[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 18673-18696]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of S. 1390, which the clerk will 
report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1390) to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
     year 2010 for military activities of the Department of 
     Defense, for military construction, and for defense 
     activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military 
     personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other 
     purposes.

  Pending:

       Thune amendment No. 1618, to amend chapter 44 of title 18, 
     United States Code, to allow citizens who have concealed 
     carry permits from the State in which they reside to carry 
     concealed firearms in another State that grants concealed 
     carry permits, if the individual complies with the laws of 
     the State.
       Brownback amendment No. 1597, to express the sense of the 
     Senate that the Secretary of State should redesignate North 
     Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.


                           Amendment No. 1618

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time until noon will be

[[Page 18674]]

equally divided and controlled between the Senator from South Dakota, 
Mr. Thune, and the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, or their 
designees on amendment No. 1618, offered by the Senator from South 
Dakota.
  The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, amendment No. 1618 is a very simple 
amendment. It is tailored to allow individuals to protect themselves 
while at the same time protecting States rights.
  My amendment would allow an individual to carry a concealed firearm 
across State lines if they either have a valid permit or if, under 
their State of residence, they are legally entitled to do so.
  My amendment does not create a national concealed carry permit system 
or standard. My amendment does not allow individuals to conceal and 
carry within States that do not allow their own citizens to do so. My 
amendment does not allow citizens to circumvent their home State's 
concealed carry permit laws.
  If an individual is currently prohibited from possessing a firearm 
under Federal law, my amendment would continue to prohibit them from 
doing so. When an individual with a valid conceal and carry permit from 
their home State travels to another State that also allows their 
citizens to conceal and carry, the visitor must comply with the 
restrictions of the State they are in.
  This carefully tailored amendment will ensure that a State's border 
is not a limit to an individual's fundamental right and will allow law-
abiding individuals to travel, without complication, throughout the 48 
States that currently permit some form of conceal and carry.
  Law-abiding individuals have the right to self-defense, especially 
because the Supreme Court has consistently found that police have no 
constitutional obligation to protect individuals from other 
individuals.
  The Seventh Circuit explained this most simply in their 1982 Bowers 
v. DeVito decision where they said:

       [T]here is no Constitutional right to be protected by the 
     state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.

  Responsible gun ownership by law-abiding individuals, however, 
provides a constitutional means by which individuals may do so, and 
responsible conceal and carry holders have repeatedly proven they are 
effective in protecting themselves and those around them.
  Reliable, empirical research shows that States with concealed carry 
laws enjoy significantly lower crime and violent crime rates than those 
States that do not.
  For example, for every year a State has a concealed carry law, the 
murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by 
over 2 percent.
  Additionally, research shows that ``minorities and women tend to be 
the ones with the most to gain from being allowed to protect 
themselves.''
  The benefits of conceal and carry extend to more than just the 
individuals who actually carry the firearms. Since criminals are unable 
to tell who is and who is not carrying a firearm just by looking at a 
potential victim, they are less likely to commit a crime when they fear 
they may come in direct contact with an individual who is armed.
  This deterrent is so strong that a Department of Justice study found 
that 40 percent of felons had not committed crimes because they feared 
the prospective victims were armed. Additionally, research shows that 
when unrestricted conceal and carry laws are passed, not only does it 
benefit those who are armed, but it also benefits others around them 
such as children. In addition to the empirical evidence, there are 
anecdotal stories as well.
  A truckdriver from Onida, SD--a long-haul trucker--10 years ago, on a 
trip to Atlanta, stopped at a truck stop in Georgia. He shared this 
story recently. It is a more dated story. But a strange man suddenly 
jumped on the hood of his truck, showed a gun, and started demanding 
all the cash this truckdriver had. Working on instinct, he pulled out 
the firearm he always kept in his cab and showed the gun to the 
perpetrator, who jumped off the hood and ran away as soon as he saw it.
  That story, while one that may not make it into the crime statistics 
or the newspapers, is the type of story that demonstrates how my 
amendment will help individuals--law-abiding individuals, who travel 
from State to State either for work or for pleasure.
  So it is very straightforward. The amendment, as I said, simply 
allows those who have concealed carry permits in their State of 
residence to be able to carry firearms across State lines, respectful 
of the laws that pertain in each of the individual States.
  So it is not, as some have suggested, a preemption of State laws. 
There are a couple States where their individuals are precluded from 
having concealed carry, and in those States this amendment would not 
apply. Obviously, we are, as I said before, very respectful of States 
rights and State laws that have been enacted with regard to this 
particular issue.
  But I might say, too, in my State of South Dakota, we have a national 
reciprocity understanding, national reciprocity concealed carry 
understanding, with all the other States in the country. So of the 
other 47 States where concealed carry is allowed, any of the residents 
of those States who have concealed carry permits can carry in the State 
of South Dakota. There are 10 other States that also fit into that 
category.
  I believe if we check the records and look at the data, it is pretty 
clear the States that have enacted national concealed carry reciprocity 
agreements have not seen, as has been suggested by opponents of this 
amendment, any increase in crime rates.
  I believe this is something that is consistent with the 
constitutional right that citizens in this country have to keep and 
bear firearms. We have, as I said, 48 States currently today that have 
some form of concealed carry law that allows their individuals in their 
States, residents of their States, to carry. This simply extends that 
constitutional right across State lines, recognizing that the right to 
defend oneself and the right to exercise that basic second amendment 
constitutional right does not end at State borders or State lines.
  So, Mr. President, I hope my colleagues in the Senate will adopt this 
amendment. I think it is a commonsense approach to allowing more people 
across this country to have the opportunity to protect themselves when 
they are threatened. As I said before, the statistics bear out the fact 
that when that is the case, when people have that opportunity--States 
that have enacted concealed carry laws have seen actually crime rates, 
particularly violent crime rates, go down.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Thune 
amendment. The Senator from South Dakota tells us this is a very simple 
amendment. He tells us his amendment is consistent with self-defense 
and the reduction of crime.
  What the Senator from South Dakota cannot explain is why 400 mayors, 
the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities 
Police Chiefs Association, and the bipartisan association known as 
State Legislators Against Illegal Guns oppose this so-called very 
simple amendment.
  Here is why they oppose it. The Thune amendment provides that if a 
State gives a person a permit to carry concealed weapons, then that 
person is free to carry concealed weapons in 47 other States and the 
District of Columbia. Those other States would be required to let this 
visitor carry a concealed loaded weapon in their State, even if their 
laws in that State would not currently allow that person to carry a 
gun.
  Let's be clear about the effect of this amendment. There are 36 
States with laws governing who can carry concealed weapons, including 
which out-of-State permits that State will accept, if any. The States 
already have laws. Under the Thune amendment, those laws can be 
ignored. So if the Thune amendment becomes law, people who are 
currently prohibited from carrying concealed guns in those 36 States 
are free to do so.

[[Page 18675]]

  It is absurd that we are considering this amendment today. We know 
nothing about the impact this amendment is actually going to have 
across America. How many Senators from the 36 States that already have 
laws governing concealed carry have had a chance to talk to their State 
law enforcement officials about this amendment and what it means?
  Apparently, those who support this amendment want to move it very 
quickly. We scheduled a hearing--it is supposed to take place 
tomorrow--on this amendment before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on 
Crime. But the Senator from South Dakota did not want to wait for a 
hearing before the committee. He has asked the Senate to take up this 
measure today before the hearing date.
  Here are some of the reasons this amendment is so troubling. As my 
colleagues know, we have a federalist system--a government in 
Washington, a national government, and in each State and the District 
of Columbia State government and local control. States have adopted 
different standards in their State with regard to who the State will 
permit to carry concealed weapons. Each State has considered this issue 
and decided what is safe for their residents. Elected representatives, 
elected by the people, have made that decision State by State.
  Some States have very rigorous standards. If you want to carry a 
concealed weapon, for example, a number of States will not allow you to 
if you are an abuser of alcohol, if you have been convicted of certain 
misdemeanor crimes or if you have not completed a training course to 
show you know how to use a gun. The States have established that 
standard. If you want to go ``packin''' in these States, you better not 
be a habitual drunkard; you better not be in a position where you have 
committed these misdemeanor crimes, and you have to prove by test and 
sometimes on the range that you can safely use this gun that you want 
to carry.
  In Iowa, you cannot have a permit to carry a weapon if you are 
addicted to alcohol or if you have a history of repeated acts of 
violence.
  In Pennsylvania, individuals convicted of certain misdemeanor crimes, 
such as impersonating a police officer, cannot have a concealed carry 
permit.
  In South Carolina, any person who is a member of a subversive 
organization or a habitual drunkard cannot carry a handgun.
  In California, you cannot carry a firearm for 10 years after being 
convicted of misdemeanors, including assault, battery, stalking, 
threatening a judge, victim, or witness.
  Other States, in contrast, have minimal or no concealed carry 
standards beyond the baseline of the Federal law which applies to all 
States.
  For example, a number of States, including Georgia, do not require 
any firearms training for a concealed carry permit. In 2008, a 
spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told a newspaper: ``A 
blind person can get a permit in Georgia since all you have to do is 
pass a background check.''
  Two States--Alaska and Vermont--do not even require a permit to carry 
a concealed weapon. Those States let anyone carry a concealed weapon. 
Under the Thune amendment, people from those States--with virtually no 
standards for concealed carry or no requirement to prove they know how 
to use a gun--those people could visit States where they have 
established standards for the safety of their residents and under the 
Thune amendment legally carry a gun.
  In other words, the visitors can ignore the law of the State--a law 
the elected representatives of the people in that State have enacted. 
Some States do little oversight on the concealed carry permits they 
have issued. In the year 2007, the South Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper 
found that 1,400 people in Florida had active concealed carry licenses 
even though they had received sentences--criminal sentences--for major 
crimes, including assault, sexual battery, child abuse, and 
manslaughter.
  So even in the States where they have established standards for 
concealed carry, many of them are not keeping an eye on them. There is 
no oversight. As a consequence, people may be legally carrying in one 
State which has lax standards in obtaining the permit and no review--
virtually no review when it comes to the people who end up with the 
permits--and that person can travel to another State which has 
established standards for the safety of their own citizens and under 
the Thune amendment legally carry a gun.
  If the Thune amendment is enacted, States with carefully crafted 
concealed carry laws must allow concealed carry by out-of-State 
visitors who may not meet their own State's standards, who may even 
have sexual battery, child abuse, or manslaughter convictions.
  Is that going to make us safer? Do we want in my State--well, 
Illinois would be an exception because we do not have a concealed carry 
law. We are one of two States that do not. But for the other 48 States, 
do we want people traveling across the border who do not meet the basic 
requirements of knowing how to use a firearm, who do not meet the basic 
requirements in terms of their own criminal background? Is it so 
important that everybody carry a gun everywhere or do we want to 
respect States rights--States rights to determine what is safe in their 
own State? Why would we want to override some States' standards to 
allow questionable concealed carry permit holders from States with 
lower standards or virtually no standards?
  It is not necessary for us to adopt this amendment to give individual 
States the ability to recognize each other's concealed carry permits. 
The Senator from South Dakota has said his State welcomes all people 
who have concealed carry permits. But that was their decision. They 
made that decision in their State. States are free to form concealed 
carry reciprocity agreements with other States. Twelve States have 
already decided to honor conceal and carry permits issued by every 
other State, obviously including South Dakota. However, 25 other States 
look carefully at each of the other States and make this decision 
selectively. They have decided that some States have acceptable 
standards and some do not. Eleven States and the District of Columbia 
have chosen not to grant concealed carry reciprocity to any other 
State. They want their own laws to govern the protection of their own 
people.
  The Thune amendment is a direct assault on those States that have 
chosen not to allow reciprocity. They are California, Connecticut, 
Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, 
Oregon, and Rhode Island. Over all, the Thune amendment would override 
the selective reciprocity or no reciprocity laws of each of the 36 
States I have mentioned.
  There are good reasons a State might want to be careful with who they 
allow to carry concealed weapons within their borders. Let me give some 
examples of what has happened with concealed carry. Washington State 
resident Clinton Granger obtained a concealed carry permit despite his 
history of drug addiction and schizophrenia. In May of 2008, Granger 
was in a fight at a public festival, fired a shot that hit one person 
in the face, the second person in the wrist, and then lodged in a third 
person's leg.
  Cincinnati resident Geraldine Beasley obtained an Ohio concealed 
carry permit, even though she had been previously fined for unlawful 
transportation of a firearm. In August 2007 she shot and killed a 
panhandler who asked her for 25 cents at a gas station.
  In Moscow, ID, resident and Aryan Nation member Jason Kenneth 
Hamilton was given a concealed carry permit even though he had a 
domestic violence conviction. In May 2007, Hamilton went on a shooting 
spree, killing his wife, a police officer, and a church sexton, and 
wounding three others.
  According to the Violence Policy Center, from May 2007 to April 2009, 
at least seven law enforcement officers were shot and killed by 
concealed carry permit holders--these are law enforcement officers--and 
concealed carry holders were charged in the shooting deaths of at least 
43 private citizens during that time.

[[Page 18676]]

  In light of incidents such as these, it is perfectly reasonable for 
States to decide what the standards will be for concealed carry. The 
Thune amendment would override this authority of the States and 
basically say that visitors from States with a concealed carry law 
don't have to meet the State's standards where they are visiting.
  The Thune amendment is troubling because it leaves law enforcement 
agencies in the dark about the concealed carry population in their own 
area. In many States, law enforcement plays a key gatekeeper role, an 
oversight role on the concealed carry population. Under the Thune 
amendment, that is impossible. The first person who drives in out of 
State under the Thune amendment may carry a gun and the law enforcement 
officials wouldn't even have knowledge of it.
  When you look at the Thune amendment, along with the amendment 
offered earlier this year by Senator Ensign that repeals the DC 
government's local gun laws, we see a disturbing trend. We see Members 
from that side of the aisle leading an organized effort to strip State 
and local governments of their ability to keep their own communities 
safe. There is no justification for this. The Supreme Court's decision 
in Heller made it clear that although the second amendment right is to 
be respected in terms of the rights of individuals, there was still 
authority to deal with this issue of concealed carry. Justice Scalia in 
the Heller opinion specifically discussed the lawfulness of 
prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons.
  Congress should not require one State's laws to trump another's. New 
York should not have to let visitors on its city streets be governed by 
the laws of Alaska when it comes to carrying guns, and it should be up 
to the State to decide who it will permit to carry concealed weapons 
within their borders.
  This is not a good amendment. America won't be safer if the Thune 
amendment passes. It has not gone through a hearing in the Senate. The 
Senator decided to call it up the day before that hearing was set. It 
guts State laws in 36 States. It will leave law enforcement with no 
knowledge of who is carrying concealed weapons in their State. It puts 
guns in the hands of dangerous people who could easily misuse them.
  This amendment is opposed by law enforcement organizations, mayors, 
and State elected officials. I have received letters in opposition to 
what Senator Thune calls a very simple amendment from the International 
Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Police Chief 
Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a coalition of 400 mayors 
called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a 
group of State attorneys general, including my own Lisa Madigan, the 
bipartisan Association of State Legislators Against Illegal Guns, and 
many others.
  The amendment has been criticized in many newspapers, including USA 
Today, the Miami Herald, the Philadelphia Enquirer, the New York Times, 
the Washington Post, and Baltimore Sun.
  This amendment should be defeated. I urge my colleagues to reject it.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota is 
recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, let me, if I might, point out some of the 
statistics, and I will also add in response to the comments of my 
colleague from Illinois that the amendment was not applied to the 
District of Columbia.
  With respect to the issue of federalism, I think it is important to 
note that back in 2003, there were 70 cosponsors in the Senate for a 
piece of legislation that allowed retired law enforcement and current 
law enforcement officers to carry across State lines--obviously an 
infringement on this notion of federalism that the Senator from 
Illinois has raised.
  I also would point out that we do know the impact. The Senator from 
Illinois said we don't know what the impact of this is going to be. Any 
suggestion about what impacts could occur are very hypothetical. What 
we do know is that there are a number of States that have already 
enacted national concealed carry reciprocity agreements. In those 
States, we also know what the impacts have been. The impacts have been 
that clearly there has been less crime rather than more.
  Studies have shown that there is more defensive gun use by victims 
than there are crimes committed with firearms in this country. In fact, 
researchers have estimated that there are as many as 2.5 million 
defensive uses of firearms in the United States each year, though a lot 
of those go unreported because no shots are ever fired. There are lots 
of examples, and I have a list of them here I could go through 
anecdotally too. These are those that have been recorded by the press 
where actually the defensive use by a firearm, someone with a concealed 
carry permit, has actually helped prevent crimes. There are countless 
examples of those that have been documented and reported by the press, 
not to mention, as I said, the estimated 2.5 million defensive uses of 
firearms in the United States each year.
  There are estimated to be about 5 million concealed carry permit 
holders in the United States today. Assuming that every instance 
reported by gun control groups of improper firearm use by individuals 
with a concealed carry permit is true--something that can be debated, 
but assuming that it is true--over an entire year, for over 142,857 
permit holders, there would be one--one--improper use of a firearm.
  Put another way, concealed carry permit holders would be 15 times 
less--15 times less--likely than the rest of the public to commit 
murder.
  There are some States--and some large States, frankly--that have 
issued concealed carry permits, and probably one of the largest States 
is the State of Florida. They have had a concealed carry permit law in 
effect in the State of Florida going back to 1987. Yet if you look at 
the 1.57 million concealed carry permits that people have in the State 
of Florida, there have only been 167 of those revoked. That is less 
than one-tenth of 1 percent.
  As of 2008, Utah, which allows both residents and nonresidents to 
acquire concealed carry permits, had 134,398 active concealed handgun 
permits. Over the past year they have had 12 revocations or .009 
percent because of some type of violent crime, but none of those 
crimes, incidentally, involved the use of a gun. During the 1990s and 
through the decade of 2000 so far, independent researchers have found 
11 cases where a permit holder committed murder with a gun.
  I would simply point out to my colleagues that the points that are 
being made by the Senator from Illinois are largely speculative. If you 
go back to 1991, the number of privately owned guns has risen by about 
90 million to an all-time high. Over that same timeframe, the Nation's 
murder rate has decreased 46 percent to a 43-year low, and the total 
violent crime rate has decreased 41 percent to a 35-year low. This at a 
time--as I said, since 1991, the number of privately owned guns has 
increased by about 90 million to an all-time high. Also, as I said 
before, the number of permits that are issued across the country is 
about 5 million nationally. My State of South Dakota has about 47,000, 
but it is a small percentage of the overall number of Americans who 
actually could access or could get a concealed carry permit who do it. 
Most of them have a reason for doing it. Most of them are going to be 
people such as truckdrivers who are going across State lines such as 
the example I mentioned. There are lots of people who travel.
  For example, as another case in point, I have two daughters who are 
in college. My oldest one will graduate next year. Currently she is in 
the safe confines of a college campus, but she attends college several 
States away from our State of South Dakota. When she is out of college 
next year, I fully expect--and we have discussed this--that she may get 
a concealed carry permit in the State in which she resides, to have a 
firearm in order to protect herself, because I think a lot of single 
women in this country do, particularly those who live in large cities 
and she would be living in a large city. When she comes home to South 
Dakota she, of course, traverses several States and

