[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9489-9490]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN VIOLENCE

  Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, last week--let's start with last 
weekend--Americans woke to the news of a horrific mass murder in 
Orlando, FL. The gunman, a U.S. citizen inspired by terrorists, legally 
purchased a weapon of war and turned it upon members of the LGBT 
community on Latin night at a nightclub in Orlando, FL--49 dead, 53 
wounded.
  Senators returned from their home States last week to express 
thoughts and prayers and to observe moments of silence. Many of us 
resolved that while important, those sentiments were not enough and 
that we needed to follow up those thoughts, those prayers, and those 
moments of silence with action.
  I joined with my colleagues on the floor when Senator Murphy of 
Connecticut held the floor for 15 hours to draw attention to two 
commonsense amendments that would have limited that easy access to a 
weapon of war by closing a loophole that allows so many of our firearms 
purchases to occur without a proper background check and to close 
something we are calling the terror gap, which would allow the FBI the 
authority to deny gun purchases to people who are on a watch list, 
suspected of connections with terrorism. Those measures gained a vote 
in the Senate last night, but both failed to advance.
  I don't think we can simply say that we tried and continue to accept 
shootings like the one in Orlando as the new normal and then move on to 
other business--especially, I might add, with our procedural posture 
right now, as the Senate has before it at this period in time the 
Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill, a measure in which we can 
prioritize our response to this tragedy and the preceding tragedies 
through amendments perfecting the measure before us. Americans are 
demanding more. We can't just carry on as usual in the wake of these 
enormous domestic tragedies. Wisconsinites are demanding more. Just in 
this last week, I received heartbreaking communications from my 
constituents asking us to act. I will briefly share two of them.
  A young mother wrote to me:

       I am a young mother of two young children and every day 
     that they go to school I say a silent prayer that they come 
     home safely to me, that no one decides to walk into their 
     school or onto their bus with a gun and an intent to kill.

  Another young person wrote to me:

       As a young LGBTQ person, I am devastated by this attack on 
     my community. I am scared that this attack happened in what 
     was supposed to be a safe place, a free space in a world that 
     is often hostile for LGBTQ people. I am scared for my safety 
     and for the safety of my community. I am also angry. I am 
     angry that the United States is the only country where 
     shootings like this regularly occur, and I am angry that our 
     government is not doing enough to prevent this kind of 
     violence.

  The attack in Orlando was, as I mentioned, an act that allegedly was 
inspired by maybe ISIL or other terrorist groups, but it was also an 
act of hate,

[[Page 9490]]

a hate crime. I have filed an amendment with my colleagues, Senator 
Mikulski of Maryland and Senator Hirono of Hawaii, to increase funding 
to strengthen the prevention of hate crimes and the enforcement of our 
hate crimes laws and our civil rights laws. The amendment is now 
cosponsored by 18 other Members of the Senate.
  I think it is important to understand what a hate crime is. A hate 
crime is an underlying criminal act--so it is not about hate thought or 
hate speech--wherein the victim of the crime or victims of the crime 
are targeted based on a particular characteristic. Sometimes we hear 
about hate crimes committed against the LGBT community because of their 
sexual orientation or gender identity, but hate crimes are often 
perpetrated against people on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, 
or gender. Hate crimes targeted against people based on their 
characteristics are done so because not only are the victims 
victimized, but it sends a message of terror and hate throughout a 
community to all people who share characteristics with the victim or 
who love people who share the characteristics of the victim. They are 
terrifying, and they deserve, as we have chosen to do in the United 
States, to be treated very specifically as hate crimes.
  It is only recently that the United States recognized hate crimes 
against members of the LGBT community or against women or people with 
disabilities with the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, 
Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
  There are too many of these hate crimes in the news these days. We 
are still grieving the massive numbers of dead and injured in Orlando. 
It was not all that long ago that Charleston had a mass murder in a 
church. The African-American community was targeted. In Wisconsin, in 
another place of worship, in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, WI, a gunman 
came and targeted the congregation during Sunday worship.
  In America, hate crimes overall are declining. That is good news, and 
that says something about what we can do together when we pass strong 
laws and try to prevent these crimes, educate, and enforce our laws. 
But I am sad to share that while overall our hate crimes are declining, 
those against some groups--most notably Muslims and members of the LGBT 
community--are on the rise. LGBT people are more likely than any other 
group to be targeted for hate violence, and LGBT people of color, 
particularly transgender women of color, are at the very greatest risk.
  The amendment I have offered, along with my colleagues, Senators 
Mikulski and Hirono, would provide, in the Commerce-Justice-Science 
appropriations bill, additional funding for the Civil Rights Division 
to focus on hate crimes prevention on the one hand but also enforcement 
and prosecution of those crimes when they occur. This amendment will 
provide important tools to the Justice Department that they need to 
combat discrimination and crimes of hate in communities across the 
country. I am pleased to have a large number of human rights 
organizations in this country endorse this as an important step 
forward.
  We need to take action. We need to do more to address terrorism, to 
address gun violence, and to address hate crimes. I urge my colleagues 
in the Senate to join me in calling for a vote on this amendment and 
supporting it when we get that opportunity.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Flake). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________