Executive Session

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, a few years ago, an author named Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book titled ``The Tipping Point.'' He spelled out that in the course of history, when something occurs that changes people's thinking and actions, it is a precipitous moment where what has been done for so long stops, is reevaluated, and a different course is followed. The clear question we have in America today is whether we have reached a tipping point when it comes to gun violence.

It has only been 13 days since the tragedy in Parkland, FL. Look at what has happened since. Of course there is outrage, sadness, and mourning for the families who lost these wonderful students, teachers, and administrators, but beyond that, these high school students--17, 18 years old, some even younger--have become a national voice, a powerful voice on the issue of gun safety in schools.

I often wondered when this moment might occur or whether it would occur. There has been such a long litany and string of mass shootings and massacres. It is sad to say that there was a numbness setting in. When terrible things occurred in places like Las Vegas, Texas, and other States, you wondered, is that the event? Will the killing of those innocent children in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut be the tipping point? Will America finally say ``enough''? It appears that on this day, 13 days after the tragedy in Florida, we are near or at a tipping point when it comes to gun safety.

Some of it is very personal. Two weeks ago, after this occurred, my 6-year-old granddaughter said to her mother that she had been warned in her first grade classroom that if a shooter should turn up at school firing a gun, first, she should stay away from the windows, and second, she should lie down on the floor. I can't tell you what a profound impact that had on me as a grandfather to think that my little first grader, this beautiful little girl, was worried about the moment when somebody would walk in her classroom and wantonly try to kill the students and teachers who are there.

I cannot believe that any sane person believes that the Second Amendment to the Constitution--the right to bear arms--envisioned that possibility. I am sure it didn't. I am sure our Founding Fathers--and we can debate for the rest of the day what their words actually meant-- never envisioned that an American citizen's right to bear arms could somehow translate into violence against so many innocent people, as it has over and over again.

Last week, I was in Chicago. I was joined at a press conference by gun safety advocates at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center on the South Side. We stood together, victims of gun violence and I, at a press conference. With me were advocates from Hadiya's Promise and the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, who have been working together for years to combat the scourge gun violence in Illinois. I also stood with Patrick Korellis, who was wounded on February 14 10 years ago at a mass school shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL.

A new voice came to join us, a graduate from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, named Francyn Brown. She graduated from Stoneman Douglas in 2009. She is currently a law student at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. She is one of dozens of Stoneman Douglas graduates in the Chicago area--which include, incidentally, the first baseman for the Chicago Cubs, Anthony Rizzo--and hundreds, if not thousands, nationwide who joined together in the aftermath of the February 14 mass shooting that killed 14 Stoneman Douglas students and 3 staff. These young men and women have come together to speak up and urge their lawmakers to do something about the Nation's epidemic of gun violence. The message is starting to resonate.

When Francyn Brown was speaking last Wednesday, students at schools across the Chicagoland area were walking out of class in solidarity with Stoneman Douglas students. They are all calling for commonsense gun reform. These students don't have time or patience for political games in Washington or Springfield. They have seen their friends, kids just like themselves, get shot in their classrooms and neighborhoods. They have had enough.

Francyn Brown said:

It's not supposed to matter what side of the aisle a politician sits. We are supposed to all protect the future of our children.

I couldn't agree more.

These students and young people across the country are changing the debate about gun violence. They are making it clear how absurd it is for lawmakers in this Chamber, across the rotunda, or in State capitals to do nothing when Americans get shot every day in their homes, their neighborhoods, their churches, nightclubs, concerts, and schools. They are fed up with politicians in Washington who ignore the overwhelming majority of Americans who want commonsense gun safety and listen instead to paranoid, bullying gun sales lobbyists.

Remember, the National Rifle Association and its allies oppose virtually anything that hurts gun sales. They fight against proposals that might reduce gun sales, and they try to roll back laws on the books that limit them. That is their agenda. But it is not America's agenda. Corporate America is starting to walk away from the NRA. It is no longer a source of pride that they are doing business with the National Rifle Association--just the opposite. We are seeing company after company end relationships with the NRA because of its increasingly unhinged and hysterical rhetoric on the issue of gun safety. Corporate America--some of the biggest corporations in our Nation--realize that the NRA no longer speaks for responsible gun owners. When will Congress realize this?

We know we need to act to keep our children safe. There is no single reform that can stop every shooting, but we know there are gaps in our gun laws that make it easy for criminals, abusers, troubled children, and mentally unstable people to get guns, even military assault weapons with bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.

We need to close these gaps, and that requires the Republicans who control Congress to stand up to the NRA and do something that the NRA might not like. For starters, my Republican colleagues could take up legislation that the leader of their party, President Trump, proposed last Thursday. Here is one of the President's infamous tweets:

I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue--I hope!

And I hope as well.

There are proposals that Americans broadly support. Let's do something. Of course, the NRA is opposed to most of these. We expected that. These proposals might have some negative impact on gun sales, but is the gun sales lobby now in charge of writing bills for the Senate and the House? Deferring to the NRA is the reason we have reached this moment in history.

Remember, the Senate has held one gun vote since President Trump came to office, and it was a vote to prevent mental health records from the Social Security Administration from going into the FBI's gun background check system. That is the only vote since the Trump administration took office. It is the only thing we have done here--roll back a law on the books on mental health and background checks. That was a giveaway to the gun lobby, which claims to support enforcing the laws on the books but actually tries to roll back those laws if it means helping to lift their sales.

Let's show the students at Stoneman Douglas and across the country that we hear them. I hope we show that reducing gun violence is a priority.

I call on my Republican colleagues to join the Democrats in a bipartisan effort to treat the issue of gun safety with the sense of urgency that the American people believe is necessary. If Republicans gave a fraction of the effort to gun safety that they have to other issues, we could get this done--and done quickly. There are plenty of reforms we could pass that are completely consistent with the Second Amendment and would save lives. Even President Trump, for the time being, has said that he supports them.

So let's get started. Not on a giveaway to the gun lobby--let's work on closing loopholes. Let's have universal background checks. Over 90 percent of the American people believe we should keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons and mentally unstable people. I also believe that those who are subject to protective orders for domestic violence should be disqualified from buying a gun. I would say that those who are on the terrorist watch list, whom we do not allow to fly on airplanes because of fear that they could do harm to others, shouldn't be allowed to buy guns in the United States. I want to add a provision that straw purchasers--the girlfriends with no criminal record who buy the weapons to give to the boyfriends with a long criminal record-- ought to have the book thrown at them. Let's get to work.

I want to thank the victims and advocates who have worked for many years to help reduce the epidemic of gun violence. I want them to know we stand with them, and I hope we can all stand with them on a bipartisan basis.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source