[[Page 18677]]

during the course of that, she crosses two States where it would be 
illegal to have a firearm in her possession in her car to protect her 
as she travels those vast distances across several States.
  There are lots of examples I think of people--law-abiding citizens--
who, for purposes of self-defense, simply want the opportunity to, in a 
legal way, transport that firearm and they have concealed carry 
permits. They have gone through their State's background check--and by 
the way, all but three States that issue concealed carry permits 
require background checks, so it is the same thing you would go through 
in order to buy a firearm.
  So the suggestion that all of these people are going to be able to 
get firearms: The Federal law prevents some of the very examples the 
Senator from Illinois mentioned from having access to firearms in the 
first place. Of course, the background checks, with the exception of 
those three States--as a practical matter those three States, which are 
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Delaware, also go through the 
background checks. They don't have it as a requirement to get a conceal 
and carry permit. But background checks are going to be conducted. You 
are going to find out if there is criminal behavior in the background, 
mental illness, all of those things which under Federal law would 
prevent that person from possessing a firearm in the first place.
  I reserve the balance of my time. The Senator from Louisiana is here 
and I assume the Presiding Officer will recognize the other side.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from New 
York.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York is 
recognized.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, some would suggest that a permit to 
conceal a gun in one State should provide authority for a legal and 
valid concealment in another State. I strongly believe that what gun 
laws are right for New York are not necessarily right for South Dakota 
and vice versa. States should be able to make decisions and pass 
reasonable constitutional safety standards based on their public safety 
requirements, traditions, population, crime rates, and geography.
  It is wrong for the Federal Government to overrule a State's ability 
to enact reasonable, constitutional gun laws designed to prevent 
alcoholics, criminals, domestic abusers, those with documented grave 
mental illness, and other potentially violent and dangerous people from 
carrying guns in our cities.
  In fact, Senator Thune's amendment creates a double standard in 
recognition of States rights with regard to conceal and carry laws. By 
allowing exemptions, this amendment validates the laws of States that 
ban concealed weapons but then strikes down the laws of a State such as 
New York that maintains basic safety standards for concealed carry 
permits. At a minimum, New York should be allowed to opt out and have 
an exemption.
  This legislation would eviscerate concealed carry permitting 
standards, moving to a new national lowest common denominator. This 
bill would even allow individuals ineligible to obtain a permit in 
their own State the means to shop around for a lower standard in other 
States that offer permits to out-of-State residents, undercutting laws 
that would otherwise render the applicant ineligible.
  A study by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence using FBI crime 
statistics demonstrates that relaxing conceal and carry laws may have 
an adverse effect on a State's crime rate. Between 1992 and 1998, the 
violent crime rate in States which kept strict conceal and carry laws 
fell by an average of 30 percent, whereas violent crime rates dropped 
by only 15 percent in States with weak conceal and carry laws.
  A second concern is a lack of acceptable safety standards in all 
States. According to the Washington Post, in at least two-thirds of all 
States some form of safety training is required in order to receive a 
permit. Abusers of alcohol are prohibited from getting a permit. Those 
convicted of certain misdemeanors are prohibited.
  In many States, statutory requirements are minimal and do not go much 
beyond the Federal Brady law requirements for purchasing firearms, 
meaning that some people get conceal and carry permits despite criminal 
convictions for violent or drug-related misdemeanors, assault, or even 
stalking.
  It is not completely evident what a national overrule of State 
concealed carry laws might do to local crime numbers, but trends in 
national crime suggest that State and local governments understand what 
works in protecting their citizens.
  I spoke with our NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who said:

       The Thune amendment would invite chaos in our cities and 
     put the lives of both police officers and members of the 
     public at risk by enabling anyone with an out-of-State 
     permit, including gun traffickers, to carry multiple handguns 
     wherever they go. New York City's strict requirements as to 
     who can carry a concealed weapon have contributed to the 
     city's unparalleled public safety. Our effort, indeed our 
     entire mission, would be severely undercut by this bill. In a 
     city where 90 percent of all guns used in crimes come from 
     out of State, it is easy to see how S. 845 would pose a 
     danger to New Yorkers by greatly increasing the availability 
     of illegal handguns for purchase.

  In 2008, New York had the lowest crime rate of the 25 largest cities 
in the country, and of the 261 cities with more than 100,000 residents, 
New York's crime rate ranked 246th.
  Mayor Michael Bloomberg attributed this success to ``using innovative 
policing strategies and a focus on keeping guns out of the hands of 
criminals.''
  This week, the Washington Post cited similar success at reducing 
crime in big cities across the country, stating that New York, 
Washington, DC, and Los Angeles are on track for fewer killings this 
year than in the last four decades. This is part of a larger trend in 
many big cities across the country.
  Local and State elected officials and law enforcement officers across 
the country, such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police 
and Major Cities Chiefs Association, are speaking out in opposition to 
this amendment.
  Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition of more than 450 
mayors--including of New York City, Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, 
Rochester, and Syracuse--representing more than 56 million Americans, 
has stated a strong opposition to this amendment.
  I stand here today with law enforcement and these cities and States 
across this country. They know what is best in keeping their 
communities safe. Commonsense gun laws focused on training, and keeping 
guns out of the hands of criminals and other dangerous people, are 
reducing crime, and we should be supporting their efforts, not gutting 
such basic safety standards.
  I strongly believe in our Constitution and the second amendment and 
Americans' right to defend themselves, but I also strongly support the 
States' and cities' right to provide basic constitutional and 
reasonable regulation of firearms.
  I urge my colleagues in the Senate to stand up for our local 
communities and the commonsense gun safety laws.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Louisiana such 
time as he may consume.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Louisiana is 
recognized.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of amendment No. 
1618.
  I am a proud cosponsor of this amendment, along with dozens of other 
Senators on a bipartisan basis. I urge all of my colleagues to support 
this amendment.
  The second amendment is a valued constitutional right. Thank God, the 
courts, particularly in recent years, have expressly recognized that. 
Of course, the Supreme Court, in the landmark Heller decision, ruled 
that ``the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of 
confrontation'' is a protected fundamental constitutional right. Even 
the very liberal Ninth Circuit Court, based in California, ruled that 
the second amendment right to keep and bear arms is ``deeply rooted in 
this Nation's history and tradition'' and has long been regarded as the

[[Page 18678]]

``true palladium of liberty.'' That court also wrote that ``nothing 
less than the security of the nation--a defense against both external 
and internal threats--rests on the provision [second amendment].''
  That is why this amendment is a fundamental right. What does that 
mean in everyday terms? It means the ability of citizens, particularly 
those more vulnerable in our society, such as women, to protect 
themselves, people such as Sue Fontenot in Louisiana, who told me:

       When my family and I go out at night, it makes me feel 
     safer just knowing I am able to have my concealed weapon.

  It is personal safety and security. It is a fundamental ability to 
protect one's self, one's family, and one's property. So if that is a 
fundamental right, and if we have reasonable laws and reasonable 
permitting processes, why shouldn't Sue Fontenot have that freedom, 
right, and security when she visits other States, which also allow 
concealed carry?
  This isn't just anecdotal quotes, this is also backed up by 
criminological studies. Studying crime trends around the country in the 
United States, John Lott and David Mustard concluded:

       Allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent 
     crimes. . . . When State concealed hand gun laws went into 
     effect in a county, murders fell by 8.5 percent and rapes and 
     aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent.

  In the 1990s, Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz found guns were used for 
self-protection about 2.5 million times annually. That number, of 
course, dwarfs these tiny numbers and anecdotal evidence of limited, 
very tiny numbers of improper use of guns by folks with concealed carry 
permits.
  Responding to the Kleck and Gertz study, the late Marvin Wolfgang, 
self-described ``as strong a gun control advocate as can be found among 
criminologists in this country,'' said he agreed with the methodology 
of the study.
  Our amendment will simply allow law-abiding Americans to exercise 
their fundamental right to self-defense, by using the full faith and 
credit clause of our U.S. Constitution.
  As we do this, as we protect that fundamental individual right, we 
also protect States rights. I think it is very important to address 
some of the arguments with regard to States rights that have been made 
by the other side.
  We do not mandate the right to concealed carry in any State that does 
not allow the practice. Some States, such as Illinois and Wisconsin, 
fall into that category. We do not mandate a concealed carry right in 
those States. In addition, our amendment does not establish national 
standards for concealed carry. It does not provide a national concealed 
carry permit. It simply allows citizens who are able to carry in their 
home States to also carry in other States, but only if those other 
States have concealed carry permits.
  We also respect the law of those other States, in terms of where guns 
can be carried and where they cannot be carried. So we explicitly 
respect that State law by requiring that State laws concerning specific 
times and locations in which firearms may not be carried must be 
followed by the visiting individual, and that is very important.
  Finally, we absolutely protect and enshrine current Federal law, in 
terms of background checks and people with criminal problems or mental 
problem, who cannot carry guns. If an individual is prohibited by 
current Federal law from carrying a firearm, we absolutely protect and 
enshrine that. Let me say that again. If under current Federal law an 
individual is prohibited from carrying a gun, that is fully protected.
  At the end of the day, this is, again, a fundamental debate about 
what is the problem in terms of violent crime? Is the problem law-
abiding citizens who follow the law, who take all of the time and all 
of the trouble needed to get concealed carry permits, go through 
background checks, fill out forms, and do everything that is required 
by their home States? Is that class of people the fundamental cause of 
violent crime or is the dominant, 99.9 percent fundamental problem in 
the violent crime arena people who don't follow the law, who ignore the 
law, who ignore a concealed carry law, ignore those requirements, as 
well as every other law on the books--unfortunately, including laws 
against murder and armed robbery and other violent crime?
  Clearly, in the minds of commonsense Americans, it is the latter 
category of folks that is the problem, not the former. The statistics 
and the evidence and the history bear that out. So concealed carry is a 
useful and essential tool for law-abiding citizens to be able to 
protect themselves and stop and deter violent crime. It is not any 
significant source of violent crime whatsoever. We have the numbers 
that bear that out. We have some States that allow reciprocity now. Ten 
States now allow reciprocity under their State law.
  Have they seen incidents of problems with concealed carry permits 
from other States? No. Have they seen spikes in violent crime because 
of this reciprocity? No. Again, because this is a fundamental right, 
and because it goes to people's security, because criminological and 
other studies are on our side and don't show any spike in violent crime 
by this but in fact show crimes prevented and deterred by concealed 
carry, I urge all of my colleagues to support this important 
reciprocity amendment.
  Groups around the country who respect the second amendment and find 
that a fundamental and important right are certainly supporting this 
amendment. The National Rifle Association, NRA, is a strong supporter 
of this amendment. I thank them for that and for their leadership. They 
are also specifically scoring this amendment in terms of Member votes. 
Gun Owners of America, another leading gun rights second amendment 
group, is a strong supporter of this amendment and is specifically 
pushing for passage and scoring Members' votes. The Owner-Operator 
Independent Drivers Association, the Passenger-Cargo Security Group, 
and many other groups around the country are strong supporters of this 
amendment, because the second amendment is a fundamental right because 
concealed carry does work, because it prevents crimes and deters crime 
and doesn't significantly add, in any meaningful way, to the crime 
problem.
  Again, like with a lot of gun control debates, this comes down to a 
pretty fundamental question: Do you think the big problem with regard 
to violent crime is the law-abiding citizen, the one who takes the time 
and goes to the trouble of filling out the forms and following all the 
rules for concealed carry? I don't. Or do you think the fundamental 
problem--99.99 percent of the problem--is the criminal who doesn't 
respect that law, because he doesn't even respect laws against murder, 
armed robbery, and other violent crimes? That is the problem. 
Commonsense Americans know that.
  This amendment will protect law-abiding citizens and provide another 
effective and important tool against those criminals who are the 
problem.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois has 47 
minutes 34 seconds.
  Mr. DURBIN. I yield 10 minutes to Senator Schumer from New York.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York is 
recognized.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank all my colleagues who are working 
with us on this amendment. The Senator from California, who will speak 
after me, has been such a leader on these issues. She and I were 
commenting that this is probably the most dangerous piece of 
legislation to the safety of Americans when it comes to guns since the 
repeal of the assault weapons ban, which she led the charge on to pass. 
I thank my colleague from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg, who has been 
a leader on gun issues and has done such a great job; also, Senator 
Menendez, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Durbin, and so many others who 
are working with us today on this issue.
  Today we are here to urge all our colleagues to oppose this 
legislation. The

[[Page 18679]]

