Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, last week, my colleague Senator Blumenthal stood on the floor of this Chamber to talk about the epidemic of gun violence in our country. Gun violence is an issue that hits close to home for my friend from Connecticut.

Seven years ago, his home State was the site of one of the most horrific acts of gun violence anyone can imagine. A young man armed with an assault rifle opened fire in Sandy Hook Elementary School, murdering 20 first graders and 6 adults.

While he spoke on the floor of this Senate, Senator Blumenthal was handed a note informing him that, at that very moment, an active shooter was on the loose at another school--this one in Santa Clarita, CA. This marked the 243rd instance of gun violence at a school in this country since the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999. Sadly, today, school shootings have become almost routine and commonplace. It has gotten to the point that students are fearful but, sadly, not surprised when a shooting occurs at their school.

Following an attack last year at Santa Fe High School in Texas that killed eight students and two teachers, 17-year-old student Paige Curry was asked whether there was a part of her that couldn't believe this happened at her school. Her response was heartbreaking. She said:

There wasn't.

She said:

It's been happening everywhere. I've always felt it would eventually happen here too.

This is the country we now live in: a country where we have more guns than we have people; a country where a mass shooting--that is a shooting involving the death or injury of four or more victims--occurs, on average, more than once every day; a country where school shootings occur frequently enough that students feel it will eventually happen at their own school.

This is not the country any of us should want to live in. Yet the U.S. Senate--one of the few institutions that can actually do something to help prevent gun violence--does nothing. Gun violence kills 100 people in our country every day--every day. That is 3,000 people a month and 36,000 people a year.

This is a crisis, but my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not treating it like one. Perhaps looking at the numbers--100 people dying every day--is just way too abstract.

How would the majority leader react if the entire population of Sparta, KY--all 231 residents--disappeared in less than 3 days?

How would the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee react if all 128 residents of Livingston, SC, disappeared in a little over a day?

How would my colleagues from Texas react if Bartlett's 2,600 residents were killed in just under a month?

This is the scale of what is happening in our country every single day, week, and year. This is a crisis, and it is past time Senate Republicans start treating it like one.

Here is what we can do right now. We can join the House in passing H.R. 8, a bill that would close loopholes in the background check system. More than 90 percent of the American public supports this bill. Although it passed the House 266 days ago--almost a year ago--the majority leader refuses to even bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote.

We can also pass S. 66, which would reinstitute the Federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. I have joined Senator Feinstein and 34 of my colleagues in cosponsoring this commonsense measure, but the Republican majority refuses to hold a hearing or otherwise consider it.

We can finally pass an extreme risk protection order bill that would allow police or family members to petition a court to remove firearms from people who may be a danger to themselves or to others, and despite repeated promises after each mass shooting that we will get a vote, the vote never comes.

We all know none of these bills alone will end gun violence in our country, but they will help keep guns out of the hands of those who are a danger to themselves and others. They will make those guns that remain available for sale far less lethal. In other words, the bills will make us safer.

Republicans refuse to take any of these commonsense steps. Instead, they cower before the NRA, an organization that curries favor with gun manufacturers and gun rights extremists by opposing seemingly every piece of gun safety legislation that is introduced; this, in spite of the fact that a strong majority of the NRA's claimed 5 million members actually support stronger gun safety protections.

We all remember the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, where it seemed for a brief moment Congress might pass a gun safety bill for the first time in a generation. Senators Manchin and Toomey introduced a modest background check proposal that actually came to the Senate floor for a vote, but what happened? The NRA came out against the bill, and nearly every Republican Member of the Senate fell in line to defeat it.

The vote came in the aftermath of a shooting that took the lives of 20 innocent elementary school children, and my Republican colleagues chose to side with the NRA and its $50-plus million in campaign donations.

Today those first graders who were killed would be in the eighth grade, and yet we still haven't passed a background check law. We have seen the NRA block commonsense gun safety bills time and again. Most recently, President Trump voiced support for strengthening background checks in the wake of mass shootings in El Paso, Dayton, and Gilroy. He tweeted that ``Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks.''

Days later, he spoke on the phone with the NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre and quickly changed his tune. Suddenly, our loophole-ridden background system became ``very, very strong,'' to quote the President. He no longer saw a need for additional legislation.

The President of the United States is often called the most powerful man in the world. Yet, in the face of opposition from the NRA, Donald Trump proved himself anything but.

Like so many people across the country, I am angry and frustrated that Republicans in Congress seem to care more about satisfying the NRA than taking commonsense steps to keep our communities safe.

Every day that Republicans in Congress refuse to act costs lives. In the 6 days following the November 14 shooting in which two people were killed and three others wounded at Saugus High School, there have been at least four more mass shootings.

On November 16, five were killed and one wounded in a murder-suicide in Paradise Hills, CA. On November 17, four were killed and an additional six were wounded when gunmen opened fire at a backyard party at Fresno, CA. That same day, four were injured when a gunman fired shots into a home outside Cleveland, OH. On November 18, one was killed and four injured in a shooting in Newark, NJ.

These shootings happen quickly--16 seconds in the case of the Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita. This is hardly enough time to expect the proverbial ``good guy with a gun'' to protect innocent men, women, and children caught in the line of fire.

Failing to take decisive action to confront the crisis of gun violence in our country makes the Senate complicit in its continuation. Instead of making more excuses for the Senate's inaction, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle should stop hiding behind the NRA and join us in passing commonsense gun safety legislation that will save lives.

As our country endures mass shooting after mass shooting, I have to ask, at what point do we say, ``Enough''? When will my Republican colleagues turn their backs on the NRA's leadership, listen to the 90 percent of the American people and the rank-and-file NRA members who join them, and pass gun safety laws? The cost of continued inaction is far too high.

I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Wake up. What is it going to take? What is it going to take?

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