Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am coming to the floor once again to express my condolences to the families of those who were lost in Dallas--the families of Brent Thompson, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Lorne Ahrens, and Michael Smith. In Connecticut, we know the ripples of loss that really never end in a community like Dallas and a community like Orlando. There is going to be a long period of healing. Our thoughts and our prayers and any help we can provide from those of us who represent Connecticut and Sandy Hook, specifically, extend to those in Dallas.

In the wake of another tragedy, I wanted to come down to the floor for a short period of time--I know my colleagues are waiting to speak-- to talk about some of the very irresponsible rhetoric that gets tossed around when it comes to this debate over the future of gun policy in this country. I want to take 5 or 10 minutes to talk about what is the biggest lie used by the gun lobby in this debate, and it is this: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.

This isn't true. It has never been true. It will never be true. It is, quite simply, an invention designed by the gun industry to sell more guns, to convince Americans that laws and rules cannot protect them, and that the only thing that can keep them safe from being shot is to buy expensive weapons and expensive ammunition that pad the profits of the big gun companies.

It is time we call this lie what it is. It is a marketing gimmick for gun companies, plain and simple: The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.

Let me be clear. I don't quarrel with anyone who decides to buy a weapon for self-defense. That is your decision. That is your call. Last week I met in my office with women from Connecticut who came to my office to tell me about their belief that owning a weapon is instrumental to their ability to protect themselves. One woman told me a story of repelling an attacker with a gun that was in her purse, and her sincere belief is she would not be alive today if it weren't for the weapon that was on her person.

I support the Second Amendment, and I accept that the Supreme Court has made it clear that this amendment protects the ability of anyone to buy a weapon for self-defense, subject to certain commonsense limitations. But if you are buying a weapon because you think that owning one makes you less likely to be killed by a gun, then you are wrong. If you are standing in the way of policies that crack down on illegal or dangerous weapons on our street because you believe in some kind of gun control Darwinism--a world in which the good guys with guns eventually shoot all the bad guys with guns--then you have it backwards because that is not how it works.

You know how I know this? Because study after study tells us that owning a gun makes you more likely to be killed by that gun than to use it to kill someone who threatens you. Studies show that in countries and States with more guns, there are generally not less gun deaths but more gun deaths, like the study in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed a gun in your house doesn't make you less likely to be killed. It isn't even risk neutral. Having a gun in your home actually increases your chance of getting killed by a gun by anywhere from 40 percent to 170 percent.

How about the study in the American Journal of Epidemiology that showed that people living in a house with a gun are 90 percent more likely to die from a homicide than a person who lives in a house without a gun.

What about the study from the Violence Policy Center that showed that instances of guns being used in self-defense are so rare that on average there are 44 criminal homicides with guns for every time a gun is used for protection in a justifiable homicide.

How about one more study. The Harvard Injury Control Research Center study showed that in States and communities with greater gun availability, gun homicide rates were higher, not lower, than in communities and States with lower gun availability. It is your decision whether or not to buy a gun. There are certainly instances where it may make sense, and I don't begrudge the individual who makes that decision, but the data tells us only one story. The actual real, live experience of living in a nation awash in guns shows that contrary to the gun lobby sloganeering, the opposite of their claim is actually true. The more good guys there are who have guns, the more good guys die from guns. We have no clear or more horrifying example of this truth than last weekend in Dallas, TX.

Texas is an open carry State, meaning that anyone who can legally buy a semiautomatic weapon can walk around the streets of Dallas or any other community with that weapon attached to them. Reports suggest that there were perhaps 30 people openly carrying AR-15-style weapons at Saturday's protest. Some were also wearing camouflage, bulletproof vests, and gas masks. There were also dozens and dozens of police officers on hand, all of them expertly trained and heavily armed. Between the 30 heavily armed civilians and dozens of police officers, there were more good guys with guns in the vicinity of this one very bad guy with a gun than at nearly any other crime scene in recent memory, and it led to chaos.

Here is what Dallas Police Chief Brown said in the wake of the shooting:

We're trying as best we can as a law enforcement community to make it work so that citizens can express their Second Amendment rights, but it's increasingly challenging when people have AR-15s slung over their shoulder and they're in a crowd. We don't know who the good guy is versus the bad guy when everyone starts shooting.

All of those guns in the hands of good-hearted civilians and trained police officers--and what killed the sniper, Micah Johnson? It wasn't a gun. It was an explosive device attached to the end of a robot on wheels. Eleven brave police officers fired their weapons at Micah Johnson. Dozens of armed civilians theoretically had the opportunity to defend themselves and their fellow protesters, but one deranged man, armed with an antique rifle and 30-round magazines strategically positioned above his targets, was unharmed by all of those good guys with guns, just as Jared Lee Loughner was unharmed by a civilian with a gun in the parking lot of the supermarket where he shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in the head, and just as the armed security guard in Pulse nightclub couldn't do anything about Omar Matteen as he executed 49 young men and women. It is just like what happened to Nancy Lanza, who thought the guns in her home would protect her and her son from harm, only for them to be used by her son to murder her in her sleep and then massacre 20 first graders and 6 of their educators.

If you want to buy a gun for self-defense, that is your call, but before making that purchase, understand that the gun lobby is lying to you. If a bad guy has a gun and wants to kill, there is very little that can be done to stop him once the tragedy is in motion. The best policy is to stop madmen and killers from getting these dangerous weapons in the first place.

Dallas Police Chief Brown said to us:

Do your job. We are doing ours. We're putting our lives on the line. The other aspects of government need to step up and help us.

When Connecticut implemented a law requiring a permit to be issued before a gun is issued, gun homicides dropped by 40 percent. In States that require background checks for private handgun sales--listen to this--48 percent fewer law enforcement officers are shot to death by handguns, and in States with universal background checks, women are 46 percent less likely to be shot by their intimate partner than in States without universal checks.

This isn't conjecture. Good laws save lives. Concentrate on passing laws that keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals and killers, and you will save lives. Load up your streets, schools, and shopping malls with weapons and just hope that the good guys will eventually outshoot the bad guys, and people will be killed.

People across this country have figured it out, and that is why they support expanded background checks by an astounding ratio of 90 percent to 10 percent. There is no public policy in this country that is supported by 90 percent of Americans. They know that smart firearms laws save lives, and so they support universal background checks by a ratio of 9 to 1. It is also why there are fewer and fewer American families buying guns. It makes sense for some people, and I am not denying that. A new CBS News poll shows that gun ownership is at a near 40-year low with only 36 percent of Americans reporting that they own a gun. That is down 17 points from its highest rate in 1994 and down a whopping 10 points from just 4 years ago, but be forewarned, this development will simply propel the gun lobby to be even bolder in spreading its lies about the effects of gun ownership.

Just two weekends ago the head of the NRA went on national TV and told Americans that the only way to protect themselves from terrorism is to have a personal defense plan. That means, if you didn't parse his words, to go out and buy a gun from a gun company and help the industry stem this tide of declining gun ownership all in the name of collective self-defense. Well, it is a lie. Good guys with guns generally don't stop bad guys with guns. They didn't in Dallas. Good laws that keep illegal and dangerous weapons off of our streets, that make sure that only law-abiding, peaceful citizens are obtaining weapons--those laws stop bad guys. When you strip away all of the rhetoric driven by the gun industry profit motivations, that is the truth.

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