[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 103 (Tuesday, June 18, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4142-S4144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Bump Stocks
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, we don't have to fight over everything
here. It is OK if, occasionally, we find consensus around commonsense
things that we could do together to keep our country safe.
I kind of thought we had consensus on at least the idea that
civilians shouldn't be able to get their hands on machineguns.
I understand there are differences between Republicans and Democrats
on AR-15s, that maybe not all of my Republican colleagues think that
everybody should go through a background
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check before they buy a gun. But I thought--I thought--we were all in
agreement that fully automatic weapons were too dangerous to be in the
hands of civilians; that these are unquestionably weapons of war. They
are designed--designed--for mass slaughter, and you just do not need a
weapon that allows you to fire hundreds of rounds per minute in order
to hunt, in order to protect your home, in order to shoot for sport.
But, apparently, we do not have consensus on the question of whether
Americans should have access to machinegun technology because, earlier
today, Senator Heinrich--a gun owner, somebody who knows a lot about
weapons--came to the floor to ask for consent that we make sure that
civilians can't get their hands on a device called a bump stock that
allows you to convert a semiautomatic weapon into a machinegun. That
is, effectively, what a bump stock does. It allows you to change a
semiautomatic weapon, which you have to pull the trigger in order to
fire each round, into an automatic weapon in which one physical pull of
the finger allows you to fire multiple rounds. It effectively gives you
access to an automatic weapon.
I thought we all agreed that automatic weapons, machineguns, should
be in the hands of the military. I especially thought we all agreed on
that after what happened in Las Vegas.
On October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a concert from the 32nd
floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. There were 500 yards between that
gunman on the 32nd floor and those innocent concertgoers. That gunman
fired about 1,100 rounds, killing 58 people--58 people--and wounding
500.
When we think about the Las Vegas tragedy, we focus on that number,
58 people. That is a stunning number of people to die in an instant. We
don't talk about the 500 people who were injured, many of them with
injuries that changed their lives forever--everyone, whether they were
injured or not, dealing with trauma that impacted their lives forever.
There were 1,100 rounds fired from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay
Hotel. Do you know how long it took him to get off 1,100 rounds? Eleven
minutes. Eleven minutes. That gunman was able to fire around 90 shots
every 10 seconds. Why? Because he had taken a bump stock and converted
a semiautomatic weapon, turning it, effectively, into an automatic
weapon.
Even Donald Trump, the biggest backer of the NRA and the gun lobby
that has ever been in the White House, knew that something had to
change. He put forward a regulation to ban bump stocks, and most of my
Republican colleagues celebrated that change. I don't remember many of
them opposing it.
But this month, the Supreme Court, packed with pro-gun lobby
Justices, most of whom were selected by Donald Trump, ruled that that
regulation was unconstitutional. I think they got it wrong. I think
they absolutely got it wrong. I think if you look at the plain reading
of the statute, bump stocks are illegal, and the regulation proffered
by the Trump administration should have been ruled as unconstitutional.
But Trump's appointees thought otherwise. They bought the argument of
the gun lobby, and they ruled that bump stocks could, once again, be
sold commercially in this country.
So we thought that it would be an easy case to make to our colleagues
that having seen the regulation proffered by the Trump administration
to be ruled unconstitutional, having been offered by the Supreme Court
the chance to fix that statutorily, that we could get to that business
this week, but we are not because Republicans objected to our efforts
to try to pass into law a ban on bump stocks, to try and take away from
psychopaths and madmen the technology that allows them to turn an
automatic weapon on crowds of concertgoers and get off 1,000-plus
rounds in a 10-minute period of time.
What Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives
are doing on a regular basis is facilitating the mass slaughter of
Americans, handing to individuals whose brains are breaking the tools
of mass slaughter, refusing to do the easy, popular, commonsense things
to just make it a little bit harder for 58 people to be gunned down,
500 people to be injured in a 10-minute period of time.
No law that we pass will end gun homicides in this country. No law
that we pass will completely eliminate mass shootings. But there simply
are technologies like the bump stock that turn a mass shooting in which
5 or 10 people might have died into a 58-person slaughter.
It is just true that when you have a weapon like an AR-15 or you have
a converted semiautomatic weapon with a bump stock, the slaughter is
worse, that more people die. Why on Earth would we choose to hand to
these killers weapons that are designed for one purpose and one purpose
only, mass slaughter?
You do not need a bump stock in order to protect your home. You do
not need a machinegun in order to hunt for sport. The only reason you
need a bump stock is to engage in mass murder.
I take this personally because I have lived through an experience of
mass slaughter, as has the Presiding Officer. I did not lose a loved
one, but I have come to know those families from Sandy Hook like they
are family. And I know there is never ever getting over losing a loved
one, frankly, whether it be to a gun death by suicide or by mass
slaughter. But it makes it harder to deal with the loss of a loved one
in a mass killing when you know the people that you elect to positions
of high office have the power to prevent the slaughter or at least
prevent it from being as bad as it was, and they chose to do nothing.
Republicans complain that this was a political stunt. What about
everything that Joe Biden has said and done, what about the efforts
that Senate Democrats have undertaken would suggest that we aren't
sincere in our desire to prevent unnecessary gun deaths?
We have, over and over again, acted in good faith to try to find
bipartisan compromise around changing the gun laws of this Nation. Joe
Biden has shown absolute sincerity in his desire to try to keep more
people alive. This is not a ``gotcha'' unanimous consent request; this
is a real attempt to effectuate what we thought was a consensus that
people shouldn't have access to machinegun technology in this country.
Senate Republicans could have agreed to work with us. They could make
an offer today to expedite consideration of this bill next week. So the
only political decision that is being made here is by Republicans who
are opposing a bill that is undoubtedly supported by the mass majority
of Americans.
So if this wasn't the way the Republicans wanted to do this, then I
am open to other offers because we have passed bipartisan legislation
to save lives. There are Republicans who have joined us, most recently,
on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
What we know is that when we do come together and pass laws that make
it harder for dangerous people to get their hands on dangerous weapons,
we save lives.
Urban gun deaths are down by 20 percent in this country. From 2022 to
2023, we saw the sharpest decline in gun murders in the history of this
country. In 2024, mass shootings are down over--well, around 30 percent
compared to the same time period in 2023.
We are seeing a precipitous decline in gun violence in this country,
whether it be urban homicides or mass shootings, and I am not
suggesting that the entire reason for that is the 2022 Bipartisan Safer
Communities Act, but you had better believe that is a big part of the
reason. You had better believe that when we pass laws that make it
harder for dangerous people to get their hands on dangerous weapons, we
save lives. And what matters in this country more than protecting the
physical safety of your loved ones? What matters more? Nothing. Think
about it. You would give anything--anything--to protect your son or
daughter from physical harm. You would trade away your career, your
savings. You might even give up your own life.
We have an easy opportunity--we had an easy opportunity--Republicans
had an easy opportunity earlier today to just make it a little bit
harder for the small subset of individuals in this country whose brains
have collapsed and believe that the only way to deal with their demons
is to turn a gun on others--we had a chance to make it less likely that
that subset of individuals would be able to kill 58 people like
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what happened in Las Vegas, and we couldn't even come to that
consensus.
We are open for business. If this wasn't the way today, show us the
way. Tell us how we can answer Republican concerns so that we can get
these weapons of war, these facilitators of mass murder, these bump
stocks, off the streets.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
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