Frank Lautenberg

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this amendment would override what I see as a misguided Department of Justice policy that adds to the threats to our homeland security and leaves our country more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. This amendment is identical to bipartisan legislation I previously introduced. It was called the Terrorist Apprehension Act, and it was cosponsored by Senator DeWine with me. This amendment will direct the administration to do all it can to apprehend potential terrorists within our borders. We found out if someone on the terrorist watch list, someone who is a potential threat to communities across the country, purchases a weapon, and that information is logged into the gun background check system, the Department of Justice has an order that prevents that background check information not to be put on an alert. They do not even share the critical information with law enforcement concerning the whereabouts of the terrorists. It sounds kind of backwards to me. I find it very disturbing that we could have a nationwide lookout for known terrorists within our borders, and if he obtained a weapon the Justice Department's policy is to conceal that information from the FBI or other interested law enforcement personnel. I know there are differences on gun policy that we may have within the Government, but I cannot believe there is anyone in this body who would not want to see us do whatever we can to alert the FBI or the appropriate parties to the fact that there is a terrorist lurking around trying to purchase a gun or who has purchased a gun. I know many pro-gun groups have said terrorists are not likely to or would not buy a firearm on the legal market anyway, but the evidence we have discovered points otherwise. An investigation by my staff revealed that a small sample of gun purchases reviewed by the Department of Justice showed that over a few months 13 people on the terrorist watch list successfully purchased a firearm at gunshops. The access that terrorists in our country have to guns is chilling, such as the .50 caliber assault weapon which could take down a helicopter, according to the Congressional Research Service. We learned also that that weapon can penetrate 6 inches of steel plating and has the range of a mile; that a target can be hit from a mile away, and it can also carry an incendiary bullet that would immediately cause the surroundings to burst into flames. I know the Justice Department's position is at odds with the Department of Homeland Security, but again I cannot believe that either one of those Departments are not anxious to get as much information as they can about terrorist activity relating to guns. During his confirmation earlier this year, Tom Ridge acknowledged to me the dangers of terrorist access to guns, and under oath at another hearing the General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security told me it was his belief that someone on the terrorist watch list should not be at all permitted to purchase guns. Unlike the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice apparently sees things very differently. DOJ is not willing to give critical information to law enforcement sectors when someone on the terrorist watch list purchases a firearm. In fact, the Department of Justice requires the FBI to prove--believe this--that the terrorist should not be able to legally buy a gun and DOJ gives the FBI 3 days to come up with a reason. But if no reason is given in 3 days, then the gun is handed over to the terrorist. It is quite an anomaly, that the Department of Justice requires the FBI to prove a terrorist should not be able to legally buy a gun. That doesn't make sense to me. To make matters worse, the policy of the Department of Justice is not to tell law enforcement the details of the transaction, including where it took place and when it took place. So we could have a nationwide lookout for a terrorist and the Department of Justice, knowing that the terrorist just obtained a gun, will not tell the appropriate law enforcement people where the terrorist is. This is a misguided policy of the Department of Justice. It has to change. My amendment would make that change. My amendment is simple and to the point. It says if a terrorist buys a gun, law enforcement must be notified promptly that this transaction has taken place. The FBI, local police, and the regional terrorist task force must be told the time and place of the purchase, without excuses. Every minute we allow the current Department of Justice policy to stand, we put our constituents at unnecessary risk. I ask my colleagues to support this commonsense, bipartisan amendment. It is my hope that amendment will carry. We are all interested in reducing the threat of terrorism as much as we possibly can. Mr. President, of course, we have to lay the first amendment aside before we can proceed to the second.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I neglected to use the graph I have to demonstrate what happens. The subject of a terrorist watch list purchases weapons, the NICS gun background check system is in place, it is entered in the NCIC crime database, and here there is a silent alarm. It doesn't really tell anything to the FBI terrorist task force. That is almost totally incomprehensible. Amendment No. 2633 Mr. President, pursuant to the request I made that the other amendment be laid aside, I now send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, this amendment is designed to protect the rights of our most vulnerable and most precious resource, our children. If this bill is enacted without this amendment to the pending bill, we will be passing legislation that protects the interests of the National Rifle Association and negligent gun dealers and manufacturers, errant manufacturers, at the expense of our kids. It is really coldhearted, as we see if we examine this legislation. How distant do we want to make ourselves from a condition that is so tragic that even just hearing about it, if it is in your own household, sends chills up and down the spine? We have already rejected in this debate the rights of sniper victims and police officers. But are we now willing to go ahead and victimize our children? Children who are injured by a gun, the families of children killed by guns, do we want to shut down their rights? I am a proud grandfather of 10 wonderful grandchildren. It pains me to think that the Senate in which I serve is willing to expose them to greater danger. That process is pretty easy, if there is no punishment severe enough to curb either negligent or reckless behavior on the part of manufacturers, dealers, or distributors. I think the biggest rogue of all that we all talk about is the shop that permitted Lee Malvo to get the gun he had, the Bull's Eye shop. They had guns all over the place on display and couldn't detect that 237 or so guns were unaccounted for. That suggests even greater danger. What I really hope we can do is not take away a tool that