Executive Calendar
Floor Speech
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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I also rise to talk about gun violence. I express my appreciation for our Republican colleagues. Those of us on this side of the aisle feel very strongly about this issue. I understand we have gone a little bit past the time. I will try to be quick. I feel very strongly about it too.
Let me just talk about two Virginia tragedies, and let me tell the story of a hero whose name we should all know. It has been interesting. I sat on the Senate floor and listened to a number of my colleagues' speeches. As they talked about gun violence and mass shooting in the United States, very few have mentioned that 12 people were killed in Virginia Beach in a mass shooting on May 31. They mentioned Odessa, they mentioned El Paso, and they mentioned Dayton. Why not Virginia Beach? Because there have been so many tragedies since May 31.
The Virginia Beach shooting of 11 governmental employees and a contractor who was just there to get some permits for a building permit he was seeking happened barely 3 months ago, but it has already receded into the memory of virtually anybody outside of Virginia because the gun tragedies since have been the ones that have crowded into our minds.
The fact that that has been allowed to happen--that we are so used to it now that the killing of 12 people in a mass shooting barely 3 months ago escaped people's memories--tells us we have become used to a situation we should never have been able to tolerate.
In the Virginia Beach shooting, one of the reasons 12 people were killed quickly was the shooter used high-capacity magazines that would contain dozens and dozens of munition, which made the rescue operation conducted by brave first responders extremely difficult.
We say we care about our first responders. When I talk to our first responders, they say: If you care about us, do something to restrict high-capacity magazines. Don't you want us to be able to stop a shooting in progress? Don't you want us to stop a murder and keep the homicides and carnage down? It is hard to do it when we are up against somebody with such a massive amount of firepower. If you care about first responders, if you want us to stop crimes in process, then enable us to put meaningful restrictions on high-capacity magazines.
I think that was a powerful lesson from the Virginia Beach shooting, that had the magazines been smaller, they could have stopped the carnage earlier. There may have been those injured or killed, but it would have been less of a toll.
I want to point this out before moving to the next issue. As a society, we tolerate high-capacity magazines. Many in this Chamber are hunters. Many in this Chamber are familiar with hunting laws. In Virginia, as in most States, there are rules that have been on the books for years. If you hunt a deer in Virginia, we limit the amount of rounds you can have in a rifle or shotgun. We put a limit, and that limit has been accepted for decades. Why do we limit the size of magazines in hunting animals? Because it wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be sportsmanlike. It wouldn't be humane to allow an animal to be hunted with a magazine of near-unlimited capacity. If it is not humane to hunt an animal with a massive magazine, then why allow near-unlimited magazines to be used to hunt human beings? This is a rule we accept, and we should accept it for weapons designed to hurt humans as well.
The second tragedy in Virginia occurred when I was Governor a number of years ago--the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech. I won't go into it because I will segue when I talk about a hero, but the shooting at Virginia Tech happened because of a weakness in the background check system. The individual, the young man, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people was prohibited from having a weapon because he had been adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous, but weaknesses in the background checks system enabled him to get a weapon anyway. We learned a powerful and painful lesson that day, which is that if your background check system has loopholes and gaps, disasters will result.
So I join with my colleagues who say H.R. 8--that has come from the House and is a comprehensive background check system bill that keeps weapons out of the hands of people who are dangers to themselves and others--is something we should absolutely pass.
Last, let me tell the story about an American hero. I have told this story on the floor before but not for a number of years. I want to tell this story because I think everybody should know this individual's name. The name of the hero I want to describe is a man named Liviu Librescu.
Liviu Librescu was one of the 32 people who were killed at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. Let me tell you about him. He was born in Romania--and he was Jewish--during the Holocaust. When Germany occupied Romania and began to take over the country, Jews were persecuted. Liviu Librescu was then a young child. His family was sent to concentration camps, and many of them perished just because they were Jewish. Liviu, as a young child, was hidden by relatives and friends and miraculously managed to survive the Nazi campaign of anti-Semitism against Jews. Many Jews left Romania because they felt their neighbors and friends didn't protect them. Liviu Librescu decided to stay. ``I am a Romanian and am going to stay in Romania and make my country a peaceful place where Jews can live in peace with their fellow men and women.''
He ran into a second problem. He went to the university. He was a talented scientist and engineer. But then the Soviet Union moved in and essentially occupied Romania. They punished him because he was Jewish and because he wouldn't join the Communist Party. He was a world- renowned engineer published in journals around the world. First, they prohibited his ability to travel to academic conferences and then prohibited his right to publish. Over the years, the Soviet-dominated Government of Romania took away virtually every right he had.
He started to try to figure out a way to immigrate to Israel. In the early 1970s, at a time when some Eastern European Jews were allowed to immigrate to Israel, Liviu Librescu finally escaped Soviet-dominated communism after having survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel. It was his dream.
Liviu Librescu was teaching at the Technion in Israel, one of the premier scientific engineering institutions in the world. He got an offer after a few years to come be a visiting professor in Blacksburg, VA, at Virginia Tech for 1 year. He came in 1958. This Romanian Jew, professor at an Israeli technical university, came to Blacksburg, VA, in the mountains of Appalachia, for 1 year, and he fell in love with Blacksburg. He stayed in Blacksburg, at Virginia Tech, for the rest of his career.
On April 16, 2007, Liviu Librescu--now 22 years in Blacksburg--was teaching an engineering class in one of the two buildings that were the subject of the attack by the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho. On the morning of April 16, 2007, he had undergraduates and graduates in the class. When he heard shooting start in the classroom, he instinctively knew he should protect his students. Liviu Librescu was now over 70 years old, this Holocaust survivor.
He stood in front of the classroom door on the second floor of this building and told the students: You have to jump out the window. I am going to do everything I can to protect your life. Jump out the window.
He stood there in front of the classroom door and absorbed bullet after bullet. Every student of Liviu Librescu's was able to escape from that building, save one. There was one student who couldn't get out in time and who had let others go first. Liviu Librescu was killed, and one student in his class was killed, but he saved the lives of all of these other young people.
April 16, 2007, was a day that was a very special day in Liviu Librescu's life. Most in the classroom wouldn't have known it. That day was Yom HaShoah, which is a day that occurs every year on the Hebrew calendar and is a day that is celebrated and commemorated in Israel. It is a day to commemorate, remember, and never forget the Holocaust. That is what Yom HaShoah was. Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, knew what that day was. He knew what it meant. He made a choice.
The commemoration of the Holocaust is not just about remembering the violent perpetrators and is not just about remembering the victims; it is also about remembering that there wouldn't have been millions of victims had there not been so many bystanders. That is what Yom HaShoah is about. It is about victims, perpetrators, and also about bystanders in that the Holocaust would never have happened had there not been so many bystanders. What Liviu Librescu decided to do that day was not to be a bystander. As violence was occurring around him, he decided: I will not be a bystander. I will try to take an action to save someone's life.
Think about it. He survived the Holocaust. Think about it. He survived the Soviet takeover of his country. Then he came to this Nation and loved it, but he could not survive the carnage of American gun violence. He did, at least, decide he wouldn't be a bystander.
That is what we are called to do in the Senate of the United States-- not to be bystanders. We do not have to demonstrate the courage of a Liviu Librescu and place our bodies in front of a classroom door and absorb bullet after bullet to save somebody else's life. I don't think I would have the courage to do that. I don't know how many of us would have. We are not called to make a sacrifice of that magnitude, but I do think we are called to make some sacrifices, and I do think we are called not to be bystanders. If we are going to be true to that calling, we have to be willing to take up and debate and to vote on commonsense measures to keep Americans safe from gun violence.
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