[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15303-15308]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

                           EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to executive session 
to consider Calendar No. 226, Callista Gingrich.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The motion was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
  The legislative clerk read the nomination of Callista L. Gingrich, of 
Virginia, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the 
United States of America to the Holy See.


                             Cloture Motion

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under 
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Callista L. Gingrich, of Virginia, to be Ambassador 
     Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of 
     America to the Holy See.
         Mitch McConnell, Bob Corker, Johnny Isakson, Patrick J. 
           Toomey, Richard Burr, Orrin G. Hatch, Roger F. Wicker, 
           Tom Cotton, James Lankford, Pat Roberts, Ron Johnson, 
           Richard C. Shelby,

[[Page 15304]]

           Cory Gardner, John Thune, James E. Risch, Deb Fischer, 
           David Perdue.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
mandatory quorum call with respect to the cloture motion be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Connecticut.


                        Las Vegas Mass Shooting

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I think all of us felt a familiar knot in 
our stomach early this morning when we received news of what might be 
the deadliest mass shooting in American history. The numbers are hard 
to comprehend. They certainly aren't final. Fifty-eight people are 
dead, and perhaps over 500 have been wounded, either by the gunshots 
themselves or by the pandemonium that ensued once the thousands of 
concertgoers in downtown Las Vegas figured out they were being fired 
upon from above.
  There is nothing wrong with sending every thought and prayer and 
every bit of your heart to Las Vegas, to all of the family members who 
lost loved ones, to those who are recovering, to the first responders, 
and to the community at large. It really does help. I lived through one 
of these as a witness in Sandy Hook. Many of those parents are still my 
friends. We are about the same age, and our kids are the same age. 
While there are absolutely no words and no gestures that can ever salve 
the wounds that come with losing a child--especially a first grader--it 
did not hurt to know that the rest of the world was thinking every 
single minute about that community. There was an overwhelming amount of 
stuff that showed up in Sandy Hook--the teddy bears that piled up in 
the days and weeks that followed. It was a reminder to that town that 
they weren't forgotten. It helps. It does. But it is not enough.
  I want to just spend a few moments--I know I was preceded by a few of 
my colleagues--to talk about the work that we have to do here if we are 
to address what I would consider to be a festering, lingering paradox 
that exists in this country. What I mean by that is this. This is a 
country that leads. Almost every great magical invention in this world 
today--whether it be open economies, participatory democracies, 
communication through the internet--is essentially a modern American 
invention.
  The reason that we were able to catapult the rest of the world in 
just a quarter millennium to a point of global preeminence is because 
we saw big problems and we solved them before anybody else did. Then we 
took those solutions and we exported them to the rest of the world. 
That is a definitional characteristic of this country--working harder 
than anybody else to solve big problems and then giving that solution 
to others so they can use it for themselves. The paradox lies here. We 
solved a lot of big problems: How to govern ourselves, how to order our 
economies, how to talk to each other, and how to save people from 
disease. Yet maybe the longest standing human concern is a very simple 
one--concern for our physical safety.
  I can chart you a history of civilization based upon society's 
ability to protect more consistently our physical body. That is, in 
fact, one of the original reasons why humans found each other--to try 
to protect ourselves from physical harm that comes from the outside. 
The paradox lies in the fact that, when it comes to this country's 
ability to protect its citizens from physical harm, we are not a 
leader. We are a laggard. We are an outlier when compared to other 
industrialized first-world nations. You are much more likely to meet a 
violent death, especially by the hands of a firearm, in this country 
