National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Chair.
The issue before us is a conference committee report on the House Defense authorization bill. It is not the spending bill; it is the authorizing of spending. It is a bill that largely is bipartisan. There is no argument on either side of the aisle to support our troops, no argument against providing the technology and weaponry they need to keep themselves and Americans safe. The issue before us is a larger budget issue that goes even beyond the Department of Defense but certainly includes it, and that is, how are we going to fund our government?
The Republican approach is to put in $37 billion to $38 billion of made-up money. In other words, they take $37 billion or $38 billion of what is known as OCO funds, or war funds, and just assume it is there and put it in the budget for the Department of Defense only, but they don't put money in for nondefense agencies. So they adequately fund the Department of Defense--in fact, some say generously fund it--and then cut back in the rest of government. What is the difference? What difference does it make?
The cutbacks include, on the nondefense side, medical research at the National Institutes of Health. The cuts include adequate resources for the Veterans' Administration to keep our promise to the men and women who have served us in the military. The cuts include keeping America safe when it comes to homeland security and the FBI. So they make cuts in all of these agencies but provide the funding for the Department of Defense.
We argue: Let's have some balance. We want to give our troops the very best treatment, but we certainly don't want to shortchange the other side of government--the nondefense side--and that is what the budget negotiations are all about.
So Republican after Republican comes to the floor and says the Democrats don't care about the military. That is not true; both sides care about the military. But there are other parts of our government that are important as well for the safety of the United States and the future of the United States. Whether it is education or medical research or caring for our veterans, let's have a balance in our budget that acknowledges that reality, and let's look at a couple other things that are realistic too.
How many people in America think we are suffering from not enough handguns on the streets of America? There are some who do. There is a provision in this bill which is no surprise to people who follow legislation on Capitol Hill. The gun lobby is always looking for a way to expand their universe of more guns in America. So they proposed, in the House of Representatives--the Congressman from Alabama proposed--that the military sell 100,000 .45-caliber semiautomatic handguns without any background checks on the purchasers. That was the proposal in the House--100,000 semiautomatic handguns without any background checks on the purchasers. Did they really do that? They did. It was in the bill. Jack Reed, the Senator from Rhode Island who is the ranking Democrat, changed that provision and limited it from 100,000 to 10,000--10,000 handguns--and said they have to go through dealers so there will be a background check.
I raise that point because guns are in the news again. Guns are in the news every day. Each day 297 Americans are shot with firearms, and 89 lose their lives. We saw the terrible tragedy last week. I was stunned to hear on NPR over the weekend that what happened at Roseburg, OR, was the 45th school shooting in America this year--the 45th this year.
We have to do something about it. It is not going to be solved with this bill alone, but it will be solved if Democrats and Republicans start looking for reasonable ways to limit the access of guns from those who have a history of committing criminal felonies or a history of mental instability. I am glad the Senate conferees cleaned up the House provision that would have dumped 100,000 handguns into the hands of purchasers without any kind of background check. I still believe this bill goes too far when it comes to that gun issue.
I will close by saying this: We are all committed to the military and the defense of the United States. Many of us believe the agreement with Iran that precludes their development of a nuclear weapon will lead to a safer world. We are going to carefully monitor it, as we promised we would, for the sake not only of Israel but for all of the nations in the region, as well as the United States. We want to make this a safer world. We want to turn to diplomacy before we turn to a military response. I supported it, and I will continue to support it.
I hope, in the closing minutes of debate, that Members will reflect on the fact that we can have a better deal not only to help our military but to help those others who are funded by the nondefense side of the budget, to have some balance too, to make sure it isn't lopsided with the money all going to the Department of Defense without acknowledging precious needs of America in many other nondefense subjects.
I yield the floor.
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GUN VIOLENCE
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in the year 1789, the U.S. Senate, in a chamber not far from here, approved the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. The Second Amendment reads: ``A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'' The Second Amendment to the Constitution is an amendment which has been uttered, debated, and litigated over the entire history of the United States. Whatever the true intent of our Founding Fathers in writing that language, that brief sentence, I wonder if they could even imagine what we are dealing with today in the name of the right of people to keep and bear arms because every day, on average, in America, 297 people are shot--every day--and 89 of them die every day in America.
