[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18950-18951]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN VIOLENCE

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, 15 years ago, in the days after the 
shooting at Columbine High School stunned our Nation, I spoke to the 
Economic Club of Detroit. There, as our country reflected on gun 
violence's horrific toll, I asked a simple question: ``Are we willing 
to say enough is enough?''
  Now, so many years later, that question still haunts us. Today, in a 
country dedicated to ``life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'' 
guns kill over 32,000 people a year. That is almost 88 people a day. On 
top of that, there are over 73,000 nonfatal gun injuries each year. 
That is 200 a day. Some statistics have shown that 50 percent of 
suicides in the United States are committed with a firearm. Others have 
found that children and young adults account for 38 percent of gun 
deaths and nonfatal injuries, and that when guns are present during 
incidents of domestic violence, the risk of homicide escalates over 500 
percent.
  Each of these statistics represents tragedy: people with stories, 
families, loved ones left behind and dreams shattered. A recent CNN 
report, for example, analyzed all the gun incidents that occurred in 
America on a day picked at random--July 12, 2014. Their research found 
on that day alone, at least 83 gun incidents occurred in our country. 
At 3:20 a.m., a 23-year-old man was shot and killed at an apartment 
complex in Tallahassee, FL. At 11:01 a.m., in Ohio, officers responding 
to a domestic violence complaint arrived to a firefight

[[Page 18951]]

that ended when the gunman turned his weapon on himself. At 6:20 p.m. 
an elderly man mistakenly shot and killed his neighbor, whom he mistook 
for an intruder. At 8:40 p.m., in South Carolina, after an altercation 
at a party, a man sprayed bullets into the crowd, killing a 47-year-old 
man and injuring another. And these are just a few examples: in the 
report's words, ``we are certain about one thing--we did not capture 
every gun incident.''
  Congress can take commonsense steps to make things better. We should 
pass a bill making background checks mandatory on all gun sales, a step 
that study after study has shown is supported by 90 percent of the 
American people, as well as 95 percent of American internists and 55.4 
percent of gun dealers and pawnbrokers. We should pass legislation to 
ban military style assault weapons, so as to stop the flood of these 
weapons into our neighborhoods and streets. The bottom line is that law 
enforcement personnel who put their lives on the line every day need 
and deserve our support in their effort to ban assault weapons, require 
background checks and take other steps to reduce gun violence.
  We recently observed the 2-year anniversary of the day when a 
deranged individual took the lives of 26 people, 20 of them children, 
at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. The children were first 
graders, 6- and 7-year-olds. Today, they would have been 8- and 9-year-
olds, third graders, celebrating birthdays, learning about fractions 
and decimals, and reading books. Instead, we can only honor their 
memory and rededicate ourselves to the work of preventing these 
tragedies in the future.
  So I must ask the question again, Are we willing to say that enough 
is enough? After so many years and so much senseless death, injury and 
pain, when will we come together to stop this violence?
  I am still hopeful. I am hopeful that Congress will finally answer 
the question in the affirmative ``Enough is enough.'' I am hopeful that 
Congress will listen to our communities, our educators, and clergy, our 
law enforcement officials and businesspeople, our families and loved 
ones and join them in saying ``enough is enough.'' And I am hopeful 
that one day soon, Congress will pay victims and survivors of American 
gun violence the highest tribute that it can: legislation to stop the 
bloodshed, and to make this country that we love better and safer for 
generations to come.

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