legislation would do nothing less than take State and local gun laws 
and tear them up. It would take the carefully crafted gun laws in New 
York and tear them up. It would do the same in 47 other States.
  The great irony of this amendment is that the pro-gun lobby has 
always said: Let the States decide. Now they are doing a 180-degree 
turn and saying: Let the Federal Government decide and impose the 
lowest common denominator, when it comes to carrying concealed weapons, 
on all the States, except Illinois and Wisconsin which do not have any 
carry laws.
  We know the gun lobby is strong. We know there are many Members on 
both sides of the aisle who believe strongly in an individual's right 
to carry arms. But this legislation goes way beyond the previous pro-
gun laws we have voted on this session. It is a bridge too far. It 
threatens the safety of millions of Americans, particularly in urban 
and suburban areas. It directly threatens the safety of millions of New 
Yorkers. Let me illustrate.
  Our neighboring State of Vermont--it is a beautiful State; I have 
great respect for it and its two Senators--is a rural State. It has a 
strong libertarian belief, and it has a very lenient concealed carry 
law. The Vermont law says that if you are 16 years of age, you can 
apply for a gun license and you automatically get a concealed carry 
permit and you get the gun. That is all you have to do.
  Can you imagine if this law passed what would happen? Known gun 
runners would go to Vermont, get a gun license, get a concealed carry 
permit, and they could get 20, 30, 50 guns concealed in a backpack, in 
a suitcase, and bring them and sell them on the streets of the south 
Bronx or central Brooklyn, bring them to Central Park or Queens, and 
our local police would have their hands tied.
  One of the points I would like to make to my colleagues about this 
amendment is it endangers not only the citizenry but our police 
officers. Today, at about this time, the mayor of the city of New York 
and our police commissioner will be speaking out against this proposal. 
Our police commissioner is particularly upset because his job is the 
safety of police officers. When a police officer stops someone in a 
car, they now have the safety and sanctity of mind to know that if that 
person has a gun in their car, it has been approved by the New York 
City Police Department. There are people who need to carry guns for 
self-defense or other purposes. After this law passes, they have no 
such peace of mind, no such safety. Imagine you are a police officer 
and you stop someone. They could be from 47 different States with 47 
different requirements, and you are responsible to figure out if that 
person has a gun in his car and has the right to carry a gun in his 
car. It is impossible to do in our larger urban areas.
  For that reason, each State has carefully crafted its concealed carry 
laws in a way that makes the most sense to protect its citizens. 
Clearly, large urban areas, such as New York, merit different standards 
than rural areas, such as Wyoming. To gut the ability of local police 
and sheriffs to determine who should be able to carry a concealed 
weapon makes no sense. It could reverse the dramatic success we have 
had in reducing crime in most parts of America.
  That is one point I wish to stress. One of the things I am proudest 
of, what our government has done over the last 20 years--Federal, 
State, local--is greatly reduce crime. My city of New York gained 1 
million people, I think, in large part because people were no longer 
afraid to come and live in New York. If you ask the experts--not me, 
not Senator Thune, not any of us who have political beliefs that might 
differ--ask the police experts: What is one of the top reasons we have 
been able to reduce crime in our cities, it is that we have had 
reasonable laws on guns, and we have allowed our larger urban, more 
crime-ridden areas to have stricter laws than our rural areas.
  I understand in my State of New York that guns are a way of life in 
large parts of the State, and I respect that. The Heller decision is a 
decision I welcomed. I talked about the right to bear arms in the 
Constitution. I believed in it even before Heller. But you know--and 
this is what I would like to say to my friends on the other side of the 
aisle and in the NRA--no amendment is absolute. You are right when you 
say: Why should the first, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments 
be expanded as far as we can and the second amendment be seen through a 
pinhole of militias? You are right. But similarly, no amendment is 
absolute.
  Most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle support laws 
preventing the spread of pornography. That is an infringement of the 
first amendment but a reasonable one because there is a balancing test. 
Most of my friends on both sides of the aisle would support libel laws. 
If somebody says something very defamatory about a citizen, they should 
have the right to sue, of course. That is a limitation on the first 
amendment. We don't rail against it.
  The concealed carry laws of the States are reasonable limits on the 
second amendment. If you are to believe the second amendment should 
have no limits, of course, you would vote for this amendment. But then 
I ask you the contrary question that some who are pro-gun ask those of 
us who believe in more gun control. How is it that the second amendment 
should have no limits but the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, 
seventh, and eighth should have limits? Of course, if reasonable limits 
in a balancing test exist, and if there is any balancing test that 
makes sense, it is the one of allowing each State to come up with its 
concealed carry law.
  I don't think this is an amendment of which anyone can be proud. I 
understand the power of the gun lobby. I understand we have different 
beliefs and represent different States. But we are not trying to say 
what South Dakota should do. Why should South Dakota say what New York 
or California should do?
  When I spoke--and I have great respect for the sponsor of this 
amendment--when we were speaking in the gym yesterday morning, he said 
one of the problems he hears about in his area--and I understand it--is 
a truckdriver in the cab of his truck carries a gun and is allowed to 
carry a gun. Why should that truckdriver, when he crosses State lines, 
goes from South Dakota to North Dakota, be limited? I can understand 
that argument. But this amendment goes way beyond that. It doesn't talk 
about one weapon. It doesn't talk about a person who has been granted a 
license because he needs it for protection as he commerces across State 
lines. It is unlimited based on whatever the lowest common denominator 
State would do.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich). The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, a couple quick observations, if I may. 
First, I need to correct for the record the State of South Dakota has 
reciprocity agreements with 27 States. It does not have national 
reciprocity, which I think gets at the very point I am making; that is, 
anybody who has a concealed carry permit in one State is so confused by 
this patchwork of laws we have that they cannot determine which State 
is legal and which State is not legal. That is a very serious problem 
for people such as truckdrivers, such as individuals who want to 
protect themselves when they travel across the country.
  In terms of the arguments made to individuals who have access to 
firearms, the 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits individuals from even 
possessing a firearm if the individual is under indictment or convicted 
of a crime punishable by more than a year, is an unlawful user or 
addict of a controlled substance, has been adjudicated to be mentally 
ill or committed involuntarily to a mental institution, is subject to a 
court order restraining him or her from domestic violence or has been 
convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor.
  My amendment does nothing to change Federal law. But if individuals 
are not allowed to possess a firearm, they certainly are not going to 
be able to conceal and carry one.

[[Page 18680]]

  I might add, with regard to the issue taking multiple guns in a sack 
and transporting them, there are Federal laws that prevent trafficking 
in firearms already. We do nothing to address that issue. What we 
simply do is allow those law-abiding citizens who have concealed carry 
permits in their home States and choose to defend themselves when they 
travel around the country to do that.
  Florida is a case in point. Florida is a big State that has had 
concealed carry permits for over 20 years and has agreements with 
multiple States. There is no evidence whatsoever in the State of 
Florida that there has been any suggestion of increasing crime.
  Rather, I suggest the opposite would be true. I say to my colleague 
from New York that if someone who has a concealed carry permit travels 
to the State of New York, and I will say anybody who has a concealed 
carry permit from the State of South Dakota goes to New York and is in 
Central Park, Central Park would be a much safer place.
  I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Will my colleague yield for a question?
  Mr. THUNE. I yielded time to the Senator from South Carolina. I will 
be happy to yield for a question later on the time of the Senator from 
New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be given 
30 seconds to ask the Senator a question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. THUNE. I object, Mr. President. The Senator from South Carolina 
has been yielded time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The Senator from South 
Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I always thought this debate kind of went 
down the side of liberal versus conservative until I got to understand 
during the confirmation hearings of Judge Sotomayor that Senator 
Feingold is probably one of the strongest gun guys in the Senate. So I 
have had to recalibrate where I stand on this issue in terms of trying 
to pigeonhole people.
  The point of the amendment, No. 1, is it should not be on the Defense 
bill. I think we all agree with that. We are talking about a Defense 
authorization bill to protect our troops and provide them the equipment 
they need and give them a pay raise. Now we are talking about guns and 
hate crimes. I don't know how we got here as a body, but we are here.
  If you had to pick a nongermane amendment to talk about that makes 
some sense, that most Americans, I think, would like us to be talking 
about, it would be something fundamental to our country. I think most 
Americans are a little bit right to center on an issue such as this, 
for lack of a better phraseology. Most Americans believe in lawful and 
responsible gun ownership. Quite frankly, that is what this is trying 
to bolster.
  I make an observation that if you take the time to get a concealed 
carry permit in South Carolina or any other State that allows it, you 
let the law enforcement authorities know you are interested in owning a 
gun, you go to a training seminar that most States have to be able to 
get the permit or you have to go through whatever hoops the State set 
up to be able to carry a weapon in a concealed fashion, that you are 
probably not high on the list of people who want to use a gun to commit 
a crime. You would be incredibly stupid. You are pointing out to the 
whole State: Hey, I have a gun. I argue that the people who go through 
the exercise of getting a concealed carry permit are the ones you 
probably want to have a gun because they seem to understand the 
responsibility that goes with owning it.
  The idea of does this make us less safe by allowing reciprocity 
nationwide makes no sense to me. I think of all the people we need to 
worry about committing gun crimes and violence unlawfully, the people 
with concealed carry permits are probably last on the list.
  Americans do object to guns being used in the commission of crimes, 
and a lot of States have enhanced punishment whereby if you use a 
firearm in the commission of a crime your incarceration time can go up. 
In other words, we want to deter people from using a gun in the 
commission of a crime, and I think most Americans agree with those 
laws. I think the city of Richmond was one of the first cities in the 
Nation to have enhanced punishment for the use of a weapon. It is true 
that some people do misuse a weapon. Some people misuse a car. But it 
is a fundamental right under our Constitution, according to our Supreme 
Court, to possess a gun.
  This amendment makes sense at every level. If I go through the 
process of getting a concealed carry permit in South Carolina and I go 
to another State that has a similar law, I automatically get the 
benefit of that law--no more than that law. So I don't know what the 
law is about carrying a gun in Central Park in New York. I know this: 
If you have a permit to carry a gun in South Dakota or South Carolina 
and you go to New York, you don't have any greater rights than the 
people in New York. And I also understand that whatever Federal 
restrictions on gun ownership that exist are not changed by this.
  So this is pretty common sense to me. If someone goes through the 
process of getting a permit to carry a weapon in their own State and 
they choose to go to another State, they automatically get the benefit 
of that State's law when it comes to concealed carry. They do not get 
any more, they do not get any less, and it may be less than I would 
have in South Carolina. But because we are a group of people who travel 
around and visit among ourselves, this Federal legislation allows us to 
go from one State to the next and get the benefit of any law that may 
exist when it comes to concealed carry. But the precondition is that 
you would have to have that permit in your own State and you have to go 
through the rigors of getting that permit in your own State.
  To anybody who says this makes America less safe or more dangerous, 
again, that just makes no sense to me. Whatever gun crimes are being 
committed out there, they are not being committed, as an overwhelming 
general rule, by the people who have gone through the process of 
getting a permit and who carry a weapon. So, to me, it makes sense.
  I congratulate my friend from South Dakota and tell him he has done 
something I think most Americans would agree with. He has allowed the 
American public to be able to travel and get the benefit of whatever 
law exists in a State when it comes to carrying a weapon--no more, no 
less. And this argument that people are somehow going to start carrying 
a weapon across the border makes no sense because whatever Federal 
restrictions there are on arms trafficking still stand.
  At the end of the day, this legislation will help people who follow 
the law and obey gun laws to travel throughout the country without 
tripping themselves up and getting in trouble when they do not mean to 
get in trouble. If we didn't have this law, it really would be a mess. 
What we are trying to do is provide some clarity to gun ownership in 
America. We are not enhancing the ability to commit a crime. Quite 
frankly, I think it is the other way around; if everybody had the same 
attitude about gun ownership as people who get a permit, the country 
would be okay.
  We are not changing any law that regulates trafficking of firearms. 
We are not allowing criminals to get access to guns. We are simply 
allowing people who go through the process of getting a permit in their 
own State to travel to any State in the Union which has a similar law 
and to get the benefit of that law. That will make life better for 
them, it will make life better in terms of legal compliance, and I 
think it is a proper role for the Federal Government to play.
  This amendment enhances our second amendment rights. It doesn't 
change them in a way that makes America less safe. It allows people who 
are going to do the right thing to be able to do the right thing with 
some knowledge as to what the right thing is.
  So Senator Thune has done the country a great service, and I think we 
will

[[Page 18681]]

have a big vote--I hope we will--across party lines. You don't have to 
agree with my right to carry a weapon lawfully. You may not choose that 
same right for yourself. But that is kind of what makes the country 
great--the ability for one citizen to understand that even though I 
wouldn't make that choice, as long as you make a choice responsibly, I 
am going to allow you to do that. That is what makes this a very 
special place.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-seven minutes 13 seconds.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would say for the record that I have 
many more Democrats seeking time than I have time. I wish to alert 
those who are coming to the floor that they are going to have to accept 
an abbreviated time. We did not have all the time we hoped for this 
morning. I ask each of my speakers to also try to abbreviate their time 
in the interest of accommodating their colleagues.
  I yield 15 minutes to Senator Feinstein and hope that she will yield 
back a sizeable portion of it.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I rise today to speak in strong opposition to this 
amendment. If passed, this amendment would require States like 
California to allow people with concealed weapon permits from other 
States to carry a concealed gun, or guns, even if they have failed to 
meet California's stringent requirements for obtaining a permit.
  Over 4 million people hold concealed weapon permits in the United 
States, so this is no minor shift in policy. In fact, it would be a 
sweeping change with deadly consequences.
  It completely undermines the rights of State government to protect 
public safety. This amendment essentially overturns the standards and 
regulations that many States have enacted to prevent concealed weapons 
from falling into the wrong hands. This is not a philosophical debate, 
it is a matter of life and death.
  My home State, California, sets a very high bar for those who wish to 
obtain a concealed weapon permit. It does not honor permits granted 
elsewhere. In fact, only 40,000 permits have been granted in California 
and we have a population of 38.2 million people. Contrast that with 
Florida, a State of about half the size at 18 million people--it has 
580,000 permits; Georgia has 300,000 permits. Let me repeat, 
California, the Nation's most populace State, has but 40,000 concealed 
carry permits.
  California's strict rules ensure that felons, the mentally ill, and 
people who have been convicted of certain misdemeanor offenses or are 
considered a threat to others are automatically disqualified.
  Those who do meet these qualifications do not automatically receive a 
permit. Specifically, in order to obtain a concealed weapon permit in 
California, an applicant must, No. 1, undergo fingerprinting and pass 
through a Federal background check; No. 2, complete a course of gun 
training; No. 3, be considered a person of good moral character by the 
local sheriff; and No. 4, just as importantly, demonstrate a good cause 
for needing a concealed weapon permit. This gives State and local 
authorities the discretion.
  This amendment will force California to honor permits issued by all 
other States, including those which allow minors, convicted criminals, 
and people with no firearm safety training to carry concealed weapons. 
Only the time, place, and manner requirements of a State would remain 
intact under the Thune amendment. For example, if the State of South 
Carolina had a law making it illegal to carry a weapon into an office 
building that was government owned, that law would still be valid for 
all out-of-State concealed carry permit holders. However, this is a 
very narrow exception.
  This isn't just bad policy, it is extremely dangerous policy. The 
Thune amendment is designed to undermine the rights of States to 
determine their own rules and regulations for concealed weapons 
permits. Here we have people who believe in States rights. Yet when it 
comes to something they really want, they are willing to pounce on 
States rights and destroy them.
  California's standards, I admit, are tougher than most, but many 
other States routinely deny concealed weapon permits for various 
reasons: 31 States prohibit alcohol abusers from obtaining concealed 
carry permits; 35 States prohibit persons convicted of misdemeanors 
from carrying concealed weapons; 31 States require completion of gun 
safety programs. The Thune amendment obliterates all of these public 
safety standards.
  It is important to note that 12 States voluntarily honor concealed 
weapon permits carried in any other State. Another 25 States recognize 
permits issued by States with similar or equivalent concealed weapon 
permits standards. But 11 States, including California, choose not to 
recognize any out-of-State permits. These States have made a choice 
about what is best for their citizens, and that choice ought to be 
respected. This amendment says that the views of California's Governor, 
sheriffs, police, and its citizens don't matter, but the views of those 
who promote guns do matter. I cannot accept that.
  If this amendment were to pass, it would possibly allow those with 
concealed weapon permits to bring one or more banned assault weapons 
into our State.
  We have consulted with the Congressional Research Service, and they 
state the following:

       The amendment would appear to have a preemptive effect on 
     State reciprocity laws or regulations because it would appear 
     to require those States which have more stringent eligibility 
     requirements for concealed carry to recognize the permits of 
     other States where the eligibility requirements are less 
     stringent.
       It could be argued that the language of this amendment is 
     broad enough such that it would allow certain firearms that 
     are banned from purchase or possession in one State to be 
     brought into that State. For example, one could legally 
     purchase, possess, and carry a concealed permit for a firearm 
     that is banned in States like California, Connecticut, 
     Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

  That is not my statement, that is the opinion of the Congressional 
Research Service. This amendment would put in jeopardy States' assault 
weapons control laws. I don't know whether that was intended, but this 
is a very broad and vague piece of legislation that is being debated. 
If this amendment is agreed to, I believe assault weapons will be 
brought into California and other border States. These weapons could 
end up being smuggled into Mexico.
  Some say, that an armed society is a polite society, and they portray 
concealed weapon carriers as responsible citizens who are simply 
exercising their rights. Earlier this morning on television, I heard a 
Senator say that only good, responsible people have these permits. That 
simply is not true. Let me give an example.
  In April, Richard Poplawski killed three Pittsburgh police officers. 
He had the right to carry a weapon in Pennsylvania even though he was 
the subject of a restraining order filed by an ex-girlfriend.
  In March, Michael McLendon killed 11 people, including the wife of a 
deputy sheriff, before taking his own life following a gun battle with 
police in Alabama. He too, had a concealed weapon permit.
  When I hear people on television saying only the good people get 
these permits, that is simply not true. In my view, these unstable men 
should never have been permitted to own any weapon for any reason. 
Lastly, in February of this year, Frank Garcia killed four people in a 
shooting rampage in upstate New York. He held a concealed weapon permit 
in that State. This year, too many people have been killed by those who 
have the right to carry a concealed weapon. We do not want other 
State's concealed weapons permitees in the State of California. We have 
38 million people. It is a diverse, disparate population. Guns do not 
help. I believe it is unlikely these men would have obtained concealed 
weapon permits in my State and, candidly, we want to keep it that way.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from 
the

[[Page 18682]]

Governor of our State, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposes this 
amendment, along with 400 U.S. mayors and the International Association 
of Chiefs of Police.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                State Capitol,

                                    Sacramento, CA, July 20, 2009.
     Hon. Dianne Feinstein,
     U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Feinstein. I am writing to seek your 
     assistance in protecting states' rights by opposing Senator 
     Thune's amendment to the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, 
     which would allow people who are issued concealed weapons 
     permits in their home state to carry those weapons in any 
     state. This amendment would undermine the rights and 
     responsibilities of state governments across this nation.
       This is a simple question of protecting California's 
     ability to determine who is allowed to carry a concealed 
     weapon within our borders. Other states have less stringent 
     requirements than ours, which means that a permit holder who 
     would be ineligible for a concealed weapon under California 
     law would be able to obtain a permit from another state and, 
     under Senator Thune's amendment, still carry that weapon in 
     California.
       Our elected representatives--with the support of the 
     majority of Californians--have set guidelines that are 
     stricter than most states'. In California, background checks 
     are conducted using a fingerprint-based system so the state 
     can verify that the recipient of the permit is eligible to 
     possess a firearm under state and federal law. Also, if a 
     person becomes ineligible to possess a firearm because he or 
     she was convicted of a felony or other disqualifying crime, 
     that information is forwarded to their local agency so the 
     permit can be revoked.
       I have consistently supported states' rights to determine 
     their own fates on a variety of issues. This amendment would 
     trample the rights I have worked hard to protect, and I urge 
     your opposition:
           Sincerely,
                                            Arnold Schwarzenegger,
                                                         Governor.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I believe the amendment is reckless. I believe it is 
irresponsible. I believe it will lead to more weapons and more violence 
in the streets of our Nation. I hope and pray this body will turn down 
this very ill-advised amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time remaining is 25 minutes 4 seconds.
  Mr. DURBIN. The other side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There remains 32 minutes 37 seconds.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I yield up to 15 minutes to the Senator 
from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I rise in support of this amendment. I 
believe it is reasonable. It is not as draconian in its implications as 
many of my colleagues, whom I greatly respect in terms of their 
concerns, are anticipating.
  I would also like to say there has been a lot of misinformation on 
the Senate floor about this amendment, to the effect it will allow 
felons, people who are mentally defective, and other dangerous 
individuals to carry weapons on the streets of American cities and also 
to buy up hordes of guns and transport them into places, as Senator 
Schumer mentioned, such as New York City. My colleague from New York 
gave as an example, in his terms, a Crip or a Blood moving to Vermont, 
establishing residency, then bringing a permit down into New York and 
being able to carry a weapon with impunity.
  I think the reality of that particular situation is the gang members 
already have their guns. They don't need this bill. In fact, this 
amendment has protections that would prevent those who engage in 
criminal activity--such as gang members--from taking advantage of this 
legislation. The people who need this bill are the ones the gang 
members might be threatening.
  With respect to standards of conduct, aspects of criminality, and 
issues of mental health, it is important to note there is a Federal 
floor under this amendment that guarantees certain standards will be 
met regardless of varying State standards. If you read the amendment, 
it states:

       A person who is not prohibited by Federal law from 
     possessing, transporting, shipping or receiving a firearm--
     and who meets other conditions, may be granted reciprocity.

