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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 25 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. SCHUMER. I know that the Senator from Alabama wants to speak. Could I ask the Senator from Alabama how long he wants to speak for?

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Mr. SCHUMER. Well, we want to all speak seriatim, and I thought I was going to speak before this.

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Mr. SCHUMER. Would the Senator yield also to Senator Durbin after me; is that all right?

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Mr. SCHUMER. Thank you.

Mr. President, I just heard, unfortunately, our Senator from Wyoming object. Here are the facts: The scourge of gun violence in America is a national crisis. The American people are sick and tired of enduring one mass shooting after another. They are sick and tired of vigils and moments of silence for family, friends, classmates, coworkers.

Today, Democrats move to pass the assault weapons ban to help rid our streets of these deadly weapons. I want to thank my colleagues who support this measure, particularly Senator Durbin, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, as well as Senators Murphy and Blumenthal and Warnock, who organized today's efforts with me.

We already have a decade's worth of proof that a ban on military- style assault works and saves lives, plain and simple. After I led the passage of the assault weapons ban--I carried the bill in the House as a Congressman, alongside our late colleague Senator Feinstein, who carried it in the Senate. What happened? America saw a significant decrease in mass shootings and in gun deaths--a decrease.

Unsurprisingly, when that ban lapsed, there was a sudden and dramatic spike in mass shootings and deaths from those shootings. We must change that. We still feel the unquenchable suffering of the families of Sandy Hook, where 11 years ago next week 26 innocent lives were cut short by an automatic weapon. I still see the pictures of those little children, and I still remember--because I speak to them fairly recently--the parents who have a hole in their hearts forever because some madman with an assault weapon was able to kill 26 of them, one after the other.

We still feel the agony of places like Buffalo, where a year-and-a- half ago a gunman murdered 10 people in cold blood at a Tops grocery store. I was at that grocery store a few days later. I still feel their pain. We feel the pain of Uvalde, Las Vegas, El Paso. The list sadly goes on and on and on.

And we also take action today because of tragedies like the Long Island Rail Road massacre that happened 30 years ago tomorrow in my own backyard, the innocent people who lost their lives at the Maryland train station. It was the 533 train filled with commuters heading home from work--so many injured, six killed. My heart still sinks. And I will never forget hearing that news, the river of blood in the aisles of the commuter railroad train, just horrible.

By passing the assault weapons ban today, we can help save lives, get these weapons off our streets, and prevent future tragedies. So today Republicans face a choice, as they do every day. We want to say to our Republican friends: Stand with families fearing for their lives or stand with the gun lobby and block this assault weapons ban.

Just look at what happened the last time both sides worked together on commonsense gun safety measures. We did something many believed to be impossible. Under the leadership of Senator Murphy, Senator Durbin, Senator Blumenthal, and so many others, we passed the first major gun safety bill in three decades. While this bill was a long-overdue step in the right direction, we have to do a lot more.

Today, we have an opportunity to come together and pass another lifesaving measure.

I yield to the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, the chair of the Judiciary Committee.

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