Important Values in America

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, flags across America are being flown at half-mast this morning because of the terrible tragedy which occurred out that door 1 1/2 miles away yesterday.

Men and women who worked for our Department of Defense to keep America safe reported to work as usual on a Monday morning, and then tragedy struck. A gunman appeared with an assault rifle, several other weapons. At the end of it, 12 innocent people died, another dozen or so seriously injured.

This Capitol was in shock. It was locked down at some point to ward off the possibility there were other shooters and more danger outside. We watched as the people who worked at the Navy Yard and those who worked in adjoining buildings waited patiently for the police to do their important and courageous work. At the end of the day, they showed television footage of these employees being bused away from the Navy Yard to a safe metro location to return home--all but 12 of them who, sadly, lost their lives through this senseless gun tragedy.

We read the papers this morning trying to understand what could possibly motivate a person to do this. As we read the background of the shooter, it was clear there were moments in his life when he had used a firearm to shoot the tires of a car that he thought should not be parked in his driveway, shooting a gun in his own apartment that went through the ceiling to an adjoining apartment. Those sorts of things might have been warning signals. Questions are raised--How could a man with that kind of a background end up getting the necessary security clearance for a military contractor to go into this Navy Yard, to be permitted to go into this Navy Yard? How did he get these weapons into this Navy Yard; an assault rifle and other firearms--questions that still remain to be answered.

God forbid we go on with business as usual today and not understand what happened yesterday.

What happened yesterday brings into question some important values in America. If we value our right for ourselves and our families and our children to be safe, if we value this Constitution, if we value the right of every American to enjoy their liberties with reasonable limitations, then we need to return to issues that are of importance.

There was an issue before the Senate several months ago--a bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Manchin and Toomey that would have taken an extra step to keep guns out of the hands of those who have a history of felonies or people who are mentally unstable. The vast majority of Americans think this is common sense. We can protect the right of law-abiding citizens to use guns in a responsible, legal way for sporting, hunting, self-defense, but we have to do everything we can to keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them: felons who have a history of misusing firearms; the mentally unstable who cannot be trusted to have a firearm.

But today we pause and reflect on the lives lost, I hope the lessons learned. I had a hearing scheduled this morning before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a controversial issue involving firearms. In light of what happened yesterday, in light of the uncertainty of our schedule today, I am rescheduling that hearing. It is an important one, and I want to say to those who are following it that it will be rescheduled. But at this point in time we have decided to postpone it for today, to another day in the near future.

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