Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building--
Floor Speech
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Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, next month marks an anniversary that nobody wants to celebrate: 10 years since 70 people were shot and 12 killed while sitting in a movie theater in Aurora, CO.
At the time, it was the largest mass shooting in American history. Since then, several shootings, like the Pulse Nightclub and the Las Vegas shooting, have surpassed that grim milestone.
Most Senators have a similar story of some sort of a mass shooting in their State that killed people who were trying to enjoy a movie or worship God or shop for groceries like the 10 people murdered last year in a supermarket in Boulder or sitting in a fourth grade classroom. Mass shootings have become uniquely American, a problem that has grown consistently in the 23 years since the Columbine school attack shook us all. There were seven school shootings that year. Last year, there were 42.
The Aurora shooting happened when I was Governor, and it has stayed with me, as those things do. Friday, July 20, 2012, almost 10 years ago--it was a local premiere of ``The Dark Knight,'' and it was a packed house. Every seat had a person in it, a person with loved ones and ones who loved them who expected them to come home that night.
I arrived the next morning at the scene and walked into the command center that the FBI and the police were using. Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates showed us a video of the crime scene that had been taken by police shortly before, using a hand-held camera. The images haunt me still: popcorn everywhere mixed with bullet casings, random clothing, and blood. There was blood all over the seats and the floor.
Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan and I spent the afternoon visiting hospitals all over town. We visited almost every surviving wounded victim. In the days and weeks and months after that day, we had the gun debate in Colorado. Of course, we had the debate. What kind of a State would we be if we were too scared to go to a movie? The debate was difficult and hard to find agreement.
Guns are a tradition in the West, and Colorado is no exception. We became the first purple State to successfully pass gun safety laws. Coloradans, including the vast majority of gun owners, wanted to get something done. That led to universal background checks and a ban on high-capacity magazines; not everything--not everything--that we wanted but steps that made a real difference. We didn't want dangerous people to have guns.
One night while I was Governor, I came home tired and cranky in the midst of working on these gun laws. I made the mistake of complaining to my 11-year-old son Teddy. Teddy couldn't find it in him to understand why it was so hard. He asked me: Dad, why don't you just make the decision? It is easy. Get the facts, make a decision, check, next.
I started to explain, and he repeated: Get the facts, make a decision, check, next.
He said: Every day I go into school, and I have to learn something completely new that I didn't know existed the day before. If I don't get it completely right, the next day is misery because everything is based on the day before.
Teddy was right about one thing: The facts do matter. Part of our problem has been not having good data. Many assume passing new laws like background checks or magazine limits wouldn't work because crooks don't buy guns from legal dealers. The facts proved that they very much do. In 2013, 2,782 convicted felons tried to buy a gun in Colorado and were stopped. Even last year, nearly a decade later, 3,539 convicted felons were blocked from buying a gun. Laws can work to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
The solutions are often straightforward. Nonpartisan facts and basic data help us cut through the noise of division. Guns can be a divisive issue, to say the least, but we don't accept that there is no room to get things done.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act proves that. For the first time in three decades, Congress is poised to pass gun legislation that will make Americans safer, and it is based on the very simple principle: We all agree we should keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
The bill will give States the resources to implement red flag laws to prevent people who are a danger to themselves or others from buying or having guns. It will finally close the boyfriend loophole that allows convicted domestic abusers to get firearms. It will strengthen background checks for 18- to 21-year-olds and take mental health into account and will crack down on strawman purchases that allow criminals to dodge background checks altogether.
Now, these are commonsense proposals, and I am heartened to see that they are going to pass with bipartisan support, but we all know there is more that needs to be done to reduce gun violence in America.
The question is, What is next?
For that, we can turn to Teddy's wisdom as an 11-year-old. What we need is a common set of facts that both sides can accept and can act on.
In 1970, Congress created the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to respond to the public outcry over fatal vehicle crashes. By 2019, there were 60 percent fewer vehicle fatalities than in 1970. So in that period from 1970 to 2019, fatalities were reduced 60 percent, even though there are now 2\1/2\ times as many cars on the roads.
The Agency's strength is in its strictly nonpartisan research. It conducts a survey and a detailed analysis of vehicle fatalities across the country and forms an objective basis to evaluate vehicle safety standards and procedures--things like whether airbags and seatbelts can make a difference or what size and shape child restraints should take, essentially every safety feature in our cars today.
Why can't we have something similar for guns? We now have more gun deaths in America than we have deaths from car crashes, and yet for years, we could barely discuss possible solutions.
So while this Chamber is working together, let's make sure we measure the success of these bills that we are about to pass. Let's think about establishing a research body that will create an objective baseline of hard facts, not conventional wisdom. The path forward is as simple as my 11-year-old son knew it to be a decade ago: Get the facts, make a decision, check, next.
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