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

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the Senator from Connecticut for his leadership on this issue. It is the issue we should be debating this week and next week in the Senate. I thank him and Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut, Senator Durbin, Senator Booker, Senator Cardin--everyone whose voices down here are saying the same thing.

We have learned a lot about this problem, but we still don't know all of the answers. The answers we do know we should be voting on this week. We should be putting those protections on the books.

There is some commonsense knowledge we each have--that the FBI should have the authority to block gun sales to potential terrorists. How hard is that? No gun sales to potential terrorists in the United States.

The NRA says no. The NRA said no last year. The NRA said no the year before. The NRA controls the agenda of the Senate. They control this body. They are the ones who decide whether guns can be sold to terrorists in the United States of America--the NRA.

The American people say that NRA should stand for ``not relevant anymore'' in American politics, but it is not so. The NRA controls whether we are going to be able to vote on banning terrorists from being able to purchase guns.

So a terrorist can be on a no-fly list and can't get on a plane. We don't want a terrorist in the passenger cabin of a plane in the United States, so they are banned from getting on that plane. But they can just walk across the street into a gun shop and buy an assault weapon that they can then use to kill people whom they hate in the United States. Does that really make any sense? Of course not. Why don't we have the vote? Because the NRA does not want a vote on the floor of the U.S. Senate. They don't want a debate on this issue.

So we are going to continue to stand up and fight for this vote, for this issue to be considered on the floor for as long as it takes because if the FBI believes there is a reasonable chance that someone is going to use a gun in a terrorist attack on our people, it should have the ability to block the sale of a gun to that person. That is only common sense. That is what the police chiefs want. It is what the FBI wants. Why are we being denied a vote on the floor of the Senate on that issue?

Historically, this goes all the way back to the incredible power of the NRA. From 2004 until 2014, people on the terrorist watch list legally purchased guns more than 2,000 times because the FBI had no authority to block those sales. Over a 10-year period, over 2,000 times, the FBI could not stop a terrorist--a potential terrorist--from buying a gun in the United States because the National Rifle Association does not want potential terrorists to be denied purchasing guns in the United States. What kind of crazy position--that potential terrorists should be allowed to buy guns in the United States--is that for the NRA to take?

Back in 1994, we were having a debate over the ban of assault weapons in our country, but it came to my attention that China was actually selling 1 million semiautomatic assault weapons per year for $80 apiece inside the United States--1 million guns a year--and we were negotiating a treaty with China at the same time. So I organized about 130 members of the House on a letter to President Clinton saying no support for any deal with China until China agrees that they will not be selling assault weapons for $80 apiece in our country. That was 22 years ago--1 million assault weapons a year being sold by China. That would be 22 million additional assault weapons in our country coming in from China. That is banned. However, the domestic ban here expired a couple years ago.

Now, here we have another case of a terrorist saying that he was inspired by ISIS--inspired by this so-called caliphate outside of our borders to buy a weapon to kill Americans. Like China, are we just going to allow the NRA to say: No, it is all part of free commerce; no, we don't have any rights to limit the sale of these weapons. Or are we going to say there has to be commerce with a conscience; that not everything can be sold to anyone in our country; that some people and some things are too dangerous to be allowed to be purchased within our country.

I support very strongly the bill which Senator Feinstein has introduced to give the Attorney General the discretion to prevent someone from buying a firearm or explosives or obtaining a firearms dealer license if the Attorney General determines the individual is a known or suspected terrorist and has a reasonable belief that the individual may use the weapon in connection with terrorism.

Can it happen again? You know that it can happen again. This terrorist cited the two terrorists in Boston, the Tsarnaev brothers, as an inspiration to him. There is an online brainwashing recruitment which is going on all across our country. So that idea is out there.

The question is, How easy are we going to make it for them to be able to gain access to the instrumentality of their devastating acts against our society? Are we just going to allow them to walk into any gun store once they have been so radicalized that they are about to act on these dangerous activities? Well, Senate Republicans oppose that commonsense legislation.

