Gun Control Measures
Floor Speech
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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I join my colleagues on the floor tonight.
I thank the Senator from Colorado for an articulate and very passionate speech about the reasons the U.S. Senate should be voting on sensible gun laws.
That is what we are really here to say tonight--that it is past time we take action and that we in the U.S. Senate should let the American people know where Members of the U.S. Senate stand on these important issues.
Too many Americans have been impacted by gun violence, and too many places have been the sites of these attacks, whether they be churches, synagogues, or mosques or whether they be our schoolchildren or people just going about their everyday lives with their shopping, going to a concert, or even watching a movie. Too many families and friends are left waiting, trying to understand whether their loved ones are going to return home, and too many have been devastated to find out that their loved ones aren't coming back.
It is time that we act here in the U.S. Senate and support legislation that we know the American people support. In my home State, there are places like the Seattle Pacific University and the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, Freeman High School outside of Spokane, Marysville Pilchuck High School, the Burlington shopping mall in Skagit County, and White Swan. All of these communities have taught us that we need to act. It is past time for us to act here.
The good news is that the people of Washington State did act. Those people rose up and helped to support legislative initiatives that went to a vote of the people. Not only have they been successfully passed, but they are showing successful results.
In the State of Washington, we passed universal background checks by a popular vote in 2014, and we saw amazing results in just the first 14 months. They helped to prevent over 50 gun sales to felons. My colleague from Colorado mentioned a similar thing in his State. And after closing private sale loopholes, it resulted in 144 denials to those with expanded background checks. It does mean that the people of Washington State are at least safer in this regard because we have more tools in our toolbox with which to deal with this.
I also want people to understand that we passed a law to allow extreme risk protection orders. That was passed in 2016 with nearly 70 percent of Washington State voters helping and voting in that election. What we saw was that in a State where we probably have 27 percent gun ownership, we saw in 32 out of 39 counties people supporting this measure to say that people who pose an extreme risk should not be allowed to get their hands on a gun. This was supported in rural communities, suburban communities, and urban communities.
In front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, King County Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kimberly Wyatt testified. She called this measure a ``critical, evidence-based, harm reduction tool.'' Now, how does that sound so threatening--a tool that law enforcement is telling us is critical and evidence-based that is going to help us to reduce harm to our fellow citizens?
Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kimberly Wyatt told a story of a doctor who contacted police because a patient who had wanted to obtain a concealed weapon permit had repeatedly talked about making a hit list and ``doing harm to people.'' In using the extreme risk protection order, we are allowed to help to keep these people from getting their hands on gun and doing harm to themselves and to fellow citizens.
These measures supported in my State are initiatives by the people. As I said, they are supported by wide majorities across all geographic areas of our State. Yet we can't find out here in the U.S. Senate how our Senate colleagues would vote on these very important measures.
I hope those on the other side of the aisle will consider these. We will go State by State if necessary. We will get the people involved in passing these laws. Why? It is that they know they are common sense, and they work, and we want to keep the public safe. We know that we want to have these tools so law enforcement and others can do their jobs. It is long overdue to have a vote in the U.S. Senate on these issues, and I hope our colleagues will give us that opportunity.
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