than you are in other first-world countries.
  It is time for us to explore why this paradox exists. Why are we such 
a leader and why have we been such a leader over the course of 240 
years on so many different concerns, and yet we are a laggard when it 
comes to protecting ourselves and our fellow citizens from physical 
violence? The scope of this problem is enormous. When you look at OECD 
countries, there are just a handful that have a higher rate of 
violence--and, in particular, gun violence--than the United States.
  I have been down on this floor as have Senator Durbin and others to 
talk about the numbers, over and over. But every day approximately 80 
people lose their lives by gunfire, and two-thirds of those are 
suicide. But still, about 30 people every day are killed with a gun 
that is used by someone else. There is really no other country in the 
industrialized world that meets that rate of gun violence.
  The mass shootings, which get the most attention, are truly epidemic. 
We have become normalized and regularized to 50 or 40 or 30 people 
losing their lives, but this happens nowhere else other than the United 
States at this rate. This is a uniquely American problem, and, by the 
way, it is not just the Las Vegases, the Orlandos, and the Sandy Hooks. 
We have actually had more mass shootings this year than days in the 
year, if you categorize a mass shooting as four or more people being 
shot in any one given time. Let me guarantee you, if four or more 
people were shot in your town or your neighborhood, that would be a 
cataclysmic event, and yet it happens on average more than once a day 
in this country. Because we have become so regularized to it, only with 
the moments like last night, where the scale is truly epic, do we focus 
on it as a Nation.
  I want my colleagues to understand the pain that comes when the 
victims of this kind of epidemic violence see nothing but silence from 
this body. The hurt is deep. The scars are wide in Newtown, but they 
are made wider by the fact that this body, in 4\1/2\ years, has done 
absolutely nothing to reduce the likelihood of another mass shooting. 
Indeed, because we have done nothing, the mass shootings continue.
  I know these are harsh words, but I believe it in my heart. I think 
this is an unintentional endorsement that gets sent to these mass 
murderers when, slaughter after slaughter, Congress does nothing. If 
the greatest deliberative body in the world doesn't act in unison to 
condemn them through policy change, it starts to feel and look like 
complicity. So there is going to be another wave of unimaginable pain 
that will sweep across Las Vegas and the country as we learn about who 
these victims were and, perhaps, as the numbers mount. They will, over 
time, be just as angry and just as furious at this body as those 
parents in Sandy Hook are today that we do nothing to try to reduce the 
likelihood of these shootings. Compassion is important, but it is not 
enough.
  I read a little passage of the Bible to my 5-year-old son every 
night. I am the furthest thing from a theologian, but I know that 
sprinkled throughout the Bible are references to the fact that prayer 
has to be matched with action--with works. James says: ``Show me your 
faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my 
works.'' Thoughts and prayers need to be matched by action, and that is 
our job. Our job, frankly, is not just to send good thoughts. The 
reason why we exist is to act, to change the laws of the Nation, and to 
address challenges that our constituents face. Since the beginning of 
time, the most important challenge our constituents have faced--the 
human race has faced--is that of physical security.
  So before I turn this over to my colleagues, let me just run down 
very quickly through the arguments that are going to be used over the 
next few days to continue to do nothing. The first is already in 
operation today, and it is a critique I hear very often. It is often 
lodged at me personally. It is this: To talk about policy change in the 
wake of a mass shooting is to politicalize it, to cheapen it. I reject 
that argument in full force because the reality is that every single 
day there is a mass shooting. Every single day 80 people die from gun 
violence. Unfortunately, the news media doesn't pay attention to that 
regular carnage.
  If we aren't talking about policy change the day after a mass 
shooting in this country, then you are never talking about policy 
change, because a mass shooting happens, on average, every day. 
Unfortunately, the ones in which 8 people are shot or 12 people are 
shot do not get national attention.

[[Page 15305]]

