[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 201 (Wednesday, December 6, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5775-S5778]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 494

  Mr. President, on the subject of gun violence, it seems we know as 
Americans that, every week, there is another

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tragedy, whether it is in Maine, whether it is a bowling alley, whether 
it is a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park or at a school in 
Nashville.
  Earlier this year, by chance, I was in Nashville in a bookstore only 
a week after that school shooting. A mother came up to me in the middle 
of the aisle, and she was sobbing. She explained that her daughter was 
the best friend of one of the kids who was killed. She took her phone 
out and showed me, in real time, that morning, the text chains of the 
moms who were planning a jazz fundraiser at the school and for the 
school when the news came out.
  You could see the texts of these 20 or so moms, saying: Well, that 
must not be true. It is just something on social media.
  Well, no. I hear the sirens right now.
  Well, no. I hear it is true. I see the police cars going by.
  One of the moms: I am going over there right now. The text chain goes 
on and on and on, and then you start seeing the text ``Haley is OK. 
Hallelujah, she's fine''; the names of the kids, as they found out 
hours later if they were OK. The last text is ``We lost Evie.''

  That, for me, was the real moment that so many parents across this 
country experience when their kids are just going to school.
  This week, we passed a grim milestone. We have now had more gun-
related mass killings this year than any year since 2006. Nearly 40,000 
Americans have lost their lives to gun violence this year alone.
  So we call on our colleagues today to say enough is enough. We know 
what the solutions are. We know there is not just one solution for each 
kind of gun violence incident.
  I come from a State with a time-honored tradition of hunting and 
fishing, so when I look at these gun proposals, I always ask myself, 
would this proposal hurt my Uncle Dick and his deer stand? No. He 
doesn't need an AK-47 to go deer hunting.
  That is why nearly two-thirds of Americans, including many 
Republicans, support reinstating an assault weapons ban. That is why 
over 80 percent of Americans support expanding background checks and 
closing dangerous loopholes, as we did with Senator Murphy and many 
other Senators, leadership--my provision to keep guns away from 
domestic abusers. We must pass the Background Check Expansion Act, led 
by Senator Murphy, which would close the dangerous gun show loophole, 
which allows unlicensed gun dealers, such as those at gun shows, to 
sell a firearm without conducting a background check. These are 
commonsense bills.
  Americans are with us, and we simply cannot sit back and do nothing 
while gun violence shatters families and neighborhoods across the 
country.
  We had a moment last year, and we passed a bipartisan bill. We thank 
our Republican colleagues who joined us on this bill. But now we know 
there is more to do--just ask that mom in Nashville.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I rise today because we are living in a 
nation besieged by gun violence.
  So far this year, our Nation has experienced 630 mass shootings. This 
is day No. 340 in the year 2023, so 340 days, 630 mass shootings. That 
is nearly twice as many mass shootings as we have seen days. Our 
precious children are afraid to go to school. They are worried that 
their classroom may be the next Robb Elementary, Marjory Stoneman 
Douglas, or Sandy Hook, as we remember that somber anniversary.
  I heard one of my colleagues, the Senator from Wyoming, earlier today 
say: They are trying to take our freedoms away. We have heard that a 
lot from folks on the other side: They are trying to take our freedoms 
away. It is a strange freedom that regularly sends our children into 
lockdown. What kind of freedom is that?
  According to the Gun Violence Archive, we have lost over 1,500 
children to gun violence this year. I think that there is a kind of 
unspoken assumption, as we have been pushing for commonsense gun safety 
and have gotten very little movement in Congress--I think the unspoken 
assumption is that this will not visit me; it will not happen to my 
family. But when you consider that there have been 630 mass shootings 
already this year, sadly, the chances are quite good that this could 
visit any one of us.
  We ought to do our work here in the Congress as if we are protecting 
our own families because when we look out for other people's families, 
when we look out for other people's children, we look out for our own, 
and it could visit any one of us.
  We act as if this is normal, business as usual. What legislative 
action has the Senate passed to address this epidemic of gun violence? 
The Senate actually voted to give less information--less information--
to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
  Keep in mind that according to a 2023 FOX News poll, 87 percent of 
Americans believe that we ought to have universal background checks. 
Listen. Let me say that again. According to a FOX News poll, 87 percent 
of Americans believe that we ought to have universal background checks. 
So they present this as if it is an argument between Democrats and 
Republicans. Really, it is an argument between Washington and craven 
politicians and ordinary people every day who are just trying to live 
their lives in safety.
  There is a broadening gap between what Americans want and what they 
can get from their government. So, at root, this is a democracy 
problem. The question is, Who owns our democracy and at what cost to 
our children and to our families? So we have a moral obligation not to 
turn away.
  Across the country, outside of Washington, there is widespread 
agreement that Congress needs to enact commonsense--commonsense--gun 
safety solutions. Eighty-seven percent of Americans believe that we 
ought to have universal background checks.