  If you go into the Federal law, and I am going to read from 27 CFR 
section 478--this is the current standard in terms of being able to 
possess a firearm or ammunition.
  Anyone who--

       Has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by 
     imprisonment for a term exceeding 1 year;
       May not possess a firearm.

  Anyone who:

       Is a fugitive from justice;

  Anyone who:

       Is an unlawful user or addicted to any controlled 
     substance;

  Anyone who:

       Has been adjudicated as mentally defective or has been 
     committed to a mental institution;

  Anyone who:

       Is an alien or illegally or unlawfully in the United States 
     or an alien admitted to the United States under a 
     nonimmigrant visa;

  Anyone who:

       Has been discharged from the Armed Forces under 
     dishonorable conditions;

  Anyone who:

       Having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced 
     his or her citizenship;

  Anyone who:

       Is subject to a court order that restrains the person from 
     harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or 
     child of such intimate partner; or

  Anyone who:

       Has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic 
     violence--cannot lawfully receive, possess, ship, or 
     transport a firearm.

  In addition:

       A person who is under indictment for a crime punishable by 
     imprisonment for a term exceeding 1 year cannot lawfully 
     receive a firearm.

  Those are the Federal guarantees, the floor under which this 
reciprocity legislation operates.
  Senator Lautenberg has said in his comments that passing this 
legislation is akin to allowing someone from another State to come into 
your State and follow their speed limits. This is not an accurate 
interpretation of this amendment. The amendment specifically provides 
that anyone carrying a firearm into another State must follow the laws 
regarding firearms usage in that State, and I quote from the amendment:

       . . . in a State that allows residents of the State to 
     obtain licenses or permits to carry concealed firearms . . .

  A person gaining reciprocity is:

       Entitled to carry such a firearm subject to the same laws 
     and conditions that govern specific places and manner in 
     which a firearm may be carried by a person issued a permit by 
     the State in which the firearm is carried.

  I would say the better analogy at work here is the driver's licensing 
process itself. States decide the conditions under which a license can 
be granted, but the nature of interstate travel allows licenses issued 
in another State to be recognized across the country, so long as the 
holders of those licenses obey the laws of the State in which they are 
driving.
  I also keep hearing that this amendment will increase the number of 
purchases of handguns and other weapons. I would like to clarify for 
this body, as someone who holds a concealed carry permit, a permit to 
carry does not allow anyone to purchase a firearm automatically. One 
still has to go through the entire process of the background check as 
if you did not have a permit.
  Illegal firearms sales are a separate matter for this body to 
address--one that we clearly should be focusing on--but they fall 
outside the parameters of this amendment.
  The issue of gun usage in our country understandably divides people--
usually along the lines of those who believe that any relaxation of gun 
laws will benefit criminal and violent activity versus those who 
believe gun laws need to be modified in order to allow law-abiding 
people to defend themselves. I have a great deal of empathy for those 
who have been the victims of gun violence. I have worked with citizens 
groups as well as our Governor in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech 
shootings, to focus our approach. We have made significant improvements 
in our

[[Page 18683]]

laws since then, including working to modify privacy laws as they 
relate to mental health matters, which was the primary concern in the 
Virginia Tech shooting, and also to improve the instant background 
check process. I will continue to work on these areas.
  I also believe very strongly that the violence we see in our streets 
and in our neighborhoods must be addressed. But very little of that 
violence has ever been caused by those who seek permits to carry. As I 
mentioned before, the people who are perpetrating that kind of violence 
already have their guns. Their access to those guns is a matter we 
should all focus on. But few criminals are going to go down to the 
county courthouse and file for a permit. Those who seek permits to 
carry and who are within the Federal guidelines specifically addressed 
in this bill seek to do so in order to protect themselves from the 
violence we see on our streets.
  I would say, when I look at this amendment, a couple clear examples 
come to mind. One is my father who, in his later years, lived in 
Florida and then Arkansas, and would drive alone in his car to come and 
visit me and my brother, who lived in Minnesota. It was usually at 
least a 2-day journey. My father was older. He was by himself in the 
car. He was a classic target of potential criminal activity.
  He carried a weapon, a firearm, when he traveled. When he stopped at 
night and went into a motel, he brought that weapon with him. You check 
in a motel by yourself, you are 77 years old, people are going to start 
looking at you. I don't think people who are in that situation need to 
wonder if they are committing a felony by having a gun to be able to 
defend themselves when they are in that situation.
  Somebody else who comes to mind are all these truck drivers we see on 
the roads anytime we are on the interstate. These are independent 
contractors. They are people who are out there making a living the hard 
way. They constantly cross State boundaries. They have to worry about 
whether their truck is going to break down. They have to wonder 
sometimes, where they stop, whether they are going to be victimized if 
they sleep in the cabin of their own truck. Many can legally carry in 
their own State. Do they have to worry, if they pull over for the night 
in another State, if they try to defend themselves they are committing 
a felony? This is the type of situation I believe this legislation is 
attempting to address.
  I believe it will have a beneficial effect. I believe strongly we 
need to work together in this body to address other situations of gun 
violence in this country. I am glad to add whatever insights I can have 
to do so, but I support this legislation and I intend to vote for it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I yield 9 minutes to the Senator from New 
Jersey, Senator Menendez.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I come to the floor saddened by the 
tragic death yesterday of Marc Dinardo, 1 of 5 of New Jersey's finest 
police officers shot last week by a gunman. He was killed, not by a 
law-abiding gun owner like millions of Americans, a sportsman or a 
hunter, but by one lone armed man, too willing to pull the trigger to 
kill another human being in cold blood.
  Last night, or the night before, gunshots were fired in Jersey City. 
In Newark, three people were killed, the victims of gun violence.
  The statistics are staggering. In 1 year, 30,896 people died from gun 
violence, 12,791 people were murdered, another 69,863 people survived 
gun injuries, 48,676 people were injured in a gun attack.
  According to the Brady campaign, in 1 year, 20,784 American children 
and teens were shot in murders, assaults, suicides, accidents or by 
police intervention. Homicide was the second leading cause of death for 
young people ages 10 to 24 years old, and 84 percent of victims were 
killed by a firearm. Amazingly, firearm homicide is the second leading 
cause of death for young people ages 1 to 19.
  These numbers are shocking. I think about what this amendment does, 
whom it affects, and I cannot help but ask who is it who feels the need 
to carry a concealed weapon and for what purpose? One must ask how we 
would ever want to permit, as a matter not of State but Federal law, 
those whose motives may not be pure to walk into a playground, school, 
crowded stadium in any State licensed under Federal law to carry a 
concealed weapon in their coat pocket or bag. Do we honestly believe 
that person will be the priest or the rabbi? Do we think it will be the 
mother taking her child to a school, saying: Let me think, I have the 
house keys, the cell phone--oh yes, the permit for the gun in my bag.
  Will it be the law-abiding sportsmen using their rifles for target 
practice? Sportsmen don't need to conceal their weapons.
  Whom do we think will benefit from this amendment? Whom do we think 
will carry a concealed Glock 39 through the streets of our cities, 
perhaps into a playground, stadium, church or mosque? It will not be 
that mother or that hunter. It will not be that sportsman. As Paul 
Helmke, the president of the Brady Campaign, so aptly pointed out, it 
will be something like Richard Poplowski, the White supremacist, armed 
with an AK-47, who allegedly murdered three Pittsburgh police officers 
on his front porch.
  He was a concealed carry permit holder. It will be Michael McClendon, 
the suicide shooter who went on a rampage in Alabama, murdered ten 
people, then shot himself. He too was a concealed weapon carry permit 
holder.
  It will be criminals such as Michael Iheme, charged with first-degree 
murder in the shooting death of his wife in St. Louis Park, MN. She had 
an active restraining order against her husband because of a history of 
domestic violence. After shooting his wife, he called 911 and said, ``I 
killed that woman that messed my life up.'' He was a concealed carry 
permit holder as well.
  We are being asked to seriously consider an amendment that would 
benefit those criminals, not their victims, an amendment that would 
override State laws and federally mandate States to recognize the 
concealed weapon permits of people such as these three notorious 
criminals, even though they may not be residents of that State, even 
though they may be legally barred from possessing weapons in that 
State.
  Let's make no mistake, this amendment is a blatant infringement on 
States rights, a stealth repeal of States' hard-fought gun laws. It 
strips legislators and Governors duly elected by the people to 
represent the best interests of their constituents to make sound, 
competent, informed judgments about how best to regulate guns in their 
own State, to make those judgments based on the recommendations and 
input of law enforcement officials who know and understand the specific 
situation on the ground, on the street, in their cities, in their 
communities.
  Even the Congressional Research Service has found this amendment 
would have a preemptive effect on State reciprocity laws. They said in 
their report:

       This amendment is broad enough such that it would allow 
     certain firearms that are banned from purchase or possession 
     in one State to be brought into that State. For example, one 
     could legally purchase, possess, and carry a concealed permit 
     for a firearm that is banned in States such as California, 
     Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and 
     New York.

  In my view, this would turn the clock back on reasonable, responsible 
gun laws that States such as New Jersey have passed to protect us from 
men like Richard Poplowski, Michael McLendon, and Michael Iheme. On the 
contrary, common sense, logic, reason, rationality, good judgment all 
say that that amendment will make our streets less safe.
  And, contrary to the usual approach of my Republican colleagues to 
maximize States rights, this amendment will trample the right of States 
to pass their own laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
  Too many times, for too long, we have seen blood on our streets from 
senseless, pointless, lethal gun violence. We have tried, in our States 
and in this Chamber, to mitigate it. We have tried in our own ways to 
stop it.

[[Page 18684]]

We have all been outraged at those who, in language, attitude, and 
demeanor, seem to accept it as part of American culture. I do not 
accept it as such.
  We cannot stand down from battle being waged by law enforcement in 
every city and State against gun violence in our streets. Our charge, 
our solemn responsibility, is to end the violence, not add to it. There 
are too many guns on our streets as it is, but there are also too many 
people willing to use them.
  Let's not make it easier to carry a concealed weapon against the 
wishes of the people of a State whose elected representatives express 
their will and say, not in our State, to blithely, legally have a 
Federal mandate that would permit them to cross State lines into your 
neighborhood or my neighborhood.
  The evidence is before us in the names of Richard Poplowski, Michael 
McLendon, and Michael Iheme, all of whom had permits to carry a 
concealed weapon. If their States want to permit it, fine, but why 
should they come into my State and create the opportunity to murder 
some innocent family when my State, my government, my legislature has 
determined that, in fact, there is a better way to protect our 
citizens.
  When we go down this road, it is a slippery slope. Some day, some 
Federal issue will come in your State and you will not want the Federal 
Government to tell your State how to protect your citizens. If you 
permit this to happen today, then it will happen tomorrow in a way that 
you will not like. That is a dangerous precedent. That is a precedent I 
do not think we want.
  Finally, let us remember the victims. Let us remember Officer Marc 
Dinardo and all of the victims of gun violence who, in fact, are out 
there protecting us each and every day. They will not know the good guy 
from the bad guy. They will know if this amendment passes and becomes 
law that someone could have a concealed weapon on them. At the end of 
their day, their lives will be greater at risk. That is not something I 
want on my conscience. I do not know which Member of the Senate wants 
it on theirs.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I do not want to get into the weeds here, 
but the Senator mentioned Michael Iheme. He did not have a carry 
permit. One of the other gentleman whom he mentioned, Willie Donaldson, 
evidently the court recognized that the person had acted in self-
defense and he did not do any jail time for it.
  The broader point is, criminals commit crimes, that is what they do. 
Criminals kill people. This is not directed at criminals, this is 
directed at law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves. The 
statistics I mentioned earlier make it very clear. If you want to look 
at the studies, there is a lot more defensive gun use by victims than 
there are crimes committed with firearms. It is further estimated that 
there are as many as 2.5 million defensive uses of firearms in the 
United States each year. Again, many of those go unreported.
  But I think you have to come back to the point that of the 5 million 
people in this country who are concealed carry permit holders, if you 
assumed that every instance of reported crime by gun control groups, of 
improper firearm use by individuals with concealed carry permits, if 
every one of those is true, something that can be debated, but let's 
assume it is true, over an entire year for every 142,857 permit 
holders, there would be one improper use of a firearm.
  To put that another way, concealed carry permit holders would be 15 
times less likely than the rest of the general public to commit murder. 
The point I am making is criminals commit crimes. That is what they do. 
They are criminals. Criminals kill people. What we are trying to do 
here is to allow law-abiding people to protect themselves from 
criminals when they travel across State lines, striking the right 
balance between Federal, the Constitution, which protects an 
individual's second amendment right, and State laws. We are not 
preempting State laws. Illinois and Wisconsin preclude or prevent 
anybody from owning a concealed carry permit or having a concealed 
carry permit in their States. So this amendment does not even apply to 
them. Nobody can carry a concealed weapon in either of those States. It 
recognizes the rights of States and all of the State laws that apply. 
Most States have place and time restrictions. In my State of South 
Dakota you cannot carry in a place that serves alcohol, you cannot 
carry in schools, you cannot carry in courthouses.
  So to suggest that somebody is going to transport a whole bunch of 
guns, which would be a violation of Federal laws because there are laws 
against trafficking, into an area of a State, public school, or 
someplace like that, are wild exaggerations and scare tactics that are 
not based on any evidence. The data we have that suggest the contrary.
  I yield such time to the Senator from Wyoming as he may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, today I rise in support of the Thune 
amendment. The Thune amendment to me is very straightforward. It does 
not preempt State concealed carry laws, it does not create a Federal 
concealed carry permit. It simply allows law-abiding individuals, law-
abiding individuals to lawfully carry concealed firearms across State 
lines while following the laws of the host State.
  Just like a driver's license--this is my Wyoming driver's license--
just like a driver's license, the Thune amendment is a license for 
self-defense across State lines. It means with this license--my 
concealed carry license from Wyoming--I will not be limited to Wyoming. 
Just like a regular driver's license, just about the same photo, 
identification issues, and the only difference is this one from Wyoming 
says ``concealed firearm permit.'' It has on it a picture of a handgun.
  Well, today we are hearing the same arguments against the Thune 
amendment that we heard from the people who wanted to ban assault 
weapons. During that semiautomatic assault weapons debate, we heard all 
of the scare tactics. We heard: There will be blood all over the 
streets. Terrorists will be able to purchase Uzis and AK-47s. Our 
cities will turn into the Wild West. The lives of law enforcement will 
be in danger.
  This is simply not the case. A study for the Department of Justice 
found 40 percent of felons had not committed certain crimes because 
they feared the potential victims would be armed.
  The National Institute of Justice conducted a survey that found that 
74 percent of criminals who had committed burglaries or violent crimes 
said they would be less likely to commit a crime if they thought the 
victim would be armed.
  In States where concealed carry permits are issued, it is a fact that 
the crime rates go down. Let's take a look at Illinois and Florida. 
Illinois does not allow concealed carry permits. The number of murders 
last year in Chicago, 511.
  Since Florida passed their concealed carry bill and signed it into 
law, violent crime has dropped by 32 percent, and murders in Florida 
dropped 58 percent.
  Criminals do not get licensed to carry guns. Criminals do not fill 
out the paperwork, go to the courthouse, get fingerprinted, and wait 
weeks to receive their concealed carry permit. Criminals issue their 
own concealed carry permits.
  In the District of Columbia, crime rates are high because the 
criminals have the advantage over the victims. The gun laws in the 
District outlaw law-abiding citizens from self-defense while people 
walk home from work or from the store. They know it is highly unlikely 
in the District of Columbia that the victims will be carrying a gun for 
self-defense.
  This is a commonsense amendment. It makes sense for law-abiding gun 
owners all across the country. I urge my colleagues to vote in support 
of the Thune amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.

