[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5110]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE

  Mr. LEVIN Mr. President, on March 14, 2014, a popular teacher named 
Michelle Wilcox got into an argument. People get into arguments all the 
time. It is part of life. But this argument ended, as all too many do 
around our Nation, in tragedy: suddenly, the man with whom Ms. Wilcox 
had been arguing pulled out a firearm, chased after her, shot her, and 
left her body in a grassy patch near a preschool.
  In this case, as in so many others, the presence of a gun turned an 
ordinary altercation into a horrific murder. Had a firearm not been 
present, Ms. Wilcox might have been able to walk away that fateful 
morning--frustrated, angry, but alive. Instead, she was murdered, her 
husband of 12 years now awaits trial, and their child has lost its 
mother. A momentary bad decision ended one life and has irrevocably 
changed so many more.
  We may not know if anything could have prevented this tragedy, but we 
do know that this grim scene repeats itself all around our Nation, 
almost every day. Statistics compiled by the Law Center to Prevent Gun 
Violence show an indisputable correlation between domestic violence 
incidents and firearms: that, for instance, abused women are ``five 
times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser owns a 
firearm.'' Other statistics indicate that domestic violence assaults 
involving a gun are ``23 times more likely to result in death'' than 
those involving other weapons, and that over ``two-thirds of spouse and 
ex-spouse homicide victims in a 28-year span were killed with 
firearms.'' And in 2011, almost two-thirds of women killed with guns 
were killed by their intimate partners.
  These sad figures show the importance of keeping firearms out of the 
hands of domestic abusers. But all too often, our Nation's system to 
prevent such dangerous individuals from getting guns fails. It failed 
in the case of Christen Naujoks, a student at the University of North 
Carolina. For a brief time in 2004, Ms. Naujoks dated another student, 
John Peck, before ending the relationship. Mr. Peck had previously been 
convicted of sexually assaulting another woman, and as a result was 
legally prohibited from purchasing a gun. This didn't stop him, 
however, from exploiting a loophole in current law that allows 
individuals to purchase guns from private sellers' without undergoing a 
background check. Mr. Peck bought an assault rifle from a private 
seller, and on June 4, 2004, murdered Ms. Naujoks by shooting her 11 
times in front of her apartment building. Three days later, Mr. Peck 
committed suicide during a police shootout.
  There is legislation pending before the Senate that, if enacted, 
could prevent future convicted domestic abusers from evading background 
checks to buy murder weapons. These bills could be the critical 
difference in preventing another domestic argument from becoming 
something so much worse. We owe it to the memory of victims of domestic 
violence around this country to take every step possible to prevent 
similar incidents in the future. I urge my colleagues to pass gun 
safety legislation that closes the gun show loophole.

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