Senate Republicans aren't allowing us to have a vote or a debate on this issue out on the Senate floor. One day after the tragic terrorist attack in San Bernardino last December, Senate Republicans voted against Senator Feinstein's legislation to close the terrorists' gap in terms of their ability to be able to buy these assault weapons. Six months later, Omar Mateen, a terrorist investigated by the FBI, targeted the LGBTQ community and murdered 49 innocent people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Yet Republicans continue to willingly follow the NRA and oppose this bill from becoming law in our country. The NRA has repeatedly opposed and worked to block that legislation, and apparently they think it is OK for someone like Omar Mateen to be able to buy an assault weapon with impunity in our country.

Mark Twain once remarked that common sense is very uncommon. He was surely talking about the Senate Republican caucus when it comes to having a terrorist be prohibited from buying an assault weapon in the United States of America. This mass shooting in Orlando has exposed the Senate Republicans and their common suffering from a commonsense deficit disorder. Today I call on them to stop their opposition. I call on them to have the courage to stand up for what is right for the American people and for the people of Orlando because I truly believe that a vote on that bill--if you hold hands with the NRA, the Americans will hold you accountable. I hope our Republican colleagues understand that and fear that because Americans are tired of living in fear that their community will be the next Orlando.

I ask another question: Wouldn't it be easier to develop effective solutions to gun violence in America if our Nation's top researchers could actually do research on gun violence? We are facing an epidemic of gun violence. More than 33,000 people are dying in our country each year from gun violence. It is a public health emergency, and we must treat it that way. So shouldn't we ask ourselves: Why is it happening and what can we do to stop it? When disease and illness bring widespread death, doctors, scientists, and public health researchers study the causes so that they can find solutions, and the Federal Government invests in those efforts. For diabetes, which kills almost 76,000 people in the United States each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention receive $170 million. For planning and preparedness against the flu, which leads to 57,000 deaths each year, the CDC's budget is more than $187 million. For asthma, 3,600 people, the CDC receives $29 million. For gun violence, which kills more than 33,000 Americans a year, the CDC's budget is zero dollars--yes, zero dollars. That is because, beginning more than 20 years ago, an appropriations rider has prevented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from advocating or promoting gun control. Many interpreted this provision as a ban, and it has chilled any research into the causes of gun violence and how to prevent it. But in 2013, President Obama directed the CDC to conduct critical public health research, and the principal congressional author of the rider, former Republican Congressman Jay Dickey of Arkansas, has now disavowed it, recognizing it was a mistake and calling for Federal gun violence prevention to move forward.

Just yesterday, the American Medical Association--the Nation's largest association of physicians--voted for the first time in support of ending the so-called ban on CDC gun violence research. As AMA president Steven Stack said yesterday: With about 30,000 people dying each year at the barrel of a gun, an epidemiological analysis of gun violence is in fact necessary. So that is the question which I ask of Senator Murphy, that is the question which I ask of Senator Durbin, and that is the question which I ask of the Senate president: Why can't we find a way to at least fund the research on the causes of gun violence? Why can't we find a way of just putting $10 million a year into that research? Why can't we do that?

I ask Senator Murphy the question, but he knows the answer. The answer is that the NRA does not want a single nickel to be spent on that issue, and the NRA controls the agenda on the Senate floor with a vice-like grip, and it will not let it go. But we have reached a defining moment. The American people have seen in this one incident how tightly the NRA controls the agenda of the Republican Party in our country. We should already have voted on this ban. We should already have moved on to other gun control issues--but, no. Whether it be the terror watch list or it even be research at the CDC on gun violence, there is no action. We can study how to prevent children from operating pill bottles, from suffering from head injuries on bicycles, how to use a cigarette lighter so they don't hurt themselves, but shouldn't we study how to stop kids from firing guns that can hurt them?

