[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5288-5291]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  COMMEMORATING VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to perform a solemn duty today, 
which is to commemorate the shooting at Virginia Tech of 32 students 
and faculty members who were killed 6 years ago today and many others 
who were injured:
  Ross Alameddine, Jamie Bishop, Brian Bluhm, Ryan Clark, Austin 
Michelle Cloyd, Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva, 
Kevin Granata, Matthew Gwaltney, Caitlin Hammaren, Jeremy Herbstritt, 
Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Emily Hilscher, Jarrett Lane, Matthew La Porte, 
Henry Lee, Liviu Librescu, G.V. Loganathan, Partahi Mamora Halomoan 
Lumbantoruan, Lauren McCain, Daniel O'Neil, Juan Ramon Ortiz-Ortiz, 
Minal Panchal, Erin Peterson, Michael Pohle, Julia Pryde, Mary Karen 
Read, Reema Samaha, Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, Leslie Sherman, Maxine 
Turner, and Nichole White.
  I read those names to honor those who were killed and had their lives 
snuffed out on April 16, 2007. I acknowledge also that many students 
and faculty members were injured. We have with us today both family 
members of those who are deceased and even some students who were 
injured. I also honor all in the Hokie, the Virginia Tech community 
that is very close, that still suffers the wounds from this horrible 
shooting.
  In the aftermath of the shooting at Virginia Tech 6 years ago today, 
we learned a lot. We learned that we have to make fixes to the mental 
health system: that school security and safety is incredibly important, 
that alert systems that can notify people when bad things happen are 
incredibly important. We also learned a tragic but important lesson; 
that is, background record checks make us safer. The young, troubled 
individual with no criminal record who committed those horrible crimes 
had a long history of mental illness. He had been adjudicated mentally 
ill and dangerous. Because of that adjudication, he was not supposed to 
be able to own or purchase weapons, but a flaw in the background record 
check system kept that record from being entered into the national 
database. So when he decided and went to purchase the weapons he used 
in committing this horrible homicide, he was allowed to purchase them.

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  In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, with the strong support 
of the Virginia Tech families, we fixed that problem in the background 
record check. As Governor, I worked with my Republican attorney 
general, the current Governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell. We fixed the 
background record check system that facilitated this gruesome crime. 
Background records checks make us safer. The better the system, the 
safer we are.
  I later went to my legislature and tried to get them to fix the 
background record check in another way--by closing the gun show 
loophole, to require records checks at gun shows. I failed in that 
task. I not only could not convince my legislature to do it, I could 
not even convince a single committee to report a bill out to the floor.
  That is why I am so glad we are debating on the floor meaningful 
fixes to gun violence, including a fix to our background record check 
system when it comes to gun shows or online purchases. I look forward 
to the debate, and I look forward to supporting the proposals that have 
been advanced by Senators Manchin and Toomey.
  I read the names, the 32 names of those who were killed. As I 
conclude, I wish to take a couple of minutes to tell the story of one 
of the individuals.
  I read the name of Liviu Librescu, who was a professor at Virginia 
Tech, a professor of engineering. He was teaching a course in Norris 
Hall on the day of this horrible tragedy, and as shots rang out, he 
heard the shots. He went to the door, and he barricaded the door with 
his own body, and on the second floor of Norris Hall, he told his 
students to get out of the window and get to the ground and get to 
safety. He stood there against the door as Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter, 
fired repeated rounds through the door, striking his body many times 
and eventually killing him. But not until the last shot when he was 
killed did he stop saying to the students: Hurry. You have time. You 
can get out of the window. And all but one of Liviu Librescu's students 
were able to get out of the window. One student, Minal Panchal, ended 
up being killed because he bravely waited for the other students to go 
out the window first.
  What heroism and bravery. Yet the Liviu Librescu story is even more 
powerful than that because Liviu Librescu, the professor, was 76 years 
old--long past retirement age. He had continued to teach because he 
loved teaching.
  He was born in 1930 in Romania. When the Romanian Government became 
allied with Nazi Germany in 1940, because he was Jewish and his family 
was Jewish, he was subjected to the persecution Jews in Romania were 
subjected to, his family was sent into forced labor camps, and Liviu 
Librescu lived in a crowded ghetto in a Romanian city, being 
persecuted, but he came through the Holocaust as a survivor. Many Jews, 
after the war, left Romania because of the persecution of Jews, but it 
was Liviu Librescu's home, and he stayed. He went to a university, and 
he became a world-renowned aerospace engineer, and he continued to 
teach.
  But now Romania fell under the influence, as a puppet state, of the 
Soviet Union. He would not pledge allegiance to the Communist Party. He 
would not relinquish his tie to his Judaic faith. Because of that, he 
began to be subjected to persecution for a second time, to be 
persecuted because of his religion, to be denied the ability to publish 
articles or travel to academic conferences. Eventually, he lost his job 
at the university because of his Judaism and because he was unwilling 
to take the oath of allegiance to the Communist Party.
  He was persona non grata in his home country of Romania. However, 
people in the outside world who knew of his scholarship never let go, 
and they continued to speak on Liviu Librescu's behalf. He was 
eventually allowed, in 1977, to emigrate to Israel.
