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Floor Speech
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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, we don't have to fight over everything here. It is OK if, occasionally, we find consensus around commonsense things that we could do together to keep our country safe.
I kind of thought we had consensus on at least the idea that civilians shouldn't be able to get their hands on machineguns.
I understand there are differences between Republicans and Democrats on AR-15s, that maybe not all of my Republican colleagues think that everybody should go through a background check before they buy a gun. But I thought--I thought--we were all in agreement that fully automatic weapons were too dangerous to be in the hands of civilians; that these are unquestionably weapons of war. They are designed--designed--for mass slaughter, and you just do not need a weapon that allows you to fire hundreds of rounds per minute in order to hunt, in order to protect your home, in order to shoot for sport.
But, apparently, we do not have consensus on the question of whether Americans should have access to machinegun technology because, earlier today, Senator Heinrich--a gun owner, somebody who knows a lot about weapons--came to the floor to ask for consent that we make sure that civilians can't get their hands on a device called a bump stock that allows you to convert a semiautomatic weapon into a machinegun. That is, effectively, what a bump stock does. It allows you to change a semiautomatic weapon, which you have to pull the trigger in order to fire each round, into an automatic weapon in which one physical pull of the finger allows you to fire multiple rounds. It effectively gives you access to an automatic weapon.
I thought we all agreed that automatic weapons, machineguns, should be in the hands of the military. I especially thought we all agreed on that after what happened in Las Vegas.
On October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a concert from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. There were 500 yards between that gunman on the 32nd floor and those innocent concertgoers. That gunman fired about 1,100 rounds, killing 58 people--58 people--and wounding 500.
When we think about the Las Vegas tragedy, we focus on that number, 58 people. That is a stunning number of people to die in an instant. We don't talk about the 500 people who were injured, many of them with injuries that changed their lives forever--everyone, whether they were injured or not, dealing with trauma that impacted their lives forever.
There were 1,100 rounds fired from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Do you know how long it took him to get off 1,100 rounds? Eleven minutes. Eleven minutes. That gunman was able to fire around 90 shots every 10 seconds. Why? Because he had taken a bump stock and converted a semiautomatic weapon, turning it, effectively, into an automatic weapon.
Even Donald Trump, the biggest backer of the NRA and the gun lobby that has ever been in the White House, knew that something had to change. He put forward a regulation to ban bump stocks, and most of my Republican colleagues celebrated that change. I don't remember many of them opposing it.
But this month, the Supreme Court, packed with pro-gun lobby Justices, most of whom were selected by Donald Trump, ruled that that regulation was unconstitutional. I think they got it wrong. I think they absolutely got it wrong. I think if you look at the plain reading of the statute, bump stocks are illegal, and the regulation proffered by the Trump administration should have been ruled as unconstitutional. But Trump's appointees thought otherwise. They bought the argument of the gun lobby, and they ruled that bump stocks could, once again, be sold commercially in this country.
So we thought that it would be an easy case to make to our colleagues that having seen the regulation proffered by the Trump administration to be ruled unconstitutional, having been offered by the Supreme Court the chance to fix that statutorily, that we could get to that business this week, but we are not because Republicans objected to our efforts to try to pass into law a ban on bump stocks, to try and take away from psychopaths and madmen the technology that allows them to turn an automatic weapon on crowds of concertgoers and get off 1,000-plus rounds in a 10-minute period of time.
What Republicans in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are doing on a regular basis is facilitating the mass slaughter of Americans, handing to individuals whose brains are breaking the tools of mass slaughter, refusing to do the easy, popular, commonsense things to just make it a little bit harder for 58 people to be gunned down, 500 people to be injured in a 10-minute period of time.
No law that we pass will end gun homicides in this country. No law that we pass will completely eliminate mass shootings. But there simply are technologies like the bump stock that turn a mass shooting in which 5 or 10 people might have died into a 58-person slaughter.
It is just true that when you have a weapon like an AR-15 or you have a converted semiautomatic weapon with a bump stock, the slaughter is worse, that more people die. Why on Earth would we choose to hand to these killers weapons that are designed for one purpose and one purpose only, mass slaughter?
You do not need a bump stock in order to protect your home. You do not need a machinegun in order to hunt for sport. The only reason you need a bump stock is to engage in mass murder.
I take this personally because I have lived through an experience of mass slaughter, as has the Presiding Officer. I did not lose a loved one, but I have come to know those families from Sandy Hook like they are family. And I know there is never ever getting over losing a loved one, frankly, whether it be to a gun death by suicide or by mass slaughter. But it makes it harder to deal with the loss of a loved one in a mass killing when you know the people that you elect to positions of high office have the power to prevent the slaughter or at least prevent it from being as bad as it was, and they chose to do nothing.
Republicans complain that this was a political stunt. What about everything that Joe Biden has said and done, what about the efforts that Senate Democrats have undertaken would suggest that we aren't sincere in our desire to prevent unnecessary gun deaths?
We have, over and over again, acted in good faith to try to find bipartisan compromise around changing the gun laws of this Nation. Joe Biden has shown absolute sincerity in his desire to try to keep more people alive. This is not a ``gotcha'' unanimous consent request; this is a real attempt to effectuate what we thought was a consensus that people shouldn't have access to machinegun technology in this country.
Senate Republicans could have agreed to work with us. They could make an offer today to expedite consideration of this bill next week. So the only political decision that is being made here is by Republicans who are opposing a bill that is undoubtedly supported by the mass majority of Americans.
So if this wasn't the way the Republicans wanted to do this, then I am open to other offers because we have passed bipartisan legislation to save lives. There are Republicans who have joined us, most recently, on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
What we know is that when we do come together and pass laws that make it harder for dangerous people to get their hands on dangerous weapons, we save lives.
Urban gun deaths are down by 20 percent in this country. From 2022 to 2023, we saw the sharpest decline in gun murders in the history of this country. In 2024, mass shootings are down over--well, around 30 percent compared to the same time period in 2023.
We are seeing a precipitous decline in gun violence in this country, whether it be urban homicides or mass shootings, and I am not suggesting that the entire reason for that is the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, but you had better believe that is a big part of the reason. You had better believe that when we pass laws that make it harder for dangerous people to get their hands on dangerous weapons, we save lives. And what matters in this country more than protecting the physical safety of your loved ones? What matters more? Nothing. Think about it. You would give anything--anything--to protect your son or daughter from physical harm. You would trade away your career, your savings. You might even give up your own life.
We have an easy opportunity--we had an easy opportunity--Republicans had an easy opportunity earlier today to just make it a little bit harder for the small subset of individuals in this country whose brains have collapsed and believe that the only way to deal with their demons is to turn a gun on others--we had a chance to make it less likely that that subset of individuals would be able to kill 58 people like what happened in Las Vegas, and we couldn't even come to that consensus.
We are open for business. If this wasn't the way today, show us the way. Tell us how we can answer Republican concerns so that we can get these weapons of war, these facilitators of mass murder, these bump stocks, off the streets.
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