[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 88 (Tuesday, May 21, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3784-S3785]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               GUN SAFETY

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, on guns, 2 years ago, serious-minded 
Democrats and serious-minded Republicans came together to pass the most 
significant bipartisan gun safety bill in 30 years. We passed several 
new, commonsense rules in our gun safety bill, including rules closing 
dangerous loopholes on background checks. And I salute so many of my 
colleagues--led by Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema--who helped make 
this happen.
  Yesterday, those rules on background checks were supposed to go into 
effect, but, sadly, MAGA extremists had other plans. Instead, MAGA 
extremists exploited our justice system and put our background check 
reforms on ice. How did they do it? By taking their case to their 
favorite judge in the country, in the Northern District of Texas, to 
rubberstamp a nationwide injunction.
  The decision out of Texas is terrible for America for two reasons: 
First, the decision out of Texas is another consequence of judge 
shopping, a deeply unfair practice which jaundices the whole fairness 
and support a judicial system has where radicals--rightwing MAGA 
radicals--all but guarantee a favorable outcome by going to a judge of 
their choice, often in jurisdictions where there is only one sitting 
judge in that local division, guaranteeing a favorable audience and 
guaranteeing a favorable outcome.
  No one had any doubt when these rightwing anti-gun safety groups went 
to this one judge--the very same judge who knocked out mifepristone--no 
one had any doubt what decision they would receive.
  Judge shopping jaundices our legal system like few other abuses do. I 
have introduced a bill to rein in judge shopping, and I hope both sides 
can work together on this legislation to restore fairness to the 
judicial system.
  If not, we are going to see injustice after injustice, a slanted 
judicial system, leaning in favor of hard-right radicals imposing its 
will on the rest of the Nation. And the courts will have less and less 
respect because of it.
  I urge the Judicial Conference--they agree judge shopping is bad, 
forum shopping is bad, but they are doing nothing to implement it. They 
should.
  But second, maybe even worse, the decision out of Texas means MAGA 
radicals have temporarily succeeded in blocking commonsense gun safety 
measures and making our communities less safe. There were outrages in 
Uvalde, in Buffalo.
  And, finally, the Congress, in a bipartisan way, enacted the 
strongest gun safety laws in decades, ever since probably I passed the 
Brady Law and assault weapons ban--those were my bills in the House--in 
1994.
  And now people are less safe--less safe--because people who shouldn't 
have guns, young people, are getting them. Closing loopholes on 
background checks help keep guns out of the hands of people who 
shouldn't have them.
  Keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people should 
be something both sides can agree on. But, sadly, MAGA Republicans and 
the rightwing gun lobby thinks the opposite. And with forum shopping, 
they

[[Page S3785]]

can almost automatically get their way at least in the district courts.

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