Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, as we close this debate on this historic bill, I urge my colleagues to again heed and hear the families of Newtown. They are here talking about not only the horror and unspeakable and unimaginable tragedy that befell them on December 14, just 4 months ago, but to speak also for the 3,400 or more who have perished since as a result of gun violence, the thousands more who will die needlessly if we fail to take action, and the many others who have died tragically as a result of gun violence.
Newtown shook America. It shocked and changed our country. We owe it to the families and we owe it to ourselves to heed and hear their message. We need to do something about the guns. That is what they told me again and again in Newtown and Connecticut and across the country. And those families have come here, mustering their courage and strength, showing us what is great about America--the grit and greatness of our Nation.
Somewhere in that time period, there were many bracelets, and I was handed one I have worn since. It says, ``We choose love.'' ``We are Newtown. We choose love.'' And that is what we should do today.
Those 20 beautiful children and 6 great educators whose pictures have been before us day after day, whose images have been before America week after week during these 4 months, for them, we are all Newtown. Let's choose love.
They are not the first to have perished in a mass killing. Well known to America, the names are now engraved in our memories, so that we merely need to say them to evoke the grief and tears--Aurora, Tucson, Virginia Tech. All of those names and others are likely not to be the last, and nothing we are doing here will end entirely the plague of gun violence. We will not solve the whole problem because there is no single solution or even necessarily a set of solutions we are debating today that will end all the tragic bloodshed. But we can save lives. We can make a start. We can literally stop a major part of it with commonsense measures that evoke common ground.
With a background check system, we can stop criminals, felons, the dangerously mentally ill, domestic abusers, and others who should not have guns from buying firearms and using them as weapons of war.
With a ban on illegal trafficking, we can stop felons and other criminals from trading and transporting guns across State lines, making a mockery of strong State laws, such as Connecticut's, which protect its people, and stop them from making straw purchases.
With measures on school safety, we can secure those educational institutions that have proven vulnerable again and again. The Campus Safety Enhancements Act will help us do that, and we can make our children less vulnerable.
With an assault weapons ban, we can begin to reduce and eventually end the flow of these military-style assault weapons designed to kill and maim human beings.
With a ban on high-capacity magazines, which I will offer through amendment No. 714, we can make killers less lethal, stop them from killing their victims as rapidly and numerously. We can gain time in those situations of mass killings where a few seconds can actually save lives.
With these measures and others that will be offered here today on mental health, for example, we can choose love. We can choose to make something positive of that unspeakable and horrific tragedy which befell Newtown and which has befallen many others before and since. We can do something. We can take action.
On the universal background check, which my colleague Senator Manchin spoke about a short time ago and which he has authored with Senator Toomey, we can choose a bipartisan commonsense measure. It is not everything I would hope would be in a background check measure, but it is a genuinely important improvement on current law.
We know background checks have worked on the 60 percent of sales where they have been applied because they have stopped about 2 million felons and other dangerous people who are prohibited by law from buying weapons from actually going into stores and purchasing them.
I understand the argument that we need more prosecutions and that existing laws need to be enforced more vigorously. As a prosecutor, I am very sympathetic toward that argument, and I will support zealously more resources and even better management to result in more prosecutions. We need to enforce existing laws more effectively, but that goal should not stop us from improving those laws, especially when law enforcement itself--our police and prosecutors at every level: State, Federal, and local--urges us to improve those laws to enable them to prosecute more of the dangerous people who use guns for evil purposes.
We ought to listen to those law enforcement officers, as I did for decades as a U.S. attorney and the State attorney general for 20 years. I am listening to them now when they say to me that we need a universal background check system, we need to make our laws more effective against assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as on school security and illegal trafficking.
Ninety percent of the public, 90 percent of everyone in this Nation supports this commonsense measure and 74 percent of the members of the NRA. This issue is not about the NRA or any special interests--although they have maintained a stranglehold over this type of legislation for over a decade, maybe a generation--it is about a bipartisan compromise forged out of a clear need for rational, sensible action that we now have an obligation to adopt.
Nobody wants to take away guns. Nobody wants to take away rights. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to possess firearms. But some firearms should not be possessed, and some people should not possess any firearms. That is what brings us to this point, this historic point in a debate that should evoke bipartisan support, and I hope Members on the other side of the aisle who are still in doubt will come to support this measure. We need only a few votes. We have the vast majority of Democrats.