  Second, whether we like it or not, the world's attention--the 
country's attention--is positioned on this question of how we protect 
our country from harm in the immediate aftermath of these mass 
shootings. It is an enormous gift to the gun lobby, to the forces of 
status quo, if we cannot talk about how to change our laws to make 
people safer when everyone's mind is on that question. When a murder 
occurs, there is not a 48-hour waiting period before the police can try 
to investigate who did it and how to hold them accountable. So why 
can't we get immediately to the question of why these shootings are 
happening and try to solve it?
  Also, others today are saying that legislation is a pointless 
exercise because you can't regulate away evil. There is truth to that. 
There are evil people in the world who are regularly doing very bad 
things, and there is no way that a set of laws can stop people from 
doing harm. But I would argue in some way, shape, or form, that the 
very nature of government is an attempt to try to regulate the effect 
of evil on citizens. Our laws against murder, arson, rape, and assault 
are attempts to try to make sure that people are protected from evil, 
from bad people. So why can't we have a conversation about how to make 
sure that people who are contemplating mass violence, at the very 
least, do the least violence possible?
  It is not coincidental that these epidemic mass shootings, in which 
50 or 60 or 40 people have died, largely have happened after the 
expiration of the assault weapons ban. Now that it is much easier to 
get your hands on a gun that is much more accurate and much more 
lethal, the likelihood of large numbers of people dying, as happened 
last night, is much greater.
  An AR-15 style weapon does something different to a human body than a 
pistol does. That is why 20 kids were shot in Sandy Hook, and not a 
single one of them survived.
  Laws do work. Just look at a State like Connecticut, which requires 
universal background checks, doesn't allow you to buy assault weapons, 
and requires you to get a permit before you can carry it. When we 
passed that set of laws, it resulted in a 40-percent reduction in gun 
violence, even when you attribute or account for other factors that 
could have caused that reduction. That is a Johns Hopkins study.
  In places that have universal background checks, gun homicides are 
lower; domestic violence homicides are much lower by a degree of 40 
percent. Laws work. The data is irrefutable on this point.
  Though you can't regulate away evil in total, you can do more to 
protect people, especially from this mass-scope gun violence.
  Third, people will say: Well, this guy clearly was very mentally ill. 
With gun laws, you can't do anything about the fact that people are 
mentally ill. That is true. We should fix our broken system of mental 
health treatment because it is broken, but we should also recognize 
that this problem of mass execution is a uniquely American problem, 
despite the fact that there is no evidence that we have a higher rate 
of mental illness than any other country.
  There are plenty of very mentally ill people in other OECD countries. 
But in those countries, their mental illness is not a straight line to 
a gun crime, in large part because they have a very different set of 
laws that make it harder to get your hands on a gun and much harder, if 
not impossible, to get your hands on a weapon that does the kind of 
mass violence we saw last night.
  Lastly, one of the favorite arguments is that this is just too hot an 
issue for the U.S. Senate or a political body to handle, that it is 
controversial. It is controversial, but it is not as controversial as 
people may think.
  In fact, the issue of background checks--which I understand may not 
have been dispositive on what happened in Las Vegas last night but 
might have reduced the likelihood that another 80 people died from gun 
violence over the course of Sunday--is supported by 80 percent of 
Americans.
  Most polls will suggest that a majority of Americans support the 
other sweep in law changes that I talked about as well.
  In fact, many of the first steps we would take as a body--saying that 
people on the terrorist watch list can't buy guns, tightening up the 
law to make sure people who are mentally ill can't buy guns--are 
supported by 80 to 90 percent of our constituents, no matter whether 
they live in a blue State or a red State. The question of making sure 
that only the right people own guns is actually one of the least 
controversial issues in the American public today. Why don't we start 
by finding that common ground? Then maybe after that, we can find other 
common ground.
  This is going to keep happening. This is going to keep happening over 
and over again. I know the answer can't be that we are powerless, as a 
body, to do something about it. I personally just can't bring that 
answer back to the families of Sandy Hook for another year.
  I don't want to speak for them, but I have a feeling that the 
delegation from Nevada is going to have a hard time bringing that 
answer back to the victims in Las Vegas as well.
  This is a growing fraternity--a tragic, awful fraternity--of Members 
of Congress who represent States and have gone through these horrific 
mass executions. I had too many phone calls from Senators, 
Representatives, who were already part of that club when Sandy Hook 
happened. I got to make that call this morning, as well, to offer 
whatever advice I could on how to help the community heal.
  But this silence has become an unintentional endorsement. It has 
become a kind of sick complicity, and I hope that in the coming days we 
can come together--Republicans and Democrats--to start talking about, 
at the very least, some baby steps to show the people of Las Vegas, to 
show the people of Orlando, to show my constituents, my friends from 
Sandy Hook, that silence is no longer an option.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me thank my colleague from 
Connecticut. He sponsored a filibuster on this issue, I believe it was 
last year. I participated in it, as did many Members of our caucus.
  Both he and Senator Blumenthal bring a special perspective to this 
issue of gun violence, representing the State of Connecticut and the 
families who lost their first graders. I believe they were first 
graders who were shot down, 20 of them killed in their classrooms.
  I remember, when I heard that story on how those children died and 
their teachers died, I thought to myself: This must be the moment that 
will motivate America to finally do something if innocent, first grade 
children can be shot down in their classrooms in this fashion.
  The honest answer is that we have spoken a lot about the issue, but 
we have done little or nothing to change the circumstances that led to 
their death.
  If that were the only case, it would be bad enough, but the Orlando 
nightclub--I believe 49 were killed there. Some crazed person went 
there and killed innocent people gathered at that nightclub.
  As Senator Murphy has said, when you go through the litany, it is an 
endless litany of victims of gun violence--and last night in Las Vegas, 
NV, the worst gun crime in the modern history of the United States of 
America, the worst.
  Estimates now, which I saw as I came to the floor, are that 58 have 
died and over 500 were seriously injured. I don't know what the 
ultimate numbers will be, but those numbers, in and of themselves, are 
incredible.
  Last night, we witnessed what was the worst mass shooting to date in 
the Nation. This gunman, supposedly, at 10 p.m. last night in Las Vegas 
local time, began firing from a room on the 32nd floor of a hotel into 
a crowd of people gathered for a country music festival. He supposedly 
was holed up in his hotel room with at least 10 guns and obviously 
fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
  As I mentioned, 58 people have been reported to have died, and over 
515 injured. Those are staggering and horrifying numbers.

