Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my senior Senator from New Jersey. His passion and his commitment to this issue, not just after this mass shooting, has been consistent in fighting for commonsense gun safety for years, and I am grateful for his leadership as my senior Senator.
It has now been 2 weeks since a gunman took the lives of 17 children, teachers, and school administrators in Parkland, FL. In the days and weeks since, we have seen young people from that community lead a movement for change that is growing in our country, standing up to special interests, standing up to the small minority of folks who seem to want to let the status quo continue, standing up to the NRA and the gun industry and making clear the fierce urgency of now, of this moment, of this day. These young people are showing what true courage is. They are showing it at a time of great grief, of great pain in their lives.
I know what they are fighting for. It is not a fringe issue. I know what they are fighting for. It is not representative of some small minority; they are fighting for the majority of Americans who agree with them, the majority of Americans who want commonsense gun safety in America. Those folks who own guns and those who don't want background checks for all gun buyers, including those between private dealers and gun shows.
The majority of Americans don't want people who are suspected terrorists to be able to go to a gun show and go to a private seller and drive off with a trunkful of weapons. The majority of Americans know that we should be keeping people with a history of domestic violence from getting their hands on a gun. The majority of Americans want to choke the pipeline of illegal guns that are flooding American communities from sea to shining sea, from the Great Lakes to the gulf coast.
The overwhelming majority of Americans know that we can do more to prevent gun violence. Sure, we can't stop everyone, but we can do things that will reduce the violence, reduce the number of deaths, and save lives. These are commonsense things that the majority of Americans--gun owners, non-gun owners, Republicans and Democrats--a majority of Americans support these policies that are proven.
For example, we know it is true that in States like Connecticut, when they instituted commonsense background checks, they saw firearm homicides drop by 40 percent. And we know that States that implement laws blocking perpetrators of domestic violence from getting guns see a significant reduction--upward of 10 percent--in homicides by people's intimate partners.
We know that between 2009 and 2013, States that have required background checks on handguns saw 35 percent fewer gun deaths per capita than States that didn't.
This is fact. We know that commonsense gun safety, supported by over 80 percent of gun owners and over 90 percent of Americans, will save lives.
Dr. King once said--and I am paraphrasing here--that morality can't be legislated, but behavior can be regulated; that the law can't make someone love me, but it stop them from lynching me; that the law can't change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.
We know we have the power to make the change.
This is no panacea. These ideas will not solve all of the problems, but they can make a difference, and they can save lives.
The time to act is right now. To not act is to be complicit in the continued levels of violence in our communities.
Every day that passes with no action--every single day we see, on average, 96 Americans in this country killed by a gun, including children. Every day that we do not act in this body, dozens and dozens of our American fellow citizens are dying due to gun violence, much of it preventable. Too many families in this country, too many fellow Americans know the pain and the grief and the agony of what we see in the faces of the children from Parkland.
Gun violence isn't just manifested in uniquely horrifying mass shootings in our schools and in our churches and in our movie theaters; it is a pervasive, everyday public health epidemic. It is an everyday reality for Americans across the country. It is an everyday reality for women in America. Fifty women every single month are shot to death by intimate partners in this country, making the United States the most dangerous country in the developed world when it comes to gun violence against women. We know that over half of all women killed by an intimate partner are killed with a gun. We know that when a gun is involved in a situation of domestic violence, a woman is five times more likely to be killed. We can do something to lower this kind of carnage.
Gun violence is an everyday reality for children and for young people in this country. On an average day in America, 7 children and teens will be killed with a gun, and 40 more children will be shot and survive, often being crippled or severely wounded, often costing American taxpayers millions of dollars for their healthcare. We can lower this rate of carnage.
Gun violence is an everyday reality for people living in cities, like where I live. In the last year there was a shooting on my block. We know that for Black Americans living in a city or urban area in this country, they are almost 500 times more likely to be killed by gun violence than they are by terrorism. This is an urgent problem. It is an everyday problem. This is pressing on us every single day to act, and every day that we don't, our inaction will cost lives.
Since the tragedy in Parkland, in New Jersey alone we have seen children, young people, the elderly, women, Black and White Americans killed by gun violence. I have a stack of examples of this right here-- news reports of the violence in my State.
One week ago, it was a 10-year-old boy. Yovanni Banos-Merino was killed with a gun, and his mother was wounded in Asbury Park, NJ.
The day before that, on February 20, an elderly man killed his wife-- domestic violence. He killed her with a gun and then took his own life, a suicide.
Just 6 days ago, a teenager in my city of Newark, NJ, Ishmail Anthony, was killed with a gun.
Every single day we do not act, dozens and dozens of Americans are killed.
Look at this chart. We can't even read the font. Look at these American citizens--young people, old people, Black people, White people, men, women, Republicans, Democrats.
Look at this chart. We know that right now, in the past 2 weeks since the tragedy, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which compiled this list from news reports, 477 Americans have been killed with a gun--in the past 2 weeks alone, 477 American citizens.
This government was formed with a purpose. It says clearly in our founding documents ``for the common defence.'' In 2 weeks, there were 477 people who we did not defend--477 people whom we could have done more to save. Again, 477 people, 2 weeks since Parkland, and we have a nation that speaks to the purpose of ensuring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They lost their lives.
We may not have the power to stop all gun violence, but gun owners and non-gun owners, Republicans and Democrats, and our Nation as a whole agree, with a chorus of consent, that we should do things like commonsense background checks. Our inaction, our unwillingness to do the will of the people is costly, not just to the integrity of this body, not just for the purpose of this body, but it is costly in the most grievous of ways every day. Every day, dozens die; in 2 weeks, 477.
We must do better. We can do better. With the help of God almighty, we will.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source