I salute Senators McCain, Kirk, Collins, and others on both sides of the aisle who have made difficult decisions. But if this decision has seemed difficult to them and to many others, think of how difficult it has been for the Newtown families to come here and share their grief and pain with us, and they support the ban on high-capacity magazines because they know from their experience how lethal high-capacity magazines make any firearm--even more lethal than they would be otherwise.
I salute my colleague Frank Lautenberg, who has been a champion of this cause for some time, as well as Senator Feinstein, who included a high-capacity magazine measure in her bill--it is in her amendment now--and my colleague Senator Murphy, who has been a partner in this effort. He and I have listened to the families of Newtown when they have told us why they support a ban on high-capacity magazines, which is supported by 65 percent of all Americans and 55 percent of gun owners. It is supported by groups across the board, from law enforcement to health care, gun safety, education, child welfare, and religious groups.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of those groups supporting a ban on high-capacity magazines.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Groups That Have Endorsed This High Capacity Magazine Ban
The groups that have endorsed the high capacity ammunition magazine ban we are debating today include:
LAW ENFORCEMENT
International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators
International Association of Chiefs of Police
Major Cities Chiefs Association
National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives
National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives
Police Executive Research Forum
Police Foundation
Women in Federal Law Enforcement
HEALTH CARE
American Academy of Nursing
American Academy of Pediatrics
American College of Surgeons
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
American Medical Association
American Public Health Association
Association for Ambulatory Behavioral Healthcare
Doctors for America
National Association of School Nurses
National Physicians Alliance
Physicians for Social Responsibility
EDUCATION AND CHILD WELFARE
American Federation of Teachers
Child Welfare League of America
Children's Defense Fund
National Association of Social Workers
National PTA
National Education Association
Save the Children
GUN SAFETY
Arizonans for Gun Safety
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Mayors Against Illegal Guns
Newtown Action Alliance
Sandy Hook Promise
RELIGIOUS
African Methodist Episcopal Church
Alliance of Baptists
American Friends Service Committee
Catholic Charities USA
Catholics United
Faiths United To Prevent Gun Violence
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
National Council of Churches
National Episcopal Health Ministries
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness
United Methodist Church
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
American Bar Association
Grandmothers for Peace International
NAACP
Sierra Club
LOCALITIES
U.S. Conference of Mayors
National League of Cities
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, we have listened to the families of Newtown talk about high-capacity magazines.
Bill Sherlach, for example, who was the husband of Mary Sherlach--we have seen her picture here--had this to say about high-capacity magazines:
It's just simple arithmetic. If you have to change magazines 15 times instead of five times, you have three times as many incidents as where something could jam. Something could be bobbled. You just increase the time for intervention. You increase the timeframe where kids can get out. And there's 11 kids out there today that are still running around on the playground pretty much now at lunchtime.
And those 11 kids he talks about are alive because the shooter needed to change magazines.
Another Sandy Hook family member, Nicole Hockley, the mother of Dylan Hockley, said the following:
We looked at the search warrants ..... and know that [the shooter] left the smaller capacity magazines at home, that was a choice the shooter made. He knew that the larger capacity magazine clips were more lethal.
David Wheeler, the father of Benjamin Andrew Wheeler, said the following:
The more bullets you can get out the end of that gun in the least amount of time, that is the single area that I believe affects lethality. And the size of the magazine placed in that weapon is a direct contributor to that--a direct contributor to that factor. There is a place for 30-round magazines, in the military, on the battlefield.
The families of Newtown have spoken clearly and powerfully, but the facts of other shootings support the ban on high-capacity magazines again and again. In Tucson, AZ, for example, Jared Loughner emptied a 33-round magazine in 19 seconds, killing 6 and injuring 13 before stopping to replace his magazine. When he went to reload, a bystander tackled him. Others joined in, subduing and disarming him. Loughner was stopped because he had to pause to reload. His 13th round killed 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. If Loughner had been limited to a magazine with 10 rounds, that little girl very likely would still be alive today. If Lanza had been limited to a 10-round magazine, beautiful girls and boys might well be alive today.
Newtown and Tucson are only two instances in which a shooter was stopped when he had to reload or when his firearm ran out of ammunition.