Let's give the medical, scientific, and public health community the resources they need. Let's ensure that if someone is going to buy a gun, they have to get a background check completed before they are allowed to do it. Let's make sure that we put in place all of the protections that are going to be needed to protect ordinary Americans from this action.

So I say to Senators Murphy and Blumenthal from Connecticut, what you suffered in Newtown, CT, is sadly just a preview of coming attractions unless we change the laws in our country, unless we put the preventive measures on the books, so we can avoid the worst, most catastrophic consequences of this out-of-control gun epidemic in our country.

What the Senator is doing here today, along with Senator Booker, is forcing America to understand the cause of their problems and why we cannot ban a terrorist from buying a gun in the United States. All issues go through three phases: political education, political activation, political implementation. What the Senators are doing today is forcing this political education and forcing people to understand that this is not bipartisan. This is not the whole institution doesn't work; this is a deliberate decision made by the Republicans to abide only by what it is that the NRA--an outside party--wants to permit being debated on the Senate floor. But at 33,000 deaths a year, with terrorist activity after terrorist activity now occurring on our own shores--in Boston alone, we had Mohamed Atta and nine others who hijacked nine planes; we had the Tsarnaev brothers who detonated explosives on Patriots Day at the Boston Marathon.

It is time for us to just stop here. It is time for us to start to do the right thing so we can make it harder for these acts to take place. I don't think we should stop this discussion until that happens. That is why I thank Senator Murphy for taking this time--Senator Booker, Senator Blumenthal, and everyone who has participated. I am going to be with you every step of the way until we get the votes the American people expect from their elected Senators.

I thank the Senator for yielding for a question.

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Mr. MARKEY. I thank the Senator, and again I ask my colleague: Why won't the Republicans allow for the debate and a vote on whether or not individuals on a terrorist target list should be able to get a gun anywhere in America?

The answer to that question has not been forthcoming from the Republican Party because the NRA, or the National Rifle Association, does not have a good answer to it, except that they do not want any exceptions to the rule that anybody should be able to buy a gun at any time, even if they are on a terrorist target list in the United States.

So that is going to be our big challenge out here. What are the limits to the power of the National Rifle Association over the Republican Party; and, as a result, over the United States Senate? Because the American people don't think we have to accept this epidemic of gun violence in our country. The American people do not believe it is preordained. They believe it is preventable.

Every week, 56 children die from gun violence. That is nearly three Newtown massacres every single week. Thirty thousand Americans shot and killed each year is not inevitable. It is unacceptable, and it is immoral.

We cannot wait any longer to put these commonsense gun laws on the books. We cannot wait any longer to make our streets safer.

I believe assault weapons belong in combat, not in our communities. We need a ban on these military-styled assault weapons. We need to eliminate the trafficking of guns into our communities across our Nation. We need to ban high-capacity magazine clips that turn guns into weapons of war. There is no reason for an ordinary American to have this in our neighborhoods, on our streets, or near our schools. We need background checks on all gun sales, including private sales and purchases made online and at gun shows. We need to crack down on straw purchasing. We need to ban gun sales on sites on the Internet like Facebook and Instagram. Right now, anyone can do a search for an AK-47 or AR-15 or even guns for sale on Instagram and find guns for sale. Could you be under 18? Yes. Could you get a gun without a background check? Yes. We should not allow Instagram to be used as ``Instagun,'' enabling the sale and purchase of deadly weapons in possible violation of State and Federal law.

We can do something here. We don't have to do all of it this week, but the least we should be able to do is what the Senator from Connecticut just outlined, two steps; one, if you are on a terrorist watch list, you can't buy a gun in the United States, and, two, you can't get around the background check if you go to a gun show or you go to Instagram. You have to go through a background check. Leave all the rest of it off the table, banning assault weapons, all the rest of it. We will not do that. How about just debating and doing those two things, which overwhelmingly the American people want us to do.

