Gun Control Measures

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for their indulgence this evening and those of you who help us keep this floor open.

I will make some longer remarks later this evening, but while we have a short break on the floor and await Senator Brown, I want to say a word of appreciation to all of my colleagues who have decided to join us this evening on the floor.

This is my first appearance here to talk about the imperative of changing the Nation's gun laws, recognizing that this number--100 Americans killed by guns every single day--is not inevitable. Almost every single one of these murders and suicides and accidental shootings is preventable if we make different choices here on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Our purpose tonight is to try to bring some consistency of effort to a case that we have been making for a very long time. So I will be back here later this evening to walk through the case, as far as I see it, for universal background checks in particular but also for a host of other measures that are broadly popular amongst the American public.

One point I will make right now is that this issue is really unique in American politics today. It is not a controversial issue out in America. It is only controversial here inside the political process. In fact, there are very few matters in public life today that are, frankly, more controversial than this issue. When you go out and ask people if they support universal background checks, which is the measure that passed the House of Representatives by a 9-to-1 margin, they support universal background checks. There is almost nothing else in American politics today--I would endeavor to say there is nothing else in American politics today that is as popular as this measure; yet it has this reputation of being a third rail of political discourse here in Washington.

I would simply encourage my colleagues to get out there and have conversations with their constituents, to have conversations with members of their own parties, to have conversations with gun owners. You will find that there is a consistency of opinion at least on a large number of pieces of legislation that are before this body. At the top of that list are universal background checks. I have this conversation over and over and over again--and then I will leave the floor to Senator Brown and return later--with the President's supporters, with supporters of the Second Amendment, and with members of the NRA in my State.

Of course, I have acquired a reputation of being a forceful and vocal advocate for stronger gun laws in this Nation, and the NRA often targets me in its advertisements and its emails. I will often be confronted by my constituents who will see me at a public event. They will come on a beeline over to me and start confronting me about my agenda to confiscate their weapons or to take away their guns. Of course, I try to disabuse them of that notion, and as soon as I can, I take the conversation to background checks.

I say: Listen, let me ask you a question. Do you think that everybody who is buying a gun in this country should have to go through a background check?

Almost invariably, the individual, who just moments ago was so confrontational with me about the issue of guns--his defenses drop, and he says: Well, yes. Of course, I support that. Of course, everybody should get a background check before buying a gun.

I said: You got one, right?

He said: I got one. It was 3- or 4-minutes long. That is not what I am talking about.

Gun owners support background checks by an 80- to 90-percent margin. NRA members support it. Polls suggest that 75 to 80 percent of NRA members support background checks. This is just one of the least controversial issues that exists out there in the American public today.

We are going to have a conversation today about the efficacy of these measures, but we should remember that there are many times when we get deluded into believing something is much more of a vexing political conversation than it truly is, and background checks are on that agenda.

I am glad to be joined this evening by Senator Brown from Ohio.

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, let me thank, once again, my colleagues for being on the floor with us this evening, for the compelling testimony of Senator Schatz, Senator Casey, Senator Brown, Senator Van Hollen, and so many others who have joined us this evening. We have a few more who will come down later in the evening.

I want to take a moment to put a face on this issue. There are 100 Americans who are killed every day by guns. The majority of these are suicides, but many are homicides, and many are accidental shootings and domestic homicides.

Shootings in this country happen at a rate 10 times that of any other high-income nation. This is a uniquely American epidemic. Senator Schatz very aptly pointed out that it can't be because of mental health because we have no more mental illness in this country than any other nation does. It can't be because of lack of law enforcement resources; we spend just as much money, if not more, on law enforcement than any other country in the world. It is not because we put less money into treatment for mental illness; we put more money, on a per capita basis, than other nations do.

To explain our abnormally high rate of gun violence--10 times that of other high-income nations--you have to tell a story of the proliferation of dangerous weapons, of the ability of almost anyone, regardless of their criminal history or their history of mental illness, to get their hands on a weapon. Nowhere else in the high- income world is it so easy to get your hands on a weapon and often a weapon of mass destruction.

