Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building--
Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, today, the Senate is considering bipartisan legislation to help protect our kids and our communities from the scourge of gun violence.
This is a critical issue. And it is one we have spent a lot of time on in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair.
We have held nine hearings in our committee in the 117th Congress to discuss ways to address our Nation's gun violence epidemic.
Four of those hearings were held in the Constitution Subcommittee, which is chaired by Senator Blumenthal, and I want to commend him for the subcommittee's focus on important issues like red flag laws, ghost guns, safe storage, and gun violence by domestic abusers.
And we have held five hearings in the full Judiciary Committee, where we have heard testimony from witnesses on how to reduce violence.
I am pleased that the bipartisan bill before us includes a number of measures that witnesses before the Judiciary Committee urged the Senate to adopt.
Last December, the Judiciary Committee held a field hearing in Chicago to discuss the firearms trafficking that floods the city with illicit guns.
We heard testimony from David Brown, superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, who pointed out that 93 percent of murders in Chicago last year were committed by guns.
Superintendent Brown testified that we need strong Federal laws to crack down on gun trafficking and straw purchases, which fuel Chicago's gun violence. And the bill before us today provides those laws.
Straw purchases are not minor offenses. They have devastating consequences. Superintendent Brown talked about Chicago Police Officer Ella French, who was murdered last year with a straw purchased gun. I will never forget the outpouring of grief I saw in the city after we lost Officer French.
The bill before us would crack down on straw purchases that put guns in the hands of criminals and prohibited people. The Senate first voted on this issue in 2013 and fell short, so this step is long overdue.
We also held a hearing in March of last year where we heard testimony from Dr. Selwyn Rogers. He is a trauma surgeon and public health expert from the University of Chicago Medicine.
His emergency room is on the frontlines of the gun violence epidemic, stitching up bullet wounds to save lives. He called upon Congress to do more to help prevent gunshot victims from showing up in his hospital in the first place.
He described the way that trauma and witnessing violence harms the brain and development of a child, making it difficult to regulate emotions, form healthy relationships, and resolve conflicts.
Dr. Rogers implored us to address these emotional scars of trauma that fuel the cycle of violence. And so did Dr. Moira Szilagyi, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who testified before our committee last week.
The bill we are considering today does just that. It provides billions of dollars in grants for school- and community-based mental health programs.
It includes more than $28 million for a bipartisan program that I passed into law in 2018 with Senator Capito, Republican of West Virginia. This program would expand trauma-informed care for students by training more school personnel and bringing in more mental health professionals from the community.
The bill also provides $40 million to a program I have supported for years, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which is providing specialized care to thousands of children in Chicago.
And it will help expand mental health treatment for students by enhancing the ability for schools to use Medicaid coverage for this care.
Helping children cope with traumatic experiences is a vital strategy to prevent and break the cycle of violence. The investments provided in this bill will make a dramatic difference in this effort.
At another of our hearings, which focused on the problem of armed carjackings, we heard testimony from Vaughn Bryant of the organization Metropolitan Family Services in Chicago.
He testified about the importance of community violence intervention, or CVI, programs to help steer those who are at risk of committing gun violence onto a better path.
These CVI programs have shown real promise in Chicago, as another of our hearing witnesses, Roseanna Ander of the University of Chicago, testified. But the programs do not have adequate funding to meet the need.
The bill before us would provide $250 million over 5 years in Department of Justice grants for CVI programs. That is double the current annual funding for these programs, and it will make a big difference.
We also heard compelling testimony last week at our hearing about the impact of gun violence on children. It is a grim reality that gunfire is now the leading cause of death of American children and teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Every day, on average, we lose 12 kids in America to gun homicides, suicides, and accidents. In the year 2020 alone, we lost 4,368 American babies, children, and teens in firearm deaths--an increase of nearly 30 percent over the previous year.
At our hearing, we heard testimony from law enforcement and pediatrician witnesses about how the Senate needs to act to protect our kids. And we also heard moving testimony from 19-year-old Ernest Willingham, who grew up on the West Side of Chicago as the youngest of 11 kids in his family.
He has an incredible story. He is the first in his family to attend college and the first male in his family to graduate high school. He is currently in college in Boston and is well on his way to a career in the healthcare field. Ernest has been surrounded by gun violence his whole life. His father has been shot. His brother has been shot twice. His cousin has been shot. And a few years ago, his best friend was killed by a stray bullet. Ernest talked about the anguish of seeing loved ones around him get shot. And he described his constant fear that he, himself, would be shot too.
At the hearing Ernest called for gun law reforms, but he also talked about the importance of mental health. He urged us to make sure that communities that are hard hit by gun violence have the counselors and mental health professionals they need to help kids who are traumatized by gun violence.
Ernest, help is on the way. This bill makes dramatic investments-- billions of dollars--in mental health treatment and care in schools and in communities.
I was so impressed by this young man's testimony at our hearing and the way he has benefited from ``a village'' of supporters--family, friends, teachers, and mentors--to build the resilience to rise above trauma in his life to pursue his dreams in the medical field.
For the sake of the kids we have lost to the gun violence, and for the sake of kids like Ernest who shouldn't have to grow up surrounded by this violence, we need to act. The bill before us, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, is a compromise. It doesn't accomplish everything I want when it comes to gun violence, and it has provisions I would like to change or could do without.
It won't end gun violence in America. But it takes important steps toward making our Nation safer. It is a meaningful bipartisan package, negotiated in good faith by Senators from across the political spectrum.
I want to commend those Senators for their hard work, especially Senators Murphy, Cornyn, Sinema, and Tillis.
We have heard so much in the Senate Judiciary Committee about the need to do something to reduce gun violence and about commonsense reforms and investments that would help. It heartens me that a number of those reforms and investments are included in this package, particularly when it comes to cracking down on straw purchases, treating trauma, supporting community violence intervention programs, and investing in mental health and counseling in schools and communities.
This bill doesn't have everything I want. But it is a good, meaningful bipartisan compromise, and I will support it. I urge my colleagues to do the same.
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