Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building--

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the pending business on the floor.

The Presiding Officer and I both arrived in the Senate at the same time 10 years ago. When you and I had barely been here a few days, the country was shocked with a tragic shooting, the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, CT, when a deranged monster came in and murdered little children--elementary school children. Everyone across the country was horrified; and over the past decade, we have seen that pattern repeat itself over and over again.

Tragically, my home State of Texas has seen more than our fair share of horrific crime, of mass murder, most recently in Uvalde. I was there in Uvalde the day after the shooting where a deranged monster murdered 19 little children and 2 teachers.

Before that, I was in Santa Fe where yet another deranged monster murdered schoolchildren.

I was in Sutherland Springs, the worst church shooting in U.S. history. I stood in that sanctuary the day after the shooting, a beautiful, small country church. The pews had been flung aside in the chaos. There was shattered glass. There was a cell phone with a shattered screen covered in blood.

And I saw the pool of blood where an 18-month-old child was systematically murdered by that psychopath. I was in El Paso; I was in Midland-Odessa; I was in Dallas. Over and over again, we have seen the face of evil. We have seen horrific crimes. And let me be the first to say there are too damn many of these. And we need to stop them.

Unfortunately, I have also seen what inevitably follows these horrific crimes, which is a political debate that breaks out within seconds of the crime occurring.

There are two principal approaches one can take to try to prevent crimes like this. One is to target the bad guys, to focus on criminals, to focus on felons, to focus on fugitives, to focus on those trying to illegally buy guns, to put them in jail, to lock them up, to get them off the street so that they cannot terrorize and murder innocent people. That is the approach that actually works. That is the approach that is actually successful. That is the approach that is most likely to prevent subsequent mass murders.

There is a second approach, which is an approach that is disarming law-abiding citizens. Inevitably, Democratic members of this Chamber, minutes after an attack, move towards wanting to disarm law-abiding citizens. That approach is, I believe, No. 1, unconstitutional; but, No. 2, it doesn't work. It is ineffective.

Put simply, taking guns away from law-abiding citizens--disarming you or disarming me--is not going to stop a mass murder. And we know this. If you look across the country consistently, the jurisdictions with the strictest gun control laws over and over again have among the highest crime rates and among the highest murder rates.

When you disarm law-abiding citizens, what happens is the people who follow the law disarm. That is almost by definition if they are law- abiding citizens. But the criminals don't follow the laws.

And if you disarm all the victims, the result is it is easier for the criminals to commit their acts of mayhem.

Let me point out a statistic that many Americans don't know. It is a statistic that comes from the Barack Obama White House, so it is hardly a rightwing source. According to the Barack Obama White House, every year in America, firearms are used defensively to stop a crime between 500,000 and 1 million times each and every year.

What does that mean? That means that if Democratic proposals to disarm law-abiding citizens succeed, the result will be even more crimes. The result will be those 500,000 to a million crimes that are right now stopped every year won't be stopped.

That means more assaults. That means more sexual assaults. That means more murders. That means single moms riding home on the train, if they are not able to have a revolver in their purse to defend themselves from marauding criminals, then they are left defenseless.

In debates over how to approach violent crime, that 500,000 to a million people each year who are using a firearm to stop a crime, they get left out of a lot of these discussions. But they would be victims if Democratic Senators succeed in taking away their right to keep and bear arms.

When the Presiding Officer and I were brand new here in the wake of Newtown, CT, there was a Democrat majority in this body at the time. Harry Reid was the majority leader. Barack Obama had just been reelected President. And you will recall well Senate Democrats were exultant. Senator Schumer was on TV saying we were in the sweet spot to finally pass far-reaching gun control.

And I will tell you the colleagues on my side of the aisle were discouraged and demoralized, and many thought there was nothing we could do to stop the agenda that was being pushed forward.

Well, I can tell you, I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now. And so I sat down and drafted legislation designed to actually do what every person in this Chamber, I believe, really wants to do, which is stop violent crime, stop these murders, stop the next lunatic who would shoot up a school or shoot up a church or shoot up a mall or shoot up a grocery store.

