Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Yesterday, the Senate took a big step toward an important bipartisan bill to prevent mass murders, make schools safer, and protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. The bipartisan group, led by Senator Cornyn, put together a package of commonsense and popular solutions to make these horrific incidents less likely, and it does not so much as touch the rights of the overwhelming majority of American gun owners who are law-abiding citizens of sound mind.

I have spent my career supporting, defending, and expanding law- abiding citizens' Second Amendment rights. The right to bear arms, the right to defend one's self and one's family is a core civil liberty. Among other things, Senate Republicans spent years confirming a generation of Federal judges who understand that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights actually mean what they say.

The American people know that we don't have to choose between safer schools and our constitutional rights. Our country can and should have both. But throughout recent years, our Democratic colleagues have indicated they were not interested in substantial legislation to create safer communities if they didn't get to take massive bites out of the Second Amendment in the process. There have been attempts at bipartisan talks after horrible incidents in the past, but they fell apart when Democrats did not sign on to anything--anything--that did not roll back the Bill of Rights for law-abiding Americans.

Well, this time is different. This time, Democrats came our way and agreed to advance some commonsense solutions without rolling back rights to law-abiding citizens. The result is a product that I am proud to support. It will send more direct funding to community behavioral health centers and for mental health in schools. It will send money not just to States that decide to implement so-called red flag laws, but to every State to fund crisis intervention programs of their own choosing. And States that do not use the money for red flag laws will have to build in new due-process protections that have never been required before.

The bill also removes the blinders that have prevented the NICS background check system from considering young people with preexisting juvenile records. If a young teenager has been convicted of a violent crime or institutionalized for mental illness, there is no reason why that important record should be magically wiped away on their 18th birthday for the purpose of buying weapons. That information is clearly relevant, and 87 percent of Americans agree.

To be clear, this legislation has no new restrictions, bans, waiting periods, or mandates for law-abiding gun owners of any age--no new restrictions, bans, waiting periods or mandates for law-abiding citizens of any age, including those aged 18 to 21. Someone who has never been convicted of a violent crime or adjudicated as mentally ill will not have their rights affected one iota. And a whole lot of schools and communities will receive more mental health funding to prevent crisis situations before they develop. Judicial Security

Mr. President, now on a related matter, speaking of safer communities, it would be nice if Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice could do their jobs and enforce the Federal laws that Congress actually already has on the books.

For example, it is currently--right now--illegal to join a mob protesting outside the private family home of a Federal judge, including Supreme Court Justices. It is illegal right now to try to replace the rule of law with harassment and intimidation. What has been going on outside Justices' homes for weeks now is a Federal crime right now. But you wouldn't know it from the Justice Department's inaction.

First, the most prominent Democrats in America fan dangerous flames with intemperate rhetoric about the Court. Then House Democrats blockade a noncontroversial Supreme Court security bill for weeks-- weeks--until a literal assassination plot came to light. And all the while, Attorney General Garland still refuses to enforce existing Federal law and put a stop to these illegal pressure campaigns.

As Washington Democrats continue to stage hearings about political violence that took place a year and a half ago, their own side of the aisle is engaging in ongoing political violence as we speak.

In recent weeks, the entire country has been swept with vandalism, arson, and attacks directed at churches, pro-life organizations, and crisis pregnancy centers that serve and help women--going on all across the country. By one count, there have been more than four dozen incidents of vandalism, harassment, or violence committed by pro- abortion advocates since the shameful leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion.

The Department of Justice will not even condemn or stop illegal intimidation mobs today, leading to ask: Are they really prepared to protect the safety and civil rights of American citizens after the Court issues high-profile rulings?

Are local authorities here in Washington and around the country ready for what one far-left group is promising will be ``a night of rage''-- ``a night of rage''?

Well, they had better be. I understand, yesterday, Attorney General Garland caught a flight to Ukraine. Now, I certainly support our efforts in Ukraine and was proud to meet with President Zelenskyy myself a month ago. As a U.S. Senator, I work directly on foreign policy, but our head of domestic law enforcement ought to be a little more concerned with his day job. Gas Tax Holiday

Now, Mr. President, on one final matter, this morning, the Biden administration announced another ineffective stunt to mask the effects of Democrats' war on affordable American energy: calling for a holiday on the Federal gas tax.

This ineffective stunt will join President Biden's other ineffective stunt on gas prices: emptying out the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that we need in the event of a true national security crisis, not just a Democratic-fueled inflation crisis. This ineffective administration's big, new idea is a silly proposal that senior members of their own party have already shot down well in advance.

Earlier this year, Speaker Pelosi said President Biden's idea ``[wouldn't] even [be] going to the consumers.'' She called it ``very showbiz.''

Larry Summers, a top economist to multiple Democratic Presidents, said the idea would be ``shortsighted, ineffective, goofy, and gimmicky.'' That is Larry Summers.

Jason Furman, President Obama's former head of the Council of Economic Advisers, said just yesterday--yesterday:

Whatever you thought of the merits of a gas tax holiday in February, it is a worse idea now . . . A gas tax holiday would also add to inflation.

Jason Furman, yesterday.

Back in 2008, then-Candidate Obama called the idea ``a gimmick [that would] save you half a tank of gas over the course of the entire summer so that everyone in Washington can pat themselves on the back and say they did something.''

Look, a recent study of past gas tax holidays found that less than 20 percent of the amount ends up actually lowering prices at the pump. In other words, lifting an 18.4-cent gas tax would mean lowering Americans' gas prices by just 3 or 4 cents--3 or 4 cents.

The price of gas has risen $2.60 since the Biden administration took office and launched its holy war on affordable American energy. There had already been a substantial increase before the conflict in Ukraine escalated. Now the President wants to trim 3 cents--3 cents--off the top and take a bow? I don't think so.

Tomorrow, Secretary Granholm will continue the empty theater by holding an ``emergency meeting'' with domestic energy refiners. Presumably, this will involve another leftwing browbeating like the accusatory letter President Biden sent to domestic producers just last week. The same administration--the same one--that hasn't awarded a single offshore energy lease, that hasn't offered an onshore lease sale in five straight quarters, and that has taken every single opportunity to slow-walk new energy infrastructure into submission appears to have found a convenient scapegoat for the consequences of its own actions.

Actually, I have a better idea: Democrats could stop setting off inflationary spirals, stop proposing massive tax hikes on the brink of a recession, stop waging a holy war against American fossil fuels, and stop applauding the pain that working families are feeling as part of some grand, leftwing ``transition.''

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