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Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, yesterday, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I had the honor of welcoming a group of important guests to Washington.
The committee was joined by the families of some of the victims in last month's mass shooting in Buffalo, NY, when a White supremacist marched into the Tops Grocery store with an assault rifle and massacred 10 Black Americans in cold blood and wounded three others. Just weeks after laying their loved ones to rest, these families flew to Washington to deliver one very simple, straightforward message to Congress: Do something. Do something to prevent the next mass shooting, to combat the lethal threat posed by violent White supremacists, to honor the memory of those who were slain in this horrifying act of racist violence.
One of the family members who attended yesterday was Garnell Whitfield, Jr., and his brother Raymond. Their mother Ruth Whitfield was the eldest victim in this Buffalo shooting. She was 86 years old.
In the hours before her murder, Mrs. Whitfield just finished her regular daily ritual, visiting her husband, Mr. Whitfield's father, at his nursing home. The two had been married for 68 years, and in an instant, she was gone. Her family is shattered.
During yesterday's hearing, Mr. Whitfield courageously voiced what millions of Americans feel about the devastating run of mass shootings in America: outrage. He asked me and the fellow committee members there a really important question:
What are you doing? You were elected to protect us. Is there nothing that you [can] personally [be] willing to do to stop the cancer of White supremacy and the domestic terrorism it inspires?
Mr. Whitfield concluded his testimony with the following words I hope every Member of the Senate will hear. He said:
Mrs. Ruth Whitfield's life mattered. Your actions here will tell us if and how much it mattered to you.
We heard the same sentiment from across the country--from Uvalde, TX, to Chicago, IL. It is impossible to keep track of these mass shootings. They have claimed so many innocent lives.
During this past weekend alone, our Nation was hit with at least 10 of them--10. Think about it: In this country, 10 in one weekend. In many countries--most countries around the world--there are none. No other developed Nation on Earth experiences this degree of bloody carnage every day, every week. And if we want to prove to Americans like Garnell Whitfield that the lives of their loved ones who were lost really do matter to us, we have to do something in the Senate.
The first thing is simple: close the loopholes on the purchase of guns. Currently, there is a bipartisan group of Senators working on this issue. I commend this group, especially Senators Murphy and Cornyn--Democrat and Republican--who are leading this effort.
We are also going to hold a hearing next week in the Judiciary Committee over a phenomena which is equally embarrassing. Gunfire is now the leading cause of death for kids in America. Did you hear that? Gunfire, the leading cause of death of children in America.
We talk about protecting our kids, our highest priority. Well, the guns are killing our kids more than automobiles, more than poison, more than accidents in the home.
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