Leo Spencer was born an only child. He grew up in Bridgeport, CT, but he was far from an only child in his mind. His cousins were like his siblings. He spent summer after summer after summer with them in Boston, in Connecticut, in Cape Verde, and in St. Thomas. He was known as ``Lil Bill.'' His friends described him affectionately as an amazing person, a phenomenal soul, the greatest friend they ever had, and the best family member they knew.

A family member said Leo was ``a simple man who loved to keep to himself, but deep down inside he was a free spirit that wanted nothing more than to make people laugh. Always joking around, he kept us on our toes, and his smile lit up the room.''

Another friend said:

Never one to follow trends, Leo was intent on making his own path through hard work and unparalleled ambition. He was a creative soul with a deep love for expressing himself through music and loved fiercely without bounds.

Leo placed a priority on making sure his family and friends were happy. He made each person feel like they were the most important person in the world. He loved his parents. He did everything he could for them. He wanted to take care of his mom the way she took care of him.

On September 8 of 2019, just a few days ago, Leo was shot in the head and the neck while sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car. His friend hit the accelerator and drove him as fast as he could to Bridgeport Hospital, but he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

Leo Spencer is 1 of the 100 Americans who die every day from gun violence. It is so much bigger than Leo. I mentioned Leo's cousins, his family members, and his friends. Their lives will never be the same either, forever altered.

Studies show that when 1 person dies from a gunshot wound, there are 20 other people who experience life-altering trauma. It becomes a cycle that becomes hard to get out of.

I will talk a little bit later about Sandy Hook, CT, but Sandy Hook will never ever be the same--never--after what that community has been through.

Leo, whether he knew it or not, may already have been affected by gun violence because when you grow up in places like Bridgeport, where kids literally fear for their lives when they are walking to and from school, the trauma associated with the fear of losing your life from gun violence ruins your brain. We call this a public health epidemic, not to be cute with our words but because that is exactly what it is.

When you don't know whether you are going to make it through the rest of the week as a child--and studies show that, criminally, a high number of young people of color in this country living in urban environments that are violent don't believe they are going to live past 25 years old--when that is your belief, something happens to your brain.

Most of us in this Chamber have probably confronted only once or twice in our lives a fight-or-flight moment. That is a moment in your life where you face a risk that is so great, a danger that is so acute, that you have to make a decision in a split second: Do you fight or do you run? Our bodies are designed to rush into our brains a hormone called cortisol that helps us make that quick decision.

Many of us may never have actually faced that moment, and, frankly, I don't hope that anyone ever has. But when you grow up in a place like the east end of Bridgeport, you face that decision: Fight or flee on a weekly basis.

What doctors will tell you is that the brains of these kids who grow up in these neighborhoods are literally bathed in cortisol. Cortisol, when it comes in and out in an instant once or twice in your life, can be helpful. But when it is flowing through your circuitry on a regular basis, it literally corrupts your brain. It corrupts your brain. So it is no coincidence that all of the ``underperforming'' schools in this country are in the violent neighborhoods because these kids show up with brains that cannot learn, brains that cannot cope and cannot create lasting relationships, brains that have been atrophied by the daily fear for their lives and their daily experience. This Congress has done nothing--nothing--to address their reality.

We are here on the floor today to tell you about people like Leo so that maybe our colleagues who aren't responding to the numbers may respond to the stories of those lives that have been lost.

Let me tell you another one. Over the winter, we shut down the government for an unacceptable period of time. We were all figuring out what to do with our days when we weren't legislating. I decided one day to take a trip to Baltimore.

Baltimore, in some years, has been the most violent city in the country with the most kids who are going through this life-altering cycle of trauma. But I had heard about a program in an elementary school that was teaching kids how to be entrepreneurs and was giving them a vision for their lives after growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Baltimore. They are trying to give them a pathway or a ray of sunshine in their lives.

I went up to talk to the person who ran that program. Her name is Joni Holifield. She and I sat down in a classroom on the second floor of Matthew Henson Elementary School, and she started to explain to me her path out of the corporate world into programming for kids at schools like Matthew Henson and what she thought that program could bring to those kids.