[[Page 18685]]


  Mr. DURBIN. I ask that the Senator from New Jersey be recognized for 
9 minutes and then, after an intervening speaker on the other side of 
the aisle, the Senator from California be recognized for 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from New Jersey is recognized.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the 
amendment that is being offered, because it would override our safety 
laws, gun safety laws in my State and other States across the country. 
The Thune amendment is an outright violation of States rights.
  The fact is this vote is not about the Second Amendment, it is not 
about gun rights, this is about respecting local communities and 
letting them make their own decisions about how to keep their streets, 
their homes, and their businesses safe.
  As this dangerous amendment gets pushed to a vote, we are seeing 
opposition grow across this country. In addition to newspaper 
editorials, we are seeing Governors and mayors and local law 
enforcement calling on the Senate to vote against this amendment.
  This placard shows the wide-ranging groups opposing this amendment, 
groups opposed to the Thune amendment: Over 450 mayors, people who have 
responsibility for those in their community, Major Cities Chiefs 
Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, State 
Legislators Against Illegal Guns, National Network to End Domestic 
Violence.
  In a letter to the Senate, the International Association of Chiefs of 
Police implored Congress to:

       Act quickly and take all necessary steps to defeat this 
     dangerous and unacceptable legislation.

  That is from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. They 
know what to do about concealed guns, and they will decide within their 
own communities. But the Thune amendment does not just steal States of 
their right to create their own laws, it abolishes State laws that are 
on the books right now. The Thune amendment throws State laws out the 
window.
  For the 35 States that have chosen to keep criminals with misdemeanor 
convictions from carrying concealed weapons, this amendment abolishes 
their laws. For the 31 States that have chosen to keep alcohol abusers 
from carrying concealed weapons, this amendment abolishes their laws.
  The Thune amendment would force States to accept the weakest standard 
in the country and brings about a race to the bottom. Many of us 
represent States that do not want lax standards on who can walk around 
our communities with a weapon hidden in their garments.
  To make matters worse, the Thune amendment not only overrides a 
State's concealed weapons laws, it could also override a State's 
assault weapons ban. That means if we have a ban in my State and 
someone gets a concealed weapons permit, they could bring an assault 
weapon into our State. This means even if a State has a ban on assault 
weapons, under this amendment, someone could legally enter that State 
with a hidden Uzi or assault weapon and travel around with it. Think 
about it. If a State's residents are not permitted to carry a 
particular weapon, someone can come into that State with a weapon that 
now is prohibited in that State.
  That is one of the reasons more than 450 mayors across the country 
have expressed alarm about the Thune amendment. As these mayors 
explained in a letter to the Congress:

       Each state ought to have the ability to decide whether to 
     accept concealed carry permits issued in other states.

  I don't want it in New Jersey, and I think Members across this 
Chamber will say: No, I don't want it in my State as well.
  Supporters of this amendment like to claim that only law-abiding 
citizens get their hands on concealed weapons permits. But that is not 
true. In Alaska, for example, criminals who have repeatedly committed 
violent misdemeanors are permitted to carry concealed weapons. In 
Alaska, criminals who have repeatedly committed sex offenses are 
permitted to carry concealed weapons. According to a new study, during 
the 2-year period between May 2007 and April 2009, people holding 
concealed handgun permits killed at least 7 police officers and 44 
other innocent people across the country.
  Recently we have seen several gruesome examples of senseless murders 
committed by people holding concealed weapons permits. A few months 
ago, a 28-year-old concealed weapons permit holder went on a murderous 
rampage in Alabama. First he shot and killed his mother. Then he gunned 
down 10 others, including 2 young mothers and a father and an 18-month-
old girl.
  A few weeks later, another concealed weapons permit holder went on a 
killing spree in Binghamton, NY. This gunman drove a car up to a 
citizenship services center and barricaded the back door with his car 
so the innocent people who were inside would be trapped as he proceeded 
to kill those who were in his sights. The gunman sprayed gunfire 
throughout the center, killed 13 people, and wounded several more 
before taking his own life.
  The next day another concealed carry permit holder destroyed more 
lives. In Pittsburgh, two police officers arrived at a house to quell a 
domestic conflict. The two officers were ambushed and killed by the 
gunman who held a concealed weapons permit. Minutes later, the gunman 
shot and killed a third officer who arrived at the scene.
  The special interest gun lobby is hanging its hopes on the prospect 
that this Chamber will abandon common sense and pass the Thune 
amendment. But this gun lobby's dream is a nightmare for our country. 
It violates States rights and it will make it easier for gun 
traffickers to move firearms. If the Thune amendment becomes law, 
traffickers could now load up a car and take guns across State lines 
legally, as long as the driver has a concealed weapons permit in any 
State.
  History will record that this Senate was asked to decide whether to 
put families further in danger or keep them safe, whether to savage 
State laws or honor them, and whether to usurp States rights or 
preserve them. I hope my colleagues will do the right thing. I urge 
them to vote no, no, no, on the Thune amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaufman). The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I think a little bit of history is 
important for us now. Let me give a quote of what Thomas Jefferson had 
to say. It is important for us to hear him. We recognize his wisdom in 
lots of what he did for us as one of the Founders of this country. Here 
is what he said about guns: Gun control laws disarm only those who are 
neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws only make 
worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve, 
rather, to encourage rather than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed 
man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
  Granted, that was in a different day and time, but his words ring 
true. To those who are opposing this amendment who truly believe we 
ought to have a total ban on firearms, I recognize that is a legitimate 
position for some of those people. But what I find both disingenuous 
and also curious and funny at the same time is the number of my 
colleagues who now come to the floor to preserve States rights when 95 
percent of their votes, in the last Congress and this one and the ones 
that preceded, voted to take away those very same States rights in 
every other area of freedom.
  We just had a hearing on a Supreme Court Justice. She got it wrong on 
the second amendment. The second amendment is written into the 
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Why was the 14th amendment even 
brought up to Congress? The historical debate shows that during 
reconstruction, freed Black slaves were losing their right to own a gun 
simply because they were Black, simply because they were freed slaves. 
Many Southern States passed laws taking that right away. The due 
process of

[[Page 18686]]

the 14th amendment came about so that we could preserve the right of 
individuals to own arms and defend themselves.
  What I find ludicrous in this debate is any discussion of an assault 
weapons ban or assault weapons. You can't conceal one. That is No. 1. 
No. 2, we had the Senator from New Jersey mention the Uzi. It is 
illegal to own an Uzi in this country. So you are already a criminal, 
you are already a felon, you are already one of those individuals 
Jefferson was talking about when you claim to say that we are going to 
step all over State laws.
  We had a vote in terms of honoring States rights in terms of the 
national park bill on guns. Twenty-nine of my colleagues, thirteen of 
whom now are defending States rights, stepped all over States rights 
with their vote against the Coburn amendment when it came to allowing 
people to have supreme their State law in terms of national parks.
  Nobody comes to the Senate floor a purist. The vast majority of 
people who are debating against this amendment on the fundamental 
principle of stepping on States rights have a voting record that 98 
percent of the time they don't care about States rights; they care 
about the Federal Government.
  I have an offer. Any Member who wishes to vote against this 
amendment, if you will all endorse the Enumerated Powers Act and see 
that we pass it through Congress, then you can demonstrate your 
fidelity to the 10th amendment. Except nary a one of those who are 
opposing this amendment has endorsed the Enumerated Powers Act in this 
Congress or the last. The arguments ring hollow when we talk about the 
10th amendment because the true action would be to recognize the 
limited powers of the Federal Government to enforce the 10th amendment, 
and we wouldn't be having this debate.
  States rights are convenient only when it comes to something we don't 
like. They are rarely utilized to truly defend States rights. You have 
to follow the laws of the State you are in; that is respecting States 
rights. For every incident and tragedy of somebody who had a concealed 
carry permit, we can give you 10,000 tragedies of those where gun 
control allowed the criminals to have guns but the innocents not.
  I hope the American people will look at this debate and say: There is 
a fundamental right in this country, which the Supreme Court will get 
right in this next session, that is guaranteed to us as part of our 
liberty. It was inculcated into everything our Founders did. Knowing it 
to be true, it was written into our Constitution. Many of the rights we 
have today that we cling to so dearly were never even considered by our 
Founders but have come about as a result of what the judicial branch 
has said.
  If you are going to use States rights as a position to defend your 
vote against this bill, I suggest that your constituencies look at your 
other votes on States rights and see if there isn't some big dissonance 
with that position. You will find it in every case.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be yielded 7 
minutes rather than 5. I have cleared that with Senator Durbin.
  Mr. THUNE. How much time remains on the other side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 8 minutes 35 seconds.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent for 6 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from Oklahoma on 
one thing. I hope the American people are watching this debate. I truly 
do. We are talking about a radical proposal that is opposed by 
Democrats and Republicans in my home State. I have never seen the 
phones ringing off the hook to this degree.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a statement by 
the California Police Chiefs Association.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                        California


                                    Police Chiefs Association,

                                     Sacramento, CA July 21, 2009.
     Re Protect America's police officers, our citizens, and 
         states rights by voting no on the Thune amendment (S.845/
         H.R.197/H.R. 1620).

     Senator Barbara Boxer,
     Hart Senate Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Boxer, the California Police Chiefs 
     Association is strongly opposed to the Thune Amendment 
     (S.845). This legislation would require California to honor 
     concealed carry permits granted by other states, even when 
     those permit holders could not meet the standards required by 
     California law. This would strip California of the power to 
     create its own public safety laws, and hand that power to the 
     states with the weakest protections. The Thune Amendment 
     would also empower gun traffickers and threaten the safety of 
     our police officers.
       California, like most states across America, has intensely 
     deliberated how best to balance community safety needs with 
     the rights of our citizens to bear arms. We have, like almost 
     all states, set various standards in addition to those in 
     place under federal law. The linchpin of California concealed 
     carry permitting is local law enforcement discretion. In 
     addition to certain explicit statutory provisions, such as 
     the exclusion of violent misdemeanants and certain juvenile 
     offenders, California police chiefs and sheriffs have the 
     discretion to deny a permit if they believe an applicant will 
     present a danger to public safety. California also requires 
     each applicant to complete a firearms safety course, 
     demonstrate moral character, and justify the reason for 
     applying for a permit. California's standards keep guns out 
     of the hands of dangerous criminals. The Thune Amendment, 
     however, would permit citizens of states with less strict 
     laws to freely carry concealed weapons in our state.
       This legislation will also aid and abet gun traffickers. 
     Criminal traffickers already rely on states with weak laws as 
     a source for the guns they sell illegally, according to a 
     report issued by Mayors Against Illegal Guns in December 
     2008. In fact, the report showed that 30% of crime guns 
     crossed state lines before they were recovered. This bill 
     would frustrate law enforcement by allowing criminal 
     traffickers to travel to their rendezvous with loaded 
     handguns in the glove compartment. Even more troubling, a 
     trafficker holding an out-of-state permit would be able to 
     walk the streets of any city with a backpack full of loaded 
     guns, enjoying impunity from police unless he was caught in 
     the act of selling a firearm to another criminal.
       Finally, this law would not only frustrate our police 
     officers, it would endanger them. Policing our streets is 
     perilous enough without increasing the number of guns that 
     officers encounter. Confusion among police officers as to the 
     legality of firearm possession could result in catastrophe. 
     Congress should be working to make the job of a police 
     officer more safe--not less.
       As President of the California Police Chiefs Association, I 
     urge you to protect California's ability to protect its 
     communities from gun violence by voting against the Thune 
     Amendment (S. 845/H.R. 197/H.R. 1620).
           Sincerely,
                                              Bernard K. Melekian,
                                                        President.

  Mrs. BOXER. The police chiefs, letter is so tough and so strong. It 
reads in part:

       The California Police Chiefs Association is strongly 
     opposed to the Thune amendment. The legislation would require 
     California to honor concealed carry permits granted by other 
     States, even when those permit holders could not meet the 
     standards required by California law. The Thune amendment 
     would empower gun traffickers and threaten the safety of our 
     police officers.

  If there is one thing we should do for our police officers, it is not 
make their lives any tougher than they are. We recently lost four 
police officers in Oakland. The whole community suffered along with 
those families. My police chiefs talk about this:

       A trafficker holding an out-of-State permit would be able 
     to walk the streets of any city in America with a backpack 
     full of loaded guns, enjoying impunity from police unless he 
     was caught in the act of selling a firearm.

  This is one of the strongest letters I have ever seen from my police 
chiefs. This debate is not about the right to own a gun. That has been 
settled by the Supreme Court in the Heller case. It is about allowing 
States to determine their own laws. And I totally get why some more 
rural States with fewer people would have different laws on conceal and 
carry than a State of 38 million people, my home State of California. 
Leave us alone. Leave us alone. You want to have conceal and carry with 
very few requirements, fine. We have conceal and carry with many 
requirements, and it is working.

[[Page 18687]]

  Some States do not have any limit on the number of weapons you could 
carry with one conceal and carry permit. So someone could come into my 
State, go into one of my schoolyards, and open up a duffle bag full of 
perfectly legal weapons.
  We have approximately 3,300 gun deaths each year in my State. Let me 
repeat that: 3,300 gun deaths each year in California. Each one of them 
has a story of tragedy behind it. A lot of them are kids. So do not 
come down here and tell my State what we should be doing. I support 
your State. You should support my State. And that is exactly what 
Governor Schwarzenegger says. He says we have a right to write our own 
gun laws.
  Mr. President, 34 California mayors and 400 mayors nationwide oppose 
the Thune amendment, as does the International Association of Chiefs of 
Police.
  We have a lot of work to do. We have to work on health care. We have 
to work on energy independence. We have to work on getting down the 
deficit. We have to work on bringing down the debt. We have to work on 
educating our kids. But, oh, no, we are spending hours on an amendment 
that is offered that tells our States their laws are not to be 
respected when it comes to conceal and carry.
  Do you know there are some States that allow a spousal abuser to 
carry a concealed carry weapon? Do you want that spousal abuser, maybe 
in a state of rage, to walk into another State with a duffle bag full 
of weapons? And my senior Senator--she read this, and she is a pretty 
good expert on this issue--says you could have an assault weapon in 
there. Is that what we want?
  It is ironic, as we deal with health care issues--do you know what it 
costs to try to sew up somebody and heal somebody who has been a victim 
of a gunshot wound? We are training our doctors who go over to Iraq and 
Afghanistan in our cities.
  So all my colleagues on the other side who come here and talk about 
Big Brother--Big Brother--going into their States and telling their 
States what to do, this is a case of Big Brother, clear and simple.
  If I need to protect my people in California, I want to leave it to 
my people in California. I do not want to come in and tell them they 
have to live with other State laws that are weaker. It is just wrong. 
It flies in the face of States rights. It flies in the face of common 
sense. And again, the supreme irony is, it is coming from folks who say 
they love our States, they respect our States, the Federal Government 
has too much power. But all of a sudden--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I hope we will vote against this amendment 
because this is not what we need in America--more gun deaths and more 
police being put in the line of fire.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, when the Supreme Court handed down its 
decision in District of Columbia v. Heller I applauded the Court for 
affirming what so many Americans already believe: The second amendment 
protects an individual right to own a firearm. The Heller decision 
reaffirmed and strengthened our Bill of Rights.
  Vermont has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the country. 
One does not need a permit to carry a concealed firearm, and citizens 
of Vermont are by and large trusted to conduct themselves responsibly 
and safely. In my experience, Vermonters do just that. Like many 
Vermonters, I grew up with firearms and have enormous respect and 
appreciation for the freedoms the second amendment protects. Like other 
protections in our Bill of Rights, the second amendment right to keep 
and bear arms is one that I cherish.
  As a prosecutor, I protected the rights of Vermonters to possess 
firearms. As a Senator, I have carefully considered Federal efforts to 
regulate firearms, and always with an eye toward the burdens it may 
impose on the second amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens.
  Justice Scalia's decision for the Supreme Court in Heller 
acknowledged that some reasonable regulation can and does coexist with 
the second amendment, just as it does for other rights in our Bill of 
Rights. The States have traditionally played the strongest role in 
regulating firearms based on State and local concerns. Most firearms 
regulation is decided within States as an issue of State police power. 
This is how it should be.
  I feel strongly that the principles of federalism demand that the 
Federal Government minimize its intrusion into the policy judgments 
made by State and local officials, citizens and State legislators, 
especially in matters of public safety. I believe this is true whether 
the Federal Government seeks to restrict the activities of Americans or 
it seeks to second-guess what State officials have decided is proper 
regulation. Whenever the Federal Government imposes its will some 
citizens may be happy, but others will be disappointed. This is 
particularly true when such Federal action involves matters of safety 
and police power at the State level. The Federal Government plays a 
role in regulating the importation of firearms and has in providing a 
framework for interstate commerce.
  Senator Thune's amendment imposes the policy judgments of the Federal 
Government on the States. Just as I would vigorously oppose any Federal 
effort to restrict the ability of a State to allow its citizens to 
carry firearms in a concealed manner, I oppose this effort to second-
guess the judgments of State and local officials across the country in 
relation to permitting people to carry a concealed firearm. Just as I 
would resist Federal legislation that prohibited States from entering 
reciprocity agreements with each other to honor one another's concealed 
carry permits, I do not believe the Federal Government ought to be 
forcing States to treat citizens from other States differently than it 
treats its own on this public safety matter. The Thune amendment 
represents the Federal Government intruding into the gun laws of the 
States. It could even result in some States repealing their concealed 
carry laws to avoid the impact of the Federal law.
  What works in Vermont does not necessarily work in New York City. And 
what works in New York City would not get a warm welcome in Vermont. 
That is the beauty of our Federal system. When it comes to public 
safety and police power, the Federal Government ought to respect the 
judgments of the States, their citizens, elected officials, and law 
enforcement agencies.
  (At the request of Mr. Reid, the following statement was ordered to 
be printed in the Record.)
 Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, 2 years ago I opposed a bill 
considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee to strip State and local 
police departments of their ability to enforce rules and policies on 
when and how their own officers can carry weapons. Today, I continue to 
oppose attempts to supersede or limit State gun control laws, and for 
this reason I oppose Senator Thune's amendment that would infringe on 
the ability of State and local governments to regulate concealed guns 
in their jurisdictions. I have said it before, and I say it again--each 
State should be able to make its own judgment about whether citizens 
can carry concealed weapons within their jurisdictions. There is no 
reason for Congress to override gun safety measures in any State.
  Yet the Thune amendment would override the laws of 48 States by 
requiring them to recognize concealed carry permits from other States, 
even if the permit holder would not be allowed to possess or carry a 
gun under the laws of those States. Currently, only two States--
Illinois and Wisconsin--have a total prohibition against concealed 
carry weapons. This amendment would require the remaining 48 States to 
recognize a permit granted by another State that has issued a concealed 
weapon permit. Such a system leads to ludicrous results. For example, 
under the Thune amendment, a person who can't obtain a concealed carry 
permit in his home State could apparently circumvent his State law by 
finding another State in which that person would be eligible for a 
nonresident permit and then, using

