Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, this morning, I had the opportunity to meet with some extraordinary young people. These were students from Parkland, FL, who attend the school where the mass shooting took place 2 weeks ago. What was amazingly impressive about these young people is that in the midst of their grief, in the midst of the unbelievably traumatic experience that they went through in seeing their best friends being shot and wounded in cold blood and their teachers killed, they resolved not just to mourn and grieve for their friends and neighbors; they resolved to stand up and fight back and come to Washington, go to Tallahassee, FL, and go around the country to do everything they can to make certain that no more children--no more young people--are mowed down and slaughtered in schools.

Nobody thinks that the issue of gun safety is going to be an easy issue to solve. There are literally hundreds of millions of guns throughout this country, and there are 5 million assault weapons throughout this country today. Tragically, there are many thousands of people, I expect in every State in this country, who are walking our streets and are at their wits end emotionally, who are suicidal, who are homicidal. Many of those people have access to guns and guns of mass destruction. I think that in some respects, the slaughter at the high school in Parkland, FL, was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.

Several months ago, the American people were stunned to see some very sick person in Las Vegas break a window and start mowing down people. He killed some 58 Americans and wounded 500 people within a period of a few minutes. That was on top of Sandy Hook. It was on top of so many gun slaughters that, I think, what has finally happened--maybe because of the extraordinary efforts of these young people from Parkland--the American people are saying that enough is enough, that we have a difficult problem. We may not be able to solve it completely overnight, but we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to make certain that no more children--no more people in this country--are mowed down by some sick person with a weapon.
That is not just I who is talking, and it is not just the young people from the high school in Florida. It is pretty much what the American people want. Let me refer the Presiding Officer to a few polls that were conducted fairly recently.

A Quinnipiac poll was done on February 20, just a week ago. This is what that poll showed. It showed that 97 percent of the American people support universal background checks, which is not a radical idea. What the American people are saying and what gun owners are saying is that we should keep guns out of the hands of people who are not responsible and should not own guns. Universal background checks are almost universally supported by the American people.

In that same Quinnipiac poll, 83 percent of the American people indicated support for a mandatory waiting period for all gun purchases. You don't want somebody who is angry, who is upset, or who had something terrible happen to go running to a gun store, buying a gun, and then going out and using it.

There are 75 percent who, basically, want the Congress to address the issue of gun violence and to start taking action. There are 67 percent of the people polled by Quinnipiac who support a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. They believe and I believe that assault weapons are designed as military weapons to kill human beings. That is what those weapons are designed to do. I believe and have believed for 30 years--and a majority of the American people believe--that we should end the sale and distribution of those weapons.

That was in a Quinnipiac poll. According to a CNN poll that was done more recently, just a few days ago on February 25, 70 percent of the American people want stricter gun laws. This is the highest number that CNN has registered since way back when the Brady Bill passed, in 1993.

According to CNN, 87 percent support laws to prevent convicted felons and the mentally ill from owning guns. There are 71 percent who support banning anyone under the age of 21 from buying a gun. There are 63 percent who support a ban on the sale and possession of high-capacity magazines.
There are 57 percent who support an assault weapons ban, and 56 percent say that stricter gun laws would reduce gun-related deaths.

We have a difficult issue which is not going to be solved overnight, and nobody thinks that it will. Yet the American people are demanding that we have the courage to stand up to the NRA and finally take some action that will move us in the right direction. Let me just suggest some of the ways I believe we should go forward in a bipartisan way.

Once again, the American people believe and I believe in universal background checks. That means, among other things, ending the so-called gun show loophole, because background checks don't mean anything if somebody can go to a gun show or on the internet and buy weapons without undergoing any background check. Overwhelmingly, the American people say that before somebody is able to purchase a gun, we need to know: Is the person a killer? Is he a person who has engaged in domestic violence? Is he somebody who has a history of mental health problems? If that is the case, that person should not be buying a gun.

I think serious gun safety legislation must include addressing the so-called straw man purchases. This is a provision by which people can legally go to gun shops, buy the weapons that they want, but then they are going to sell those weapons or distribute those weapons to people who should not be owning those weapons and who could not have purchased those weapons on their own. I have indicated it is my view that we should ban assault weapons in this country--weapons that are designed for no other purpose but to kill human beings.

Furthermore, I think it is clear that we are a nation that is facing a mental health crisis. I know that in my office--and I expect in the offices of other Senators--we get calls all of the time from people who say: I am worried about my husband. I am worried about my brother. He is at his wits end. I don't know what he is going to do to himself or what he is going to do to somebody else. We have been searching for mental health treatment, but we cannot find anything that is available now or that we can afford.

I believe we should be moving forward to pass legislation which says that Americans who suffer today from mental health crises should be able to get the mental healthcare they need now, not 2 months from now, because 2 months from now may be too late.

We also need to address the fact that, every year, women are being killed by their husbands or their boyfriends and that if somebody is a stalker, if somebody is convicted of domestic violence, if somebody is under a restraining order, we should be clear that that person should not be owning a gun. This is just some of what I think needs to be done.

We are at a moment when the American people have had it up to here. They do not want to turn on their TVs tomorrow or next week or next month and see the horrible, unspeakable things that we have seen in schools throughout this country.

At this particular moment in history, I hope that in a bipartisan way we can come together and do what the American people want us to do, which is to pass commonsense gun safety legislation that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

Thank you. I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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