In the middle of this conversation, the intercom starts blaring a recorded message: code green, code green, code green. I didn't know what a code green was. Joni didn't know what a code green was. Shortly thereafter, a teacher opened the door to our classroom and yelled: Shut the blinds. Turn off the lights.

We did as instructed, and we sat there a little nervous, not knowing what a code green was. Shortly thereafter, someone from the main office, knowing that there was a U.S. Senator in a second floor classroom, called up. Joni answered the phone and was told that a code green means there has been a shooting in the proximity of the school and that the school is on lockdown.

The day that I was there at this elementary school in Baltimore, there was a shooting within a block or two of the school. Here is what I found out. That morning there had been a delay in school starting. It had snowed that morning, so I walked in with all the rest of the kids at around 9:30, 10 o'clock. About the same time that I was showing up at the school that morning, a young man by the name of Corey Dodd brought his two little twin girls to school. He was doing the drop-off for his wife, who was home tending to their relatively newborn child.

Corey decided to bring the kids to school that morning himself. He drove home a couple of blocks away after dropping the twins off, probably right about the time that I was walking upstairs to the second floor. When he got out of his car, he was shot to death.

One of his other little daughters always sits at the door waiting for her dad to come home, and she was there waiting for Corey. Her mom had to tell her that her dad was never coming home. He had been shot outside of their house that morning.

As that code green was happening inside that elementary school--and the kids were probably having a little bit of fun, wondering when the lights were going to come back on--there were two little girls who were never going to see their father again and who were going to be told in a matter of hours that this shooting had taken the life of their dad. And every single kid in that school was going to be wondering: Is it going to be my dad next? Is it going to be my mom next? That cycle of trauma and that cortisol that bathes kids' brains were going to be reality once again for all of these kids in this neighborhood. That is just one day that I happened to be in Baltimore.

Imagine that it isn't just coincidence. Imagine that is the reality day after day after day for kids all across this country. Why are we doing nothing? Why are we sitting on our hands? Why are my Republican colleagues waiting for the President to give them direction?

It would be one thing if we didn't know what to do--if we were overflowing with compassion for those two little twin girls in Baltimore, MD, and for the family of Leo Spencer in Bridgeport and we just couldn't figure out what would make the situation better. That is not the case.

We know what will make the situation better. There is no mystery about it. In my State of Connecticut, we passed a law requiring all handgun buyers to pass a background check as part of the permit process. Studies show that there was a 40 percent reduction in the gun homicide rate after Connecticut passed that law.

You might say: OK, well, that is just one State. And 40 percent--that is pretty serious. That is a pretty big return on one change in the law. Give me another State, you say.

OK, let's take a look at Missouri, which did the opposite. A few years ago, it repealed its purchase permit law that requires you to get a background check with every sale of a weapon in Missouri. Guess what happened. A year later, gun homicides went up by 23 percent, controlling for every other factor that could have explained it. In fact, during that period of time, gun homicide rates were going down in all the States around Missouri, and they went up in Missouri.

Then they found out that, in fact, in other States, what did go up in those other States was the number of weapons used in crimes that came from Missouri because all of a sudden you didn't need a background check in Missouri. So if you wanted to traffic guns from another State, Missouri was the place to get them.

Across the board, when you look at all of the States' experiences, you don't get 40 percent and 23 percent everywhere, but, on average, States that have background checks have 15 percent lower homicide rates than States that don't have them.

If we did this on a national basis, even States that have universal background checks would benefit. Why? Because the guns that are being used in Connecticut aren't coming from Connecticut. They are coming from States with--you guessed it--no universal background checks.

The guns being used in Chicago don't come from Chicago. The guns being used for crimes in New York City don't come from New York City. One percent of guns used in crimes in New York City come from New Jersey. Do you know why? New Jersey has universal background checks. Those guns are coming up from South Carolina and Georgia and places where you can go to a gun show and get a whole truckload of guns without having to ever go through a background check.

