Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise today to join my colleagues in calling for commonsense action to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people who should not have guns, including domestic abusers, and to close loopholes in existing laws that are now being exploited by criminals who are prohibited by law from possessing guns.

Like the Presiding Officer's State, my State is a big hunting State. We are proud of that tradition, so whenever I look at any of these proposals, I think: Would this somehow hurt my Uncle Dick in his deer stand? Would it do anything to take away the rights of those who hunt, the rights of legal gun owners? That is how I look at each proposal, and the proposals we are talking about today would not do that. I wouldn't be supporting them if I thought they did.

We know that no single policy can prevent every tragedy that has been caused by gun violence, but there is one area--what I call the silent victims--the women and the children who are killed in their homes every single day due to acts of domestic violence. According to domestic violence experts, more than three women per day lose their lives to their partners. More than half of those are killed--are shot--with a gun. This means that thousands of women--thousands and thousands of women in the United States--were murdered by an intimate partner using a gun between 2001 and 2012 alone. These crimes don't discriminate. They impact people across all backgrounds, ethnicities, and income levels. They are serious crimes, and the numbers tell the story of the work left to do.

I am a former prosecutor. Before I came to the Senate, I spent 8 years running an office of 400 people. We made prosecuting felons in possession of guns one of our major priorities, and I am proud of the work we did. I will say that some of the disturbing cases that were murders, that were shootings, did not always involve felons, but they involved criminals. They involved people who, over a series of crimes, had racked up a number of convictions, maybe in the misdemeanor area, maybe for restraining orders and other things.

I remember one case where a woman was shot to death by her boyfriend. He killed her and then killed himself while both of their children were still in the house. It was ultimately his 12-year-old daughter who went to the neighbors for help. The worst part of the story: It could have been prevented. In the 2 years leading up to the murder-suicide, the police had been called at least five times to resolve domestic disputes. Yet somehow this man managed to have a gun in his hands that day and kill his girlfriend.

Consider the police officer who was called to a domestic scene. The guy there had mental health problems.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. The man there shot the police officer in the head--shot him in the head. I was at that scene, and what I will never forget are the three little kids, including the little girl with a blue dress with stars all over it, going down the aisle of that church after being in that church a week before for a nativity play with her father. That is what we are talking about, and we are very glad that this proposal will be in the package of proposals along with the background check.

I yield the floor.

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