Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are debating one of the most important bills we have had before the Senate in a long time. The reason we are debating this subject is because of what happened in Newtown, CT, on December 14, and the gun violence that takes its toll every day in cities all across America, including in my home State of Illinois. We know because we read and hear about it in the news and from the victims.

At this moment our Nation is saddened by what happened yesterday in Boston. We still don't know what the cause of that was or who was responsible for it. I just have to say we are stunned by it.

Members of the Senate and I--who have worked on the immigration bill--had planned to announce that bill today in a press conference. We have postponed that announcement out of respect to the people who have fallen, those who were injured, and their families. It is a moment of grave concern across America which was expressed well by the President last night.

We are waiting for the information and details to build a case on those who are responsible. I, for one--and I am sure my colleagues feel the same way--don't want to rush to judgment until we have the facts as to the parties responsible. The sadness we feel for the victims and the sadness we feel for America--an open and free America where people stand on the sidelines cheering marathon runners--is one that is profound in the Senate today.

The issue before us now is gun safety. It comes before us because 20 beautiful little first graders were massacred at their grade school--at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Six of their teachers and administrators literally gave their lives in defense of those children. There is not a parent or grandparent alive who doesn't identify with that horrible loss.

Last week I met with a group of parents, still grieving, from Sandy Hook Elementary School who came to Congress to beg us to do something to spare future families and future children from this type of massacre. I met with them in the morning. As you can imagine, there was not a dry eye in the room as they showed me the photographs of their beautiful children who are now gone. I commend them for their courage and stepping forward.

Now the question is whether the Senate has the courage to step forward. This is not an easy vote politically. I think we know what is at stake. I come from a pretty diverse State. I come from downstate Illinois, which is more rural. They have small towns and more gun owners than the great city of Chicago.

For 14 years, as a Congressman in downstate Illinois, I ran in an area where gun issues were very volatile and very important to many people. I took some positions which the gun lobby did not care for, and several times they decided they would wage a campaign against me when I ran for reelection. I survived their attacks and eventually was elected to the Senate.

This is the first meaningful gun safety legislation we have taken up since I was elected to this body over 16 years ago. We are here because of what happened in Newtown, CT. There is no question about it.

I often remind people that it was a little over 2 years ago that one of our own, Gabrielle Giffords, a Congresswoman from Arizona, was at a town meeting when she was gunned down and shot pointblank in the face. We did nothing about it. There were no hearings or changes in the law. It was just another gun statistic to many people.

But Newtown touched our hearts: to think that those beautiful little children could be massacred in their grade school classroom. One child was shot 11 times with a semiautomatic weapon that was firing off rounds as fast as this deranged individual could load it.

We are here today in the beginning of a debate on this important legislation. What is at stake? Well, this is about background checks. Here are the basic questions we need to ask: Do we believe the current Federal law, which prohibits a convicted felon, a person who is under an order from the court to avoid domestic abuse, a person who has been judged mentally incompetent--should they be able to buy a gun in America?

Now, 90 percent of Americans say that is an easy question, and the answer is, no; they should not be able to buy a gun. In fact, 75 percent of gun owners say that.

I come from a family of gun owners. They are responsible, law-abiding citizens who would never dream of looking the other way if a convicted felon or mentally deranged person wanted to buy a gun. They store their guns safely. They use them in a safe manner, and they represent the majority of gun owners across America.

So if this is such an obvious question where 90 percent of Americans agree we should not sell guns to those who have been convicted of a felony, for example, why is this being debated? What is the big deal? It comes down to the second part of the question: What would you think--and this Capitol is filled with tourists, many of whom flew on airplanes to get here today--if before the plane took off, the flight attendant said: Welcome aboard; fasten your seatbelts. We hope everyone has a safe flight. Incidentally, the TSA would like to inform everyone that they have closely checked the passengers onboard the plane to see if they are carrying guns or bombs. We are happy to report we have checked 60 percent of them, and they are not carrying guns or bombs. Have a nice flight.

Sixty percent--does that give anybody refuge, consolation, or peace of mind? That is what is going on today with the sale of guns. Up to forty percent of firearms sold in America today are not subject to background checks.

What difference does that make? I want to tell the story which goes back to a moment in history in my State of Illinois which illustrates why this is so important. Ricky Byrdsong was the head coach of the Northwestern University men's basketball team back in the 1990s. He was a great fellow. He was a loving father of three children and a man of deep Christian faith.

On July 2, 1999, Coach Byrdsong was walking with two of his children through his neighborhood in Skokie, IL, a great town. A White supremacist drove up and shot Ricky Byrdsong to death in front of his kids.

He was 43 years old.

This gunman ended up going on a shooting spree for days across Illinois and Indiana, randomly targeting African Americans, Jews, and Asian Americans. In the end, he killed two and wounded nine.

Here is the reality. The man who did the shooting never, ever should have owned a gun. He was prohibited by law from buying guns because of a domestic violence restraining order against him. Before his murderous rampage, he tried to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer in Peoria Heights, IL. He was rejected when it was revealed he was prohibited from purchasing a gun. But this white supremacist took advantage of a gap in our background check laws that still exists today. He found an advertisement for guns in the classified ad section of a newspaper.

A gun trafficker named Donald Fiessinger had been buying guns from a dealer--over 72 guns in a 2-year period--then turning around and reselling them through classified ads to buyers who wouldn't have to go through a background check. Ricky Byrdsong's killer bought two handguns from Fiessinger without a background check. He then used those guns on a shooting spree and killed Ricky Byrdsong on the streets of Skokie in front of his children.

The amendment before us today would make that more difficult, if not impossible. Under the Manchin-Toomey amendment, a background check would be required to sell guns advertised in a newspaper. This would have shut down the opportunity for Ricky Byrdsong's killer to get this murderous weapon. That is one of the issues before us, and it is critically important.