[[Page 18688]]

the reciprocity granted by the amendment, carry the concealed weapon 
back home.
  State and local governments do not have a one-size-fits-all approach 
on gun control. Yet the Thune amendment treats them as if they were all 
the same. Under this amendment, a State would be prevented from 
limiting who can carry a concealed gun in its jurisdiction. In doing 
so, the amendment threatens the safety of our citizens, our 
communities, and our States.
  States need the right to control who can carry a concealed weapon in 
their jurisdiction. What State officials, law enforcement, and 
legislators decide are the best policies for rural States may not be 
the best policies for urban States--and vice versa. This bill creates a 
race to the bottom, in which gun owners can get a permit in a State 
with the least restrictive licensing regulations and use that gun in 
every other State--except Illinois and Wisconsin, where there is a 
total prohibition. The amendment even entitles residents in Alaska and 
Vermont, the two States that allow residents to carry concealed guns 
without permits, to carry their guns in other States.
  In 35 States, such as Massachusetts, a permit holder must have 
attended a safety course. Other States don't require a safety course, 
and residents in Alaska or Vermont are not required to have a permit at 
all. Yet, with the adoption of the Thune amendment, gun owners would be 
able to carry a concealed weapon without a safety course in all these 
States. This is absurd. In addition, other State licensing laws, which 
prohibit permits for individuals with criminal backgrounds or substance 
abuse problems, would be waived under the Thune amendment if the 
individual is issued a permit in a jurisdiction with more permissive 
regulations.
  According to the most recent statistics, in 2006, an average of nine 
young people aged 19 and under were killed by a gun each day in the 
United States. In 2007, an average of 48 children a day were nonfatally 
wounded. The scourge of gun violence frequently attacks the most 
helpless members of our society--our children. Does the Thune 
amendment--authorizing more widespread use of concealed guns--improve 
these statistics? Does creating a system that reduces the regulations 
for permits for many concealed gun carriers improve these statistics? I 
think not.
  In fact, it was found that concealed handgun license holders in Texas 
were arrested for weapon-related offenses at a rate 81 percent higher 
than that of the general population of Texas, aged 21 and older. 
Expanding the ability of a concealed gun holder to carry his weapon in 
a far larger number of jurisdictions will not lower gun deaths or 
crime.
  Our brave police forces face risks every day in the line of duty. 
Policing the streets, and even routine traffic stops, are perilous 
enough without increasing the number of guns that officers encounter. 
Under the Thune amendment there is no easy way for a police officer to 
determine the legality of a gun being concealed by an individual with a 
permit from outside the State. This confusion, and the increase in the 
number of guns on the street, could result in violent incidents, some 
of which could lead to more deaths from gun violence. The Senate should 
be working to make the job of police officers safer. The Thune 
amendment does the opposite.
  The amendment takes away the right of a State to determine who can 
carry a concealed gun within that State. As a result, the amendment 
will increase the number of concealed guns that will be allowed on any 
given street. More than 400 mayors, numerous State legislators, the 
International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Major Cities 
Chiefs Association oppose this amendment because of the danger it 
brings to our streets, our citizens, and our law enforcement. I 
strongly urge my colleagues to vote against Senator Thune's amendment. 
It is unwise policy that could lead to tragic results.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, how much time is left on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Nine minutes.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the Senator from California has made some 
comments, and actually both Senators from California talked about the 
issue of assault weapons. Of course, assault weapons--as my colleague 
from Oklahoma pointed out, it is very difficult to conceal an assault 
weapon. It is not something you are going to be running around--it is 
not a concealed weapon. Obviously, when you get into the State of 
California, those weapons are illegal.
  I think it is fair to point out again that any State can impose 
restrictions on the people who come into their State with a concealed 
carry permit from another State. So State laws still trump when it 
comes to the place where guns can be carried.
  To this issue of multiple guns being brought into a State, States can 
also say the permit only applies to one gun. Obviously, that is an 
issue on which a State can rule. Secondly, the issue of multiple guns I 
would think would fall under the rubric of trafficking, which is a 
Federal offense. It is illegal. For people who have committed crimes, 
that is illegal under Federal laws. They cannot get guns in the first 
place--or at least they are not supposed to get guns. It is a Federal 
crime if they do. People who have a history of mental illness--all 
these issues are addressed in Federal law, which provides a floor 
against all these types of things that are being suggested.
  Much of what has been suggested here really is scare tactics, it is 
fear mongering. There is no basis on which to make many of the 
arguments. It is totally speculative that somehow this amendment is 
going to lead to all kinds of people, thugs and gangsters, getting guns 
and then transporting them someplace else in the country.
  I will tell you, I do not think there are too many criminals--by the 
way, criminals commit the crimes. The Senator from New Jersey talked 
about the thousands who are killed by guns every year. Most of them are 
killed by criminals. There may have been an exception or two where 
somebody had a concealed carry permit, but relative to the general 
population, it is minuscule.
  If you think about the number of crimes that are committed every year 
by criminals, what we ought to be doing is focusing on criminals, the 
people who commit crimes. Criminals are not going to go down to the 
courthouse in Sioux Falls, SD, and say: I want to get a concealed carry 
permit, or anywhere in this country, for that matter, because almost 
every State, with three exceptions, by law does a background check. So 
in order to own a gun or possess a gun, you have to go through a 
background check. So to get a concealed carry permit, you also have to 
go through a background check. I do not think most criminals are going 
to be going down and saying: I want to get a background check so I can 
get a gun so I can haul it and commit a crime in some other State. That 
is ludicrous. Think about the logic of that. For anybody who has a 
criminal record, obviously, the background check is going to reveal 
that. They are not going to be able to either acquire a gun or get a 
concealed carry permit, which means they are going to do what they 
usually do; that is, get those firearms illegally and commit crimes and 
felonies because that is what criminals do.
  I want to mention some of those who have endorsed this amendment. The 
NRA has endorsed this amendment. Gun Owners of America--I have a letter 
from them endorsing this amendment. Citizens Committee for the Right to 
Keep and Bear Arms has endorsed this amendment. The Owner-Operator 
Independent Drivers Association, which, as I pointed out, represents a 
lot of the truckdrivers across the country, endorses this. This is a 
real issue for them because they are traveling across State lines in 
interstate travel on a regular basis. This is something they have 
advocated for a long time. The Passenger-Cargo Security Group, which, 
of course, represents a lot of those who fly cargo in this country, has 
endorsed it. GOProud has endorsed this amendment. And the

[[Page 18689]]

Pink Pistols group has endorsed this amendment. So there are a number 
of groups, organizations out there that have endorsed this amendment 
that believe, as I do, it represents a commonsense approach that 
balances the constitutional right people in this country have to keep 
and bear arms--the second amendment right. It is in the Bill of Rights. 
All the other amendments in the Bill of Rights apply across State 
lines, and it seems to me, at least, this one should too, subject to 
restrictions that are imposed by the individual States. This does not 
preempt any of those.
  States have different restrictions that apply and restrict the place 
and the manner in which firearms may be transported into their States. 
So what we are simply trying to do is clarify this patchwork of 
different regulations and laws and requirements that different States 
have all over the country, so people, law-abiding citizens--not the 
criminals who are being referred to who commit the crimes in this 
country--so law-abiding individuals who want to defend themselves 
against those very criminals have the opportunity to do so by being 
able to possess a firearm if they have a concealed carry permit.
  As I said, every State is a little different as to how you go about 
getting one of those permits, but every State has its own requirements, 
and all of the States, with a couple exceptions, have background checks 
as a part of that.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 5 minutes.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two minutes 15 seconds.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this morning around Washington, hundreds 
of lobbyists strapped on their suits and their ties and went to work 
waiting for the Thune amendment and his theory and their theory on 
keeping America safer by putting more guns on the street. Across 
America today, thousands of law enforcement officials strapped on their 
guns and their badges and went out on those mean streets to risk their 
lives to keep us safe.
  Did you listen to the groups that have endorsed the Thune amendment? 
Do you know what is missing? Not a single law enforcement group 
supports John Thune's amendment. The men and women who are risking 
their lives for our safety every day do not support his amendment. They 
oppose it. Do you know why they oppose it? Because they realize there 
are different standards in different States for concealed carry and in 
some States almost no standards at all. They realize that in 17 States 
you do not need to even prove you know how to fire a gun safely. And 
under John Thune's amendment, those people can go into States that 
require a test or even a test on a firing range--the 31 States that 
require it--and they can carry a gun without any evidence that they 
know how to use it.
  There are also some 35 States that prohibit people convicted of 
certain misdemeanor crimes from carrying concealed firearms. That means 
that 13 other States can send their people in with convictions for 
these misdemeanors and they can carry a firearm legally under John 
Thune's amendment.
  Let me say, finally, they realize, too, that if you happen to be a 
drunk driver in a State--17 States--you can still get a concealed carry 
permit. It does not matter how many times you have been convicted for 
DUIs, whether you are a habitual drunkard, an alcoholic, you can still 
get a concealed carry permit in 17 States. Senator Thune wants those 
people to be able to drive into your State, where you say, frankly, you 
cannot have a concealed carry permit if you cannot handle alcohol--he 
wants them to be able to come into those States and to have the right 
to carry a firearm.
  Will that make us safer? The men and women in uniform, who went out 
this morning and are out there right now protecting us, say no. And 
that is what we ought to say to the Thune amendment: No.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, let me point out what I pointed out 
earlier. This amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia. But 
I also want to come back to a basic point; that is, how did we get here 
today? Why are we here? Well, we are here, supposedly, to be talking 
about the Defense authorization bill. But last week the Democratic 
leadership decided to put a hate crimes amendment on the floor as the 
first amendment to the Defense authorization bill--unrelated, 
nongermane to the underlying Defense authorization bill.
  The hate crimes bill, it could be argued, preempts a lot of State 
laws because a lot of States have their own laws with regard to hate 
crimes. But we decided here--the Democratic leadership did--that it was 
more important to talk about hate crimes legislation than it was to 
talk about defense-related amendments.
  Well, my view was, they are going to offer a hate crimes amendment on 
the floor of the Senate. What better way to prevent hate crimes than to 
allow the potential victims of hate crimes to defend themselves against 
those very hate crimes? So I was going to offer this amendment, this 
concealed carry amendment, as a second-degree amendment to the hate 
crimes amendment that was put on the floor last week by the Democrats. 
The leader filled the tree, preventing us from doing that. So we worked 
it out to have this debate and to talk about this amendment today. But 
it ties in very closely to the hate crimes amendment, the legislation 
we have had on the floor of the Senate for the last week when we should 
have been talking about Defense authorization issues.
  But that being said, I will come back to my basic fundamental point. 
This is a commonsense amendment that strikes a balance between the 
constitutional right the people in this country enjoy under the second 
amendment to keep and bear arms--and which has been supported by the 
Supreme Court, I might add--and the rights of States under federalism 
to restrict that according to their own wishes and laws. And every 
State does that differently. This amendment does not preempt those.
  The States of Wisconsin and Illinois prevent concealed carry permit 
holders, and so there is not anybody in this country who is going to be 
able to travel through Illinois or Wisconsin and carry a gun because 
they just do not allow it. So it respects the rights of the individual 
States. But it does allow law-abiding citizens in this country to 
exercise their constitutional right under the second amendment, and 
that right should not end at State lines. State borders should not be a 
barrier to an individual's right to defend themselves.
  I believe the studies are very clear. As I have said earlier--they 
are all speculating about all the crimes that are going to be 
committed--people, concealed carry permit holders, if you look at the 
data, are 15 times less likely than the rest of the public to commit 
murder. Criminals commit crimes, not law-abiding citizens, not people 
who go down to their courthouse to get a concealed carry permit so they 
can defend themselves against the very criminals who routinely break 
the laws and possess firearms illegally so they can commit crimes.
  This is a reasonable, commonsense balance which I believe strikes the 
right balance between the constitutional second amendment right 
citizens in this country enjoy and the States' ability to restrict that 
right. And any concealed carry permit holder who has a concealed carry 
permit in their State of residence who travels to another State has to 
abide by and is subject to the laws that are enacted by that individual 
State.
  So, Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will vote for what is a 
commonsense amendment that allows people across this country who are 
law-abiding citizens to defend themselves from the very criminals who 
break those laws and try to commit these crimes.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

[[Page 18690]]


  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, under current law each State adopts and 
enforces their own eligibility standards for who is qualified to obtain 
a concealed carry permit. Carrying a concealed weapon is a crime if 
those eligibility standards are violated and a citizen of that State 
carries a concealed weapon. For example, 35 States prohibit those with 
criminal misdemeanor convictions from obtaining a concealed carry 
permit.
  The Thune amendment would federally authorize an individual who has 
been issued a concealed carry permit in one State the right to carry a 
concealed weapon in 47 other States, even though those other States 
prohibit an individual who resides in those other 47 States from 
carrying a concealed weapon. A Federal standard is thereby imposed on 
the States.
  The 35 States that prohibit criminal misdemeanants from carrying 
concealed weapons are told under the Thune amendment: You can enforce 
your own laws regarding your own residents but cannot enforce your own 
laws against residents of the 13 States who issue concealed carry 
permits to convicted criminal misdemeanants when those nonresidents 
visit your State. The laws of those 35 States cannot be applied to all 
persons in their States--those from 13 other States who get permits 
under weaker laws are immunized.
  A double standard would be adopted and would be imposed on the 
States.
  A terrible precedent of a national standard would also be adopted and 
imposed on the States, superseding a State's ability should they choose 
to regulate concealed possesion of a firearm in their States by 
visiting criminal misdemeanants who do not meet their standards for 
concealed firearms possession.
  So while the Thune amendment says it doesn't preempt any provision of 
State law with respect to the issuance of licenses or permits to carry 
concealed firearms, that is true only as to residents--it does preempt 
the right of the States to apply its laws as to who can carry a 
concealed weapon to all persons in the State, residents and 
nonresidents alike.
  Senator Thune's statement that everyone must comply with restrictions 
of States they are in is not accurate then as to the key restriction 
relating to who can carry concealed weapons.
  The amendment will also create serious problems for law enforcement. 
Law enforcement officials use concealed carry permits as an important 
tool in combating illegal trafficking. In most States, carrying a 
firearm without a permit is a crime. The Thune amendment would hamper 
law enforcement's ability to identify and arrest illegal traffickers 
before they are able to sell their weapons on the black market, for 
instance: This is one reason why the amendment is opposed by the 
International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs 
Associations, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and State Legislatures 
Against Illegal Guns.
  The National Defense Authorization Act is enacted every year to help 
make this a safer nation. This amendment will not do that. I urge my 
colleagues to vote against it.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be.
  The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 1618.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Byrd), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), and the Senator 
from Maryland (Ms. Mikulski) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 58, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 237 Leg.]

