Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, most people cannot remember what happened in the first grade--I have vague memories of being a first grader--but there are certain things that may happen even at a young stage in your life that will be remembered.
My 6-year-old granddaughter, who attends first grade in Brooklyn, NY, a few weeks ago was told by her teacher what to do if a shooter, if a gunman came into the first grade classroom. My little granddaughter was told: Don't stand by the window; you could get shot. If they enter the classroom with a gun, get down on the floor.
Is there any sane person in America who believes that is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights--the right to bear arms--that we would have reached a point in America where the prospects of gun violence in the first grade classrooms and all the way through school, through high school, and college would become a reality in America? I can't imagine anyone in their wildest dreams would have imagined that possibility.
Today is March 14. On February 14, a gunman went into a high school in Parkland, FL, and killed 17 people--14 students and 3 members of the faculty. It is not the first, by any means. Ten years before it, at Northern Illinois University, a gunman killed five there and injured many others. The list goes on and on and on.
This gunman who went into Parkland, FL, wasn't carrying a handgun. He was carrying an AR-15. It is a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to embellish with a high-capacity magazine that could kill 30 people at a time.
Why? Why on Earth would that man, 19 years of age, be allowed to buy a weapon that was created to be used by the military--a military assault weapon, a weapon that sometimes our police may need, but hardly ever an individual American could need or want to buy for a legitimate sporting or hunting purpose?
But he did, and 17 were dead after that rampage.
There has been a lot of reaction to that--more than I expected, I will be honest with you, because mass killings have become way too common in America. Something happened there--something we saw across America today. High school students in that high school came out and said: Enough, we are fed up with the laws of this land and the politicians who refuse to change them. We are fed up with the fear that comes with just going to school in America. We are fed up with those who say the Second Amendment requires us to live in fear.
They have marched in towns across America today. They have marched on Washington. They have come to my office and visited with me. I believe they have become a major force in the national debate. I commend them. I encourage them. I hope they will continue.
What can we do? You know, politics is tough. It ain't beanbag, as they used to say. There are forces like the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby that threaten the political existence of Members of Congress if they vote the wrong way. I know they came after me when I was a Member of the House. They almost got me. It was a tough election year. I managed to survive it, but they poured money in and tried to beat me. I have never had their support since, and that is OK with me. But for a lot of Members of Congress, they are just not willing to risk it, not willing to anger the National Rifle Association.
Do you remember when President Trump had the meeting 2 weeks ago? He called in the students and parents and others. He let the cameras roll, and they continued the meeting so America could witness it. He admonished the Members of Congress there: Don't be scared of the National Rifle Association. Don't be petrified by the NRA. We have to do something.
President Trump came out for universal background checks. In a way, it is not a very bold and courageous position because 97 percent of the American people agree with it. Even gun owners agree with the premise that we should do everything in our power to have a background check to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons and mentally unstable people. The President came out for that 2 weeks ago, and he also said: Why in the world do we let someone 19 years of age buy a military assault weapon? We don't need these assault weapons.
I thought to myself: What a break; here is a Republican President who is finally standing up to the gun lobby and supporting positions that are overwhelmingly supported by the American people.
My fellow Senator who is now presiding over the Senate has shown that on a bipartisan fashion we can move forward on universal background checks. He came together with Senator Manchin of West Virginia on a measure that I supported and one that I think we should revisit. I felt so encouraged 2 weeks ago.
Well, what has happened since? That group left the White House and a couple of days later, the National Rifle Association came in for lunch and the President reversed his position. It is nothing new. I saw him do exactly the same thing on DACA and Dreamers. He reversed his position and now, instead of universal background checks that will keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them, they are supporting a bill that is good but is not all we need, called Fix NICS, which fills some of the information in the background checks for purchasing firearms.
The 17 lives in that high school in Parkland, FL, are worth more than this weak response by President Trump and by some in Congress. We must do better.
Let me tell you that the issue here is more than just the safety of high schools. A few weeks ago--in fact, a day before the shooting in Parkland, FL--an amazing member of the Chicago Police Department, Commander Paul Bauer, was downtown for a training session and heard on his radio an alert that there was a fugitive escaping. Being a man of duty, he responded to join in the pursuit and was cornered in a stairwell by a man who pulled out a gun with a high-capacity magazine, shot him six times, and killed him right in that stairwell. This was an amazing police officer with a great wife and daughter, from Bridgeport, in the city of Chicago. Our whole city was in grief over that loss.