  Every day, I hear from Georgians who are sick and tired of losing 
people they love to gun violence. As a pastor, I presided over the 
funerals. And it begs me to ask, how is it that we can't keep our own 
people alive? What kind of Nation tells its children that the only 
thing we can do in the wake of this crisis is to teach you how to hide?
  Last year, for the first time in 30 years, we were able to pass 
modest but meaningful gun safety legislation, but it is not nearly 
enough, and it took 30 years just to do that.
  We are all set to go home later this month to spend a few weeks--
safely, I hope--with our loved ones. I encourage all of my colleagues 
to reflect on this question: Are we going to let other people's loved 
ones continue to die by the tens of thousands and let our babies get 
killed in their classrooms for another 30 years before we choose to 
act?
  The time is always right to do what is right, Dr. King taught us, and 
that time is now.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Warnock and 
others for coming to the floor today to raise this truly existential 
crisis, put it in front of our colleagues.
  I have lost count of the number of times I have come down to the 
floor of the Senate to talk about this immoral anomaly in which you are 
subject to the risk of death by gunshot wound in the United States at a 
rate 10 times higher than any other high-income nation.
  I wish there were a truly complicated set of factors that play into 
the reason why we have so much more gun violence here than in other 
nations, but it probably isn't that complicated. We don't have more 
mental illness in this country. We don't spend less money on law 
enforcement. We don't have angrier people. We just have a lot more 
guns, and we are much more permissive in this country about allowing 
felons, dangerous people, and the mentally ill to get their hands on 
guns, and we are much more permissive around the question of which 
kinds of guns get in the hands of private citizens, especially guns 
that are designed to kill as many human beings as quickly as possible.
  As you can imagine, because I have a pretty high profile on this 
issue, when I am back in my State, I get confronted a lot by supporters 
of the Second Amendment, NRA members, who want to have a conversation 
with me about why I believe what I believe. That conversation normally 
starts with the assumption that I want to

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take guns away or ammunition away from law-abiding gun owners.
  Almost without exception, when I get confronted by somebody who wants 
to talk about guns with me, who comes from that gun-rights side of the 
debate, as quickly as I can get the debate to background checks is when 
we start agreeing. I have found very few of those conversations in 
Connecticut where, even in the most heated of arguments, we don't find 
quick agreement on the simple idea that before you buy a gun, you 
should have to prove that you are not a criminal or you are not 
seriously mentally ill. Why? Because law-abiding gun owners have gone 
through background checks. They know that in 90 percent of the cases, 
those background checks are processed instantaneously, while you are in 
the store. For most of the people who are talking to me who aren't 
mentally ill and who don't have criminal histories, that is their only 
experience, is that a background check is not a barrier to purchasing a 
gun.
  So it is just not surprising to me to hear the data that Senator 
Warnock is talking about--90 percent of Americans supporting universal 
background checks, checks on every gun sale; 89 percent of Republicans, 
89 percent of gun owners, 70 percent of NRA members--because even the 
gun owners, even the people who feel so fired up about this issue that 
they want to come talk to me in the middle of a county fair, were not 
disagreeing about that simple policy--just make sure that people who 
shouldn't have guns don't get their hands on them.
  Some people will say: Well, it is a hassle. It is an unreasonable 
barrier.
  Well, I just told you that in 90 percent of the cases, they are 
resolved instantaneously. In the 10 percent of cases where it takes 
more than 5 minutes, that is normally because there is something on 
that person's record that we need to find out. What we know is that 
there have been millions of gun purchases that have been denied because 
felons or seriously mentally ill individuals did try to buy those guns.
  But we also know that 99 percent of Americans live within 10 miles of 
a gun store. There are 60,000 licensed gun dealers across this country 
who can perform background checks. That is four times the number of 
McDonald's restaurants in America. It is just not true that it is an 
unreasonable restriction of your liberty to just make sure you get a 
background check before you buy a gun.
  Now, what are we talking about? We are talking about guns that are 
largely sold online and through gun shows, because the law today, the 
Federal law that I think we still all agree on--I mean, I don't hear a 
lot of my Republican colleagues proposing legislation to repeal the 
requirement that you should get a background check if you go into a gun 
store. All we are talking about is extending that requirement to the 
place where a lot of guns are now sold in a way they weren't when we 
passed the national instant criminal background check law in the early 
1990s. Today, a lot more guns are sold in gun stores, and a lot more 
guns are sold online.
  The studies that have been done about gun sales online are really 
troubling. One study showed that there were 1.2 million online ads 
offering firearms for sale that would not require a background check to 
be done. That same study showed that one in nine prospective buyers of 
guns online would not pass a background check. That is a rate seven 
times higher than the denial rate at gun stores. And the reason is the 
criminals are going online and going to the gun shows because they know 
they will fail the background check if they go to a brick-and-mortar 
store.

