America's Small Business Tax Relief Act of 2015--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, as my colleagues know, I come to the floor every week or so to share the stories of those victims who have been lost to the epidemic of gun violence that is plaguing this Nation. The news covers the episodes of mass shootings, such as those that happened in my State in Sandy Hook, but, of course, on average there are 80 people who are killed in episodes of gun violence every day. Approximately 50 or so of those are suicides, the remaining 30 are in ones and twos and threes and fours and fives all across the country.

I think the data alone is overwhelming, and I am not sure why the numbers alone have not caused us to act. There are a variety of ways that we could step up and act. We could do something about illegal guns on the street, we could fix our broken mental health care system, and we could give law enforcement more power so they could track illegal guns and criminals. But we don't do any of that. We remain silent and complicit even with this rash of murder.

The data hasn't moved this Congress, and so my hope is that the stories of those who have been lost and the families they have left behind might move this place to action. So today I will focus on those victims of gun homicides who were at the hands of their domestic partner. Of those 30 or so people who are killed by guns that are not suicides, an alarming percentage of them every single day are killed by someone they know--a husband or a spouse or a boyfriend. It is usually someone who is very close to them. They often leave notes. Oftentimes they have notified the police that they were in danger, but somehow that loved one still managed to find a way to get their hands on a firearm and to commit the heinous act of murder.

On February 27 of this year in Woodbridge, VA, which is only a short drive away from where we sit today, Crystal Hamilton was killed. Crystal's friends described her as kind, humble, and energetic--a wonderful person. She actually spent her time working with wounded soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.

One of her friends said:

She was so beautiful. She dressed to the nines and loved her high heels. She didn't need any makeup.

She had an 11-year-old son who is now left without a mother. She was supposed to be going out one Saturday night for a girls' night with a group of her friends, but after arguing all day with her husband, she finally called 911. She was really upset and feeling gravely in danger, and it is believed that at some point between when she called 911 and when the police arrived, her husband fatally shot her.

A neighbor said that she saw the 11-year-old running away and looking back at the house as he ran down the street. She said:

He ran so fast I can't even imagine how scared he must have been. It broke my heart.

About a month later, on March 29--just about 2 weeks ago--Ruby Stiglmeier was shot and killed in what was believed to have been a murder-suicide by her boyfriend. Ruby was a dental hygienist in a small firm in Orchard Park, NY. She worked there for 20 years. Her coworkers said that her patients absolutely loved Ruby. Ruby was friendly, outgoing, athletic, and loved life. Her coworkers said that Ruby had been a rock for her family after the recent deaths of both of her parents. Her boyfriend shot her three times before turning the gun on himself. They had been dating on and off for about 2 years.

Just last week, Christina Fisher, 34 years old, was killed in Leesburg, VA. She was the proud mother of three young children, a teenage daughter and two young boys. She was shot multiple times and killed inside her home on Saturday evening, April 2, by her ex- boyfriend during a domestic dispute. Her 15-year-old daughter was home at the time of the altercation and promptly called 911, but by the time she got to the hospital, it was too late.

Her friends remembered Christina much in the same way as the previous victims. They said:

[Christina] was so sweet, so caring . . . she was a great mom. She did everything she could for her kids.

Christina leaves behind her teenage daughter and two young boys.

This is just a sample of three people in the last 3 months who have been killed in episodes of gun homicides by their boyfriend, domestic partner, or husband. We should just know that there is something happening in the United States that isn't happening anywhere else in the world. As a woman, you are about 10 times more likely to die in an episode of domestic violence by your husband or boyfriend than you are in any other OECD country. It is hard not to read the difference as anything other than a difference in gun laws--a difference in the number of guns that are available to people who would decide to murder their spouse. Why? Because there is no evidence that men are less violent in any of these other countries. There is no evidence that these countries spend any more money on mental health. In fact, the United States, on average, likely spends more. But there is nothing different about the United States other than the number of guns that we have and the relatively loose gun laws that create this tragic outlier status.

The data on a State-by-State basis backs up the idea that there is something about our gun laws that tells us the story of women being in danger and being killed by their spouse. What we know is that in States that do require a background check for every handgun that is sold, there are 38 percent fewer women who are shot to death by an intimate partner. We can't get around that fact. In States that are universal in their application of background checks, there are 38 percent fewer women shot by their intimate partner. You can't argue about that. There are States that are universal in their applicability of background checks and there are States that are not. The data on women murdered by their husbands with guns is publicly available. It is not a 5, 10, 20, or 25 percent difference. It is a 38-percent difference.

Women's lives could be saved if we required people to go through background checks. Why is that? Well, because there have been 250,000 gun sales that have been blocked to domestic abusers since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System was started. These are people who were convicted of domestic abuse crimes and known to be domestic abusers, walked into a gun store, tried to buy a gun, and were stopped from doing so because of the Federal law.

