Gun Control Measures
Floor Speech
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Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I am rising to speak tonight as a Senator that comes from a passionate Second Amendment State. The citizens of my home State of Oregon value their guns for collecting, for target practice, for personal defense, and, certainly, for hunting. But it is also a State where citizens have said they do not want individuals who are deeply disturbed or individuals who have felony backgrounds to get ahold of guns because we have a responsibility to make sure that guns don't end up in the wrong hands and that guns are not abused.
Our State then proceeded to do a series of things to strengthen a background check system. It was in the year 2000 that the citizens drew a ballot measure supported by almost 62 percent of the State that chose to close the gun show loophole that previously had allowed purchasers to buy guns at gun shows without completing a background check, making a background check in gun stores essentially irrelevant.
It was in 2015 that the citizens of Oregon closed the Craig's List loophole, and it was in the year 2018 when they closed through the legislature the ``boyfriend'' loophole, saying that if an individual had a restraining order against them or a stalking conviction, they shouldn't have the ability to buy a gun in our State.
Now, I do a lot of townhalls. I do one in every county every year. At the end of this year, I am hitting about 400 townhalls since the time I have been in the Senate. Of the 36 counties I go to each year, 22 of them would be what you would describe politically as being very red counties, and gun violence comes up all the time. Yet even in those conservative red counties, people are incredibly supportive of having a background check system nationally like Oregon has created, because right now in Oregon it is kind of a big hole if somebody just ignores a background check and goes across the border to another State to buy guns.
Then we have the challenges of straw buyers, and we need to have rigorous enforcement of that. It is only with a national system that this works.
Every year, thousands of people go to more than 4,000 gun shows held across America, and they purchase between 4 to 9 percent of all the annual firearms that are sold in America at these events. Because gun shows in most States don't require background checks, people who couldn't pass a background check simply can go and acquire their weapon in that fashion.
For this reason, guns purchased at gun shows are disproportionately the ones that are used in criminal activities. The same is true for individuals purchasing guns in other States through websites like Craig's List. Just like gun show purchasers, individuals purchasing firearms online from private sellers are exempt from background checks in all but 12 States and the District of Columbia.
So, nationally, there is powerful support for a solid background check system that doesn't have loopholes that just make it irrelevant-- closing of the loophole for gun shows, closing the loophole for Craig's List, and closing the loophole for stalkers and domestic abusers.
Speaking of domestic abusers, in just an average week, about 17 women--about 17 women--are fatally shot by former or current romantic partners.
As we talk about the challenge with guns and violent deaths in America, we have the names of various cities ringing in our ears-- cities like Dayton, 9 dead and 27 wounded; El Paso, 22 dead and 24 wounded; Odessa and Midland, 7 dead and 21 wounded. But recognize this: While those extra traumatic events capture the headlines, there is a mass shooting in America more than once per day. As of September 1 of this year, which was the 244th day of the year, there have been 283 mass shootings.
What is a mass shooting? It is a situation in which more than four people are hit by gunfire.
So it is time to act. Right now, this is the moment that demands action because 92 percent of Americans favor a background check for all gun sales. We owe it to Americans to support background checks for all gun sales and to actually act. We owe it to our children, who are now scared of going to school and who are forced to practice hiding from a crazed murderer in active shooting drills. We owe it to our teachers, who are prepared to put their lives on the line for their students in case of an emergency. And we owe it to the families of the countless Americans who have lost their lives to gun violence--to the mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers, and the loved ones of those who are lost. They have an unhealable pain.
One of those individuals, Fred Guttenberg, is here tonight. On Valentine's Day 2018, Fred's 14-year-old daughter, Jamie Guttenberg was gunned down at her school in Parkland, FL. Jamie was, in her father's words, ``tough as nails,'' but also ``silly, funny, energetic . . . wherever she went, she was the energy in the room.''
She wanted to be a pediatric physical therapist and work with children to make their lives better. She was a 14-year-old with her whole life ahead of her. She was a competitive dancer. She was a freshman in high school with so many life chapters to be written.
But she didn't get to write those chapters--chapters having fun with her friends, chapters getting stressed out by back-to-school homework or planning for the prom or making plans for the future or deciding what path to go in life and where to attend school. All of it was stolen from her and stolen from her family.
Her father Fred has said:
``Everybody thinks this gets easier as time goes on. It actually doesn't. It gets harder, because every day there's just going to be a new reminder of what you lost.''
She was the second to the last to be shot. She was shot in the spine running away from the shooter. Fred notes that it was his daughter, but it could have been your daughter. It could have been your son. It could have been the child of any one of us.
(Mr. BARRASSO assumes the Chair.)
Mr. President, we are here in the Chamber to help make life better. We are here to keep Americans safe, but we are doing nothing, and doing nothing with 90-plus percent of America crying out and saying: Have the guts to act.
Mr. President, let's have the guts to act. Let's have the guts to put the bill here on the floor. The House passed H.R. 8, the basic background check bill. We are not here to do the interests of big corporations. We are not here to do the interests of special interests. Ninety-plus percent of Americans say to act on the basics of doing a background check when people buy a gun, no matter where they buy it.
Let's act. Let's hold a debate. Let's actually talk to each other. Let's make the arguments pro and con. Let's hear why we shouldn't listen to the vast majority of Americans. It is the vast majority of Democrats, it is the vast majority of Independents, and it is the vast majority of Republicans, with virtually no difference in the level of support between the Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. All of America is saying that background checks make sense.
The American people deserve safety in their homes, workplaces, schools, and their communities, but all I have heard is a majority leader who says that he will only allow a bill on the floor when the President says it is OK.
Well, the last time I checked the Constitution, it is our responsibility here in the Senate and House to act, not to hide behind the skirts of the President. This President, we know, has been spineless--absolutely spineless. One call from a special interest group, one meeting with the NRA, and suddenly his conviction dissipates like light rain on hot asphalt.
Are we going to abdicate our responsibility to legislate to a spineless President? It is not his role to decide what bills are passed in this country. It is our responsibility here in the Senate. I believe that if Democrats and Republicans come together and honor their responsibility to act and pass the bill, the President will be in the Oval Office signing it because all of America is crying out for him to do so.
It has been a long time since the bill was passed in the House. It has been 202 days. That is 202 opportunities that we have had to debate the House bill and take a vote on it. It has been 202 opportunities in which the leadership of this Chamber has failed the American people by refusing to have a debate on this floor.
When I came here, not long ago, virtually any Senator could get any issue before the Senate. Suddenly, we have a dictator in the Senate. The majority leader says only the bills that he wants will be considered and only the amendments that he wants will be considered on the floor of the Senate.
What happened to my Republican colleagues who believed in the right to amend and the right to legislate, who now yield to one individual in the Senate dictating what is considered in this august Chamber? We are not much of a legislative chamber if only one person can determine what is considered here on the floor of the Senate.
The American people are asking for better. Let's deliver much better. Let's consider H.R. 8. Let's get it on the floor. Let's debate and let's vote.
Thank you.
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