Gun Control Measures

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, last month, over 50 Americans were killed in mass shootings in this country while we were on the August recess when we should have been here doing our job. One hundred Americans are killed every day from gun violence. There are 100 desks in this room. There are 100 chairs by those desks. And if these were the Americans killed by gun violence, they would add up to every single desk that is in this room. Yet the majority leader didn't bring us back during the August recess. He didn't say we should cancel our vacation and come back to work for the American people. He hasn't put a bill on the floor or given an opportunity for anybody else to put a bill on the floor now that we have been back in session for the last 2 weeks.

In the last 18 months, Colorado alone has lost 885 people to gun violence. That is a record in my State.

The House of Representatives has done their job. I think more than 200 days ago, they passed background checks over there, and we haven't even taken them up over here. This isn't a matter of bringing up the bill and voting on the bill; we can't even get the bill to the floor. For 200 days, we haven't been able to bring the bill to the floor. Why? Because the majority leader of the United States of America says that he is only going to bring gun legislation to the floor if he knows what the President will sign. He is not capable, as the majority leader of the United States, to put an amendment on the floor for an up-or-down vote even when that amendment passed the House of Representatives 200 days ago and 96 percent of the American people support it. Ninety-six percent of the American people support it.

Why can't he bring it to the floor? He says that only if the President tells him that he will sign it will he bring it to the floor. We all know how hard it is for the President to make up his mind about anything--particularly about guns when he has one thing to say right after a tragedy has happened, and then 2 days later, after he meets with the NRA, he is singing from a completely different song sheet.

Here is what Mitch McConnell said in 2014:

The Senate should be setting national priorities, not simply waiting on the White House to do it for us.

I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. This is an independent branch of government. The 100 people sitting in this room have been sent here to represent the people who voted for us and the people who didn't vote for us. And 96 percent of them say they want background checks on guns, but we can't even have a vote.

I would like to see a vote just so I could see who in this Chamber wants to vote against background checks. I think it would be amazing for the American people to learn that, instead of just hiding behind this myth that the President of the United States gets to decide what comes to the floor. He is not the majority leader. There is one person in America who gets to decide what comes to this floor--one person in America--and that is the majority leader, Mitch McConnell from Kentucky. It is not Donald Trump. He knew that in 2014, and he knows it today. But the NRA is too scared to see this thing come to the floor because they know that it will pass and that they will lose as a result of that. It is long past time for us to beat the NRA on this issue.

I know my colleague from Washington State is here, so I will not go on for too long, but if I could, I will just take a couple of minutes.

I am also from a Western State, the State of Colorado, and 20 years ago, we had one of the very first school shootings in this country. It was at Columbine High School. In the wake of that, we passed background checks. We passed the same bill that Mitch McConnell will not bring to the floor--the same bill almost 20 years ago.

My oldest daughter is 20 years old. She was born right after Columbine. Our two other daughters are 19 and 15. Like so many children across this country, they have grown up thinking that going to school is unsafe, that they could be shot at school. They have had to do drills that we never had to do when we were kids--never had to do. They have the knowledge that the U.S. Congress doesn't care about them because for 20 years we have done nothing.

In Colorado--a Western State, a Second Amendment State--we passed these background checks. As a result, every year, 2 or 3 percent of the people who come to buy a gun can't buy a gun because they are murderers or they are rapists or they are domestic abusers. They are people who shouldn't have a gun. I would like to see anybody come to this floor and tell me why Colorado would be safer if we didn't have those background checks; why we would be safer if murderers got guns and rapists got guns and domestic abusers got guns. They can't come here and do it.

They are hiding from the vote, and it is their responsibility to vote. There is only one person in America who can hold that vote, and that is Mitch McConnell. I can tell you this: It is not because we are too busy around here. We were in session last week for 27 hours. That is not even a French workweek. That is pitiful--pitiful--27 hours. Do you know how many amendments we have considered in the 9 months that we have been here this year? We have considered 18. That is two amendments a month. We have passed four amendments in this broken place. It is pitiful.

Before he became majority leader, Mitch McConnell came down here and said that we were going to work on Fridays, that we were going to have regular order. We had a 27-hour workweek. I can tell you this: It is not because we are considering the election protection legislation, which is one of the bipartisan bills the Senators in this Chamber want to vote on to respond to the Russian attack on our democracy. It is not because we are too busy with those bills. We are doing nothing here except for confirming judges for Donald Trump.

I think I speak for my colleagues when I say I am willing to work more than 27 hours. I am willing to work a French workweek or a U.S. workweek if it means we could actually have votes on amendments that 96 percent of the American people support.

I close by saying there is no one else to do this job but us. The House has done its job. Donald Trump can't make up his mind about anything. Maybe he would like us to send him the background checks to help him make up his mind about what he can do for the American people, but I can tell you this: Our kids can't do this. They are too busy. They are in school. They are trying to learn reading and math. They should not be asked to try to figure out how to stop these mass shootings in this country or what it would look like to have a representative body of the United States actually represent the people who sent us here instead of sitting around in our offices, trying to avoid hard votes. How is it a hard vote when 9 out of 10 Americans support it? It is only a hard vote because the NRA is taking names and watching this.

I say to my colleagues: We would be so much better off, Democrats and Republicans, with our ripping this bandaid off and getting on with the business that the American people sent us here to do. Mitch McConnell should put on this floor these background checks.

I thank my colleagues for their patience.

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