  He lived in Israel for 8 years and received a 1-year teaching 
fellowship at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. He came for 1 year and 
never left. He taught as a popular teacher and researcher in 
Blacksburg, VA, from 1985 until the day he was killed in 2007.
  This horrible day, April 16, 2007, started as a normal Monday for 
virtually everyone who ended up sharing the tragic fate. It was not a 
normal day. It did not start as a normal day for Liviu Librescu. Liviu 
Librescu, as a proud Jew, observed that day, from sundown on the 15th 
of April, the evening before, until sundown on the 16th of April, as 
Yom HaShoah, Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Day.
  Yom HaShoah, in the Jewish religion since 1953, has been a day 
worldwide where Jews and their allies remember the Holocaust, 
perpetrators, victims, and the bystanders--the bystanders who wouldn't 
do anything to stop the atrocity.
  They also remember the heroism of those who fought against the 
Holocaust.
  As Professor Librescu went to his class on this day, while it was a 
normal Monday for most, I know he walked into his class thinking about 
Yom HaShoah, perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and heroes. He made a 
decision, in the split second he heard shots being fired, to be a hero 
and to save others' lives.
  He survived the Holocaust, perpetrated by Nazi Germany, and anti-
Semitism in Romania. He survived the persecution perpetrated in his 
country by the Soviet Union. However, Liviu Librescu could not survive 
the epidemic of gun violence in this country, the country which he 
adopted and loved.
  In conclusion, I would encourage all of us to take a minute, 
Senators, staff, pages, people in the gallery, members of the press, 
take a moment and ask yourselves would you do what Liviu Librescu did. 
Would you put your body against a door, allow yourself to be shot, and 
encourage others to be safe? Would you do that? Would we do this?
  As I thought about this question, being honest, I would say I hope I 
would do that. I pray if it comes to that I would act to protect others 
ahead of myself.
  If I am honest with myself, what I have to say is I don't know 
whether I would do that. I don't know whether I would be a hero like 
Liviu Librescu. I don't know if I would have the courage to do what 
Liviu Librescu did.
  The good news for those of us who have the honor and blessing to 
serve in this Chamber is we do not need to put our body in front of 
bullets to keep people safe. We do not need to put our bodies in front 
of bullets to protect kids and protect students. All we need to do is 
have an infinitesimal portion of the courage Liviu Librescu had and 
cast votes. We need to cast votes on the floor of this body to keep our 
community safer and to keep our children safer.
  I have heard it said this will be a hard vote. For 20 years there has 
not been a meaningful discussion of these issues on the floor of the 
Senate because interests are too powerful, the NRA is too powerful. It 
will be a vote which will be scored, and we need to worry about it. It 
will take courage. It does not take courage, to any degree, when we 
think about Liviu Librescu, who saved his students.
  Last week I met the daughter of Mary Sherlach, who was the guidance 
counselor in Sandy Hook who ran to save her students and was killed. 
When we think about the courage and heroism shown by these individuals, 
what we are being asked to do on the floor of this body is the least we 
can do.
  It is about heroism. We honor heroes such as Liviu Librescu. The 
people who put us in office expect us to have at least a small measure 
of courage, a small measure of heroism. We owe it to those students and 
others who were shot, killed, and wounded at Virginia Tech. We owe it 
to the people who were killed or wounded in Newtown. I would ask all my 
colleagues to reflect upon the example of Professor Librescu and the 
heroism he showed as we debate what might be a controversial proposal 
this week.
  Again, the blessing we have as Senators is that we do not have to 
interpose our bodies in the way of violence to make a difference and 
make people safer. It is my wish we do that as we debate and vote in 
the coming days.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, let me first say I also am on the floor 
because

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today is April 16, the sixth anniversary of the horrible shootings at 
the campus of Virginia Tech. I think every Virginian and every 
American--I can say Virginians at least--remember when we first 
received those news reports of the violence perpetrated by Seung-Hui 
Cho.
  I say to my colleague and friend, the Senator from Virginia, in the 
33 years we have known each other I have valued his friendship and 
appreciate his intellect, grace, and knowledge. There was never a 
moment I was prouder of then-Governor Tim Kaine than those moments 
after the tragedy.
  I don't know if in his comments he noted he had been on a trade 
mission in Asia when these incidents happened. He barely had landed 
when he turned around--he and his wife Anne--boarded a plane and came 
back with virtually no rest. As a Governor you bear these 
responsibilities in remarkable ways when Virginians are hurt, and in 
those days he spoke for all of us.
  The words he said at the Virginia Tech campus in the ceremony 
afterward brought together the community and brought together our 
Commonwealth. In many ways he spoke for our whole Nation, as he has so 
eloquently spoken this morning. I thank him for what he did as a 
Virginian in those days afterward and thank him for the eloquent 
comments he made this morning.
  In the aftermath of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, under the 
leadership of Governor Kaine, Virginia acted. We were within the 
legislature able to close the legal loophole which allowed Cho, who had 
been adjudicated mentally unsound, we closed the loophole so he could 
no longer--or someone who had been adjudicated in such a way--be able 
to purchase firearms. In the aftermath of the tragedy, then-Governor 
Kaine appointed a nationally respected commission of experts to 
recognize what happened and recognize ways we might make all our 
colleges and universities safer.
