Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to follow my colleague from Connecticut after his powerful and eloquent description of the lives that have been lost, the stakes of this decision, and the clear path we have--an opportunity and an obligation to save lives.

Let me begin where he ended. The President of the United States has an obligation here to lead. If he does, we will have legislation that will literally save thousands of lives. He has an obligation, as we do, to find a way to save these lives.

All of us have seen all too often the needless, senseless, and unspeakable tragedy done by gun violence. We focus on the mass killings, but those 90 deaths a day consist of the drive-by, one-by-one shootings in Hartford and New Haven and Bridgeport and cities and towns and communities around the country. No one is immune. No family is untouched, through friends and relatives and workplaces and through suicides, which are a major part of those 90 deaths every day in this country. Domestic violence is made five times more deadly when there is a gun in the home.

The President must not only come to the table but lead. And if he will not lead, get out of the way because we have an obligation to move forward now and take advantage of this historic opportunity and obligation.

Just weeks ago, in one 24-hour period, massacres in El Paso and Dayton left 31 people dead. Eleven days ago, a shooter in Odessa, TX, killed another seven. Communities are forever changed by these events, and so is our Nation. The trauma and the stress done in schools to our children by the drills they conduct, by the anticipation that is raised, by the fear that is engendered--the sights and sounds of gun violence echo and reverberate across our land.

I remember the sights and sounds of the parents at the firehouse in Sandy Hook on that horrible day in 2012 when 20 beautiful children and sixth grade educators died. The firehouse is where parents went to find out whether their children were OK. The way they found out was either their children appeared or they did not.

For them, in the cries and sobbing they experienced, the expressions of anguish, the look on those faces, it was only the beginning of their nightmare. It transformed Connecticut. What we did in Connecticut was adopt commonsense measures and comprehensive steps to stop gun violence.

The lesson of Connecticut is not only that those steps have reduced gun violence, including homicide, but also that States with the strongest laws are still at the mercy of the ones with the weakest because guns have no respect for State boundaries. They cross State lines, and they do damage and death in States like Connecticut with strong gun laws. Through the Iron Pipeline, it comes from other States to our south.

Since that day at Sandy Hook, there have been 2,218 mass shootings in the United States, and over 2,000 times, parents have sat, as did those parents at Sandy Hook, and waited to know whether their children were OK--children who left in the morning with no inkling about the violence that was to unfold.

There is no reason people have to live this way in the United States of America. America has no greater proportion of mental health issues than any other country. We have a higher rate of gun violence. We can prevent it through commonsense steps and comprehensive steps that will save as many lives as possible as quickly as possible by keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. That is the principle of the two main proposals likely to come before this body.

To keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, do it through background checks, which have to apply universally to all States for them to be effective. Experts estimate that 80 percent of firearms acquired for criminal purposes are obtained from unlicensed sellers, and a recent study found that States that have universal background check laws experienced 52 percent fewer mass shootings. Background checks prevent people who are dangerous to themselves or others from buying firearms, and, likewise, emergency risk protection orders take guns away from people who are dangerous to themselves or others. These two concepts have a common goal, the same end. They achieve it by complementary means.

The vast majority of perpetrators of mass violence exhibit clear signs that they are about to carry out an attack. The shooter in Parkland, as my colleague Senator Lindsey Graham has said, all but took out an ad in the newspaper saying that he was going to kill people at that school in Parkland. The police were repeatedly alerted to his violent behavior, including a call from a family member who begged the police to recover his weapon.

Today, in Florida, she could ask for an extreme risk protection order under a Florida law signed by my colleague Senator Scott when he was Governor. In the 17 jurisdictions that have passed emergency risk protection order laws, enforcers can petition courts to temporarily restrict access to firearms with due process.

At a hearing this morning in the Judiciary Committee, we learned from one of the judges in Broward County who enforce these laws that they have worked to prevent shootings, including many suicides, and they enable mental health help to be available as well. These laws prevent suicide. The majority of those gun deaths in the United States, in fact, are suicide, which is accounting for 60 percent of those 90 people killed every day.

Emergency risk protection orders are effective, but they are resource intensive, and that is why Senator Graham and I have worked hard and we are close to finalizing a measure that will provide grants and incentives to other States that are considering or may consider these kinds of laws. Together with Senator Graham, I have been working hard on this legislation, and we are close--after extensive discussion, not only between us but with the White House and with our colleagues--to a bill that can muster bipartisan support and pass this body.

The Charleston loophole must be closed. I have been leading that fight in the Senate to fix this problem for years. The House passed bipartisan legislation on background checks, H.R. 8, and on the Charleston loophole that would fix the problem of would-be murderers having access to guns simply because information is unavailable within the time limit that is set.

Guns should not be sold simply because a deadline for a background check is not met. Most are done literally within seconds or a minute, but some require more extensive work. There is no reason to wait to pass these measures.

Neither should we wait to pass a safe storage bill that we believe would have prevented deaths like Ethan Song's perishing in Guilford. This past January, Ethan Song would have celebrated his 16th birthday, but a year earlier, he was accidentally killed by a gun stored in his friend's closet, accessible to him and a friend. Like Kristen and Mike Song, thousands of other families across America lose children in gun violence every year. It is a parent's worst nightmare, and, in many cases, safe storage, including possibly Sandy Hook, would have prevented a mountain of heartache and a river of tears.

The Songs have been so strong and courageous, as have been the survivors of the victims' families in Sandy Hook. They have been the powerful faces and voices of this effort and the most effective advocates.

The groups that have been formed in these past years, raising awareness and mobilizing every town--Guilford, Brady, Newtown Action Alliance, Sandy Hook Promise, Connecticut Against Gun Violence, Moms Demand Action, and Students Demand Action are only some of them. They are mounting a political movement, and we need to hear them.

History will judge us harshly if we fail to heed that call for commonsense reform. The voters will judge harshly, as well, the colleagues who fail to heed that call.

We need to keep in mind that gun violence is not one problem. There is no one solution. There is no panacea. We need to aim at all of these measures, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. The House, just this week, approved a ban on high-capacity magazines, as well as an emergency risk protection order statute.

Gun violence is many problems--not one. It is the loopholes in the background check system; it is the failure to safely store firearms; it is an arbitrary deadline for completing a background check; and it is the lack of emergency risk protection orders that take guns away from people who are dangerous to themselves or others with due process.

I have worked on this issue for more than two decades--almost three decades since I was attorney general first elected in the State of Connecticut. There has been progress. The progress has achieved results. Now it is this body's obligation to take that next step, and I implore the President of the United States to state his support, which my colleagues across the aisle have said is necessary for them to do what they think is responsible. I say to them: If the President fails to lead, you must do so.

We must continue to fight and never give up and never go away for the sake of the survivors and families who said from this Gallery when we failed to act in the wake of Sandy Hook: Shame.

Shame on us, in fact, if we fail to act.

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