The legislation I drafted was called Grassley-Cruz. I teamed up with my colleague, the senior Senator from Iowa, Chuck Grassley. Grassley- Cruz focused on several things. First of all, it focused on strengthening the background check system. It required the Department of Justice to conduct an audit of every Federal agency to make sure that any felony convictions are reported to the background check system.

It provided funding and incentives for States to report felony convictions to the background check system. Interestingly, many States have a lousy record of reporting felonies to the background check database. Ironically, many of those are blue States led by Democrats who talk about gun control, and yet the State governments and local governments often fail to report felony convictions to the database.

Grassley-Cruz provided strong incentives to get those felony convictions in the database. Secondly, Grassley-Cruz provided funding for prosecutors to prosecute those who commit violent crimes with firearms and put them in jail.

Third, Grassley-Cruz provided funding for the Department of Justice to create a gun crime task force to prosecute felons and fugitives who try to illegally buy guns.

Many people don't know this, but it is actually quite shocking. The Department of Justice has a consistent pattern of refusing to prosecute felons and fugitives who illegally try to buy guns.

In the year 2010, roughly 48,000 felons and fugitives tried to illegally purchase firearms. Of those 48,000, the Obama Justice Department prosecuted 44 of them--not even 50--44 out of 48,000. I think that is completely unacceptable.

So Grassley-Cruz provided funding and directed the Department of Justice: Prosecute them and put them in jail. And on top of that, Grassley-Cruz created grants for schools to enhance school safety, to enhance security, to make our schools and make our kids safer.

So what happened? Well, Grassley-Cruz, we voted on it here on the floor of the Senate. And Grassley-Cruz received a majority vote on the Senate floor, 52 Senators voted in favor of Grassley-Cruz, including nine Democrats. Remember, this was a Democrat Senate. Democrats had a sizable majority, and yet nine Democrats--we got the most bipartisan support of any of the comprehensive legislation that was considered on the floor.

So why didn't Grassley-Cruz pass into law? We got a majority vote in the Senate. Well, the answer is simple: Grassley-Cruz didn't pass because Senate Democrats filibustered it. They demanded 60 votes; and so even though it got a majority, it didn't get 60, and it didn't pass.

I am going to share something that is deeply frustrating.

There is a powerful argument that had Grassley-Cruz passed, had Senate Democrats not filibustered it, that multiple of these mass shootings in Texas could have been prevented.

Let's start with Sutherland Springs. Sutherland Springs should never have happened. The shooter was doubly ineligible to buy a firearm. He had a felony conviction. He had a domestic conviction. So under Federal law, existing Federal law, it was illegal for him to buy a gun.

So how did he get his gun?

Well, the Air Force, in the Obama administration, failed to report his felony conviction to the background check database. It wasn't in there.

So the shooter went to buy a gun. He filled out the background check form, and he lied. He lied on the form. The form asked: Do you have a felony conviction? He said: No.

The form asked: Do you have a domestic violence conviction? He said: No.

They ran the check, and it came up clean because the Obama Air Force never reported the felony and so it wasn't in the database and so it came up clean.

He bought that gun, and he used it to murder those innocent people in that beautiful sanctuary.

If Grassley-Cruz had passed, presumably, the mandated Department of Justice audit of every Federal Agency would have caught that felony conviction. The whole purpose of the audit was to make sure we catch every felony conviction that is out there, which would have meant his conviction would have been in the database, but that is where the second part of Grassley-Cruz matters because when he went in and lied on that form, he committed two more felonies. When he checked ``I don't have a felony conviction,'' that is the felony. Lying on that form is a felony. It is a crime.

When he checked ``I don't have a domestic violence conviction,'' that is the felony. And Grassley-Cruz would have directed the Department of Justice: Prosecute him, and put him in jail. And that monster would have been locked in a 6-by-8 concrete cell instead of murdering innocent people in the wonderful community of Sutherland Springs.