[[Page 15306]]

  There are literally hundreds of families tonight and communities who 
have been changed forever by this horrendous crime. Our prayers, 
obviously, naturally, go out to them in this moment of loss and 
uncertainty.
  During and after the shooting--as we expect but should never take for 
granted--law enforcement, first responders, acted like the heroes that 
they are, working to stop the shooter, securing the scene, helping the 
victims, saving lives. We are grateful to these first responders, who 
so often are called to run to the sound of gunfire to keep us safe, not 
to run away.
  It is unthinkable that this type of shooting tragedy could happen in 
the United States of America, but I am sorry to say it is becoming a 
regular occurrence. This was the worst, but yesterday, October 1, was 
also the 2-year anniversary of the mass shooting in Roseburg, OR, when 
a gunman killed eight students and a professor at a community college.
  Also, this past weekend, at least 33 people were shot in the city of 
Chicago. At least four died. The relentless toll of gun violence never 
seems to stop.
  The American Medical Association has declared that gun violence is a 
public health crisis in America. On an average day, 300 Americans are 
shot. On an average day, 300 Americans are shot. About one-third of 
them will die from that gunshot.
  Mass shootings, as Senator Murphy said earlier, have become a daily 
occurrence. If our critics would say ``Please, don't exploit the event 
of a mass shooting by speaking on the floor,'' as Senator Murphy has 
made clear, then we wouldn't be able to speak any day of the year 
because they are so common.
  We can't let this become the new American normal. We can't just shrug 
our shoulders when we see over 30,000 Americans shot and killed year 
after year after year. We can't sit back and do nothing while hundreds 
of our fellow Americans are shot in one night simply because they went 
out to hear a music concert.
  Just this last week, I was at a concert in Nashville, TN, at the 
Ryman, the site of the Grand Ole Opry; 2,000 people gathered there. 
They were mainly folks from the Midwest, many of them retired, who love 
country music, I am sure, as the people in Las Vegas did. When I heard 
about what happened in Las Vegas, I thought: Well, what if someone had 
walked into that theater and opened fire? It could have, sadly, 
happened there.
  What are we going to do about it? Certainly, there will be outrage at 
the death. There will be grief over the loss. But then what? That is 
what Senator Murphy challenges us to think about.
  We serve in the U.S. Senate. We are not just casual observers of this 
violence. We are supposed to pass laws to make America safer. What will 
we do because of what happened in Las Vegas last night? That is the 
question that brings me to the floor this evening. If we have a 
responsibility to keep our families and America safe, what are we 
prepared to do?
  For the gun deaths in Chicago, there are some things that I would do 
instantly. Background checks--I don't believe we should be able to walk 
into a gun show and buy a firearm or more than one, incidentally, and 
take them out of the back door without somebody asking: Who are you? Do 
you have a criminal record? Would you be disqualified from buying these 
same guns at a licensed gun dealer?
  Currently, the law is riddled with loopholes, and those loopholes 
lead to death, death on the streets of Chicago.
  We also have these purchases being made by straw purchasers. In other 
words, the girlfriend, who has no criminal record, who walks into the 
gun shop in the suburbs of Chicago and buys the gun for her boyfriend 
outside in the car, who is going to use it that night to shoot up a 
rival gang member or some other criminal activity. Those are two very 
obvious things I would push for instantly: Close the gun show loophole; 
make sure we do something about straw purchasers so that the penalties 
are serious enough that they will never do it again.