Now, that is just the number of people who walked into the store and had the audacity to try to buy a gun even though they knew they had been convicted of domestic abuse. Again, that number is 250,000. Obviously there are 10 times that number who never walked into the gun dealership because they knew they weren't going to be able to buy the weapon. So guess where they went. They went online or to gun shows. In 2012 alone it is estimated that 6.6 million guns were exchanged in private transfers without a criminal background check. In just 1 year alone, over 6 million guns were transferred without the purchaser having to prove that they weren't a domestic abuser or that they hadn't committed murder in the past with a weapon. It is easy to buy guns at gun shows or online, and so that is why 90 percent of Americans believe that we should have universal background checks--because it works and because increasingly people who want to buy guns and use them for malevolent purposes are able to do so outside of the criminal background check system.

The numbers are not small, and 38 percent fewer women die in States that do universal background checks. The States that have decided to fill the loophole that we, as a Congress, have created have 38 percent fewer women die from gunshot wounds. We have blood on our hands because if we just got together and closed that loophole, the data tells us there would be fewer deaths.

Let me close by suggesting a couple of other ways that we could try to address this epidemic of domestic abuse and gun homicide perpetuated by intimate partners. Let me first do so by telling the story of Lori Jackson, who was 32 years old when she died in 2014 in Oxford, CT.

Lori and her husband Scott had a long and difficult history together. All of her friends knew about the difficulty that the two of them were having. It finally caused Lori to go and submit an application for a temporary restraining order. Scott had become that violent. In the application she wrote:

Scott yelled in my face . . . and got very angry. I felt threatened and told him I didn't feel safe and was going to leave with the twins.

She had 18-month-old twins.

She said:

He then told me I wasn't going anywhere and grabbed my right thumb and twisted my wrist.

That happened while the two children were in her arms.

She said:

He acts out violently and I am afraid for my kids and myself.

Judge Robert Malone ordered Scott to stay away from his wife and the two 18-month-old twins. But because there is a loophole in the law that allows you to buy and own guns while you have a temporary restraining order--not when you have a permanent restraining order--one day before that temporary restraining order was going to become permanent, Scott shot Lori Jackson Gellatly four times in the head and torso with a .38- caliber handgun. So today her two little twins have no mother, their father is in jail, and the twins will grow up only hearing stories about her. Why? Because we can't pass a bill that says when you have a temporary restraining order against you, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. During that moment of terror for the domestic spouse, the police should be able to go in and see if you have weapons that you might use in that immediate moment of anger. We could come together on that. We could come together on simply saying that while you have a temporary restraining order, you can't buy guns. You are on the list of prohibited purchasers during a restraining order period of time. If we had done that prior to 2014, Lori Jackson might be alive today.

Let's take the case of Jennifer Magnano. She was killed in Terryville, CT, in 2007. She was in the process of trying to end her marriage to her husband Scott, who was a controlling and abusive husband. Scott and Jennifer had two children,FederalFederal and Jennifer had an older daughter who had been sexually abused by Scott for about 3 years.

On April 14, 2007, while he was taking a shower, she finally escaped. After the end of their time together, Scott became so angry that he came back to their house and murdered her. She was always posting inspirational sayings on to Web sites. She was a really positive person, but that couldn't stop her husband from murdering her.

Now, Scott had a protective order that was permanent. So he was actually prohibited from purchasing a weapon, but he walked into a gun store and asked to see two handguns. He was handed weapons and the ammunition for each of them, and despite being the only customer in the store, he was left alone. He saw an opportunity, and so he walked out of the store with the handguns and the ammunition and went straight to kill his wife. Now, the store didn't report the stolen weapons for 3 days. By that time, it was too late. Had they monitored the weapons so they couldn't have been taken out of the store or reported the stolen weapons, it is possible Jennifer might be still alive today.

Well, the administrator of Jennifer's estate filed a lawsuit against the retailer bringing claims regarding their inability to secure the weapons and their complete inability to notify local law enforcement that somebody, who they themselves said looked like a suspicious customer, stole weapons from the store. The judge dismissed that lawsuit, saying a statute Congress passed giving gunmakers and dealers virtual immunity for their actions ``goes directly to the heart of the jurisdiction here.'' Congress was clear these cases must be dismissed. Congress has granted gunmakers and gun dealers almost complete immunity from lawsuits that would hold them liable for irresponsibly selling weapons or irresponsibly making unsafe weapons.

The fact is, the gun industry is held to a standard that no other product maker is held to. They are granted an immunity that is carved out from the broader products liability law. In fact, the maker of a toy gun is held to a higher standard of liability than a maker of a real gun. This Congress passed that statute simply because the gun industry asked for it and because they knew they were liable for making guns that were intentionally unsafe because they knew there were dealers that were conducting their activities in an irresponsible manner.

So for the Magnano family, they don't even get to bring their case to court. They don't even get to litigate this claim simply because Congress has given a level of immunity to the gun industry that they give to no other industry. If we were to repeal that law, it would be another way to address this epidemic of gun violence that plagues this country and specifically women who have the great misfortune of being the subject of domestic abuse.

I am going to continue to come down to the floor and tell these stories. I hope there are ways we can come together. I understand we might not be able to pass a background checks amendment between now and the end of the year, but we could close that domestic violence loophole. We could put more resources into the mental health system. We could give more resources to law enforcement. There has to be an answer to the thousands of women who are being killed all across this country by domestic abusers and 80 individuals a day who are being killed by guns all across the United States of America.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield back.

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