You also look at Santa Fe and Uvalde, and there is a possibility that both of those crimes could have been prevented by Grassley-Cruz.

Part of Grassley-Cruz was funding to enhance school security--grants to go to schools. One of the things that is frustrating about these school shootings is they follow predictable patterns.

In Parkland, FL, the shooter jumped over a fence and came inside. In Santa Fe, the shooter went in an unlocked side entrance.

Afterward--you know, the Santa Fe High School is less than an hour from my house. I was at home that morning, the morning of the shooting. I was on that campus about an hour after the shooting occurred. It was horrific. It was tragic. I grieved and cried with the parents who lost their children that day.

I remember sitting down afterward at a roundtable with the parents from Santa Fe and parents from other mass shootings that occurred and talking about what are the solutions we can do. How can we prevent this?

One of the solutions we discussed was best practices. How do you make a school safer? One of those best practices is limiting the number of entrances to a school--ideally, bringing it down to one single main entrance, the front entrance.

Now, that doesn't mean, as some on the Twittersphere have said, that you have no fire exits. Of course, you have fire exits. It means you do what we do in many other places--in Federal buildings, in banks, in courthouses. It is a standard security step to have one major entrance to a building if that building is at risk of violence, and that one main entrance is then much, much safer if you have armed police officers at that entrance.

When you go into a bank, there is a reason you see an armed officer at the entrance. When you go into a courthouse, there is a reason you see an armed officer at the entrance. When you go into the U.S. Capitol, there is a reason you see an armed officer at the entrance. Our kids are at least as valuable.

If the Santa Fe High School or the Robb Elementary School had been able to get a school funding grant to enhance security, those crimes could have been prevented because, I will tell you, when I was in Uvalde the day after the shooting, what was so infuriating is that monster got in the exact same way--through an open back door. Just like in Santa Fe, he got in through an open back door; he got into the classroom; and he began murdering children long before he encountered anyone from law enforcement.

If, instead, that door had been locked, if he had been forced to come around to the front main entrance, if at the front main entrance there were armed police officers, they could have shot that monster dead outside, and 19 children and 2 teachers would still be alive.

So, like millions across this country, I am angry. I am angry that these horrific crimes keep happening.

But I am also angry that this august Chamber plays political games. The bill that is before this body is being heralded in the press as a bipartisan bill because it has got every Democrat and some Republicans.

I think the chances that this bill will do anything meaningful to actually prevent the next mass murder are very low. That is not what this bill is designed to do.

This bill is designed, among other things, to satiate the urge to do something. After every one of these, the call comes out: Do something. I agree. Do something. But do something that works. Do something that will stop these crimes. This bill ain't that.

But it does have provisions that are troubling. It does have provisions that satisfy the Democratic political priority to go after the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms of law-abiding citizens.

Most troubling in this bill is the funding of so-called red flag laws. Now, these so-called red flag laws have been implemented in multiple States, and they enable the State to take away the right to keep and bear arms from law-abiding citizens.

They render you vulnerable; that if you have a disgruntled coworker, if you have an angry ex-boyfriend, an angry ex-girlfriend, they can go and give the State the power to strip you of the right to keep and bear arms--not if you are a criminal, not if you have committed crimes, not if you have been adjudicated to be a danger to yourself or others. All of those are existing law. Red flag laws lower the threshold and make it easier to take away your right to defend yourself.

And in too many of these States, these provisions have little to no protections of due process.

If the Senate passes this bill, Federal dollars will be used to encourage more States to enact laws like this. That means Federal tax dollars will be used to implement programs that will strip away Americans' constitutional rights.

And mark my words, people will lose their lives over this; that we will see red flag laws that are abused and citizens who are disarmed-- and, tragically, we are going to see a citizen who is disarmed who is subsequently murdered.

Look, the right to keep and bear arms--it is not about hunting. It is not about skeet shooting. Those can be a lot of fun to do, but that is not why it is in the Constitution. The Bill of Rights does not have an amendment devoted to recreational shooting.