  That is what Seth Ator did. He failed the background check when he 
tried to purchase a gun in 2014. But he went to a private seller 
online, he bought a gun, and then he used it to kill 7 people and wound 
25 others in a mass shooting in Odessa.
  This is not theoretical. This happens. How do you think all these 
guns get into our cities? It is because the criminal traffickers who 
have serious criminal records, who can't buy guns at a brick-and-mortar 
store, go to a State that doesn't have universal checks. The criminals, 
the traffickers, buy the guns online or at a gun show, and then they 
drive them up to Hartford, CT, and they sell them on the black market.
  The data just tells us that people believe in background checks; they 
want us to pass universal background checks. And the data also tells us 
that it works. The numbers vary, but even the least generous studies 
tell us that in States that have universal background checks, like 
Connecticut, 10 percent fewer people are dying from gun homicides.
  And, of course, my law can't fully protect the people in my State 
because those guns get trafficked into Connecticut from States that 
don't have universal background checks. And so the numbers would be 
even bigger if we didn't have all these loopholes.
  So I agree with Senator Warnock. This just feels like a test of 
democracy. It really does. How does democracy survive if 90 percent of 
Americans--90 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats--want 
something and we can't deliver?
  Do you want to know why people are flirting with autocracy and 
dictatorship? It is because, even when they agree at a 90-percent rate, 
they can't get what they want from their government.
  I have got to tell you, something does seem pretty wrong if democracy 
can't deliver on a 90-percent consensus, and not a 90-percent consensus 
about whether your road gets paved--a 90-percent consensus on whether 
kids live or die, a 90-percent consensus on an existential question of 
survival.
  So, Mr. President, as in legislative session, I am going to ask that 
we pass a bill that will require universal background checks in this 
country. I am going to ask my colleagues to respect the wishes of 90 
percent of Americans and do something that we know works.
  So I am going to ask, as in legislative session, for unanimous 
consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 494 and the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration. I further ask consent that the bill be considered read a 
third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made 
and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). Is there objection?
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to 
note, at the outset, that we are not asked to vote in this Chamber on 
polling questions. We vote on legislation. While people, when 
responding to a poll, may respond overwhelmingly in response to certain 
questions, it doesn't mean that, when they come to understand fully 
what the law at issue would actually do, they wouldn't feel 
differently.
  The truth is that the legislation that we are being asked to pass by 
unanimous consent today, without additional debate, discussion, 
opportunity for amendment, opportunity for input by the public--that is 
the bill S. 494, the Background Check Expansion Act--has some real 
problems with it, problems that I think make it a bill that stands to 
transform, in some circumstances, ordinary law-abiding citizens into 
criminals.
  We always have to consider this when evaluating any law, particularly 
any law with criminal implications, particularly any law with criminal 
implications that touches on a constitutionally protected right 
enumerated in a constitutional amendment.
  This is not solely about transactions involving guns at gun stores. 
This is about the father who wishes to pass down a hunting rifle to his 
son or the friend who wants to lend a shotgun to his neighbor who is in 
need of protection at the time.
  Universal background checks, as this bill conceives them, don't just 
regulate; they criminalize these quintessential moments of American 
life and, under this legislation, would render unlawful what in 
countless circumstances would be lawful and even constitutionally 
protected behavior.
  Now, most would not think twice about lending a firearm to a family 
member for sporting or personal protection purposes, and yet this bill 
threatens to do that by narrowing the definition of family to such an 
extent that passing a gun to a daughter-in-law or to a great-grandson 
could lead to criminal charges. This bill fails to distinguish between 
a criminal act and a gesture of trust and safety.
  Participating in a hunting trip often involves using firearms. Of 
course, it is