Last Saturday I was with my wife in Chicago having a cup of coffee and reading over the papers, listening to National Public Radio. They reported the Roseburg, OR, shooting at the community college, and they cited a statistic that I was not aware of: That shooting at the community college that killed nine innocent people was the 45th school shooting in America this year. There have been 45 shootings in schools. There were many other mass shootings in different places, but now even schools, even students, even schoolchildren are not safe from the rampage of guns.
I am honored to represent the city of Chicago. It is a great city. I do my best to help it in every way I can. But I also have to be very candid and honest with you. So far, there have been 2,300 shootings in the city of Chicago this year. Where are all these guns coming from?
Yesterday morning I went to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in Chicago and sat down with the new special agent in charge and asked him the question: Where are all these guns coming from? Why do we have more guns per capita in Chicago than in New York? Why is it that so many of these teenagers, kids, moms, and dads are armed to the teeth? Where are all these guns coming from?
He said: Senator, the No. 1 source of guns in the State of Illinois--crime guns that we have taken in the commission of crime and can trace--the No. 1 source is Illinois.
We have a phenomenon where people go into a federally licensed arms dealer and purchase guns and use them in crime. But the bigger problem is they send in someone without a criminal record who can pass a background check and who buys guns and turns them over to drug gang thugs and criminals on the street. They call it straw purchasing. So the No. 1 source of guns is trading guns within the State of Illinois and these traffickers, these straw purchasers who purchase a gun not for their own use but to turn it over to a criminal or sell it to a criminal. That is the No. 1 source.
What is the No. 2 State that supplies guns to the State of Illinois? It is Indiana, which adjoins Illinois to the east--specifically, Lake County, IN, in the northwestern section of that State.
Why do we get so many guns from Indiana into Illinois that are used in the commission of crime? Because of gun shows. Gun shows occur on the weekends, and people literally show up in Indiana, show some State identification, and without any background check walk out with a gun--not just a gun but many times fill their trunks with guns and ammunition and drive across the border into Chicago, Cook County, and go to the west side of town or down south in Englewood. They pull up in an alley or maybe even on the curbside and have an open market, selling these guns picked up at gun shows. The people who purchase these never went through a background check. Nine times out of 10, unless they are buying from a gun show from a Federal dealer, it is just an arms-length transaction--however many guns you want to buy; no questions asked. Many of these people would be disqualified if they went to a Federal gun dealer. They have a history of committing felonies and other acts that disqualify them.
The fact is that today that is the No. 2 source of crime guns--Indiana.
What is the No. 3 source of crime guns in the city of Chicago? Mississippi. Mississippi. Why? Because their gun show requirements are even more lax than in the Midwest. It is an ongoing commerce of running those guns up the interstate and selling them in the city of Chicago.
So what is happening? There is a dramatic increase in homicides across America. We are awash in guns. Sadly, many of them are in the hands of people who buy them to kill innocent people. There has been a spike in homicides this year--not just in Chicago but in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Houston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and many other cities. The plain reality is that we are now awash in guns in America, and it is far too easy for convicted criminals, felons, and unstable people to get their hands on a gun and to use it.
When guns are everywhere and when it is easy for dangerous people to get them, it puts everyone at risk. Can you imagine for a second that any of those students heading into that community college in Oregon that morning had even an idea they would face a gunman and some would die? The heartbreaking stories--one I remember hearing from a minister who talked about his daughter, who survived because she appeared to be a bloody corpse. The gunman stepped over her. The father could hardly contain his emotions when he talked about dropping that girl off at school and living with the possibility that she would have died there and that would have been his last memory of his daughter. Is that what America has come to? Is that what we are?
Pretty much anywhere you go now, you have it in the back of your mind that someone could have a gun, someone could start shooting. Do we want to live this way in America?
If you talk to the gun lobby and the special interest groups that manufacture guns and want to sell more and more, they will say the solution is to arm more good guys with guns so they can shoot the bad guys. That is a solution they like because it sells more guns, but why wouldn't we try in the first place to keep guns out of the hands of bad guys?