  There is more. This morning, I was on a radio show in Chicago, one of 
the most famous ones, I guess. I listened to a fellow named Steve 
Cochran celebrating his 1,000th show on the air. This was the topic we 
talked about.
  Steve asked me: Well, what can we do? I said: Steve, we have to rely 
on people who honor the Second Amendment and believe it is an important 
part of our Constitution to stand up and lead. I am talking about 
members of my family who are hunters and sportsmen. I have been out 
hunting myself. We have to have people who are concerned about guns for 
self-defense stand up and say: We have to draw a reasonable line. There 
is no reasonable line under the Second Amendment that would allow what 
happened in Las Vegas last night.
  To think that someone could injure over 500 people and kill 58--what 
kind of weaponry did he use? We will know. We will find out the 
details, but it certainly goes beyond any reasonable weaponry needed 
for self-defense, sport, or hunting purposes.
  Can we not at least appeal to those who honor the Second Amendment to 
join us in drawing a reasonable line so combat and military-style 
weapons that can lead to such carnage are not considered to be normal 
or acceptable? Decades ago we did when it came to machineguns. Decades 
ago we said this is a weapon no one should have, period, except for the 
military and perhaps law enforcement. Can we return to that 
conversation? We are going to need the leadership from people who 
believe in the Second Amendment to make it happen.
  We have seen Democrats and Republicans join together to pass 
meaningful laws to deal with public health crises like opioid 
addiction. We have to do the same for this public health crisis.
  I am sorry to report that a recent nominee for Surgeon General of the 
United States was almost denied that opportunity because he was bold 
enough to say that gun violence is a public health crisis. It certainly 
is.
  There is no single law or policy that will prevent every tragic 
shooting, just as there is no single law or policy that will end heroin 
overdoses, but let's start working together to do something.
  We can't stop the shootings that have already happened in Las Vegas, 
Chicago, Roseburg, OR, and across the Nation. We failed to respond in 
time for those victims and their families. But if we work together, we 
can stop shootings in the future. That is something we should all 
strive to do.
  We must do all we can to spare families the unimaginable pain so many 
in Las Vegas are feeling today in the aftermath of this horrible 
tragedy. I hope we will.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I commend the words and the determination 
for action that were expressed by the Senator from Connecticut and the 
Senator from Illinois. Like them, and like so many people across the 
country, I start with condolences and prayers and commendations. I 
offer condolences to the families--the names and the families we don't 
know yet--of this most recent tragedy, but we do know they are not only 
worthy of our expressions of condolence but will be in need of our 
prayers. Then, I offer commendations, of course, to the first 
responders and the law enforcement officials who responded as they 
always do, running toward the danger, running to help. We can't say 
enough about the work they do.
  If we stop at expressing condolences and offering prayers and 
commending those who take action, like first responders and law 
enforcement--if we stop there, I don't think that is an adequate 
response to this tragedy, just like it wasn't an adequate response in 
connection with the Pulse Night Club or the tragedy in December of 2012 
in Newtown, CT. It is nowhere near an adequate response when we 
consider the enormity of this problem.
  I believe we have to take action. I will talk about that in a moment. 
Action must start with what happens on this floor. It is difficult to 
take action necessarily if there isn't time for debate, time for 
collaboration on legislation, and ultimately consideration of