Background checks work. They are the most impactful public policy measure. Since the background check law was passed in the midnineties, over 3.5 million sales have been blocked to violent criminals and other prohibited individuals, and that is just the tip of the iceberg because those are the people who actually have the gall to set foot in a gun store, knowing that they have an offense in their history that would prohibit them from buying a gun--maybe not, knowing that. But these are the people who went into the gun store and tried to buy a gun and got denied. There are millions and millions more people who wanted guns but couldn't get them and didn't go into the gun store in the first place.

The problem is, today, getting that denial from the gun store is not really a barrier to buying a gun because 20, 30 percent of gun sales now happen without a background check. They happen in a private sale between one person and another. They happen at gun shows, which are forums that don't require, under Federal law, background checks.

A man in Odessa, TX, failed a background check because he had been diagnosed by a clinician as seriously mentally ill. That didn't stop him from getting a gun. He just found a private seller; he found another way. The private seller gave him a gun and didn't require him to go through a background check. He took that gun, and he used it to kill 7 people and injure 20 more.

I don't think you have to pass a law to fit the last mass shooting. I think that is a ridiculous trap that people try to put us in. This isn't the only mass shooting in which universal background checks could have changed the outcome. One of the first mass shootings that sits in my consciousness is that in Columbine as another example of a shooter who got a gun outside the background check system who couldn't have gotten one through it.

So whether you want anecdotal evidence or statistical data, I have it all. Background checks work. Here is what is so maddening. People love background checks. Apple pie, baseball, and grandma--none of them are as popular as background checks are. Ninety percent of Americans like background checks. Show me any other public policy today in the United States of America that gets 90 percent support in this country; 80 percent of gun owners and 70 percent of NRA members, everybody wants background checks--universal background checks. They don't want Manchin-Toomey, which just expands background checks to commercial sales. They want H.R. 8. They want H.R. 8, which has passed the House of Representatives and has been sitting on the floor of the U.S. Senate for 202 days. That is what Americans want. Ninety percent of Americans support H.R. 8.

Don't tell me that this issue is controversial. It is just controversial in this bubble. It is not controversial out in the American public, and it is not a blue State or a red State issue. Background checks are just as popular in Georgia as they are in Connecticut.

As Senator Schatz said, we don't have to wait for the President to tell us what to do. Senator McConnell has a different copy of the Constitution than I have. My copy of the Constitution says that none of us are required to get permission slips from the President before we act or before we do something that we think is good for the country.

It is wild to me how the Republican leadership is so eager to advertise that the Senate will do nothing unless President Trump gives it permission. He is not the most popular guy. I don't know why my friends on the Republican side would just openly admit that they don't act unless the President tells them it is OK. That is not how it has to be. We can make the decision ourselves, and on this one, every single person here should do it because it is the right thing, and it is also going to win you a lot of support back home.

I have a few more colleagues who want to say a few words, and then I may wrap up at the end. I want to finish, in my last 5 minutes or so, by reading something to you. I apologize to my friend Neil Heslin because I made a commitment to read this every Father's Day after the shooting in Sandy Hook. I forgot to do it this year. This is a makeup effort.

I don't want to talk too much about what happened at Sandy Hook this evening. I have spent plenty of time talking to my colleagues about it.

Unfortunately, there is a macabre club of Senators and Congressmen who have now had to walk with their communities through these horrific mass shootings. Maybe there is not another one like Sandy Hook where 26 7-year-olds lost their lives in a matter of 5 minutes, but they are all terrible. They are all awful.

One of the things that happens in the wake of these mass atrocities is that you get to know the victims' families. You get to know the parents, the brothers, and the sisters. They become friends of yours. I feel like I have a personal obligation to the families of Sandy Hook separate and aside from the global obligation I believe I have to human beings in this country to do something about the issue of gun violence.

Amongst the parents, one of those whom I have become closest to is a gentleman by the name of Neil Heslin. Jesse Lewis was one of the children who lost their lives that day. Neil has had an up-and-down life--an up-and-down life. He would admit that to you. It hasn't been an easy life for Neil. Jesse was Neil's best friend, not just his son.

I tell his story every Father's Day because it is a reminder to all of us who are fathers how none of us are protected from this. Neil thought he was. Neil never ever thought this would happen to him, but it did. It is a reminder that but for the good grace of God, any of us could be a victim, any of us could know a victim. So why sit on our hands and do nothing when we could do something?

