Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in questioning why this body, after so many horrific tragedies over the years, still refuses to pass laws that would make us safer from massacres like what happened in Orlando.

I thank my colleague from Connecticut for leading this charge on the Senate floor. He knows too well what it is like to have his State fall victim to a mass murder. He knows what it is like to have happy, innocent lives cut short by gun violence. The massacre at the elementary school in Newtown took place more than 3 years ago, but it still feels like it was yesterday. Sweet, smiling children were slaughtered by someone so evil and so hateful and who was allowed to have easy access to an assault weapon, a weapon of war.

It happened again last year in Charleston. Churchgoers who were praying were slaughtered by someone so evil and hateful and who was allowed to have easy access to a deadly, powerful weapon.

It happened again in San Bernardino. Colleagues were in an office and celebrating at the end of the year. They were slaughtered by two people so evil and hateful and who were allowed to have easy access to an assault weapon, a weapon of war.

The list goes on and on.

After all of these mass shootings, Congress must do something, right? They must respond, right? No. Why didn't the Congress do anything? Why do they stand silent? Why do they not look those parents in the eye and say: This will not happen again.

After all of these mass shootings, in each and every case, someone with no business handling a powerful deadly weapon has had easy access to that weapon and used it to kill people quickly, and now we have a new tragedy to add to this book.

Like all of my colleagues here, I was devastated when I heard about the attack this past weekend in Orlando, and my heart goes out to everyone who was affected by this awful, hateful crime--the family and friends of 49 victims, the entire LGBT community, the entire Latino community. These were 49 happy people dancing together, laughing, celebrating who they are, in the middle of Pride Month, in a club that has always been a safe haven for them. But, once again, an evil and hateful person, a citizen of this country who was angry, hateful, and radicalized, was allowed by this Congress to have easy access to a deadly weapon of war.

Let's be very clear about the kind of weapon this man used. The weapon is an AR-15. It was not designed to hunt deer. It was not designed for target practice. It was designed to kill large numbers of people quickly, at war. This is not a weapon used in hunting.

Why are we allowing private citizens to have access--such easy access--to these weapons of war?

Something has to change. No one outside of our military, which is trained to use these weapons, needs to have access to a weapon that can fire hundreds of bullets in a minute--hundreds of bullets in a minute.

The only people with the power to change this are the men and women who serve in this Chamber--who serve in the Senate and House of Representatives. Is this slaughter not a wake-up call? Is it not enough to convince us to act? Where is our spine?

The gun industry is a rich and powerful lobby in this country, but we weren't elected to protect the gun industry's profits. We were elected to protect America and its safety.

We have to make it harder for hateful, angry, violent people to get their hands on a weapon--a weapon of war that is designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. The only way we change it--the only way--is if Congress fulfills its responsibility to protect the American people and passes new laws that keep us safe.

The people of Orlando, San Bernardino, Charleston, Newtown, New York--the entire Nation--none of them should have to go through their daily lives in fear of violence, in fear that an angry, radicalized citizen can buy and use a weapon of war against innocent Americans.

We already have bipartisan reforms that are ready to go that are overwhelmingly supported by the American people--obviously, background checks that are more effective so would-be terrorists could not buy a weapon of war. They won't be able to do that. The American people support that.

Let's stop allowing would-be murderers to legally buy weapons of war like the AR-15 without scrutiny. Let's lift our irrational hold on the CDC and allow them to actually study the issue of gun deaths the way we are allowed to study any other cause of death in this country. The American people support this as well. Let's stop the people who have been deemed too dangerous to fly an airplane from being allowed to buy guns. Let's stop tying the hands of law enforcement and preventing them from sharing crime data. Let's stop preventing ATF from requiring gun stores to conduct inventory and report any guns that have been lost or stolen, and let's stop blocking the ATF from preventing the dumping of nonsporting weapons into the American market from abroad. Let's finally crack down on gun trafficking and straw purchasing. These are all measures the American people strongly support.

My State of New York suffers deeply from gun violence. Our biggest problem is the amount of illegal weapons that flow into our State every single day from other States. The amount of guns--90 percent--used in crimes come from out of State, and 85 percent of them are illegal. These are weapons literally sold out of the back of a truck from someone in another State to a gang member. And how many innocent lives do we have to lose because a stray bullet hits them while they are out with friends? It is unconscionable that this Congress stands and does nothing.

I thank my friend from Connecticut for yielding the floor, and I will ask him this final question: What do you propose we should do to protect Americans from this type of senseless violence? What should we do now as Senators and as Members of this body?

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