In Queens, NY, in 1993, Colin Ferguson boarded the Long Island Railroad with a 9mm pistol with a 15-round magazine. He opened fire, killing 6 and injuring 19 others in 3 minutes. When he went to load another magazine, he was tackled and disarmed.
In Chapel Hill, NC, in 1995, Wendell Williamson walked the streets of Chapel Hill with an M-1 rifle. He opened fire, killing two. When he paused to reload, a bartender tackled him and disarmed him.
In Springfield, OR, in 1998, Kip Kinkel went to his high school with several firearms and 1,127 rounds of ammunition. He opened fire, shooting 50 rounds, killing 2 students and injuring 24 more.
As his firearm ran out of ammunition and he began to reload, several students tackled him and restrained him until the police arrived.
There are many others. In fact, half of the mass killings since 1982 involved high-capacity magazines. Half of all those mass slaughters were enabled by high-capacity magazines.
Facts are stubborn things, as Ronald Reagan used to say. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts, as Daniel Moynihan reminded this Chamber many times.
The most tragic stories for me involve law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. In Connecticut they include Officer Robert Fumiatti of the New Haven Police Department; Master Police Officer Peter J. Lavery of the Newington Police Department; Patrolman Brian A. Aselton of the East Hartford Police Department; Officer James V. Spignesi, Jr. of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection; Officer Walter T. Williams, III of the Waterbury Police Department; Officer Daniel Scott Wasson of the Milford Police Department; Patrolman Kenneth Bateman, Jr., of the Darien Police Department; Patrolman Gerald T. DiJoseph of the Bridgeport Police Department; and the first, whom I came to know, at least through his family--although I never knew him personally Trooper Russell Bagshaw. I have known many of these families and had the privilege of coming to know their children in many instances as well. I want to talk about Russell Bagshaw in closing for just a moment.
Russell Bagshaw of the Connecticut State Police was in his patrol car, driving the streets of northeastern Connecticut in North Windham on a summer night in 1991. He was 28 years old and a 4 1/2 -year veteran of the Connecticut State Police.
Each of these men I have mentioned died as a result of gunfire from criminals. Some of these shooters got a stolen weapon, perhaps illegally trafficked. None of them should have had access to any firearm. Russell Bagshaw surprised two robbers coming out of a local sporting goods store. One of the robbers shot him with a semiautomatic 9mm pistol that had a second handgrip under the barrel, and a 30-round magazine filled with hollow point bullets.
Before Trooper Bagshaw had even a chance to use his radio or exit his vehicle, the shooter unloaded 17 hollow point bullets at the cruiser that took 6.6 seconds from that 30-round, high-capacity clip. The shooter fired haphazardly, but he had enough to pierce the bulletproof vest Bagshaw was wearing above the left armhole and to kill him instantly.
I attended his funeral, with lines and lines of his fellow troopers and others from all around the country. I had the privilege of meeting these families--and most especially his family--brave and strong, just as the Newtown families are.
Neither Russell Bagshaw's training nor any of the other preparations could stop or protect from this carnage. In fact, the troopers I met after the horrific tragedy of December 14 in Newtown and Sandy Hook told me that their bulletproof armor could not have defended them against the assault weapons with the number of rounds that Adam Lanza had at that time.
There is no preparation, no bulletproof vest, no armor that can protect against these kinds of weapons shot at the range that many of them are. That is why we should listen to law enforcement--listen to the police and public officials and prosecutors who have told me since I began working on this cause in the early 1990s, when we passed the first assault weapon ban in Connecticut and I defended it in court, tried the case, and then went to State supreme court successfully defending our law against exactly the same constitutional arguments made now. They are equally without weight at this point.
So I urge my colleagues, whether they are wearing this wristband or not, to choose love. I know it will be difficult. It was difficult for many Connecticut legislators, and I carry with me the pen that our Connecticut Governor used to sign our law that significantly strengthened Connecticut's protection against these weapons, against criminals bearing them, against illegal sales, and against gun violence.
This cause is not going away whatever the outcome today. The vote will be close on many of these amendments. The Newtown families are not going away, the Connecticut effect is not going away, and we are not going away. Unfortunately, gun violence is not going away, and we need to redouble and reinvigorate our efforts. Whatever the outcome here today, we are not going away.
The world has watched Newtown exhibit the kind of strength and courage that we regard as uniquely American. Now the world is watching the Senate, and we will be held accountable for what happens here. History is watching. Let's be on the right side of history.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
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