                                YEAS--58

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burr
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Dorgan
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagan
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lincoln
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Vitter
     Warner
     Webb
     Wicker

                                NAYS--39

     Akaka
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burris
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Dodd
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Kaufman
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Reed
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Voinovich
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Byrd
     Kennedy
     Mikulski
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order requiring 60 votes 
for adoption of the amendment, the amendment is withdrawn.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kyl be 
recognized as in morning business for 10 minutes, and that Senator 
Tester then be recognized for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona is recognized.


                          Sotomayor Nomination

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, every American should be proud that a 
Hispanic woman--one with a very impressive background--has been 
nominated for the Supreme Court.
  In evaluating a nominee, it is important that the Senate examine all 
aspects of the individual's career and his or her merit as a judge and 
not make judgments on the basis of gender or ethnicity.
  It starts with the judge's decisions and opinions. Also important to 
understanding what an individual really thinks about things are his or 
her speeches, writings, and associations.
  Judge Sotomayor's most widely known speech is, of course, her ``wise 
Latina woman'' speech, which was given in various fora over the years. 
It is clear that the often-quoted phrase is not just a comment out of 
context but is the essence of those speeches.
  Judge Sotomayor's central theme was to examine whether gender and 
ethnicity bias a judge's decision. Judge Sotomayor concludes they do, 
that it is unavoidable. She develops this theme throughout the speech, 
including examining opposing arguments and examining evidence that 
suggests that gender makes a difference. She then quotes former Justice 
Sandra Day O'Connor's statement that men and women judges will reach 
the same decision and, in effect, disagrees, saying she is not so sure. 
That is when she says she thinks a ``wise Latina'' would reach a better 
decision.
  Her attempt to recharacterize these speeches at the committee hearing 
strained credulity. I will address this issue at greater length during 
the confirmation debate, but suffice to it say that I remain 
unconvinced that she believes judges should set aside these biases, 
including those based on race and gender, and render the law 
impartially and neutrally.
  Judge Sotomayor's address to the Puerto Rican ACLU, entitled ``How 
Federal Judges Look to International and Foreign Law under Article VI 
of the U.S. Constitution,'' also raises red flags.
  In this speech, she inferred that foreign law should be used but 
later testified it should not. I will also discuss at length my 
concerns related to this matter during the confirmation debate and the 
problems I have squaring her testimony with the contents of this 
speech. The central point, of course, is that it is completely 
irrelevant to consider foreign law in U.S. courts. I don't believe 
Judge Sotomayor is sufficiently committed to this principle.

[[Page 18691]]

  Judge Sotomayor's supporters argue that we should not focus on her 
speeches but on her ``mainstream'' judicial record. They claim she 
agreed with her colleagues, including Republican appointees, the vast 
majority of the time. That may be true, but as President Obama has 
reminded us, most judges will agree in 95 percent of the cases.
  The hard cases are where differences in judicial philosophy become 
apparent.
  I have looked at Judge Sotomayor's record in these hard cases and 
have found cause for concern. The U.S. Supreme Court has reviewed 
directly 10 of her decisions--8 of those decisions have been reversed 
or vacated, another sharply criticized, and 1 upheld in a 5 to 4 
decision.
  The most recent reversal was Ricci v. DeStefano, a case in which 
Judge Sotomayor summarily dismissed before trial the discrimination 
claims of 20 New Haven firefighters, and the Supreme Court reversed 5 
to 4, with all nine Justices rejecting key reasoning of Judge 
Sotomayor's court.
  In my view, the most astounding thing about the case was not the 
incorrect outcome reached by Judge Sotomayor's court--it was that she 
rejected the firefighters' claims in a mere one-paragraph opinion and 
that she continued to maintain in the hearings that she was bound by 
precedent that the Supreme Court said did not exist.
  As the Supreme Court noted, Ricci presented a novel issue regarding 
``two provisions of Title VII to be interpreted and reconciled, with 
few, if any, precedents in the court of appeals discussing the issue.'' 
One would think that this would be precisely the kind of case that 
deserved a thorough and thoughtful analysis by an appellate court.
  But Judge Sotomayor's court instead disposed of the case in an 
unsigned and unpublished opinion that contained zero--and I do mean 
zero--analysis.
  Some have speculated that Judge Sotomayor's panel intentionally 
disposed of the case in a short, unsigned, and unpublished opinion in 
an effort to hide it from further scrutiny. Was the case intentionally 
kept off of her colleagues' radar? Did she have personal views on 
racial quotas that prevented her from seeing the merit in the 
firefighters' claims?
  Judge Sotomayor was asked about her Ricci decision at length during 
the confirmation hearing. Her defense, that she was just following 
``established Supreme Court and Second Circuit precedent,'' as I said, 
is belied by the Supreme Court's opinion noting ``few, if any'' circuit 
court opinions addressing the issue.
  When I pressed Judge Sotomayor to identify those controlling Supreme 
Court and Second Circuit precedents that allegedly dictated the outcome 
in Ricci, she dissembled and ran out the clock. Her ``answers'' 
answered nothing and, in my opinion, violated her obligation to be 
forthcoming with the Judiciary Committee.
  I am also concerned about Judge Sotomayor's analysis--or lack 
thereof--in Maloney v. Cuomo, a second amendment case that could find 
its way to the Supreme Court next year. Maloney was decided after the 
Supreme Court's landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, 
which held that the right to bear arms was an individual right that 
could not be taken away by the Federal Government.
  In Maloney, Judge Sotomayor had the opportunity to consider whether 
that individual right could also be enforced against the States, a 
question that was not before the Heller Court. In yet another unsigned 
opinion, Judge Sotomayor and two other judges held that it was not a 
right enforceable against States.
  What are the legal implications of this holding? State regulations 
limiting or prohibiting the ownership and use of firearms would be 
subject only to ``rational basis'' review. As Sandy Froman, a respected 
lawyer and former National Rifle Association president, said in her 
witness testimony, this is a ``very, very low threshold'' that can 
easily be met by a State or city that wishes to prohibit all gun 
ownership, even in the home. Thus, if Judge Sotomayor's decision were 
allowed to stand as precedent, then States will, ironically, be able to 
do what the Federal District of Columbia cannot--place a de facto 
prohibition on the ownership of guns and other arms.
  As we have seen, Judge Sotomayor's testimony about her previous 
speeches and some of her decisions is difficult, if not impossible, to 
reconcile with her record. Similarly, her testimony about the extent of 
her role with PRLDEF is in tension with the evidence that we have. The 
New York Times has detailed her active involvement as recounted by 
former PRLDEF colleagues, who have described Judge Sotomayor as a ``top 
policy maker'' who ``played an active role as the defense fund staked 
out aggressive stances.''
  What were the litigation positions advanced by PRLDEF during Judge 
Sotomayor's tenure there? Well, it argued in court briefs that 
restrictions on abortion are analogous to slavery. And it repeatedly 
represented plaintiffs challenging the validity of employment and 
promotional tests--tests similar to the one at issue in Ricci.
  Unfortunately, I have not been persuaded that Judge Sotomayor is 
absolutely committed to setting aside her biases and impartially 
deciding cases based upon the rule of law. And I cannot ignore her 
unwillingness to answer Senators' questions straightforwardly. For 
these reasons, I oppose her nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                 Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009

  Mr. TESTER. Madam President, I rise today to call on the Senate to 
take action on a bill I introduced last week--the Forest Jobs and 
Recreation Act.
  The Forest Jobs bill is a product of years of effort from Montanans 
who worked together to find common ground on how to best manage and 
protect our forests. These folks--mill owners, conservationists, 
hunters and anglers, motorized users--have fought each other for 
decades. As little as 10 years ago, their differences were so great, 
they were so much apart that they could not even be in the same room 
together.
  In the meantime, forest management came to a virtual halt, a beetle 
epidemic swept through our forests, and not a single acre of wilderness 
was designated in the State. Amid all the shouting, no one got what 
they wanted, and all Montanans, and especially our forests, suffered 
for it.
  With help from my fellow Montanans, we are working to fix that. That 
is why I am enormously proud to carry forward their work in the Forest 
Jobs and Recreation Act.
  Besides putting aside old battles, this bill will help protect our 
communities from a crisis on Montana's forest lands. And make no 
mistake about it, Montana's forest communities face a crisis. Our 
forest crisis demands action, and it demands action now.
  For example, in the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest in 
southwestern Montana, a shocking 660,000 acres of lodgepole pine are 
dead--killed by the mountain pine beetle. To put that in perspective, 
that is just shy of 1,000 square miles. That is a big figure, even for 
Big Sky country. And it is a number that is only on the rise.
  What follows dead trees? Fire. As I speak, 200 firefighters are 
battling a wildfire just a few miles southwest of Deerlodge, MT, in 
those beetle-killed trees.
  While no amount of work in a forest could put a stop to the beetle 
kill, if enacted into law, this bill will help protect our communities 
and our water supplies from the threats of future forest fires.
  On the Beaverhead Deerlodge Forest, the bill mandates that an average 
of 7,000 acres a year be harvested. This work will happen in the 
context of larger stewardship projects aimed at restoring fishing and 
hunting habitat.
  A council of local stakeholders will work with the Forest Service to 
help shape each of the projects, providing a voice to local folks in 
how we manage our forests.

[[Page 18692]]

  The bill also addresses two districts on two other forests in 
Montana--the Three Rivers on the Kootenai and the Seeley on the Lolo. 
Similar work will occur in these places: big stewardship projects that 
are driven by local collaborations so our forests, and the communities 
within them, will be healthier in the end.
  Let me be clear. This bill will not just help restore our forests and 
their watersheds, it will help restore our communities. It will put 
people back to work in the woods, harvesting trees, rolling up roads, 
building bigger culverts for fish, and tackling stream restoration 
projects.
  A lot of mills have closed in Montana. We are at risk of losing more. 
If we lose that infrastructure, we will suffer an even bigger loss. We 
will lose the folks who know how to work in the woods. Without their 
know-how, without the mills to process the byproduct of their work, we 
will not be able to tackle head on the years of work that lie ahead--
work to restore the woods around our towns, to make them more resilient 
to the fires that may one day come.
  Of course, in Montana, we don't just work in the woods, we play in 
them. That is why Montanans asked me to put aside recreation areas in 
this bill, and I did. Lands will be set aside for both motorized and 
nonmotorized use.
  Lastly, I am proud to set aside some of Montana's best hunting and 
fishing habitats for future generations with this bill. This bill will 
keep some spectacular wild places with the cleanest water around you 
can imagine for our kids and grandkids to hunt and fish and hike and 
camp, places such as the Sapphires in this picture, the Snowcrests on 
Roderick Mountain, and lands next to our world famous Bob Marshall 
Wilderness.
  It is a new day when motorized users, timber mill owners, back-
country horsemen, hunters, fishermen, and conservationists all agree 
that it is time to set aside our differences for the sake of the 
forests and for the sake of our communities.
  I have reached out to folks in western Montana to get feedback on 
these issues. I have held listening sessions throughout timber country, 
open to any and all Montanans who want to work together on a 
commonsense plan for our future.
  Last weekend, I held a series of open meetings to announce the 
introduction of the bill and to hear more feedback. I have invited 
Montanans to visit my Web site--tester.senate.gov--to download their 
own copy of the legislation. Folks can also click on color-coded maps 
to see for themselves exactly what we are proposing. And they can sign 
up as citizen cosponsors of this important legislation. Already, 
hundreds of Montanans have signed on to make their voices heard and to 
help put their shoulder to the wheel to get this bill moving.
  I can tell you, Montana is buzzing with excitement about this 
proposal. Folks see it as an opportunity to work together to support 
this ``Made in Montana'' solution to the conflicts that have stalemated 
us for far too long.
  Working together, we will create jobs. Working together, we will 
create new opportunities for recreation. Working together, we will 
protect Montana's clean water. And working together, we will safeguard 
Montana's fishing and hunting habitat for our kids and grandkids.
  Montanans are blessed to live among some of this Nation's finest 
public lands. We are willing to do our part to help wisely manage and 
protect these lands. Now it is time for Congress to step up to the 
plate and do its part.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.


                          Sotomayor Nomination

  Mr. COCHRAN. Madam President, with respect to the nomination of Judge 
Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, I 
find that I share many of the concerns expressed by the distinguished 
Senator from Arizona, Mr. Kyl.
  First, I want to thank Senators Leahy and Sessions for their handling 
of the hearings in the Judiciary Committee on the subject of the 
Supreme Court confirmation of Judge Sotomayor. Their meetings were both 
informative and respectful, and I think they appropriately reflected 
the traditions of the Senate. Both Judge Sotomayor and the judicial 
confirmation process were treated with the respect they deserve.
  The Senate's constitutional role to advise and consent on Federal 
judicial nominations is one that all Senators take seriously. And I, 
like most Senators, have traditionally shown significant deference to 
the President's role in submitting to the Senate nominees for the 
Federal judiciary. It is a role that the Senate shares with the 
President. If a nominee was qualified by education, experience, and 
judicial temperament, then that nominee would likely be confirmed by 
the Senate, regardless of the political party of the President.
  But in recent years, we have seen that standard dramatically altered. 
During the administration of President George W. Bush, for example, 
several well-qualified nominees from my State for positions in the 
Federal judiciary, including Charles Pickering, Michael Wallace, and 
Leslie Southwick, saw their nominations opposed because of political 
differences. For better or for worse, a new standard for evaluating 
judicial nominees has emerged.
  As has been well documented during her confirmation process, Judge 
Sotomayor was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second 
Circuit by the Senate on October 2, 1998. I voted in favor of her 
confirmation. However, a nomination to one of the Federal Circuit 
Courts of Appeals is not the same as a nomination to the Court of last 
resort, the highest Court in our land, the U.S. Supreme Court.
  During her recent hearing, Judge Sotomayor was asked several 
questions regarding statements she had made in recent years. In 
writings and speeches, Judge Sotomayor repeatedly stated that a judge's 
personal experiences can and will impact judicial outcomes. She has 
also argued that judges should allow their personal sympathies and 
prejudices to influence their decisionmaking. She described the ideal 
of judicial impartiality as an aspiration she believes cannot be met in 
most cases. These statements raise serious concerns regarding the lack 
of commitment to the notion of equal justice under the law.
  Judge Sotomayor's responses to questions about these comments have 
failed to alleviate my concerns about whether she would apply the law 
in an evenhanded manner. It is the responsibility of the Senate to make 
certain that those who are confirmed to the Supreme Court not only are 
fully qualified by reason of experience and training but also that they 
show a commitment to equal justice under the law. Some of Judge 
Sotomayor's statements during the last decade have given me reason to 
question her fidelity to equal justice.
  Unlike the Federal circuit court, where she has served since 1998, a 
Justice on the Supreme Court is not necessarily bound by existing legal 
precedent. If confirmed, there would be no higher court to deter Judge 
Sotomayor from making decisions that would become the binding law of 
the land. For these reasons, I intend to oppose her nomination.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. 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. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized 
for up to 30 minutes, although I doubt I will take that long.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I take to the floor to inform the Senate 
and my colleagues about how I intend to vote on the pending nomination 
of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sotomayor. I understand the path of 
least resistance for me personally would be to vote no. That is 
probably