Joe Manchin is from West Virginia. Joe Manchin is a conservative Democrat, no question about it; no debate on that issue. Pat Toomey is one of the most conservative Republicans from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The two of them came together and said, Let's write something that is respectful of the Second Amendment, respectful of the rights of gun owners, but closes the gaps in the law when it comes to background checks. I think they have done a good job. But let me add quickly they put some things in this amendment I don't like at all. Let me be specific.

The amendment repeals the law that prevents gun dealers from selling handguns to out-of-State buyers, and it expands civil immunity to unlicensed gun dealers. I don't want to vote for those two things, but this is the nature of a compromise and this is the nature of the Senate. If we are going to pass this, I have to be prepared to take on and accept some issues I personally don't agree with because of the larger good. To me, the notion of plugging this 40-percent gap in the sale of firearms is so compelling I am prepared to accept parts of this amendment I don't like. I am never going to get exactly what I want on the floor of the Senate, nor will any Senator, nor should they expect to. We have differences of opinion, differences of party, differences of philosophy.

I commend Senators Manchin and Toomey for stepping up. This wasn't easy. They could have stepped back and said, Let somebody else do this. They haven't. I know they have taken some grief over it. The major gun lobby organizations oppose this Manchin-Toomey amendment, but we need to do this. Would it have saved the lives of those children at Newtown, CT? No. This measure would not have, because the guns he used were purchased by his mother who could legally purchase the guns. But it could have saved the life of Ricky Byrdsong and it could also save the lives of so many others who are being gunned down on the streets because people are owning and using guns who have no legal right to them. The Manchin-Toomey amendment moves us in the direction of closing that gap in the law.

I know the gun lobby opposes this amendment. I don't know what their position is on the underlying bill, but I know that Americans and gun owners overwhelmingly support it. So here is the question: Can the Senate rise above the political pressure and vote for this measure? We need 60 votes, and it means it has to be bipartisan, not just the majority on this side of the aisle, but a good number on the other side.

I am encouraged by last week's vote because last week we had a preliminary vote, a procedural vote, about whether we were even going to debate this issue, and there was a question about it. Before the vote came up, 13 Republican Senators, supported by the Republican minority leader, sent a public letter saying they were going to oppose any effort to even debate the gun issue on the floor of the Senate. It looked pretty bad when the Republican leader took that position. But 16 Republican Senators stepped up and showed, I thought, courage and a commitment to this institution by voting with us to move forward on this debate. I am not assuming their votes on any issues, but I want to commend them in the spirit of this institution which has failed in recent years to accept its mandate and deliberate and vote on the most important issues of our time. I commend them for remembering that and for committing themselves to at least engaging in this debate on the floor of the Senate.

What about background checks and the Second Amendment? Well, the gun lobby argues that background checks are unconstitutional, even though Justice Scalia made it

clear in the Heller decision, which was the decision on the Second Amendment that said, basically, the Second Amendment is a personal right to bear arms, not the right of a militia, which had been argued for years. Scalia said in that decision: ``laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms'' are ``presumptively lawful.'' So there is no doubt, at least in Justice Scalia's mind or mine, that a background check is consistent with the Second Amendment.

The gun lobby also argues that background checks are ineffective. We have heard this argument: Well, go ahead and pass all the laws you want and all the law-abiding citizens will live by them but the criminals won't. Here is what they failed to note. Nearly 2 million prohibited purchasers have been blocked from buying a gun since background checks went into effect. They were so stupid, so careless, they tried to buy a gun anyway. They were stopped. The argument, of course, then goes: Well, why are there so many gun crimes committed? Well, because they get guns through other means which are also addressed by the bill. Straw purchases, for example; or through the ads in the newspaper I mentioned earlier. And the argument that unless a law is air tight and will stop all gun violence we shouldn't pass it--are we going to use that standard for speeding on highways or for texting on highways? I don't think so. We do our best to set a reasonable standard for the good of this society, understanding there will be those who violate the law. The same thing holds true for this argument.

The gun lobby argues we should not improve background checks until we prosecute more cases where buyers fail their background checks. Well, what of the agency that gathers information for that prosecution--ATF the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives? If we look to that agency, we will note that for years now the gun lobby and the NRA have worked to keep this as a leaderless agency and to make sure it didn't have the power to enforce the laws on the books. They can't have it both ways. They can't stop the ATF from its job and then argue they don't prosecute these gun violations seriously.

Here is the bottom line: We are going to have votes soon to see where Members of the Senate stand. Are they going to stand with our police officers, religious leaders, teachers, prosecutors, doctors, mayors, and the victims of gun violence and their families? Are they going to stand with the strong majority of 90 percent of Americans who support these reform proposals to save lives in this country? Or, will they stand with the gun lobby that refuses to compromise even when lives could be saved?

I know where I am going to stand. I am going to stand with Ricky Byrdsong's family and his widow Sherialyn. She wrote me earlier this year when I held a hearing on gun violence and this is what she said:

How a criminal is able to buy a gun with no questions asked is absurd. Something must be done about this.

An important question from an important person whose life was changed forever because we do not have a strong law. I stand with so many other families who have suffered tragedy, including those families from Newtown who were here last week, as well as the families and the victims in my hometown of East St. Louis, IL, and the city of Chicago I am honored to represent. They are sick and tired of the gun lobby that puts industry profits before common sense and they are tired of the gun lobby having its way in Congress year after deadly year.

I urge my colleagues to join with the majority of Americans who support commonsense reforms for gun safety. I urge my colleagues to support the compromise Manchin-Toomey amendment and the bipartisan legislation on the Senate floor.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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