[[Page 15307]]

legislation on the floor of the Senate and I would hope in the U.S. 
House of Representatives.
  The enormity of this tragedy is almost hard to comprehend when we 
think about it, not just in terms of the number, which at last count 
was 58 killed and over 500--over 500--injured. Those numbers are almost 
too large to comprehend; that one person with one weapon or maybe 
several weapons was able to inflict that kind of carnage in one place 
at one time. I don't know how long it took, but he wasn't shooting for 
many hours to kill that many people. He did it in a short timeframe.
  When we consider those numbers, I have to ask--I don't know if we 
went back and compared a similar day or a similar timeframe, comparing 
the loss of life in the context of war, but I am sure there were plenty 
of days of conflict where Americans were on foreign soil in a battle, 
in a war, where we would have lost even less lives on a particular day 
or a portion of a particular day. The scale of this is almost 
unimaginable.
  Then, we need to consider what has been happening on our streets. 
Every State, every community has their own numbers. I can point to 
Pennsylvania. Just since 2014, thousands of shootings--by one estimate 
I think over 7,700--but then, of course, the more ominous number is the 
number of people killed as a result of those shootings. In 
Pennsylvania, since 2014, some 2,072 people have died as a result of 
that larger number of shootings.
  I think for the Nation, and I think, certainly, undoubtedly for me, 
maybe the most important or the most seminal day in this debate was in 
December of 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. The 
distinguished Senator from Connecticut, who joins us on the floor and 
started tonight with his remarks, remembers it better than probably any 
other Member of the Senate, other than his colleague in Connecticut and 
others who lived through it.
  One of the questions I asked myself at the end of that weekend, after 
watching hours and hours of television coverage and reading a lot about 
it and then watching a news report on Sunday evening which tracked the 
pathway of the killer going to one classroom and killing 20 children--
6-year-olds, 7-year-olds, first graders--after he had done that, he was 
on his way to another classroom. So I concluded from that, if he had 
more time, in addition to the 20 killed in one classroom and the adults 
who were killed, we would have been reading about potentially hundreds 
of children killed in one school in even less--a lot less than a day, 
maybe an hour or two or three, but that didn't happen. He took his own 
life.
  So I began to ask myself not only what should we do in response to 
this--and I had concluded at that point to support legislation--but a 
larger question kept coming to mind. If one person, with one weapon or 
a few weapons and unlimited ammunition--if one person cannot only kill 
20 children in Connecticut, I guess almost 50 people in Florida, and 
now we know from Las Vegas at least 58, and I am sure some who were 
injured will die--but if one person can do that, we have to ask 
ourselves, Is there nothing we can do? Because that becomes part of the 
debate, right?
  One side says: Let's take action by way of legislation or take some 
action that would reduce the likelihood that we have more tragedies 
like this, more mass shootings, but the response immediately comes back 
that the other side says: We agree it is tragic, we agree we want to 
prevent it, we agree we want to reduce the likelihood, but there is 
nothing we can do legislatively to reduce the likelihood or to prevent 
it.
  I don't think anyone would argue that a law that passes in the 
aftermath of this Las Vegas tragedy or a law that passes even in the 
aftermath of Sandy Hook Elementary School--if the law, the proposals, 
the bills, really, that were voted on in the Senate in 2013, if they 
had passed, no one can argue with certitude or with scientific 
precision that if you pass this law, this many lives will be saved. 
After Newtown and after this tragedy, I come back to the same question: 
Is there nothing we can do legislatively? We are the most powerful 
country in the world. We led the world in winning World War II, a war 
that was not on its way to winning until we got involved, until we were 
forced to respond because we were attacked. We are the country that has 