The Supreme Court has said there is no constitutional problem in the provision that I read with keeping guns away from felons, domestic violence abusers, the mentally unstable, and other dangerous people. The Supreme Court across the street said that is completely consistent with the Second Amendment. Why don't we do it? If our country did a better job of preventing bad guys from getting guns, there are a lot of innocent people who would still be here today.
I held a hearing in my Constitution subcommittee a couple years ago about gun violence. We talked about the need for better laws to stop illegal straw purchases and gun trafficking.
One of our witnesses, a young woman who has become my friend, was Sandra Wortham of Chicago. Her brother Thomas was a Chicago police officer. He had served two tours of duty in Iraq. He was a great guy. He was gunned down in front of his parents' home on the South Side of Chicago. He was murdered by gang members with a straw-purchased gun. He was an extraordinary police officer. When he was shot, he had a gun on him. He shot back at the armed gunmen who were trying to rob him, and so did his father, who was standing nearby, also a retired police sergeant. But Officer Wortham was killed. He died in front of his parents' house on May 19, 2010. I attended his funeral.
Thomas Wortham's sister Sandra spoke at that hearing. It was powerful. This is what she said:
My brother carried a gun. My father carried a gun. But the fact that my brother and father were armed that night did not prevent my brother from being killed. We need to do more to keep guns out of the wrong hands in the first place. I don't think that makes us anti-gun; I think it makes us pro-decent, law abiding people.
Sandra Wortham is right. I hope my colleagues will hear her words.
Some say it is impossible to stop bad guys from getting guns; they are just going to get them. It is true that there are a lot of loopholes in the law to get them today, like the gun show loophole and the Internet loopholes in the background check system. I don't question the possibility that those loopholes are there. It is also true that the gun lobby is working hard every day to further weaken the laws on the books and to strike them down in court. But we can stop the gun lobby from gutting the laws on the books, and we can close those loopholes if lawmakers just have the courage and political will.
Our goal should be to keep guns out of the hands of bad guys, not to take them away from people who use them in a responsible and legal way. I grew up in downstate Illinois. Owning shotguns and rifles is just part of life. Taking your son or in some cases even your daughter out hunting is normal. It is what people do. I have been out duck hunting in Stuttgart, AR, with my former colleague, Mark Pryor. We had a good time. Everybody there knew that a gun was a dangerous weapon that had to be handled carefully. We filed the necessary permits and licenses to be out there hunting on that day and followed a long list of requirements that limited our right to go shooting ducks, migrating ducks in that area. We did it because it was the law and law-abiding people pay attention to the law.
But what are we going to do now to respect those law-abiding people but still get serious about stopping these guns that end up in the hands of felons and mentally unstable people? Are we going to shrug our shoulders? Are Members of Congress going to put out the standard press release after a mass shooting? Or are we going to rise to this challenge on this occasion and do something? What a breakthrough it would be if we could save these innocent lives.
I cannot imagine that classroom in that community college in Oregon where that crazy gunman, loaded and armed, went up to each of those students and asked if they were Christians. If they said yes, he told them: You are on your way to Heaven, and then he shot them dead. I cannot imagine that moment. I certainly cannot imagine if in that classroom was someone I loved, someone I knew, someone I cared about, and they were the victim of that kind of mental instability.
So are we going to shrug our shoulders, remember the victims in our thoughts and prayers and do nothing? Is that what it has come to? We are better than that. We can easily pass laws to protect domestic violence victims by keeping the guns out of the hands of their abusers. All it takes is will. We could easily hold gun dealers accountable for guns that they purposefully misplace into the hands of criminals. All it takes is the will. We can easily adopt technology to stop criminals from stealing guns and stop kids from using them accidentally. All it takes is will. We can easily create a better background check system and pass better laws to stop straw purchasing and illegal gun trafficking. All it takes is will. We can stop the gun lobby from gutting the laws on the books, and we can close these loopholes if lawmakers just have the courage and the political will.
As President Obama said, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. Stopping this violence requires courage and political will. I hope the Congress can rise to this challenge. I am not giving up. I have seen too many lives cut short, too many families and communities devastated by this violence. I am going to do all I can to bring down the number of shootings in America.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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