Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise in support of my Connecticut colleagues in their effort to pass the bipartisan background check bill, H.R. 8.

I want to thank my friends Senator Murphy and Senator Blumenthal for their leadership on this issue.

I am sure, as Senator Blumenthal just recounted, that tragic experience at Sandy Hook Elementary School 9 years ago is still fresh in their minds and motivates them to stand up, time and again, and to speak out on behalf of the families who lost their children and those wonderful educators and administrators who gave their lives that day.

What will it take? Is there a crime involving guns in America so horrific that finally we will say enough?

Other countries have. Australia did. They had a terrible shooting. They came to the conclusion that this was just unacceptable in their nation. They wouldn't let it become normal. Some States have done that. Connecticut did after Sandy Hook. They said our State will be different. We are not going to stand just idly by.

But when it comes here to Washington in this national legislature, in this Senate, it appears there is nothing sufficiently awful, so specifically outrageous that it will move us to act.

This last week, it was Oakland County, MI, Oxford High School. Four children got up in the morning, blurry-eyed, brushed their teeth, grabbed their lunches, headed off to school--and never came home. That was the reality of this.

Senator Murphy has said those other students, lucky enough to survive, will never forget that day as long as they live. They will be telling their grandchildren about the day they had to dive out of a window to escape this gunman who was going through their school.

I have always thought, of the most terrible gun crimes that have happened--and there have been so many, so many--Sandy Hook is the worst. I can't imagine a classroom of 20 first graders and the teachers being gunned down at their desks. Oh, my God.

For every parent and every grandparent, it is the worst nightmare in the world, and it happened there--20 of them. Certainly, many of us believed that would be the moment that America would come to its senses and say: Let's do something. If we can't do everything, let's do something to show we care. But as a national legislature, we failed.

And the proposal that we brought to the floor that was objected to today is the most basic thing in the world. OK. You have second amendment rights, unless--unless--you have given those up by committing a felony crime and being convicted of it, unless you were so mentally unstable that you shouldn't own a gun. That is basically it. That is all we said. Are those unreasonable? I think not. Eighty-four percent of Americans happen to believe that is a pretty sensible thing to do-- 84 percent. But when it comes to the U.S. Senate, we can't get 51 percent to vote that way--at least not yet.

So I thank my colleagues Senator Murphy and Senator Blumenthal for reminding us of the terrible tragedy in their lives and in their State just 9 years ago. But I will tell you that as horrible as Sandy Hook was, 900 people have died by gunfire in Cook County, IL, which I represent, just this year, and 40,000 Americans lost their lives to guns last year. We can't do anything about that. They are gone.

But what about tomorrow's victims? What about next week's victims? What about the next high school? We can do something about that, and this bill would pass today if Republican Senators would allow it.

Let's be very candid about this. This is a partisan issue. It shouldn't be. Those gunmen--I don't think anyone reports their political status, and certainly the victims are not identified that way. But in this Chamber, it is an article of faith, political faith, that Republicans won't touch anything related to gun safety--anything.

The bill that was objected to, proposed by Senator Grassley, the protecting communities bill--first, let me say Chuck Grassley is my friend. I mean it. I don't just say that as political, idle talk. He is my ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. We disagree on a lot of things. We sure do agree on a lot of things too.

The bill that he described is a step in the wrong direction, as was mentioned by Senator Murphy. That bill doesn't fix the gaping holes in the background check system. It makes them worse. To say that people who have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital can leave that hospital, walk out the door, and buy a gun, that doesn't even make sense.

You would certainly want to ask someone, some medical expert, what is their state of mind? Have they fully recovered? Are they ready? Can they make a basic decision that we can trust? That is not too much to ask for those who are involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Unfortunately, the Grassley bill, which we objected to, would automatically restore a person's right to buy a gun the minute they walked out of the hospital. The bill also wipes away the NICS background check system for the records of--listen--175,000 people in this country who have been found, in the words of the statute, ``mentally incompetent.'' This bill would allow them--permit them to buy guns immediately.

How can that make any sense at all?

Surely, the definition may not be the best, but let's work on that instead of just saying, on a blanket basis, go out and buy a gun if you want to.

The bill also weakens gun laws on the books. The bill would allow gun dealers to sell handguns directly to people from other States. How does that make us safer? And it would bar the ATF from requiring gun dealers to submit reports of multiple purchases of long guns--a key indicator of gun trafficking in many border States.

We are a long way from where we should be, but Senator Grassley has challenged me as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing, mark up the bill.

I accept the challenge. We may not get to first base on this, but we are not going to stay in the stands and in the bleachers as kids are being gunned down at Oxford High School, and we are ``celebrating''--if that is the word--all of the gun deaths of the past with anniversaries that bring back bitter memories and tragic occurrences.

So, yes, the Senate Judiciary Committee will have a hearing. We are going to move forward as best we can. Maybe there is common ground out there. I pray, for the victims and their families--I pray that there is.
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