Motion to Discharge
Floor Speech
I want to start off with a process question to all the 100 Senators.
Obviously, this is an important issue with a lot of people. Democrats control every committee in this body, and this bill is being offered, when it could be brought up in the committee under regular order because they control the agenda of, in this case, the Judiciary Committee. So why hasn't that come up?
Then I would remind people that in 2013, we actually had a vote on a Grassley-Cruz amendment that got the most votes so far of any gun issues. That was in, I think, the year 2013.
Let's get to the issue that was brought up today by the Senator from Connecticut. Let me say that we have to have real regard for the position he takes because of the tragedy that happened in his State in 2012. Nobody is going to justify that. If they did, they would be crazy for trying to say that something bad like that happened and that it is not a crisis for everybody.
Let me start off by saying in regard to what happened in Michigan that the senseless tragedy we saw in that State should not have happened. The shooter, as we have been told, killed four and injured others in a shocking act of violence. I cannot imagine what those families of the victims are going through because I guess you would have to go through it to try to get their feeling about it. You see it expressed on television, but it doesn't make the same impact on the people who are listening that it makes on the family of the victims.
Difficult topics require across-the-aisle conversations, particularly when you have to have 60 votes to get anything done in this body. I would invite my colleagues across the aisle to have a bipartisan conversation on this topic and a lot of related topics to it.
Violent crime and violence at schools are serious problems. I have supported legislative efforts to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which we call NICS. For example, I introduced the EAGLES Act, a bipartisan bill that would help reauthorize the U.S. Secret Service's National Threat Assessment Center, where they study targeted violence and proactively identify and manage threats before they result in tragedies.
However, in regard to the motion before us, I have serious concerns with the bill raised by the Senator from Connecticut. This bill is hostile toward lawful gun owners and lawful firearm transactions. This will not solve the problems that it seeks to solve.
So-called ``universal'' background checks will not prevent crime and will turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals.
I have introduced legislation, along with Senators Cruz and Tillis, called Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act. Our bill will be much more effective than the underlying bill and has been supported by a majority of the Senate in the past.
And I think that is the same thing that I was referring to--a vote that got a majority but not 60 votes in 2013.
But the Democrat leadership has blocked that approach, which I assume that they will do again today.
This legislation, S. 1775, would reauthorize and improve NICS, increase resources for prosecution of gun crime, and address mental illness in the criminal justice system, which if it had been addressed properly in the case of the Parkland, FL, shooting, that individual who had been identified, I think, somewhere between 30 and 40 times as having very serious mental issues, if he had been identified, he would have been in the NICS system and not been able to buy that gun. And that is just one thing, mental illness being a problem.
And this legislation would also strengthen criminal law by including straw purchasing and illegal firearms trafficking statutes. It does that without burdening any Second Amendment rights of Americans.
In addition, this bill would require a commission to study and report to Congress the underlying causes and triggers for mass shootings. The commission and study proposed could not come at a more important time, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation that I will suggest to the Senate on a UC request.
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, as if in legislative session, I would ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 62, which is S. 1775, the Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act of 2021; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
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Mr. GRASSLEY. I made the request. So there isn't any objection, so my bill passes?
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Before I give up the floor, I would like to suggest that we can start sitting down with the Senator from Connecticut and a lot of other Senators who are interested in this issue, both on the Republican side and the Democrat side, with the legislation that I have suggested.
The other thing I would like to comment on, just to clarify, is the Senator's statement about the recapture of gun rights under our bill: He is right. But you have got to look at why those Second Amendment rights were taken away in the first place, and I think it is the same principle that applies to people that have gone through the Social Security system and the people that have gone through the VA system. It is as simple as a little thing, that you have got to have a third party handle your finances for your family or whatever finances you have. You have to have a third party to do it. That name gets put in the NICS system, and it shouldn't be there just because you can't handle your finances. That has got nothing to do with that you ought to be denied your Second Amendment rights.
And so our legislation provides a process to make sure that the due process of the Second Amendment rights that have been denied can be recaptured, so they can have the Bill of Rights as was intended.
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