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important to be aware that under this proposal, under this bill, if you 
hand over your firearm to a partner during such a trip, even for a 
short period of time, you could potentially be held criminally liable 
if that individual doesn't hold the proper hunting license. It is an 
absurd overreach that would penalize the innocent traditions that bind 
our communities together.
  The only conceivable way to enforce such a law is through the 
creation of an expansive, Orwellian national gun registry--yes, a 
national gun registry. Now, it is here that we arrive at the true 
purpose or, at least, the true inevitable outcome of this legislation 
were it to become law.
  Universal background checks only work when you have a national gun 
registry. This bill would require a registry, even though and 
notwithstanding the legitimate policy concerns embraced by Congress 
when Congress prohibited the creation of such a registry in the Firearm 
Owners' Protection Act.

  However, the ATF has already compiled a database with over 920 
million records, a direct challenge to both the letter and the spirit 
of the Firearm Owners' Protection Act and Public Law 112-55. Let's not 
compound the problem created by the ATF's illegal and constitutionally 
problematic registry by enacting a law that cannot be enforced without 
the creation of a national gun registry.
  Registries lead, inevitably, to gun confiscation. If you don't 
believe me, if you don't want to take my word for it on that, just look 
to the public statements made by some of my colleagues in the Senate 
and our counterparts in the House. They told us confiscation is the 
goal.
  As our friends at Gun Owners of America have reminded us, without 
this invasive registry, enforcement of S. 494 is unfeasible. We are 
staring down the barrel of a system that would monitor the most 
personal and responsible uses of firearms among citizens.
  Now, the Senator asked us to pass this major legislation without any 
debate, without any meaningful opportunity for amendment or further 
discussion. This isn't how Congress works. This certainly isn't how the 
U.S. Senate should work, certainly not on a matter so significant and 
so directly tied to an enumerated constitutional right as this one.
  This bill should, of course, go through the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, a body on which I serve and a body where Members routinely 
can and do debate, offer amendments, and raise these and other policy 
and constitutional concerns.
  I also want to speak for a moment to what was referenced as the gun 
show loophole. It is not, in fact, a loophole. There is no such 
loophole. The effect of the law is that, if you are a federally 
licensed firearms dealer, you have to perform these functions before 
you sell it, with or without you being in the presence of a gun show. 
If an FFL shows up at a gun show and sells guns, the FFL has to conduct 
the background check. It isn't a loophole.
  Moreover, we are talking about a tiny, minuscule percentage of people 
who even do these things. We are looking at the overwhelming 
percentage. According to the Department of Justice bureau that collects 
crime statistics, a tiny percentage of people who even buy them at gun 
shows go on to commit crimes with them--like less than 1 percent. Very 
few of them even buy them in any retail establishment, opting instead 
to buy them on a clandestine market in an illegal way.
  So, at the end of the day, we have to evaluate this law just like we 
would any law--but this law in particular, given that it touches on a 
constitutionally protected, enumerated right. We have to look at both 
the law's impact on criminal behavior, which is negligible, and on the 
law's tendency to punish the law-abiding.
  It is not the law-abiding who typically will go to illegal sources to 
buy a gun. It is not the law-abiding who refuse to dot the i's and 
cross the t's. It is typically the law-abiding who are willing to go 
through that process. We shouldn't be adding more redtape that is going 
to affect mostly the law-abiding, touching on very few of those 
actually bent on violent criminal activity.
  This bill would do precisely that. It would punish the law-abiding 
citizens for the actions of criminals. It is time to accept this fact, 
and it is time for us, really, to choose between the various tensions 
that we feel pulling on us. I am confident that, at the end of the day, 
we should choose common sense over fear. We should choose liberty over 
control. We should choose the rights of the law-abiding many over the 
criminally minded few.
  On this basis, Mr. President, and for these reasons, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Connecticut.