  This leads me to some of my comments this morning. We are about to 
take on a debate around how we keep America and Americans safer in a 
way that also respects our constitutional amendment of the right to 
keep and bear arms.
  An underlying amendment of the bill we are about to debate has at 
least one part of the legislation which is relatively noncontroversial, 
a piece of legislation I have been working on for some time. I know 
Senator Kaine has supported this as well. The issue is to look at 
campus safety. It has been one of the top priorities of those victims 
of the Virginia Tech massacre.
  Those families who have spoken with me repeatedly, and with Senator 
Kaine as well, said let's at least make sure, if a tragic event takes 
place on a college campus somewhere in America, there are ways we can 
learn from these tragedies.
  So the CAMPUS Safety Act, which is embedded in this legislation, will 
bring together research and resources on campus safety to strengthen 
training and improve collaboration. Today, campus public safety 
officers are the only first responders who don't have access to Federal 
support to assist in sharing the best practices, relevant research, and 
training opportunities.
  The CAMPUS Safety Act, which received bipartisan support in the 
committee markup, seeks to address this by consolidating scattered 
Federal efforts into a national center for campus public safety housed 
within the Department of Justice. This Center would not only provide a 
one-stop repository of relevant research but also examples of best 
practices. It would have an ability to issue grants to colleges, 
universities, and nonprofit organizations to strengthen efforts to help 
make our campus community safer.
  This kind of planning and training will help prevent future violence 
on our campuses and will help improve responses in the event of another 
horrific outbreak of violence on our campus or other university. I am 
pleased our bipartisan CAMPUS Safety Act is included in the discussions 
we are having in this body in the coming days and weeks.
  I wish to take a moment to speak about a specific aspect of this 
debate which will, I imagine, be coming up for a vote in the next few 
days. I stand before my colleagues to say a few words in support of the 
Manchin-Toomey amendment we will most likely vote on this week. Both 
Senators Manchin and Toomey have shown courage in working together on 
what Senator Kaine said is a difficult issue. I support the bipartisan 
compromise on background checks they proposed.
  Their amendment will strengthen our background check system, close 
the gun show loophole, and prohibit the commercial sale of guns to 
those who are seriously mentally ill or have a criminal record. Let me 
also say their amendment also contains appropriate exemptions so 
responsible gun owners will still be allowed to make direct 
transactions between family and friends to ensure a father or 
grandfather could pass that shotgun along to their son or daughter.
  Our shared goal is to ensure we keep guns out of the hands of the 
wrong people while respecting the basic constitutional right to bear 
arms. I have been disappointed by some who said somehow this amendment 
will infringe upon this right. I couldn't disagree more. This has been 
a common refrain on both sides of the aisle since we started this 
conversation in December after the tragic events in Newtown.
  If we are serious about achieving this goal, the Manchin-Toomey 
amendment achieves a thoughtful, effective, and balanced approach to 
achieving our background check system. It strengthens the instant check 
system of all States to put their information into the NICS, the 
National Instant Background Check System. One of the outgrowths we saw 
after the horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech was so many States, while 
they may have collected this information, didn't even put it into the 
national database.
  One other amendment Senator Toomey put forward would establish a 
national commission on mass violence to study all the causes of mass 
violence in our country, including school safety, mental health, issues 
about firearms, and also issues around some of the images all of us and 
our children are exposed to in television and film.
  This amendment, combined with provisions to prevent gun trafficking 
and our proposal to improve campus safety, represents a reasonable path 
forward. In our efforts to reduce violence--as Senator Kaine has so 
eloquently stated--we are trying to ensure we don't have to create the 
kinds of heroes which took place 6 years ago on the campus of Virginia 
Tech.
  Let me also add, as I am sure all my colleagues will express, our 
hearts go out to the families of the victims of the most recent tragedy 
which took place in Boston. I think I can relate, as a former resident 
of Boston--and I know Senator Kaine, former Governor Kaine, then-law 
student Tim Kaine--he and I first met at a law school in Boston--
remembering Patriots' Day in Boston, when even if you were not going to 
run in the marathon, the kind of joy that swept through Boston on 
Patriots' Day. We all know Boston will be back. We all saw those images 
yesterday of the horrific tragedy.
  I talked to a friend whose wife had literally finished the race 4 
minutes before the bombing took place. If she had finished 4 minutes 
later, he or his daughter or his wife might have been one of the 
victims of that tragedy. I know, as a father, I called my daughters 
last night to try to enforce how much I love them, how valuable life 
is, and how at any moment, whether in a classroom in Virginia Tech or 
running the Boston Marathon, life can be snuffed out.
  I agree with Senator Kaine that in the coming days and weeks, as we 
have this debate, we are not going to be asked to make acts of courage; 
we are simply going to be asked to do our job. I believe the Manchin-
Toomey amendment and the CAMPUS Safety Act are part of our role and 
responsibility in doing our job, and I hope we will be able to act on 
that matter.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Hirono). The Senator from Texas.

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