Gun Violence
Floor Speech
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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I think we are all very touched and moved by Senator Fischer's remarks and the thoughts of the entire body go out to Sergeant Hansen's family and those he left behind.
I am on the floor today with no better news. We all woke up just days ago to the news of another mass shooting, this time in Kalamazoo. Saturday, another community was changed forever by gun violence. We live it every day in Connecticut, still mourning 20 dead first-graders and 6 teachers who protected them.
In this case, the alleged killer used a semiautomatic handgun to kill six people and injure at least two others across three incidents between about 6 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. That Saturday night the shooter first shot a woman several times, leaving her seriously wounded. Then, next to a car dealership, he gunned down a father and son. Later, he approached two cars that were parked outside a neighboring Cracker Barrel restaurant. He opened fire there and killed four.
I have been coming down to the floor now for almost 3 years telling the stories of victims of gun violence. I am going to talk about six today. Unfortunately, the statistics tell us there are 86 every single day killed by guns--2,600 a month and 31,000 a year. The vast minority of them are due to mass shootings. Most of the individuals on this list are killed by virtue of suicides or by individual acts of violence-- domestic violence, for instance--the violence that happens in cities of America like Hartford, New Haven, New York, and Los Angeles.
What is astounding to many of us is that despite these numbers--and I have made this case before--which are unlike those of any other industrialized country, we do absolutely nothing about it. We do nothing about it. We don't pass stronger gun laws. We don't strengthen our mental health system. We don't give more law enforcement resources. All we do is just catalog the numbers of dead every single day and every single month. The statistics apparently are not moving this place.
Hopefully--my hope is the voices of these victims can give you a sense of who these people are. Just the trail of tragedy that is left behind--researchers will tell you there are often over a dozen people who experience serious levels of trauma in the wake of one person being killed by guns.
Maybe these stories will change people's minds. Stories such as that of Mary Jo Nye, who was 60 years old when she was killed. She was enjoying a night out on the town with her former college roommate, her sister-in-law, Mary Lou Nye, and her friends, Barbara Hawthorne and Judy Brown, when all of their lives were taken by this seemingly random shooting.
Mary Jo was a retired teacher from Calhoun Community High School, where she dedicated her time and talents to students who were at risk of dropping out. That is not an easy job, but she put her mind to it and put her heart to it. One colleague commented that ``she was an English teacher, but she was a lot more than that to the students who don't come from great home lives.''
A friend said she was ``always reaching out to others and helping families.'' This friend also said:
It just doesn't make sense. Mary Jo saw helping others as her calling in both her professional and her personal life. It's a tragedy.
Mary Lou Nye met her sister-in-law, Mary Jo, when they were in college where they were actually roommates. Mary Lou fell in love with one of her roommate's older brothers, eventually getting married, making the roommates not only friends but also family. Mary Lou dedicated her time as a manager of the Michigan Secretary of State branch in South Haven prior to its closing. She shared her love of children for the last 6 to 7 years working at a daycare center. A local pastor said she always had a smile on her face and was loved by the kids she worked with. ``It was never about her,'' he said, ``always about making sure things were right for the children.'' Her son said his mom ``loved reading books and doted on her grandson,'' his 5-year- old, Geoffrey. She, herself, was the youngest of five children. Her grandson Geoffrey will not be able to spend that time with his grandmother any longer.
Sixty-eight-year-old Barbara Hawthorne was in the backseat of Mary Jo Nye's car when she was killed.
Her family said:
Our `Auntie Barb' was easy to laugh. A generous, giving person who loved her many friends and family. She was a true ``hippie'' who marched for civil rights in the Deep South, recycled everything that came through the house, and believed in marching to your own drummer. She loved the theater and live music and shared tickets to performances whenever possible.
Dorothy Brown, known as Judy among her friends and neighbors, was also with Mary Jo, Mary Lou, and Barbara. Neighbors remember Judy's generous and friendly spirit. She readily shared her homegrown herbs and always took time to share a friendly wave with her neighbors. One neighbor who did odd jobs for her occasionally, helping out around the house, always got a gift card from her at the end of the year. She was described by one neighbor as ``a sweet, sweet old lady. You couldn't ask for a better neighbor.''