[[Page 18693]]

true anytime you are in the minority party and you lose an election. 
But I feel compelled to vote yes, and I feel this is the right vote for 
me and, quite frankly, for the country in this case.
  Why do I say that? Well, elections have consequences. I told Judge 
Sotomayor in the hearing that if I had won the election, even though I 
wasn't running, or Senator McCain had, she would probably not have been 
chosen by a Republican. We would have chosen someone with a more 
conservative background--someone similar to a Judge Roberts or Miguel 
Estrada. She is definitely more liberal than a Republican would have 
chosen, but I do believe elections have consequences.
  It is not as though we hid from the American people during the 
campaign that the Supreme Court selections were at stake. Both sides 
openly campaigned on the idea that the next President would be able to 
pick some judges for the Supreme Court. That was known to the American 
people and the American people spoke.
  In that regard, having been one of the chief supporters of Senator 
McCain and one of the chief opponents of then-Senator Obama, I feel he 
deserves some deference on my part when it comes to his first selection 
to the Supreme Court. I say that understanding, under our Constitution, 
I or no other Senator would be bound by the pick of a President. But 
when you look at the history of this country, generally speaking, great 
deference has been given to that selection by the Senate.
  While I am not bound to vote for Judge Sotomayor--voting no would be 
the path of least political resistance for me--I choose to vote for 
Judge Sotomayor because I believe she is well qualified. We are talking 
about one of the most qualified nominees to be selected for the Supreme 
Court in decades. She has 17 years of judicial experience. Twelve of 
those years she was on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. I have 
looked at her record closely. I believe she follows precedent; that she 
has not been an activist judge in the sense that would make her 
disqualified, in my view. She has demonstrated left-of-center reasoning 
but within the mainstream. She has an outstanding background as a 
lawyer. She was a prosecutor for 4 years in New York. Her record of 
academic achievement is extraordinary--coming up from very tough 
circumstances, being raised by a single mother, going to Princeton, 
being picked as the top student there, and doing an extraordinary job 
in law school. She has a strong work ethic. That all mattered to me. It 
is not just my view that her legal reasoning was within the mainstream. 
She received the highest rating by the ABA--the American Bar 
Association--as ``well qualified.''
  The reason I mention that is not because I feel bound by their 
rating, but during the Alito and Roberts confirmation hearings for the 
Supreme Court under President Bush, I used that as a positive for both 
those nominees. I feel, as a Republican, I can't use it one time and 
ignore it the other. So the fact that she received the highest rating 
from the American Bar Association made a difference to me.
  Her life story, as I indicated before, is something every American 
should be proud of. If her selection to the Supreme Court will inspire 
young women, particularly Latino women, to seek a career in the law, 
that is a good thing, and I hope it will.
  On balance, I do believe the Court will not dramatically change in 
terms of ideology due to her selection. Justice Souter, whom I respect 
as an individual, has been far more liberal than I would prefer in a 
judge. I think Justice Sotomayor will not be any more liberal than he. 
On some issues, quite frankly, she may be more balanced in her 
approach, particularly when it comes to the war on terror, the use of 
international law, and potentially the second amendment. But time will 
tell. I am not voting for her believing I know how she will decide a 
case. I am voting for her because I find her to be well qualified, 
because elections matter, and because the people who have served along 
her side for many years find an extraordinary woman in Judge Sotomayor, 
and I confirm their findings.
  What standard did I use? Every Senator in this body, at the end of 
the day, has to decide how to give their advice and consent. One of the 
things I chose not to do was to use Senator Obama's standard when it 
came to casting my vote for Judge Sotomayor. If those who follow the 
Senate will recall, Senator Obama voted against both Judge Alito and 
Judge Roberts, and he used the rationale that they were well qualified; 
that they were extraordinarily intellectually gifted; but the last mile 
in the confirmation process, when it came to Judge Roberts, was the 
heart. Because 5 percent of controversial cases may change society, one 
has to look and see what is in a judge's heart.
  I totally reject that. If the Senate tries to have a confirmation 
process where we explore another person's heart, I think we are going 
to chill out people wanting to become members of the judiciary. Who 
would want to come before the Senate and have us try to figure out what 
is in their heart? Can you imagine the questions we would be allowed to 
ask? I think it would have a tremendous chilling effect on the future 
recruitment of qualified candidates to be judges. Let me say this: 
Judge Sotomayor agreed with me and Senator Kyl that trying to find out 
what is in a judge's heart is probably not a good idea.
  Senator Obama also indicated that judicial philosophy and ideology 
were outcome determinative when it came to Judge Alito. If I used his 
standard, knowing that her philosophy is different than mine, her 
ideology is different than mine, she would have no hope of getting my 
vote. I daresay not one Republican, using the Obama standard, would 
provide her with a confirmation vote. So I decided to reject that 
because I believe it is not in the long-term interest of the Senate or 
the judiciary.
  I went back to a standard I think has stood the test of time--the 
qualifications standard. Is this person qualified to sit on the Court? 
Are they a person of good character? Do they present an extraordinary 
circumstance--having something about their life that would make them 
extraordinary to the point they would be unqualified? There was a time 
in this country where a Justice, such as Justice Ginsburg, who is 
clearly left of center, received 90-something votes in this body. There 
was a time in this country, not long ago, where a conservative judge, 
such as Justice Scalia, received over 95 votes from this body. Every 
Democrat who voted for Justice Scalia could not have been fooled as to 
what they were getting. They were getting an extremely qualified, 
talented, intellectual man who was qualified for the job but had a 
different philosophy from most Democrats. Someone on our side of the 
aisle who voted for Justice Ginsburg had to know what they were 
getting. They were getting someone who was very talented, extremely 
well qualified, incredibly smart, and who was general counsel for the 
ACLU. You had to know what you were getting, but you understood that 
President Clinton, in that case, had the right to make that decision.
  What happened to those days? I would say to my Democratic 
colleagues--and I am sure Republicans have made our fair share of 
mistakes when it comes to judges--that this effort, not too far in the 
past, of filibustering judges, declaring war on the Judiciary, has hurt 
this body. In my opinion, the politicization of our Judiciary has to 
stop for the good of this country, for the good of the Senate, and for 
the good of the rule of law in America.
  What am I trying to do today? I am trying to start over. The 
political ``golden rule'' is: Do unto others as they did unto you. The 
actual Golden Rule is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto 
you. I hope we can get back to the more traditional sense of what the 
Senate has been all about. That brings me back to the recent past.
  This body was on the verge of blowing up. Our Democratic colleagues 
were filibustering President Bush's nominees for the appellate court, 
and even the Supreme Court, in a fashion never known by the body. There 
was an effort by frustrated Republicans to change

[[Page 18694]]

the rules so all you needed was a majority vote to get on the bench--
the Supreme Court. This body, for a couple hundred years, had not gone 
down that road. A Gang of 14 was created--7 Republicans and 7 
Democrats--and they tried to find a better way; they tried to get the 
Senate back to a more reasoned position. That Gang of 14--the 7 
Democrats and 7 Republicans--said filibustering judges should only be 
done in an extraordinary circumstance. We left that up to the Members 
of the body, but we were focusing on someone who was clearly out of the 
mainstream when it came to judging.
  If you look at Judge Sotomayor's record for 17 years, it is left of 
center but not the record of someone who is wearing a robe but under 
the robe is an activist. An extraordinary circumstance would be 
somebody clearly not qualified--a pick that is political in nature 
alone.
  I am glad to say my colleagues on the Democratic side and the 
Republican side who were part of that group--and they are still here--
did not see an extraordinary circumstance. I would like to compliment 
Senator Sessions, who did a very fine job in this hearing. He has 
acknowledged there is nothing extraordinary about this nominee for the 
Republican Party to try to block her through filibustering. I think 
that is a correct assessment.
  But then it comes down to the individual vote. I have tried to 
indicate the best I can that I desire, as a Senator, to find a new way 
to start over and get back to a Senate that is more rational in its 
approach when it comes to confirmations.
  Having said that, to my colleagues who vote no, I understand your 
concerns and there are things about this nominee that are troubling. 
The speeches she has given in the past are troubling because I think 
they embrace identity politics, something I don't embrace. The ``wise 
Latina'' comment that has become famous, that she believes more often 
than not that a wise Latina woman with her experience and background 
would reach a better conclusion than a White male--we had a long 
discussion about how that does not set well with most Americans and 
that is not what we want to be expressed by people trying to become 
Supreme Court nominees.
  But having said that, do we want to exclude from consideration people 
with boldness, who are edgy? Do we want milk toast nominees who are 
afraid to speak their minds and to disagree with their fellow citizens? 
I think not.
  Her speeches, while troubling, have to be looked at in terms of her 
record. When we look at this 17-year record we will find someone who 
has not carried out that speech. I will take her at her word. She 
rejected this idea of picking winners and losers and was very 
mainstream in her understanding of the role of a judge. She understood 
the difference between a policymaker and a judge. I will take her at 
her word. I cannot understand her heart any more than she can 
understand mine. The speeches are troubling, but I guarantee I have 
made some speeches that are probably troubling to people on the other 
side. I hope they would look at everything I have done, not just the 
speeches I may have given.
  Her time as a lawyer--this is very important to me. During the Alito 
and Roberts hearings, they were pushed hard about some legal memos they 
wrote for Ronald Reagan espousing conservative thought and how that 
made them dangerous. How dare you write a memo about the Civil Rights 
Act that somebody on the other side may disagree with? Lawyers who 
advocate positions should not feel chilled in terms of picking their 
clients if they hope to be a judge. The worst thing we could do is take 
a lawyer's advocacy position, their clientele, and hold it against them 
for being a judge.
  She was a board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. Some 
people say we should not talk about her time as a lawyer or even 
mention that organization. I do not believe that at all because when I 
am looking at this nominee, I am looking at every aspect of her life.
  During her time as a board member, the board and the organization 
advocated positions I think are out of the mainstream, that I do not 
agree with, but certainly are legitimate positions to take--such as 
taxpayer-funded abortion. I could not disagree with her more. I don't 
think most Americans want their taxpayer dollars to be used to fund 
abortion. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund argued to the court that 
if we do not allow taxpayer-funded abortion for poor women, it is a 
form of Dred Scott kind of oppression. I could not disagree more, but 
that is not the point. Disagreeing with me is OK.
  What I hope will happen in the future is, if a conservative gets into 
the White House, and we pick someone who was on the other side of that 
case, we will have the same understanding I do: being an aggressive 
advocate for causes I disagree with does not disqualify them from being 
a judge, if otherwise they have demonstrated the capability.
  The advocacy role of a lawyer is unique. I have represented people 
with whom I disagreed. I have represented people accused of child 
molesting. I have been a criminal defense lawyer. There is nothing more 
noble in our system than making the government prove their case 
regardless of how one feels about the defendant.
  The fact that she was an advocate, choosing causes I disagree with, 
does not, in my opinion, disqualify her because, when I looked at her 
record, I did not see a judge who was continuing to be a lawyer for the 
Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. I saw a judge who felt bound by the 
law.
  Temperament--for those Members who have practiced in court, I do not 
like a bully judge, and I know it when I see it. I don't mind being 
pressed, I don't mind being challenged, I don't mind being interrupted. 
I just do not want to be belittled in front of my clients for no good 
reason.
  There were some things said about Judge Sotomayor, anonymous comments 
from lawyers who were asked by the Federal Almanac how they rate the 
temperament of people on the Second Circuit, and Judge Sotomayor had 
some things said that were, frankly, disturbing. But I looked at the 
other part of the record, the people who served with her as a 
prosecutor, the defense attorneys who wrote on her behalf, people who 
served with her on the court, and I found on balance that her 
temperament does not disqualify her. Frankly, I found somebody a lot of 
people from different backgrounds admire.
  Ken Starr, one of the strongest conservatives in the country, found 
her to be a qualified person who would do a good job; Louis Freeh, the 
former Director of the FBI, is someone who came and vouched for her 
character and her qualities as a person.
  When I look at the record, the anonymous comments by lawyers who were 
asked by Federal Legal Service did not win the day, nor should they 
have.
  I do not know what is ahead for this country when it comes to picking 
Supreme Court Justices. I don't know what openings may occur and when 
they will occur. I know this. Elections have to matter. I don't want to 
invalidate elections by disagreeing with someone against whom I ran or 
I opposed politically because when the election is over, everything has 
to change to some extent. I am not bound to agree with every pick of 
President Obama, but when it comes to trying to show some deference, I 
will. I will try to do better for him than he was able to do for 
President Bush.
  I don't want to turn over the confirmation of judges to special 
interest groups on the left or the right, and that is where we are 
headed if we don't watch it. Special interest groups are important, 
they have their say, they have every right to have their say, but we 
can't make every Supreme Court vacancy a battle over our culture.
  I am trying to start over. I have only been here one term plus a few 
months. But since I have been here, I have been worried about where 
this country is going when it comes to judges. I happen to be here at a 
time when we are about to change the rules of the Senate in a way it 
had never been done in 200 years. I was new to the body, but I was 
understanding of the law and how our system works well enough to know 
that I did not want to be part of that.

[[Page 18695]]

I had not been here long, but I understood what would happen to this 
country if we changed the rules of the Senate, even though people felt 
frustrated and justified to do so.
  As a member of the minority, I promised President Obama that I would 
look hard at his nominees. I will try to help him where I can, but I 
will not abandon the right to say no and to stop, in an extraordinary 
circumstance, a nominee who I think would be bad for the country and 
would dramatically change the power of a branch of the government, the 
Supreme Court, that is very important to every American.
  As to my colleagues who find a different decision on the Republican 
side, I can understand and appreciate why they did not feel comfortable 
giving their confirmation votes to Judge Sotomayor. But I am trying to 
look beyond this moment, look to the future and come up with a reason 
to support her that will create a different way of doing business, that 
will help the judiciary, the Senate, and the country as a whole.
  Senator Sessions did an outstanding job. Senator Leahy did a very 
good job. People wanted to know more about her at the hearings, but she 
is limited, like every nominee, in terms of what she can say.
  One last comment about Judge Sotomayor. She is 1 year older than I 
am. I grew up in the Deep South. I am the first person in my family to 
go to college. I lost my parents when I was in college and had a 13-
year-old sister to raise.
  She grew up in the Bronx, came to this country from Puerto Rico. Her 
mother joined the Army. She lost her dad when she was very young. Her 
mother raised Judge Sotomayor and her brother under difficult 
circumstances. Her brother is a doctor. She has been able, Judge 
Sotomayor, to excel academically and reach the highest rung of 
America's legal system. That, to me, is a hell of a story. Nobody in my 
family ever expected me to be a United States Senator--including 
myself. Only in America can these things happen.
  I choose to vote for Judge Sotomayor looking at her from the most 
optimistic perspective, understanding I could be wrong but proud of the 
fact that my country is moving in the right direction when anybody and 
everybody can hit it out of the park. I would not have chosen her if I 
had to make this choice as President, but I understand why President 
Obama did choose her and I am happy to vote for her.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENSIGN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                            Order for Recess

  Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 1:45 
today, the Senate stand in recess for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I rise to talk about a bipartisan 
amendment on military voting, a bill I have cosponsored, because 
counting every vote in our elections is the foundation of our 
democracy. I thank Senators Schumer, Bennett, Chambliss, and Cornyn for 
their work on this matter.
  This is a long overdue measure to address the problems that our 
uniformed service men and women face in exercising their constitutional 
right to take part in elections, a right for which they so bravely 
fight to protect. Military personnel have encountered many problems in 
recent elections. They have trouble receiving timely information about 
elections in their home States. They have trouble registering and 
obtaining absentee ballots. They have trouble preparing ballots. Most 
of all, they have trouble returning the ballot to local election 
officials in time for their vote to be counted.
  It has been a national embarrassment to read news stories of military 
ballots that have been delayed. Despite the best efforts of those 
voters, those votes were not counted. Those military voters were 
disenfranchised from the same democracy they are charged with 
protecting because of administrative redtape.
  According to a Pew Charitable Trust study, one-third of States do not 
provide military voters stationed abroad enough time to vote. 
Additionally, it found that 25 States and the District of Columbia need 
to improve military absentee voting to ensure our men and women 
stationed around the globe can participate in the democratic process. 
While it concluded that my home State of Nevada gave its voters enough 
time to vote, there are still steps that could be taken to make the 
process simpler. Providing half of the country with insufficient time 
is entirely unacceptable.
  This study went on to say that by almost every measure, military and 
overseas voting participation is much lower than the general 
population. In 2006, voter turnout was approximately 20 percent for 
military voters as opposed to approximately 40 percent for the general 
population. These statistics illustrate that those who are fighting to 
protect our democracy are not being afforded the opportunity to 
participate in it.
  Both the Department of Defense and State and local election officials 
have not done enough to address these problems. The Military and 
Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009 would address some of these 
problems to help military personnel have their votes count. The bill 
establishes new requirements for the States and for the Department of 
Defense to make it easier for military and overseas voters to 
participate in elections. The key requirement is for States to allow 
sufficient time for these voters who are overseas to receive their 
ballots, vote, and return them in time to be counted.
  Other provisions in the bill include having States provide online and 
fax systems to deliver registration and absentee ballots; making the 
Department of Defense provide improved ballot delivery and mail service 
for troops; and having the Department of Defense provide improved 
Federal voting assistance such as designating and training voter 
assistance officers and providing registration and absentee ballot 
information at every installation. While these are challenges, they are 
not insurmountable, especially when we consider the outcome--providing 
the men and women in uniform with the opportunity to vote. We, as 
Americans, owe them that opportunity.
  My office has been in touch with the office of the Secretary Of State 
of Nevada to continue to work through these challenges. Implementing 
these changes will not be simple. My colleagues and I have modified the 
bill to address some of these concerns and will continue to work with 
our States and localities going forward.
  For example, the original version of the bill focused attention on 
the steps that States must take, even though we know that many States, 
such as Nevada, have local election officials who carry out important 
election activities. We never had any intention of reaching into States 
and rearranging that relationship. That is why the Rules Committee 
modified the bill to clarify that election responsibilities identified 
in the bill can, of course, be delegated to the appropriate local 
election officials. The negotiation process is ongoing because the 
objective of ensuring that military votes are counted on election day 
is so critical.
  I fully expect we will find new issues to work through, but we must 
keep our eyes on the main goal--improving the system to protect the 
voting rights of our military personnel. There are few rights we 
exercise greater than choosing our own elected officials. We cannot 
call ourselves a democracy if we do not count the votes of our citizens 
in elections of government officials. The men and women who put their 
lives on the line for you and me to protect our country are certainly 
no exception. It is time that we take steps to protect their right to 
vote.
  I encourage my colleagues to make sure that this particular amendment 
is included in the Defense authorization bill. This is critical ahead 
of the election so States have time to prepare and

[[Page 18696]]

every person in the military who wishes to exercise their right to vote 
is allowed to do so and their vote is counted in time for the 2010 
elections.

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