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Floor Speech

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Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I want to begin today before we get to bump stocks by acknowledging the South Fork and Salt fires that have forced literally thousands from their homes in Lincoln County, NM, and the Mescalero Apache Nation over the last 24 hours.

I was actually just at the White House discussing these fires with Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. These are no-joke fires. They are large, they are fast-moving, and they are threatening thousands of people's homes today.

I know that many are worried that they may have already lost their homes, their property, their businesses, their animals. My thoughts are with every single one of you.

I want to extend my extraordinary thanks to the wildland firefighters, the first responders, local and Tribal leaders who are working right now to protect New Mexicans. I am also grateful to all the surrounding communities that have already welcomed thousands of their neighbors.

In times of need, New Mexicans look out for each other, and I know that we will do everything possible to help our fellow New Mexicans through this immediate emergency and the recovery in the months and years ahead.

I want to stress the importance for everyone in the impacted area to please heed evacuation orders and follow directions from local authorities. Please do everything you can to stay safe. Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1909

Mr. President, I am also here today to make a UC request for the Senate to consider my legislation, the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts or BUMP Act.

Nearly 7 years ago on October 1, 2017, more than 20,000 people gathered for a large outdoor music festival. It was the third day in a row that folks from all around the country joined their friends and family to hear music from some of their favorite musicians. No one could have anticipated the nightmare that was about to unfold that day.

Just after 10 o'clock at night, thousands were listening to the final performance of the night. And then over the music, they started to hear what at first people thought were fireworks. Rapid gunfire rained down on the crowd with shots so close together they seemed to almost bleed into each other. Complete panic erupted. And for the next terrifying 10 minutes, concertgoers ran in every direction, searching for cover where there was none--some falling down next to bleeding friends and dying loved ones, others fleeing desperately trying to reach safety.

In total, the shooter fired more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in just 10 minutes. He killed 58 people that night, injured hundreds more, including 2 more who ultimately perished from their wounds. It was and is the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

The Las Vegas gunman was able to murder and injure so many people so quickly because he used a deadly device known as a bump stock. Bump stocks are an attachment that modify semiautomatic firearms to dramatically increase their rate of fire, allowing them to operate as fully automatic weapons. They make it possible to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute. And let me be real clear, as a firearms owner myself, there is no legitimate use for a bump stock--not for self-defense, not in a law enforcement context, not even in military applications as they are less accurate than a standard fully automatic military platform.

But what they are tailor-made for is a mass shooting. I know there are people who will say: Guns don't kill people. People kill people. But the reality is this: Bump stocks kill and injure in the hundreds.

As someone who has owned and used firearms for most of my life for hunting, sport, for self-defense, I know for a fact that bump stocks serve no legitimate purpose. And that is why in the days and weeks that followed the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, NV, I led a bipartisan effort to ban bump stocks. I introduced legislation in the Senate alongside my Republican colleague and friend Jeff Flake of Arizona and Nevada's Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. We also called on then-President Trump to use his authority to ban bump stocks in a Federal rule. President Trump actually agreed with us at the time and finalized an ATF rule to get that done.

But last week, our wildly out-of-touch Supreme Court majority invalidated that rule. In an illogical and deadly ruling, they made bump stocks legal once again.

As Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent, ``When I see a bird that walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.''

I agree with Justice Sotomayor. A bump stock-equipped semiautomatic rifle is a machinegun, and it should be banned just like machineguns have been banned for nearly 100 years.

Even still, within the Supreme Court majority's ruling, they gave Congress--they gave us--clear direction on the only way for us to protect Americans from these deadly devices. Congress needs to act. We need to pass my bill to ban bump stocks and do it now.

I am proud to lead the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts, or BUMP Act, alongside Senators like Catherine Cortez Masto, Susan Collins, Angus King, and the more than 20 new cosponsors who joined our legislation after the Supreme Court's recent ruling. This is the same bipartisan bill that I first introduced in 2018 in the aftermath of that shooting.

The BUMP Act would prohibit the sale of bump stocks and other devices that allow semiautomatic firearms to increase the rate of fire and operate as fully automatic weapons. This is something that nearly all Americans agree should be done.

This should be a commonsense, bipartisan public safety vote that all of us should welcome if we believe that our kids should have the freedom to feel safe in their church or their classroom or their movie theater.

We should also be clear about what happens if we don't pass this legislation. We will be giving a free pass to street gangs and cartels and mass shooters to access these deadly devices and turn them against our communities. That is the harm that we are putting our communities in.

There is some skepticism out there about whether Congress can get this done, about whether all of us coming together to ban bump stocks is impossible. But 2 years ago, we proved that type of thinking is flat wrong. Over my time here in the Senate, I have learned that people are always quick to tell you there is no path forward for your legislation. And the reality is that there is never a path forward until we collectively choose to make one.

I was proud to be part of the core group of bipartisan negotiators here in the Senate that helped pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. That was the first significant Federal gun safety legislation signed into law in nearly three decades. During those negotiations, I worked especially close with my colleague Senator Collins on a successful effort to increase criminal penalties for those who would put guns into the hands of criminals and to make it illegal to traffic firearms out of our country. And by passing that law, we proved that Congress can take concrete action to protect our communities from gun violence.

Now, it is time that we take similar bipartisan action to ban these bump stocks. For my part, I refuse to stand idly by and wait for the next mass shooting. I would ask all of my colleagues to please support the BUMP Act to ban these deadly mass killing devices once and for all.

1909, the Banning Unlawful Machinegun Parts Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I just want to remind our colleagues that we actually did pass legislation, 2 years ago, to invest in mental health, and we passed a meaningful gun safety piece of legislation. But the assertion that this would ban some enormous number of firearm devices is certainly not rooted in fact. It would, however, ban bump stocks, and it would ban things like Glock switches, which also let semiautomatic firearms act as fully automatic firearms.

I think the American people understand what commonsense gun safety looks like, and that is what the BUMP Act is all about.

And I will reserve the rest of my time, but this will not be the last time you hear about these devices on the floor of the Senate.

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