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Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, 10 years I have been in this incredible institution, the U.S. Senate, and I am stunned that we are still having this debate.

We know, if you read our Constitution, that we formed our form of government with lots of high callings, but the first is to provide for the national defense.

It is astonishing to me that the No. 1 killer--the No. 1 threat--the No. 1 issue facing our children in America is death by gun violence. This is a purview of the Federal Government as is written by our Constitution.

And the Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, is not absolute. You can't yell ``fire'' in a crowded movie theater. There are limitations on our fundamental rights.

Don't take my word for it; take the Supreme Court of the United States. A conservative Court in the Heller decision made it very clear that government can take steps--reasonable steps--to protect our Nation.

So what does it mean in a country when the top killer of our children is gun violence, and we cannot take commonsense steps like the ones spelled out in the law that was just objected to? Safe storage of weapons, this is not an infringement of someone's right to own a gun. Safe storage of weapons, this is not taking away someone's gun. Safe storage of weapons, this is not a violation of someone's fundamental rights.

What it is, is a reasonable step to protect children because 90 percent of the kids in our country who are dying by suicide or unintentional shootings are in homes where a loaded gun is easily accessible to children--children as young as 3 years old getting their hands on these weapons.

Over 40,000 Americans die in a year to gun violence, and the response of this body is to do nothing. Forty-thousand Americans, the No. 1 killer of our children, and instead of seeing this as a crisis, as far as having special hearings and gatherings to put our minds together in a bipartisan way, how do we stop our children from dying, how do we stop our children from being slaughtered--instead of this being something that is concerning us to do something, we do nothing.

And I am sorry, inaction is complicity in this violence. If you object to this, what is your idea to protect our children? If you object to this, what is your idea to stop so many kids, so many Americans from dying? Tell me what it is because Martin Luther King said it plain, in another point in American history, in another crisis. He said: What we will have to repent for as a nation is not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people.

And so I know this body. I know the good, hard-working, dedicated Americans who serve here. But the inaction is appalling. The inaction is complicity. The strongest Nation on the planet Earth gives the implicit messages to our children and their parents: We can't protect you. So you know what we are going to do? We are going to teach you how to hide because we are now in a nation where there are more active shooter drills than there are fire drills.

What message is this to our children and our families that we are saying we are going to do nothing? Another year will pass, another 40,000 Americans are going to die, and we do nothing to protect you.

That is unacceptable to me. We are better than this. We are stronger than this. The very ideal of liberty should be that our people should not live in fear. But by our inaction, we have a nation where people all over our country are now chained to fear, shackled by grief, communities ripped apart, families in mourning. And a simple step in America, a simple Federal law like seatbelt laws, a simple Federal law like the safety of our airplanes, a simple Federal law to address the No. 1 cause of killing of our children, that if you have a loaded firearm at home, you should lock it up and keep it away from a child, we can't do that.

Well, Merry Christmas, America. The most urgent and basic thing this body should do is to protect children. And the No. 1 cause of child death in America, what have we done this year? Nothing--nothing.

This is a time we should act. This is a time we should join together. I call on my Republican colleagues to put forth one idea that will save a child from gun violence, to show that your allegiance is to safety and security.

No other country deals with this. We are an aberration when it comes to deaths by gun violence. No other nation allows their children to be slaughtered--Canada, New Zealand. I can tell you the nations that have taken action and, as a result, have seen a dramatic drop in the numbers of deaths.

We are an exceptional country, but in this case, being the exception is horrific to too many. And so I am disappointed to sit here and witness an objection, but I am relentless. We must be undeterred because change is not always easy. But in this case, we, as a country, with thousands of our children dying every year, must stay determined to make the change necessary for us to protect the people of this great Republic.

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