The reason the Second Amendment is in the Bill of Rights is because you and I and every American have a God-given right to defend our life. There is no right more fundamental than the right to defend your own life and the right to defend your family. If a criminal comes into your house at night seeking to do harm to your children, you and I have a right, I believe that derives from God Almighty, to defend our kids, and whether any individual Member of this Chamber agrees with that right or not doesn't really matter because it is right there in the Bill of Rights. So the Constitution protects it whether you agree with it or not.

And the reason I say these red flag laws, we are going to see people lose their lives over it, is because often when people go and buy a firearm, it is because they are afraid. It is because maybe they have got an angry ex-boyfriend, an angry ex-girlfriend. Maybe they have got a neighbor whom they are scared of. Maybe they have got someone threatening them. And we are going to see these laws abused to disarm someone who is subsequently made the victim of a violent crime.

And none of the politicians in this Chamber who vote for this bill will take any responsibility for the people's lives that will be lost because of it.

You might say: Well, look, that is all fine and good, but if you don't like this bill, what should we do?

Well, it so happens I have an answer to that. This week, I filed legislation, along with Senator John Barrasso from Wyoming. The Cruz- Barrasso legislation builds on what already received a majority vote in this Chamber, the Grassley-Cruz legislation of a decade ago.

Let me tell you what Cruz-Barrasso does. It focuses on actually stopping this problem. So Cruz-Barrasso funds the Department of Justice to prosecute violent criminals who use firearms.

Mr. President, you are from the Commonwealth of Virginia, a wonderful State. As you know well, some of the most important work stopping violent crime and gun crime was pioneered in the Commonwealth of Virginia. During the Bill Clinton Presidency, an initiative was started called Project Exile in the Western District of Virginia. The U.S. attorney there laid out a policy that if anyone commits a crime with a firearm who is illegally possessing that firearm, meaning likely they are a felon in possession, that the Feds were going to prosecute them, put them in jail, and they are going to face mandatory minimum crimes.

And the U.S. attorney passed out to local prosecutors laminated cards saying: Here are all the Federal prohibitions on gun possession. They put up ads. They put up billboards in Richmond, VA. Richmond tragically had an incredibly high murder rate. They put up billboards: Carry a gun, do hard time.

And Project Exile worked phenomenally. The murder rate in Richmond, VA, plummeted, and we began hearing stories of criminals--criminals who would come to knock off a liquor store, criminals who would come to do a home burglary, who would leave their gun at home. They would say: Do you know what? Look, if I break into this house and I have got a gun with me, I am doing hard time in Federal prison. I think I will just go there without a gun. It worked.

What does Cruz-Barrasso do? It takes Project Exile national. It provides funding for U.S. attorneys to prosecute. If you commit a crime and you have got a gun, you are off the streets.

You want to stop these crimes? That is the step that will stop these crimes.

What else does Cruz-Barrasso do? It creates a gun crime task force at the Department of Justice to prosecute the felons and fugitives year after year after year who try to illegally buy a gun and whom DOJ won't prosecute right now.

If Cruz-Barrasso passes, the next Sutherland Springs can be stopped.

You know, there are some Democrat officials who say: We don't have time to prosecute people who try to illegally buy guns. I repeatedly heard testimony from Democratic witnesses on the Judiciary Committee saying that.

Let me tell you something right now. If a murderer or a felon is trying to illegally buy a gun, I don't think that is a paperwork offense; I think they should be prosecuted and put in jail.

What else does Cruz-Barrasso do? It provides major funding to make our schools safer. It provides much more funding than the Democrats' bill. All told, there is $36 billion in this bill.

It provides funding to double the number of police officers in schools across America--to double them. If you want to keep kids safe, the single best step you can do is have police officers on campus so that our children have the same protection that Members of Congress do; so that our children have the same protection that courthouses do; so that our children have the same protection that banks do.

Cruz-Barrasso will double the number of police officers in schools across America--not only that, let's talk mental health. We all know there is a problem. These deranged shooters over and over again follow similar patterns of being isolated, angry loners with a long pattern of struggling with mental health, often making multiple threats before they carry out a horrific crime.