cured disease and built the strongest Republic in the history of the 
human race; that has the strongest military, without a doubt; that has 
the strongest economy, without a doubt; that has so much in ways that 
we can point to of American exceptionalism and strength and 
achievement--achievements that are unmatched anywhere in the world in 
almost any part of American life that one can point to. Is that same 
country completely disabled from taking an action that would reduce the 
likelihood--and we would hope substantially reduce the likelihood--that 
we will not have another Las Vegas or another Orlando or another 
Newtown, and go on and on from there, all of these tragedies in all of 
these places? Is that really what our answer is going to be?
  We take action when we are attacked, to fight back and to prevent it 
from happening again. We take action when there is an epidemic. We take 
action when there is a crisis. We take action when there is a natural 
disaster. We are seeing some of that most recently. We take action as a 
government. The Congress takes action. The executive takes action. Yet, 
in this circumstance, what can only be described as an epidemic--that 
might be an understatement--where we are losing more than 30,000 people 
a year, are we saying that there is nothing we can do legislatively to 
reduce that likelihood? I don't think any American, if they think about 
it, would conclude there is nothing we can do.
  So when I considered that in the context of Sandy Hook, I had to ask 
myself: Are you saying to yourself that you are going to vote no on 
what became three bills, vote no on them because you believe there is 
nothing you can do? That is what your vote is going to be? That is 
going to be your response? As a legislator with the opportunity to cast 
a vote in a body of 100 people, you are going to say no three times, as 
it turned out in 2013, to legislation because you believe there is 
nothing your vote and nothing this legislative body can do?
  Well, I decided to vote yes, at least, but even that is not enough. 
We haven't had votes in years on these issues. Here we are, almost 5 
years later--in December it will be 5 years, half a decade--since 
Newtown, CT, since the massacre at Sandy Hook.
  I have a page from the Wall Street Journal that was printed within a 
couple days of that tragedy. It had very small color pictures and very 
small biographies of those very small people, those 6-year-olds and 7-
year-olds. It has been on my desk all of these years, and it is a very 
yellowed copy of a newspaper article. I often think about what those 
families have gone through all of these years.
  The great recording artist Bruce Springsteen had a song after 
September 11. The name of the song is ``You're Missing.'' The refrain 
in that song, of course, is ``You're missing,'' talking about someone, 
of course, who lost a loved one on 9/11. He says: ``You're missing when 
I turn out the lights, you're missing when I close my eyes, and you're 
missing when I see the sun rise.'' The same could be said of those 
Newtown families, the same could be said of those families in Orlando, 
and now, unfortunately and tragically, the families in the Las Vegas 
area--and maybe well beyond Las Vegas--who were there for that concert.
  I hope this will be an occasion not just for speeches and expressions 
of condolence and commendation for those who showed such bravery in 
this tragedy, or prayers and solidarity, but that this will be a time 
for action, meaning action in the context of debate and action in the 
context of legislation.
  I think there are a number of steps we can take--I will not outline 
them all now--a number of commonsense steps we can take that are 
entirely consistent with the Second Amendment but would reduce the 
likelihood

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over time of having more and more of these tragedies or maybe, just 
maybe, taking action that will reduce the number of deaths. Even that 
would be substantial progress. I just cannot accept the idea that there 
is absolutely nothing we can do legislatively to reduce the 
likelihood--and I would hope substantially reduce the likelihood--of 
these tragedies so that we can prevent or at least reduce the number of 
tragedies.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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