Tyler Smith was 17 years old and he was with his father shopping for a car when the shooter drove by and opened fire, killing both the father and the son. Tyler had a very bright future ahead of him. He was enrolled in the marketing entrepreneurship program at the local tech center in addition to high school. He was, according to friends and family, studying marketing so he could help open a family business with his father, sister, and his cousin.
The superintendent, who knew Tyler well--it means something about a kid if the superintendent knew this particular student well. That tells you he was marked for something big. He said he ``was such a great kid. He always had a smile on his face, always happy and very well liked.''
His father, known as Rich, was killed alongside him while they were shopping for a car. A family friend remembers Rich, saying, ``When Rich was in your presence he automatically put you in a good mood--he had this contagious laugh and he always smiled.''
A friend said:
Rich was always there to lighten it up and laugh it off. . . . He was such a wonderful man.
Those are 6 people of the average of 86 killed every day, just in that one episode in Kalamazoo. What is so sad is that when the shootings in Kalamazoo began that Saturday evening, a dozen other people had already been killed in multiple victim incidents since the weekend started. Set aside all of those one-of instances of gun violence. Set aside all of the suicides. Just last weekend, before Kalamazoo happened, a dozen other people had been shot across this country in multiple victim incidents. There is no other country in the world that has that level of epidemic mass gun violence.
I will speak at another time about why that is, but what is unexceptional about the United States is that the American public wants to do something about it. They don't accept the status quo, just as other countries probably wouldn't accept it either. Ninety-two percent of Americans are in favor of universal background checks, and we can't even get a debate on this on the floor of the Senate, nor in the House of Representatives. Democracy normally doesn't allow for 90 percent of Americans to support something that their legislative body will not even consider.
Eighty-five percent of NRA Members are in favor of universal background checks. All that means is, all you have to prove is that you are not a criminal. You have to prove you haven't been deemed mentally incompetent before you can buy a gun.
Support for the laws that we want to debate on the floor of the Senate is absolutely bipartisan. Here is a chart showing background checks for gun shows and private sales. Those are not universal background checks. They are just for those two particular forums. For that specific proposal, Democrats support it by 88 percent, Republicans by nearly 80 percent; laws to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns, 81 percent Democrats and 79 percent of Republicans--no difference.
There is a little bit more of a difference when you come to a Federal database to track gun sales. You still have 55 percent of Republicans supporting that. That is probably the most controversial reform which, to me, for the life of me, I can't figure out why it is controversial. A ban on assault-style weapons, you have 70 percent of Democrats but a majority of Republicans as well, which tells you that the overall American population, despite their partisan registration, supports a ban on assault weapons, which of course wasn't that radical long ago, when it was passed in the law of this country. I will not go into this in detail, but, again, you look at specific provisions, and the overwhelming majority of the American public supports them--bans on semiautomatic weapons, bans on assault weapons, bans on high-capacity ammunition clips, bans on online sales of ammunition. Again, over and over again, you see an overwhelming majority of Americans supporting these laws.
It is simply time for us to respond to the voices of 31,000 victims every single year and do something about it. I will continue to come down to the floor and share these stories, share some of these charts, share some of the data, in the hope that it will inspire this body to break out of its ice of indifference--as somebody coined the phrase before me--and do something.
I understand we are not likely to get a vote on background checks between now and the end of the year, but there is a big bipartisan mental health bill we can debate on the floor before we wrap up for the year. This Senator would submit to you that is not the answer for the epidemic of gun violence, but it would help. If you create more inpatient beds and more outpatient capacity, a lot of the very disturbed individuals who take these demons that exist inside them and turn them into an act of massive violence--that mental health reform bill could help them. It would just be the beginning of the work we have to do, but it would be a very important beginning.
At some point the U.S. Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the world, an organization that claims to represent the will of the people, will have to start paying attention to the voices of these victims and the overwhelming majority of the American public who want us to honor them.
I yield back.
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