-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today is Valentine's Day and a day we set aside to celebrate love, but far too many American families this day have haunting memories and unfathomable pain. They are the families of Americans killed by gun violence.

Last night, the families of three Michigan State University students joined the heartbroken ranks. Five additional victims were wounded. It was the 67th mass shooting in the United States of America in this calendar year. February 14, the 67th mass shooting--more than 1 mass shooting every day this year. What is a mass shooting? When four people or more are injured or killed.

No other nation on Earth accepts this wholesale slaughter that we have now become so inured to in the United States. We shouldn't be. Americans have seen too much carnage from guns. I am sick of it. This Nation is sick of it.

Five years ago today, a 19-year-old gunman murdered 17 people and wounded 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL--the fifth anniversary of it, and we are observing the madness and slaughter that took place in Michigan. The gunman fired indiscriminately at Parkland, at students and teachers, and used a Smith & Wesson AR-15 assault rifle. The dead included 14 students and 3 staff members who died trying to protect them.

The Parkland shooting horrified our Nation. It cut especially deep at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL, 65 miles outside of Chicago. You see, exactly 10 years ago on Valentine's Day 2008, a gunman armed with a shotgun and three semiautomatic pistols kicked open the door of an auditorium-style classroom at Northern Illinois and walked up and down the aisle, shooting people indiscriminately. The shooting lasted just under 6 minutes. When it ended, 5 students had died at Northern and more than 20 were injured.

Six weeks into the year 2023, and already this year, at least 5,127 Americans have died from gun violence according to the Gun Violence Archive. They died in homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings.

Last year, Congress passed and President Biden signed the most sweeping gun safety law in 30 years--the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Among other things, it toughened background checks for gun purchasers under the age of 21 and cracked down on the trafficking and straw purchasing of firearms. It also included funding to help States implement red flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a danger to themselves or others. Just today, my home State of Illinois was awarded $9\1/2\ million in funding under the new law to help carry out Illinois' red flag law. That is progress. But the majority of Americans support even stronger gun safety laws, including closing the gaps in the background check system for gun purchases.

I believe that Congress should also restore the ban on assault weapons, including AR-15-style rifles--increasingly the weapon of choice for mass shooters. These military-style weapons have no place in schools, neighborhoods, or college campuses.

One month after the Parkland school massacre, student survivors of that slaughter organized a rally called March for Our Lives. Hundreds of thousands of people attended the march in Washington. One of those powerful speakers that day was a young woman named Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of Parkland. She warned Americans that day, ``Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job.''

In America today, gun violence can strike any family, anywhere, anytime. Today on this grim anniversary, we must recommit ourselves to a better America, to do more to protect our kids, our schools, our communities, and our country from the scourge of gun violence.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source