Now, back on September 11, 2001, Mohamed Atta and nine others boarded two planes at Logan Airport. They hijacked those planes using box cutters to kill the flight attendants, to kill the pilots. We do not allow box cutters into the passenger section of a plane any longer. We don't allow knives in the passenger section of planes any longer. But believe it or not, we actually had a debate at the time as to whether every bag that goes onto a passenger plane should be screened. We had a debate that lasted for 4 years as to whether the cargo, which goes into the bottom of a plane, should be screened--4 years. The cargo industry did not want it. The airline industry said it would be too much of an inconvenience. Who in America wanted to fly on a plane that had cargo underneath their feet that had not been screened after 9/11, after Mohamed Atta? Well, we finally won that issue, and everyone accepts the wisdom of ensuring that screening takes place on every single passenger flight in America because otherwise that is where the new Mohamed Atta would find the aperture to create a disaster in the air. They are smart people. They are cunning people. They are trying to find the opening. They are trying to find the weakness. They are trying to find the Achilles heel in our system so they can kill Americans.

That is what is happening here. There is another Achilles heel, and that Achilles heel is the fact that the NRA has a vice-like grip on the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress. They will not let it go. They will not make it possible for us to have a straight up-or-down vote on whether this latter-day Mohamed Atta on a terror target list can buy a gun, buy an assault weapon in the United States, whether this new Mohamed Atta, this new terrorist group, can buy assault weapons at gun shows without any background checks whatsoever and then use those weapons to kill innocent American citizens. How can the NRA align itself with latter-day Mohamed Attas? With latter-day Tsarnaev brothers? How can the NRA do that? How can the Republican Party align themselves with the NRA if that is their agenda? These are the votes we should be having.

It is very simple. If you cannot fly, you should not be allowed to buy a weapon in America. If you are a terrorist and you are not permitted to fly in our country, how can we have a system that allows you simultaneously to buy an assault weapon that can kill dozens of people or more? We know what is at the top of the terrorist target list in our country. We know what they are trying to do. They try to bring down planes. They try to find ways in which they can terrorize otherwise innocent communities in our country to spread their terror, and we know where the Achilles heels are. We shut it down when it came to airlines. We can shut it down here when it comes to the purchase of weapons if you have already been identified as being on a terror target list, a watch list. The FBI is looking at you, but you can still buy an assault weapon. It makes no sense. How many times do we have to learn the lesson until we finally act? Is this not enough? Is what happened in Orlando not enough--49 people dead, gay, 44 out of 49 names Latino, a hate crime, a terror attack, all of it. Do we really need more? Do we need another and another and another? Because we know the day is coming when this law is going to change. The test of us is that we do it before more innocent lives are lost; that we have these two bills that Senator Murphy referred to brought out here onto the floor; that we block this open door for terrorists to be able to kill in our country, to be able to purchase these weapons of mass destruction that kill at a level that is almost unimaginable.

Once again, I thank my friend, and I ask the question of the Republican leadership: Why can't we have this debate? Why can't we have these votes? Now, I know the answer. It is that the NRA--the National Rifle Association--does not want those votes, but our job as elected officials is to ensure that NRA stands for ``not relevant anymore'' in American politics after Orlando, after this massacre. That is our historic challenge out here today.

I thank the Senator from Connecticut, the Senator from New Jersey, the colleague of the Senator from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, and for all the Members who have participated in this debate, discussion, filibuster. This is the issue. This is the time. This is the place. We are the people who have to resolve this issue. People will look back and they will ask: Did we try? Did we really try to put a ban on the purchase of these weapons by these terrorist list people in our own country? That is going to be the test for us. We can't fight the battles over in Aleppo, we can't fight the battles over in Fallujah, but we can fight this battle here on the streets of America. We know what has to be done. This body just has to have the courage to say to the NRA: No, it is too much. Our country is bleeding. Families are hurting. We don't want to see it happen again. This is going to be the challenge of this week and next week and every week until we have these votes and until we close these loopholes.

Again, I thank the Senator from Connecticut for conducting this very important discussion.

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