Cruz-Barrasso provides $10 billion in funding for mental health counselors in schools across the country to help identify troubled youth and to stop them before they commit a crime like this.

(Mr. OSSOFF assumed the Chair.)

Now, earlier today, there had been discussion that Majority Leader Schumer would schedule a vote on Cruz-Barrasso. Right now, it appears that may not happen. We are going to vote one way or another, and if I have to exercise the procedural avenues available to me as a Senator to force that vote, I am more than happy to do so. But let me tell you actually why we are not seeing the vote so far--because my amendment is drafted as a substitute. In other words, it would replace the pending bill on the floor, and an awful lot of Senators don't want to have to vote on that.

Now, I challenge any Senator in this Chamber to try to make the case that this Democrat bill on the floor would be even half as effective in stopping violent crime, in stopping mass shootings, in stopping criminals from murdering children in schools, as my legislation would be. The Democrat bill has a fraction of the funding for police officers. It has a fraction of the funding for mental health. The Democrat bill doesn't provide that violent felons who use guns should be prosecuted. The Democrat bill doesn't provide that people who illegally try to buy firearms, who are felons and fugitives, should be prosecuted. The Democrat bill is not focused on criminals. It is not focused on bad guys. It is focused on the Democrat priority of disarming law-abiding citizens. That is a political priority that too many Senate Democrats value more than keeping kids safe.

So if we don't see a straight-up vote on my amendment, it is because too many Senators in this Chamber don't want to vote on a head-to-head choice between actually keeping kids safe versus achieving the political agenda of the left of disarming law-abiding citizens. That is wrong. It is cynical.

I have to say that in these debates--listen, this is a topic that is emotional. It is a topic that is personal. It is a topic where inevitably the rhetoric gets overheated. It gets overheated on both sides.

Some years ago, I found myself, curiously enough, in a Twitter debate with Alyssa Milano, the actress from Hollywood, the leftwing activist, over the question of guns. We began going back and forth over gun control and the Second Amendment, and at some point, she said something to the effect of, you wouldn't dare sit down and have this conversation with me in person. I said: Of course I would. I invited her to come to my office, and she did. She came to my office, and what proceeded is we had a 90-minute discussion and debate about violent crime, about gun control, and about the Second Amendment. We live-streamed it, so anyone who wants to see it can go and watch a 90-minute discussion. I will say, I commend Ms. Milano. I think the two of us managed to have a much more civil conversation on this than most of the interlocutors on this topic.

One of the things I said to her at the start of that discussion was, I said: Listen, if we start from the premise--if we sit in this room and look at each other and we both assume the other is evil, the other is lying, the other seeks to do harm, we are not going to have a very productive conversation. If each of us thinks of the other ``You want children to die; you want people to be murdered,'' you know what, that is not going to lead to a very productive conversation.

I suggested to her--I said: Why don't we start from the proposition that you and I both would like to see innocent people protected and safe; that you and I both, like anyone sane and rational, are utterly horrified at the depraved monsters who murder innocent people and especially those who murder children?

There is a special circle of Hell for the people who hurt kids.

If we start from the premise that even though we are of different political parties and even though we may believe different things politically, we both want to see human life preserved, then maybe we can have a productive discussion about what steps can be taken to be most effective in saving human life.

We agreed that we both want to prevent future murders, that we both want to protect our kids and your kids and kids across America. Then we can have a real discussion that is factual, that is empirical, that is based on evidence, that is based on data, as to what policies are actually effective in stopping violent crime.

There was a time when this august Chamber had discussions like that, had debates.

I would note, this particular bill--there have been no committee hearings on it. There has been no meaningful debate. This is an exercise of partisan power and political objectives.

So we are not engaged in a meaningful discussion of what policies are actually effective in stopping crime, preventing mass murder, and protecting children. If we were, I would challenge any Democrat in the Chamber to stand up and explain how on Earth this Democrat bill could be even half as effective in preventing school shootings as the Cruz- Barrasso bill. By any measure, the legislation that I am fighting for is stronger, it will put more violent gun criminals in jail, and it will double the number of police officers in schools across America. It will make our children safer.