They tried to figure out where the gun came from? Where did that criminal get that gun? It was purchased legally outside Madison, WI. It was then sold, without a background check, to another person who, in turn, sold it on the internet with no background check to a person with a record of felony arrests and convictions. It completely defied the system and made the argument again, sadly, of why universal background checks--not just at Federal licensed dealers but also at gun shows and on the internet--are absolutely essential. The Fix NICS bill does not solve that problem. We must solve that problem.
Secondly, on the military assault weapons, today at the Senate Judiciary Committee, we talked about the impact of an assault weapon and a bullet that is fired. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who has followed this terrible incident in Parkland and has spoken out so eloquently, reminded us that firing a bullet in a handgun may mean that that bullet passes through your body and injures an organ. Firing a long gun, a rifle, or a semiautomatic weapon like the AR-15 does dramatically more damage. The bullet may enter your body in a small way, but it comes out on the other side with a wound the size of an orange and, in the process, tumbles through your body, ripping through tissue, ripping through arteries, ripping through organs, and creating a situation that is difficult and sometimes impossible to repair.
Why would anyone need a weapon like that? You sure don't need it to go hunting. If you need an AR-15 to go shoot a deer, for goodness sakes, you ought to stick to fishing. You obviously don't have the skill necessary. To own it just to own it? Some do. They are collectors, I imagine. But opening those sales to 18-, 19-, or 20-year- olds makes no sense whatsoever, and that is what the students from Parkland and around the country are saying today. I couldn't agree with them more.
As for high-capacity magazines, why do you need 30 rounds? Why do you need 60 rounds? What is that all about? It is being used in weapons that are designed to kill other human beings--not just a few, but many.
As for bump stocks, I never heard of a bump stock until a few months ago, when the Las Vegas mass shooting occurred, killing innocent people at a country and western concert. We have banned machine guns in America for decades. Well, leave it to the firearm manufacturers. They found a way to create a mechanism that takes a semiautomatic weapon-- meaning that you have to pull the trigger each time for each round--and turns it essentially into an automatic weapon, where you can hold the trigger and use the recoil and it just sprays the bullets until you empty the magazine, with something called a bump stock.
I can't imagine why we haven't just flat out passed a bill to ban bump stocks after what happened in Las Vegas, but this Congress, this Senate is frozen by the gun lobby.
All across America today, young people are stepping up. I asked a teacher, Ms. Posada, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today: What is it about the students in your school? Why have they become such national leaders, outspoken on this issue and inspirational on this issue to me?
She said: That is the way we trained them, to be part of an America where they can participate and be a leader, and they are.
I encourage them to continue to put the pressure on all of us, starting with President Trump, who may switch his position again. He went from all for gun safety to the gun lobby position in a matter of days. Maybe he will come back again to some more reasonable position.
Put the pressure on Congress too. We have run out of excuses, haven't we? More and more innocent Americans have been killed, and the best we can come up with is that over 200 years ago, when some men sat down to write our Bill of Rights, that Second Amendment gave the authority to individuals to buy any and everything they want to buy in the name of the right to bear arms. I don't think that is what they had in mind at all.
We cannot continue to let the NRA and the gun lobby have veto power over gun policy in America. We are facing an epidemic of violence with hundreds of Americans shot every day--from Commander Bauer in Chicago; to the kids in Parkland, FL; to Las Vegas; to DeKalb, IL. The list goes on and on and on. We have to put the safety of our kids and our neighborhoods ahead of the gun lobby's agenda, which is just to sell more guns.
We have to have the courage as a Senate to bring a bill to the floor and to open it to amendments. We don't do that anymore in the Senate. There was a time when the Senate was a great deliberative body, and now the Senate is not. The silence of the Senate, when it comes to this gun safety issue, is deafening. Americans know it well, and the question now is whether we will do everything within our power to reduce the number of shootings, to keep our communities safe, and to spare more 6- year-old first graders that horrible lesson they may remember forever-- to hit the floor when the shooter comes in the classroom.
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