BRAC
BRAC -- (Senate - July 26, 2005)
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask to be recognized to speak on the pending business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is amazing how we have reached this point in Senate business today. We started this day debating the Department of Defense authorization bill. It is hard to imagine a more important bill for this Senate to consider and conclude this week. We are going to be gone for 4 or 5 weeks. The idea was, we would take the important amendments and decisions to be made about our military, our men and women in uniform, their benefits, their equipment, and make the decision this week before we went home. Then a decision was made by the Republican leadership to interrupt the debate on the Department of Defense authorization bill and move to the pending bill.
What is this bill? It is a bill that is characterized as "the gun industry immunity bill." What does it mean? It means that those who are pushing for this bill want to carve out one industry in America and say that the people who run the businesses that make the firearms and sell the firearms cannot be held personally responsible for their wrongdoing. That's right. If you and I get in an automobile going home from work, are negligent in our driving the car in any respect, and there is an accident, we are held personally responsible. If the business down the street from where you live sells a product that is defective or dangerous, the person who owns the business, the person who made the product can be held personally responsible. It is really part of life that we are responsible for our wrongdoing. The legal system of America says even people who are powerless have their day in court to hold accountable the businesses and people who have been guilty of wrongdoing.
Now comes to the floor the proposal by the Republican leadership that we take one industry in America and say that it cannot be held personally responsible for its wrongdoing. Why in the world would we be doing this? How powerful must the group be that pushes through the legislation that says they will be treated as an exception in the whole American body of law? You know the group. They are well known. The gun lobby, the National Rifle Association. They are so powerful that they pushed the Senate away from the Department of Defense authorization bill in the middle of a war. Think about that. How could you move the Senate from considering a bill to help the men and women in uniform in the middle of a war? The only way you can do it is if you are a powerful lobby that snaps and Senators jump. That is what this is all about.
Before we adjourn at the end of the week, the Republican leadership wants to make certain that if we can't keep our word to our troops in the field, we keep our word to the lobbyists downtown for the gun lobby. We carve out a piece of American law and say they cannot be held personally responsible. Their businesses can't be held responsible for wrongdoing.
Is it because there is some huge problem in the gun industry? Are there businesses that sell guns that are about to go bankrupt because of all the lawsuits that are being filed against them? Not at all. Listen to this. On June 29, 2005, the huge American gunmaker Smith & Wesson said in a press release:
We expect net product sales for fiscal year 2005 to be approximately 124 million dollars, a 5 percent increase over the $117.9 million reported for the last fiscal year. Firearms sales for the next fiscal year are expected to increase by approximately 11 percent over the last year.
Then March of 2005, Smith & Wesson also said:
In the nine months ended January 31, 2005, we incurred $4,535 in legal defense costs, net of amounts received from insurance carriers relative to product liability and municipal litigation.
Four thousand five hundred thirty-five dollars? Does that sound like a crisis in the gun industry that would cause us to move away from considering the Department of Defense authorization bill?
Listen to this from another gunmaker. This is a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, March 11, 2005, from the gunmaker Sturm, Ruger:
It is not probable and is unlikely that litigation, including punitive damage claims, will have a material adverse effect on the financial position of the company.
These companies are doing very well. They are making a lot of money. They are selling a lot of guns. They aren't being sued. It isn't costing them a heck of a lot of money when they are sued. Why are we doing it? Why would we give this unprecedented sweeping immunity to any industry in America, let alone an industry that makes firearms?
This bill closes the courthouse doors to victims with legitimate lawsuits. It says: If you are a victim of a gun dealer or a gun manufacturer who sold a gun in commerce, where they might have known or should have known that it was going to be used for bad purposes, you can't go to the courthouse. The door is closed. Sorry. That is the way it is going to be. The gun industry is going to be treated like royalty. They are above the law.
During the debate on this bill during the last Congress, the supporters said a lot of cases about victims were frivolous. We were told all these companies were on the verge of bankruptcy. None of that turned out to be true. Two high-profile cases settled. These settlements would not have occurred had this bill been enacted last year. One of them, Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, was the dealer and Bushmaster was the assault weapon maker in the DC sniper case. I remember that case. These crazy snipers ran around town, killing people willy-nilly, innocent victims. When it was all over, the company that made the sniper rifle, the assault weapon, ended up settling with the families, paying over $2.5 million because of their wrongdoing. And Bushmaster agreed to inform its dealers of safer sales practices to prevent other criminals from obtaining guns.