If we were willing to have a discussion about substance, about the merits, that should be a pretty easy discussion, but, sadly, too many in this body immediately play politics and also give in to the overheated rhetoric on this issue.

Those who advocate gun control inevitably say: If you support the Second Amendment, blood is on your hands.

Well, let me tell you something: If you oppose the Second Amendment and you disarm people who become victims of violent crime, blood is on your hands.

Rather than either of us saying language like that, it seems to me we should come together and say: How do we stop the bad guys? What works? What is effective? What can we do together to make sure to maximize the chances that we prevent another Uvalde, another Santa Fe, another Sutherland Springs, another El Paso, another Midland-Odessa, another Dallas?

The stakes are too serious for political games.

The Presiding Officer wasn't serving in this body 10 years ago when we voted on Grassley-Cruz, but at the time, nine Democrats voted for it. It received the most bipartisan support of any of the comprehensive legislation before this body. It got a majority vote in the Harry Reid Democrat Senate, where the Democrats had a substantial majority.

I would urge you, Mr. President, and every other Democrat to demonstrate the same principle and the same courage that those nine Democrats did a decade ago.

Let's vote for legislation that will actually solve the problem, that will actually stop violent criminals, and that will actually keep our kids safe. Let's resist the political urge to try to attack and undermine the Second Amendment, to try to disarm law-abiding citizens.

I can tell you, as long as I am serving in this body, I will fight with every breath I can to defend the constitutional right to keep and bear arms of every American. It is in the Bill of Rights. It is a foundational right.

We can do both. We can stop criminals and protect the Second Amendment. This bill on the floor, the Democrat bill, does not. So I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass Cruz-Barrasso and abandon the Democrat legislation that doesn't stop violent crime but does infringe on the Second Amendment.

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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, this body has a choice before it: Do we pass legislation that will be ineffective in stopping violent crime, that has very little prospect of preventing the next mass shooting, that will do very little to make schools safer but, at the same time, will undermine the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens? That is the Democrat bill that is currently on the floor.

Or do we, instead, move to pass real legislation that will stop violent crime, that will put gun criminals in jail, that will prosecute felons and fugitives who try to illegally buy guns, and that will provide serious funding for school safety?

The Cruz-Barrasso legislation provides funding to double the number of police officers in schools across America so our kids can be kept safe--$36 billion total in funding, repurposed from unspent Democrat emergency funds. This bill also provides $10 billion in funding for mental health counselors in schools to stop troubled teens before they go down a horrible road.

The Democrat bill has much smaller funding for cops and schools, much smaller funding for mental health, but much more infringement of the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

So it is a choice all of us have: Do we want to stop these crimes, or do we want to play politics?

And I would note, Mr. President, that the proponents of this bill at the outset swore up and down: There will be amendments. We will have amendments on this bill.

Well, right now, the majority leader wants no amendments. And how do we know that? Because the majority leader has filled the amendment tree, has blocked amendments.

This morning, the majority leader was saying that he would allow a vote on Cruz-Barrasso, a straight-up vote. But, for whatever reason, that has changed; and so, right now, amendments are blocked. But, fortunately, it is the right of any Senator to move to table that blocking amendment, and that is what I will do momentarily. And the reason I am moving to table this blocking amendment is to take up Cruz- Barrasso.

And so this vote is a straight-up vote: Do you support serious law enforcement? Do you support prosecuting violent criminals who use guns in their crimes? Do you support prosecuting and sending to jail felons and fugitives and those with serious mental illness who try to illegally buy firearms? And do you support getting serious about protecting our schools? Do you support doubling the number of cops in our schools so that our kids are safe? Do you support funding mental health counselors so our kids are safe?

This is an opportunity for every Senator to decide if they support doing something that actually fixes the problem or if they put a higher priority on partisan politics. On the merits, this vote should be 100 to 0. We will see what the vote is in reality. 5100, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

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