Let me finish by reading an excerpt from Neil Heslin's testimony that he gave to the U.S. Senate in February 2013, 2 months after his son was shot, and I will wrap up after I finish this page and a half of his testimony.

My name is Neil Heslin. Jesse Lewis was my son. He was a boy that loved life and lived it to the fullest. He was my best friend. On December 14, he lost his life at Sandy Hook Elementary because of a gun that nobody needs and nobody should have a right to have. I'm here to tell his story. I know what I am doing here today won't bring my son back, but I hope that maybe if you listen to what I say today and you do something about it--maybe nobody else will have to experience what I have experienced.

On December 14, Jesse got up and got ready for school. He was always excited to go to school. I remember on that day that we stopped at the Misty Vale Deli. It's funny the things you remember. I remember Jesse got the sausage, egg and cheese he always gets, with some hot chocolate. And I remember the hug he gave me when I dropped him off. He just held me, and he rubbed my back. I can still feel that hug.

And Jesse said ``It's going to be alright. Everything's going to be okay, Dad.'' Looking back, it makes me wonder. What did he know? Did he have some idea about what was about to happen? But at the time I didn't think much of it. I just thought he was being sweet.

He was always being sweet like that. He was the kind of kid who used to leave me voice messages where he'd sing me happy birthday even when it wasn't my birthday. I'd ask him about it, and he'd say ``I just wanted to make you feel happy.'' Half the time I felt like he was the parent and I was his son.

He had so much wisdom. He would know things, and I would have no idea how he knew. But whatever he said, it was always right. And he would remember things we'd done and places we'd been that I had completely forgotten about. I used to think of him as my tiny adult. He had this inner calm and maturity that just made me feel so much better when I was around him.

Other people felt it, too. Teachers would tell me about his laugh, how he made things at school more fun just by being there. If somebody was ever unhappy, Jesse would find a way to make him feel better. If he heard a baby crying he wouldn't stop until he got the kid to smile.

Jesse had this idea that you never leave people hurt. If you can help somebody, you do it. If you can make somebody feel better, you do it. If you can leave somebody a little better off, you do it.

They tell me that's how he died. I guess we still don't know exactly what happened at that school. Maybe we'll never know. But what people tell me is that Jesse did something different. When he heard the shooting, he didn't run and hide. He started yelling. People disagree on the last thing he said. One person who was there says he yelled ``run.'' Another person said he told everybody to ``run now.'' Ten kids from my son's class made it to safety. I hope to God something Jesse did helped them survive that day.

What I know is that Jesse wasn't shot in the back. He took two bullets. The first one grazed the side of his head, but that didn't stop him from yelling. The other hit him in the forehead. Both bullets were fired from the front. That means the last thing my son did was look Adam Lanza straight in the face and scream to his classmates to run. The last thing he saw was that coward's eyes.

Jesse grew up with guns, just like I did. I started shooting skeet when I was eight years old. My dad was vice president for years at a local gun club. . . . Jesse actually had an interest in guns. He had a bb gun. . . . I taught him gun safety. He knew it. He could recite it to you. He got it. And I think he would have got what we are talking about today. He liked looking at pictures of army guns, but he knew those [guns] weren't for him. Those were for killing people.

Before he died, Jesse and I used to talk about maybe coming to Washington someday. He wanted to go up the Washington monument. When we talked about it last year, Jesse asked if we could come and meet the President.

[I'm a] little cynical about politicians. But Jesse believed in you. He learned about you in school and he believed in you. I want to believe in you, too. I know you can't give me Jesse back. Believe me, if I thought you could, I would be asking you for that. But I want to believe that you will think about what I told you here today. I want to believe that you will think about it and then you will do something about it, whatever you can do to make sure that no other father has to see what I've seen. You can start by passing [legislation to take] these senseless weapons out of the hands of people like Adam Lanza.

Do something, he said. Do something. Seven years later, we haven't done anything.

So we are down here on the floor tonight begging our colleagues to put a bill on the floor. Amend it, debate it, do whatever you want, but let's not stay silent any longer.

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