Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is not merely about hunting, recreational shooting, or marksmanship, nor is it discretionary. This is one of the provisions of the Bill of Rights that the Founding Framers of our Constitution were so passionate about that they made sure it was included in our Constitution as part of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. It is not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. But its real significance is much greater. Indeed, the Second Amendment has long been viewed as a bulwark of individual liberty. It guarantees the most basic civil right in a free society, the right that allows responsible, patriotic, law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, to defend their families, and to defend their homes--all of this without having to rely on the government.
It is no mystery to any of us that the Federal Government--or State or local governments, including law enforcement--is not omnipresent. There are many parts of our country where law enforcement is a long way away or simply unavailable. So the Second Amendment preserves the right of responsible, law-abiding citizens to be able to protect themselves, their families, and their homes without having to rely upon an omnipresent law enforcement presence.
The Founding Fathers understood that the right of self-defense can become meaningless without the right to keep and bear arms. Some are pushing to curtail Second Amendment rights in the hope of preventing another mass shooting. I share the sorrow of the families who are grieving over their loved ones who were lost. I have had the privilege and honor of meeting some of the families. I wish it were as easy as some would suggest to solve the problem with the wave of a magic wand or to pass some bill. Here is the inconvenient fact that advocates of strict gun control ignore--one of the facts. Every mass shooting committed in the United States over the last 63 years, including the Newtown shooting, occurred in a gun-free zone. In other words, in each of these horrific instances the attacks took place in an area where law-abiding citizens had effectively been disarmed.
I listened to the remarks of the distinguished Senator from California who I know passionately believes there has to be some solution legislatively we could pass that would prevent the repetition of some of these terrible tragedies. But she conceded herself that no background bill would have prevented Adam Lanza from acquiring these weapons which he effectively stole from his mother and then murdered her with those same weapons before committing further atrocities at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
We do know that if the current law was enforced that the Virginia Tech shooter would have been prevented from acquiring guns legally because we know he had already been adjudicated mentally ill by the State of Virginia. But those records were never transmitted to the FBI to be included in a background check. We know the shooter in Tucson failed a drug test, a disqualifying fact for somebody to be able to legally purchase firearms, given a background check. But that information was never transmitted to the FBI, so the Tucson shooter was not prevented from buying weapons, even though he should have been disqualified if the background check system had been working the way it should.
I believe the most appropriate response to the recent mass shootings is to make sure that our current laws involving mental illness, drug use, mental health adjudications are enforced more aggressively and more efficiently. But at the same time, while we are trying to find a solution to these problems and not just engage in meaningless symbolism, we should not be making it harder for law-abiding citizens to exercise their constitutional rights under the Second Amendment.
We can and we should embrace realistic, effective solutions to the mental health problem because no one I know believes that a mentally ill person should be able to purchase a firearm. But we also should not erode the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens in the process. I think we will have an opportunity to vote on such a bill during the course of these debates.
In order to bolster the freedom of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms, I am offering an amendment that would allow Americans with concealed handgun licenses issued by their own States to exercise those rights in other States whose State law authorizes the issuance of a concealed handgun license. This is not a national standard. This is respecting the rights of individual States to determine whether they will in fact issue a concealed handgun license and to allow those persons who have a concealed handgun license issued by their home State to have that firearm legally in another State.
This is an interesting chart. You will notice that only two places in the country--the red, the District of Columbia and the State of Illinois--are the only two places in the country that do not have a regime of concealed handgun license issuance--only two, the District of Columbia and Illinois.
This amendment would not allow for concealed carry in Illinois or the District of Columbia, both of which have
banned that entirely. Nor would this amendment affect the right of every State to set its own laws with regard to concealed carry. It would not establish a national standard for concealed carry and it would not allow anyone to disobey the laws of his or her home State. What it would do is effectively treat concealed carry licenses as a driver's license. If you are driving from Virginia to Texas, you do not have to obtain a separate driver's license for each State you drive through, but you do have to obey the speed limits and other laws of the State in which you are driving. This legislation would create a similar system for concealed carry permits. If it becomes the law of the land, someone with a concealed carry permit in Texas would no longer have to worry about obtaining a separate one when he or she was traveling across the country. However, all Texans would still have to follow the concealed carry laws in the State in which they happen to be located, just as residents of other States still have to follow the traffic laws of the State, even if they have a Texas driver's license. If they are in New York they still have to obey the traffic laws of New York.
This bill is very similar to an amendment that won the support of 58 Senators back in 2009, including 13 Democrats who are still serving in this Chamber. I would add that, for those who argue about the effectiveness of background checks--and I certainly agree that for people in the business of selling guns that background checks are and should be the standard--but a concealed handgun license is like a background check on steroids. It is far more intrusive into the privacy and the background of the person who applies for a handgun license, so this standard ought to be one that those who support a robust background check regime could also support.
It is also a bipartisan idea that would make it easier for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights and it would avoid the ``gotcha'' and a prosecution that might otherwise occur. If concealed handgun licensees happen to be traveling across the country and possess a firearm, without this law they might otherwise be prosecuted for a criminal offense.
Just one final point. For more than two decades now, one of the biggest supporters of concealed carry has been a remarkable Texas woman by the name of Suzanna Hupp. In October 1991, Suzanna and her parents were finishing their lunch at a Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, TX, when a mentally ill man drove his truck into the restaurant, pulled out his gun, and began opening fire on customers.
When Suzanna realized what was happening, she reached into her purse to retrieve her handgun, but then she remembered her gun was not in her purse, it was in her car because Texas law at the time did not authorize a concealed handgun permit. As Suzanna told the Senate Judiciary Committee in chilling testimony a few months ago, "I wanted to be a law-abiding citizen.''
Her father courageously tried to tackle the gunman but was shot in the chest. Her mother was also eventually killed too. Thankfully, Suzanna escaped and she quickly became a powerful champion of concealed carry, which Texas legalized in 1995. Suzanna later on ran for the Texas legislature, where she served for 10 years. I thank her for all she has done to bring this issue home in ways that all of us can understand, and to protect the Second Amendment rights of responsible, patriotic, law-abiding citizens. Suzanna understands very well that we must never ever criminalize law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights by passing misguided legislation which encroaches on those rights and does not solve the real problem, which we can do and I hope we will take up in enforcing existing laws and dealing with the mental health component that is a common element in so much of this legislation.
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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I know this afternoon at 4 p.m. we will vote on a series of amendments. For all of us who were worried and concerned about these episodes of senseless gun violence, I think we can actually find a solution not by encroaching on the rights of law-abiding citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights but by focusing on the areas where we can make a difference.
We need to enforce current laws on the books better, more efficiently, and more uniformly. We also need to deal with the mental health component which is common to so many of these mass shooting atrocities.
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