Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the mass murder in Florida this month, and I rise to ask a simple question that millions of Americans in every part of this country are asking at their kitchen tables right now: Is Congress finally going to do anything meaningful about gun violence? When will enough be enough? What will it take for this body to move beyond the same talking points that we hear after every mass shooting and actually do something to prevent more deaths? Will Congress finally see what the vast majority of Americans see--gun owners and non-gun owners alike--that America's gun problem isn't going away unless Congress musters up the courage to take it head-on, or will Congress continue to give the lipservice of thoughts and prayers and then do absolutely nothing?

We have to act because once again there was a massacre on American soil. Once again it was inside a school. Once again American children were gunned down. We keep living through a nightmare of gun violence that repeats itself in schools, movie theaters, churches, nightclubs, concerts, and every single day on the streets of cities in every State around this country--Sandy Hook, Aurora, Charleston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, and most recently, Parkland, FL.

We can help stop this. We have the power to help stop this. The question is whether Congress has the political will to do it, whether this institution will finally put families first, our children first, and stand up to the gun manufacturers and the NRA.

I urge every Member of Congress to reflect on why they first ran for office. We are here as public servants to serve the people who sent us here, not to serve the gun industry's profits, not to serve the organizations and companies and lobbyists who demand political retribution when we do the morally right thing. Does Congress have the will to act? Does Congress have the basic courage this country needs? I am sorry to say, I don't know, but we can put it to the test.

There has been a lot of talk--more than normal even--about our need to act in this Chamber. So I will say this to my colleagues: Let's make this time different. Let's listen to the children from Stoneman Douglas High School. Let's seize this moment. Let's take action.

I implore my colleagues to listen to what the country is saying about gun violence today, listen to the families, listen to the survivors from Parkland and tune out all the other noise. I did. It is possible.

Ten years ago, I had an A rating from the NRA, just like many of my colleagues today, but then I met the mother of Nyasia Pryear-Yard. Then I met her classmates. Nyasia was an honor student from Brooklyn. She was dancing with her friends, having fun, loving life. She was killed by a stray bullet in her community. Now I have an F rating from the NRA.

I don't understand how, after meeting with all of these families, after meeting with all of these children whose lives have been destroyed and torn apart by gun violence--I don't understand how any public servant would not vow to do what is necessary to make sure it never happens again.

It is what we do after a terrorist attack, rightfully so. It is what we do as a country. We come together. We say never again, and we do whatever it takes to protect our country. We have to have the very same sense of urgency now.

Plain and simple, it is a lie to say we have to choose between protecting law-abiding gun owners' rights and protecting our children from being murdered by assault rifles. It is a false choice to say we cannot end gun violence without violating people's constitutional rights. It is time for Members of Congress to stand up for what is right for America and do what is right for our communities, and say no to the NRA.

I commend one of our colleagues in the House of Representatives--a Republican from Florida and an Army veteran--who is seeing this crisis differently now too. He wrote:

I know that my community, our schools, and public gathering places, are not made safer by any person having access to the best killing tool the Army could put in my hands. I cannot support the primary weapon I used to defend our people, being used to kill children I swore to defend.

That is what leadership looks like.

I implore my colleagues in the Senate to see our gun violence problem differently. See it with your heart. See it for what it is. It is a matter of national security, of public health, of public safety that will never go away unless Congress does its job.

So, once and for all, let's pass laws that actually are meaningful, that actually can do something, not just something simple so we can say we did something and move on. I strongly agree with my colleagues that we need to improve the mental health system. Let's make those investments, but it should not stop there.

We have to address the fact that we have weapons of war on our streets today. We have to address the fact that it is so easy for people to buy a gun--people who should never have that privilege. Let's vote to ban semiautomatic assault rifles.

Congress has already banned fully automatic weapons. Congress has already recognized that some weapons have no place in the civilian world, and a weapon of war that was designed for military use, that can fire up to 100 rounds in 1 minute or 100 rounds if you just add a bump stock, a weapon that can completely outgun a police officer has no place in the civilian world.

Will my colleagues vote with me to ban semiautomatic assault rifles?

Then, let's vote to ban the high-capacity magazines that go with them. They are made for wars; they are not made to be in our schools, not in our cities. High-capacity magazines let killers fire dozens of rounds without having to frequently stop and reload. They are designed to let someone fire bullets at as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Let's vote to ban high-capacity magazines, and let's vote to pass universal background checks. That is something that is so commonsense, so obvious. Too many people who should not get their hands on these weapons are easily able to get them, and there are so many loopholes that allow people to buy semiautomatic assault rifles online, where there are no background checks. They allow people to buy semiautomatic assault rifles at gun shows, where there are no background checks.

It simply doesn't make sense that every person who buys a firearm doesn't go through a basic background check system. Do you know who agrees with that? Ninety-seven percent of the American people. I can't think of any other issue where there is such near-universal agreement across our entire population.

So let's do what our constituents are demanding from us--not what the NRA is demanding from us--and vote to pass universal background checks. When we do it, let's make sure the effort is actually sincere. If we are only voting on universal background checks, when it is tied to the issue of concealed carry reciprocity, then that is not a sincere attempt to fix our broken background check system. If Congress is saying we will only pass universal background checks if we pass a new law that says a stranger from one State has to be allowed into my State or your State when he has a gun hidden under his jacket, that is an insult to 97 percent of the American people who want Congress to pass universal background checks now.

Then, let's finally vote to overturn the outrageous law that has banned the Centers for Disease Control from even studying the issue of gun deaths. The CDC can study any other cause of death--heart disease, cancer, car crashes, plane crashes--unless it involves a gun. Don't you think it is strange that when we debate this issue, the two things related to gun violence that Congress has actually banned in recent years are research--research on gun violence--and a ban on the ATF from using computers to keep records? Let's vote to allow the CDC to conduct research on gun violence so we can finally have the information and the data we need to fight gun violence as effectively as possible.

Let's also pass a law that finally makes gun trafficking a Federal crime. Over and over again, law enforcement officers keep finding illegally obtained guns being used in crimes. Numerous NYPD officers have been killed by guns that were illegally obtained by criminals, and there is literally no Federal law to stop someone from loading his truck with guns in Georgia, driving up I-95, and selling them in a parking lot in the Bronx directly to criminals and gang members.

I have a bill that would make this illegal. It is called the Hadiya Pendleton and Nyasia Pryear-Yard Gun Trafficking and Crime Prevention Act. It is bipartisan, because both parties agree that gun trafficking is a source of gun violence in our cities.

This bill is named after Nyasia, whom I mentioned earlier, and another teenager from Chicago who was also killed by a stray bullet. Both guns in those crimes were trafficked. So let's pass this bill and finally make gun trafficking a Federal crime.

If we are not trying to solve this problem now, then we are failing as elected leaders. Congress must solve America's gun violence crisis now. It is urgent. Our country is demanding it. Americans deserve more from Congress than just banning bump stocks, just fixing NICS, which, while I strongly support both of them, will not do enough on their own. So let us not fail our country again.

I would like to ask our colleagues to immediately vote to ban semiautomatic assault rifles and bump stocks, to pass a universal background check system and close all of the loopholes, to allow the CDC to research gun violence as a cause of death, to close the gun show loophole, and to finally make gun trafficking a Federal crime.

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