It was only right that the victims had their day in court. It was only right that a jury of fellow citizens decided their fate. It was only right that this company was held accountable for sales practices that ended up endangering the lives of innocent people. Had this bill now on the floor been passed, there would have been no day in court for the families who were killed by these DC snipers.
Is that justice, fairness, or is that what we should be doing on the floor of the Senate instead of working to help the men and women in uniform who are engaged in a war across the ocean, risking their lives?
Listen to this case. Will's Jewelry and Loan, a West Virginia pawn shop, settled with Police Officers McGuire and Lemongello in June 2004 for $1 million and agreed to change its practices to prevent sales to underground traffickers, which includes instituting a policy of avoiding large-volume sales. Will's had sold the gun used to shoot the two police officers to a straw purchaser.
It is not only the innocent victims filing who were shot in DC who would be stopped from suing. This bill will stop policemen and their families from suing those who were selling guns, putting them into commerce and endangering the lives of the men and women in uniform who get up every morning and try to protect us in our communities.
Not surprisingly, law enforcement officials in our Nation oppose this bill, such as the International Brotherhood of Police Officers and the Major Cities Chiefs Association, as well as police officers from around the country have signed a letter begging Congress: Don't pass this bill. It will make America more dangerous. It will endanger the lives of policemen.
Newspapers in 19 different States have editorialized against this bill. What is troubling to me is that we could go from a bill designed to help protect America by helping our men and women in uniform to a bill that makes America less safe, a bill that allows companies to make guns, which are junk, Saturday-night specials, destined to be used in a holdup or a killing by some crazed drug addict. We can protect those companies, but we cannot protect our men and women in uniform, whether they are serving in our military or serving as our policemen. What a dramatic distortion of priorities.
The Senate should be embarrassed that we have done this. This is a week that the Republican leadership will never be able to explain-that they would leave that bill in the midst of a war in order to do this grand favor for the gun lobby, the National Rifle Association. It is not fair. It is not fair that all we do around here is carve out special treatment and special exceptions for a lot of people who, frankly, don't need them. We started off with the bankruptcy bill so credit card companies could make sure that those who end up in bankruptcy carry the credit card debt to the grave. We passed the class action bill so individuals filing environmental class actions would have a difficult time going to court. We have a bill waiting in the wings that says to 10,000 asbestos victims a year, you victims who never dreamed you would be dying from exposure to asbestos are going to be limited when you go to court too. There are bills pending dealing with the victims of medical malpractice.
And now comes this bill-the absolute icing on the cake-that we would give to the gun lobby immunity from their own wrongdoing, that when they make guns that end up killing people, that should not have been made, without the appropriate warnings, the appropriate safety devices, when they sell guns by the carload to people who were clearly destined to sell them on the street, to be used by drug gangs, they cannot be held accountable.
There is no personal responsibility under this law. That is not American. That is not what the system of justice is all about. It certainly doesn't speak to the fairness that we believe is essential to the American system of justice. When you think of all the things we could be doing, instead of finding another special interest group to give their lobbyists such good news that we passed their big bill-we could be passing a bill that says we are going to stop giving tax credit to companies that run jobs overseas. We could have done that this week. No, we didn't have time. We had to help this special interest group, the NRA. They could have been changing the Medicare drug prescription bill so they would be able to bargain for lower prices for seniors. No, that is not on the priority list of the Republican leadership. We could have been making certain that we don't privatize Social Security, and instead make it last. That is not a high priority for the Republican leadership. The gun lobby is the highest priority this week-higher than our service men and women. They could have protected the pensions and retirements of Americans who are scared they won't have anything to rely on. No time for that. No time this year to deal with it. We could have been dealing with portability of health insurance and the availability of health insurance for small businesses. No, we have to deal with helping the NRA. We could have been helping people with college loans, figuring out new ways that families can finance the education of their children. Sorry, if you don't have a big lobby with a lot of power such as the gun lobby, we cannot do that. We could have been talking about the outsourcing of medical and financial records, destroying the privacy of individuals and families. No way. We could have talked about credit card companies, giving more disclosures on credit cards such as when they increase your interest rate. No, we don't have time. We have to protect the gun makers and gun sellers from being held personally responsible in court. We could have increased our energy availability, it could have been part of our energy bill. You can hardly find it.
The list goes on. When you talk about the values of the Republican leadership in the Senate, you know the values today. To think that the Republican leadership would move away from the Department of Defense bill for our troops to a special interest bill for the gun lobby, so that they are not held accountable for selling Saturday-night specials that kill policemen and innocent people. That is the priority of the Republican leadership. It is not the priority of the American people.
I look forward to voting against this bill. I hope a majority of my colleagues will join me in that effort.
I yield the floor.
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