ago, a convicted felon was fired from a job at a small 
manufacturing plant near Chicago. He went back a few hours later with a 
handgun. He shot and killed five of his former coworkers and wounded 
five police officers before killing himself. I attended the memorial 
services of several of those victims. Those murders happened in a town 
called Aurora, IL.
  Seven years before that, a gunman in another Aurora--this time in 
Colorado--opened fire in a movie theater, killing 12 people and 
wounding 70 more--killing 12 and wounding 70 more. When the police 
chief of Aurora, CO, heard about the Illinois rampage, he said to a 
reporter: Months from now, as people talk about the mass shootings of 
the world, some will ask: Which Aurora mass shooting are you talking 
about?
  Think about that. In nearly any other nation on Earth, the name of a 
town in which a mass shooting has taken place would be remembered and 
mourned for years or even decades. In America, gun deaths and even mass 
murders now happen with such sickening regularity that some people have 
a hard time keeping the tragedies apart or of even remembering them.
  I might say to the Presiding Officer at this point, I know of the 
terrible shooting in your State over the weekend where one of your 
State judges was gunned down. It is happening everywhere. I am so sorry 
that it touched your State this last weekend.
  Over this past week, I met with people across Illinois to discuss gun 
violence. I met with police officers, youth in Chicago who had been 
affected by gun violence, and doctors at Stroger Hospital and at Lurie 
Children's Hospital. I spoke to so many people, and this was always the 
first topic they mentioned: gun violence.
  They asked me a basic question: When is Congress going to do 
something about this?
  The American people are sick and tired of gun violence, and they are 
desperate for us to bring change. This Senate has it within our power 
now to make changes that respect our Constitution and the rights of 
law-abiding citizens that will literally save lives. The question is 
whether we have the conscience and the courage to take these numbers of 
steps forward together. Lives depend on it.
  When I left my granddaughter's grade school last Friday, I thought 
about it all-day long--those beautiful kids and the kids down in Texas 
and the kids at Sandy Hook and the kids at Columbine and the kids at 
Parkland. All of these kids are being butchered by gun violence.
  Many people think, because the Constitution and its Second Amendment 
gives us the right to bear arms, that we can't touch this issue. They 
are wrong. The Supreme Court, in the Heller decision Justice Scalia 
wrote, made clear that we still retain the power to regulate the guns 
that are sold and how they are going to be used. We have got to take 
that and seize that opportunity. We have been elected to the U.S. 
Senate to respond to American crises. This is at the top of the list. 
After what we have been through in the last several weeks and what we 
are likely to go through in the weeks to come, how dare we say this is 
too big and too tough. How could anything be more important than the 
safety of our children and of our families across America?
  I will join in the Senate Judiciary Committee, in any way that I can, 
to support this bipartisan effort. I hope that it is meaningful. I 
hope, when it is all said and done, we can point to it and say: We 
achieved something in the names of those families of survivors and of 
those who lost their lives--who have given so much to this madness that 
has become part of life in America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The senior Senator from Iowa.