Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Authorization Act - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. I know we have some other colleagues on the way down to the floor to speak, so I will be brief. I just want to join Senator Blumenthal and thank him for his tremendous leadership, as he noted, going back to his days as Connecticut's attorney general and now as a member of the Judiciary Committee. There have been few people in this country, frankly, who have led more on taking on the fight against gun violence, especially when it comes to protecting victims of domestic violence, than Senator Blumenthal. I am proud to join him in offering this amendment.

After being married for a number of years, Zina Daniel and her husband Radcliffe Haughton became estranged. In October of 2012 she got a restraining order against him, telling a court that he had slashed her tires and had threatened to throw acid in her face and burn her and her family with gas.

She told the court that his threats against her terrorized her every waking moment. She got a permanent restraining order, but even that permanent restraining order was not enough. He went on line--her estranged husband--went around our background check system, as is currently part of Federal law, and posted a ``want to buy'' ad on Armslist, one of the biggest online marketers of firearms. Within hours he found a seller. He bought a Glock handgun for $500 cash in a McDonald's parking lot. There was no background check. There were no questions asked by our seller. It was a simple transaction that was allowed because of our lax gun laws.

The next day he stormed into the Brookfield, WI, spa where his estranged wife worked and he murdered her and two other women. He injured four others and then he killed himself. This story is a caution both about our laws that protect victims of domestic violence but then also our unreasonable laws right now around how we conduct background checks in this country.

He was prevented from going into a store and buying a handgun only because Zina had gotten a permanent restraining order. But had she had a temporary restraining order, there would have been no such protection. That is what the amendment Senator Blumenthal and I have will cure. It will give spouses, girlfriends, partners, protection during that moment of intense rage right when the husband is expelled from the house for violence, when that temporary restraining order is being taken out.

But this story also tells us that we have miles to go when it comes to the other protections that are necessary to reduce the incidents of gun violence. In this case she had one protection surrounding the permanent restraining order, but because we do not require background checks for online purchases, her husband was able to buy a gun within a day and go and murder her and two others.

If we had background checks required for online purchases, it is likely that Zina Daniel and her two coworkers would still be alive today. So that is why we are on the floor today. Senator Blumenthal and I and many others of our colleagues believe that if we are going to have a weeklong debate about guns, we should be talking about what actions are actually going to reduce the epidemic rates of gun violence across this country, in particular the epidemic rates of gun violence when it comes to people who are victims of domestic abuse.

Senator Blumenthal probably covered the landscape in terms of the statistics.

But it is pretty stunning the risks that women in particular are put in when their spouse has easy access to a firearm. Abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if their abuser owns a firearm, and one of the few moments we can prevent that abuser from obtaining that firearm is when the court gets involved at that moment of separation between the wife and the husband, between the abused and the abuser, that moment of the temporary restraining order.

Senator Blumenthal and I think this is an amendment that could get broad bipartisan support. I wish we could get 60 votes for background checks, but I am realistic that it is not likely that five minds have changed since the last time we took this vote.

But just as we came together after a period of disagreement to pass the Violence Against Women Act, we can certainly make the decision that in those limited circumstances, during those limited days of a temporary restraining order, that abuser shouldn't be able to go out and buy a weapon.

Our amendment builds in protections so that this isn't a denial of due process; that the judge actually has to make a finding that there is a threat of violence. Those are fairly limited circumstances, but if this amendment is passed, we will save lives.

Senator Blumenthal closed, and I will close in the same vein, by noting that while this amendment will save lives, it is not going to dramatically change the reality in this country, which is 80-plus people killed every day by guns. But everybody has a role to play in trying to reduce the rates of gun violence.

A young man in New Haven, CT, by the name of Doug Bethea, lost a close friend of his this summer, a 16-year-old boy named Torrence Gamble, whom he saw at a funeral for another friend of theirs who had been killed by gun violence. Torrence said he wanted to get off the streets and start setting his life straight.

He wanted to set up a time to meet with his friend Doug Bethea to try to find a way out. It was only a couple of days after saying, ``Doug, don't forget about me''--in fact, the very next day--that Torrance was shot in his head and died of his injuries at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

So Doug decided to do something about it, and he spent the summer going out bringing information to house-to-house to tell families and kids

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in New Haven about their options to get off the streets, to do something productive with their time this summer, all of the rec leagues, arts programs, and dance programs that kids can invest positive energy in.
Target did their part a couple weeks ago by asking their customers to refrain from bringing guns onto their property, and we can do our part this week. If we are going to talk about guns this week, let's make sure we do something that reduces the rates of gun violence all across this country. This is a commonsense amendment, an amendment I am sure can gain broad bipartisan support. We hope we can do our part this week to try to stem the plague and scourge of gun violence on the streets of America.

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