Gun Control Measures

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise tonight to join the chorus of Democratic Senators in this Chamber demanding action to address the American gun violence epidemic. We stand here tonight on behalf of the tens of millions of Americans, from one end of the country to the other, who are crying out for change.

Every few months, it seems that our Nation is rocked by another horrifying mass shooting. El Paso and Dayton are only the latest entries in our national register of tragedy, a list that stretches from Parkland to Pittsburgh, Charleston to Columbine, Aurora to Orlando, Blacksburg to Binghamton, San Bernardino to Sandy Hook, and to Las Vegas. Because that ever-growing list can sometimes seem abstract, let's not forget about the specific places where these awful shootings occurred: movie theaters and night clubs, shopping malls and office parks, music festivals and traffic stops, churches, synagogues, mosques, colleges, high schools, and an elementary school.

Our hearts remain with the families of the victims and the survivors of these mass shootings whose lives were turned upside down in an instance by mad men who never should have had access to a gun. The touching letter that Senator Murphy read from one of his constituents whose child died in Sandy Hook is just one of many testaments to that turning upside down--instantly ruining your life forever by one of these horrible, awful incidents.

At the same time, our hearts are with tens of thousands more whose lives were ended or forever altered by everyday gun violence. It doesn't make the headlines, but we remember them, too. They are no less tragic and no less painful for the parents who lost children, and brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who lost mothers and fathers.

Whether it is a mass shooting or an individual shooting, people who shouldn't have guns are killing our fellow American citizens, and Congress just sits on its hands--the Senate does, anyway--and does nothing.

Let me mention a few stories of New Yorkers whose lives were cut short by gun violence just this year. The list goes on and on, I assure you.

Norzell Aldridge, of Cheektowaga in western New York, was a youth football coach. He was shot in the chest and killed a few weeks ago while trying to break up a fight at a park in Buffalo's East Side. Coach Aldridge's team had just finished playing the first game of their season.

Rhyan Williams-Cannon, a 21-year-old from Syracuse, was shot and killed in March as he was leaving the corner store. He was the youngest of seven siblings. He had just earned his GED in October. Rhyan's family said he was like a father to his nephew, sneaking candies to him behind his mother's back.

Shakeel Khan, of Johnson City, was murdered by a mass gunman in April while closing up his restaurant. Shakeel was the sole provider for his wife and his three children, aged 14, 12, and 8.

May God rest their souls.

I can stand here for hours and tell 100 more stories, each one as heartbreaking as the next. Each one is about senseless violence that might not have occurred if we had adequate laws on the books, all the people around them--their families, their friends, their communities-- devastated by the recklessness, senselessness of this gun violence.

It is our solemn duty to the victims of those terrible tragedies who can't speak for themselves, but their memories call down to us for justice, to cure this terrible plague of gun violence that claims tens of thousands of lives every single day of every single year.

I have been fighting this fight for such a long time. Back in 1993, I was in my sixth term representing Brooklyn and Queens in the House of Representatives. I knew the terrible toll of gun violence firsthand because the streets of my community were testimony to it. East New York and Cypress Hills were known as the Killing Grounds back then because someone was murdered an average of once every 63 hours, so I was more than eager to help write, introduce, and pass the legislation establishing our background check system that later became known as the Brady Bill.

As we take stock of the legacy of that bill 25 years later, there is no question that it saved countless lives. There are literally thousands and thousands of people walking the streets of their communities who are alive today and would have been dead had the Brady Law not passed. We don't know who they are. They don't know who they are. But we know they are alive, and we are thankful for it.

Ever since the National Instant Criminal Background Check System went online in 1998, there have been more than 1.5 million denials to disqualified buyers. The ability to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons has helped lead to a steep drop in murder rates experienced by communities across the country.

Take my hometown of New York City. In the early 1990s, before the Brady Bill was enacted, an average of 2,500 people were murdered every year in the five boroughs. Last year, that number was just 289.

But that doesn't mean our work is done--far from it. What seemed like a minor compromise in 1993--allowing the sale of firearms without background checks at gun shows--has become a massive loophole. At the time when I wrote the Brady Bill, gun shows were a place for collectors to sell antiques, but gun shows have grown exponentially in popularity because people who don't want background checks know they can get guns there and people who want to sell guns to people who don't go through background checks sell their guns there. And even of greater dimension, the internet exploded to facilitate private sales between strangers, no questions asked.

While some cities like New York have thankfully seen an overall decrease in gun deaths, there are still too many pockets in cities across the country where this epidemic persists. At the same time, the frequency and lethality of mass shootings have rapidly increased.

The internet allows for copycats. People up to no good see someone else has killed many people and think that maybe they should do the same. We have seen the frequency of these awful mass shootings continue on and on.

We finally have an opportunity to close that loophole and keep guns from falling into the wrong hands in the first place. We have the opportunity to simply update the Brady Law--not change it, not expand it, just plug the holes that were punctured in it as time moved forward. No gun will be taken away from someone who is a law-abiding citizen by this law. No, only people who shouldn't have guns will not get them. And who could disagree with that? Certainly not the American people who are overwhelmingly on our side.

We Senate Democrats are here tonight because the House of Representatives has finally passed legislation closing the private sale loophole, marking the first time that either Chamber of Congress has passed an overhaul of a background check system since the Brady law more than 25 years ago.

What we are asking for is very simple and shouldn't cause us to come here at night. It should be an obvious thing to do: a simple up-or-down vote on legislation--an up-or-down vote on H.R. 8.

Let me say it again. Leader McConnell, put H.R. 8 up for a vote on the floor of the Senate as soon as possible. Let us do what we were sent here to do by our constituents--what our constituents demand we do, which is fix the most pressing problems facing our Nation. If we fail to do so, it is plain and simple and terrible: More innocent people will die.

I keep on a desk in my office pictures of the children who were murdered in Sandy Hook given to me by their ailing and grieving parents. And those parents and the thousands and thousands of others like them--survivors who amazingly choose to light a candle to prevent greater darkness despite the darkness that had overcome their lives and that has surrounded their lives, these are beautiful people, saint-like people--and we thank them.

A year and a half ago, we watched in horror as tragedy struck the Parkland community in Florida. Once again, the safety and sanctuary of a school was torn apart by the unthinkable, but this time felt different. Almost immediately, the students started speaking out, turning their immeasurable pain into courageous advocacy. Just 2 weeks later, I welcomed these Parkland teens into my office. My God, what courage, what fortitude, what inner strength. Even in the darkest of nights, some choose not to curse the darkness but to light a candle.

A few weeks later, I joined millions of New Yorkers who were inspired to march for change by these Parkland teens. Millions more Americans across the country did the same. And now, a little more than a year later, this Senate has the opportunity to vote on H.R. 8, universal background checks, among several other pieces of legislation passed by the House that would save lives from gun violence.

Times have changed. People forget that the Brady Bill was first introduced in 1987, 6 years after Jim Brady and President Reagan were wounded and more than 6 years before it was enacted into law. Now, we are moving from tragedy to action in a year. The movement that Jim and Sarah Brady started in the 1980s has reached a new era. The American people are no longer willing to wait months or years for change. Long gone are the days that Senate Republicans can just bury their heads in the sand and ignore that more than 30,000 Americans are killed by a gun every year. Politicians offering their thoughts and prayers just doesn't cut it anymore. It is put up or shut up.

Leader McConnell, Senate Republicans, what will you do?

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