helped make this society safer for our kids. How can we leave out the children, the children's families, when it comes to seeking redress if this kind of tragedy strikes that family? Every day we hear more about another child falling victim to gun violence. It is a national epidemic. In 2002 alone, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there were 13,000 kids injured by a firearm. From 1996 to 2001, more than 1,500 children were killed in firearm accidents. The CDC also found the overall firearm-related death rate among United States children below the age of 15 was nearly 12 times higher than it is in 25 other industrialized countries combined. This horrible trend in our Nation must be stopped. We should be working to enhance the safety of our children and not reduce it. Tennille Jefferson, the mother of a child victim, understands only too well what dangers can result from negligent gun dealers. On April 19, 1999, her son Nathan was shot and killed by a young boy who found the gun on the street, a gun belonging to a gun trafficker named Perry Bruce, who bought the gun from a disreputable gun dealer. The gun dealer sold Perry Bruce guns, despite many obvious signs that he was trafficking in guns. Bruce had shown a welfare card as his only form of identification. Yet somehow he was never questioned about how he managed to scrape up the thousands of dollars necessary to purchase 10 guns. The gun trafficker, Mr. Bruce, admitted the gun dealer ``had to know what I was doing,'' and that he was high on marijuana each time he bought guns from this company. But the dealer acted recklessly. He had the information. Yet he sold the guns to Bruce. The result was the death of Nathan Jefferson. If this bill passes, families like the Jeffersons will not be able to hold the negligent, careless, irresponsible dealers and manufacturers who sell them to be liable for the murder of innocent children. This bill chooses special interests over the innocents. It is a sad commentary on this Senate. To be blunt, this immunity bill is a form of child abuse. We still have a chance to reverse the course and I hope we are going to do it. Meanwhile, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and preserve the rights of America's children. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, for the past month, we have been celebrating Black History Month. I believe that Black History Month is not only a time to recognize the contributions and achievements of African Americans to this Nation, but it is also a time to acknowledge both progress African Americans have made and the continued racial disparities in this Nation. We usually celebrate African-American athletes, musicians, and actors. While their successes have been significant, I feel it is important that we acknowledge some of the great thinkers, inventors, and discoverers who were African American. Some of the great pioneers include Dr. Charles Drew, who discovered the process for storing blood plasma; Garrett Morgan, who was the first to patent the traffic light and the gas mask; Granville T. Woods, who invented a train-to-station communication system; Astronaut Mae Jamison, the first African-American woman to enter space; Dr. Benjamin Carson, who successfully separated Siamese twins joined at the head; and Otis Boykin who invented the electronic control devise for guided missiles, IBM computers, and the pacemaker. These great innovators and pioneers not only blazed the trail for other young African Americans to follow, but they also inspired and contributed to American development and progress. Therefore, these pioneers were not only great African Americans, they were quintessentially American. During this time when our Nation's military is engaged in conflicts throughout the world, I would like to acknowledge the contributions that African Americans have made to every war in American history. Today, African Americans serve a vital part of the troops deployed throughout the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq. Almost 22 percent of the members of our enlisted armed services are African-American. Despite all of these important accomplishments, African Americans have yet to enjoy true racial equality in this Nation. And, in the absence of real equality, African Americans are being denied the essence of what it means to be a first-class American. Statistics are the clearest barometer for determining and measuring the quality of life in American society and far too many of them reveal that African Americans continue to lag behind whites in important ways. In January 2004, the national unemployment rate was 5.6 percent overall but just 4.9 percent for white Americans while it was 10.5 percent--more than twice as high--for African Americans. The national poverty rate rose, for the second straight year, to 12.1 percent in 2002, from 11.7 percent the year before. In 2002, the national poverty rate for African Americans was 22.7 percent. In 1999, median income for African Americans was $31,778, compared to $51,244, for the median income of white families. According to one report, in 1995, average white households had $18,000 in financial wealth, while African-American households possessed a total of only $200. These statistics show the depth of racial inequality in America. In addition to economic disparities, the incarceration rate of African Americans, especially African-American males, is deeply disturbing. Today, black men make up 41 percent of the inmates in Federal, State, and local prisons, but black men are only 4 percent of all students in American institutions of higher education, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, autumn 2003. According to a recent study, while African Americans are 13 percent of the population of my home State of New Jersey, they represent a staggering 63 percent of New Jersey's 27,891 State prisoners in 2002. About 10 percent of all black men between 25 and 29 were incarcerated in 2002, compared with 1.2 percent of white men and 2.4 percent of Hispanic men Not only are African Americans imprisoned in disproportionately high numbers, they are disproportionately the victims of crimes, as well. In New Jersey, out of 341 total homicides by guns in 2002, 138 of those victims were African American. In 2000, more than 6,200 African Americans were killed by guns. In the 15 to 24 age group, firearm homicides were responsible for more than 86 percent of homicides suffered by African Americans. In the next age group up, 25 to 34, firearm homicides were more than 81 percent of homicides. In both cases firearm homicides were the number one cause of death for African Americans. The homicide victim rate for African Americans, 20.5 per 100,000 persons, is over six times that of whites, 3.3 per 100,000 persons. I highlight these statistics about our Nation and my home State because the problems confronting the African-American community are in New Jersey, and they are in every State. We all bear responsibility to acknowledge them, to confront them, to help remedy them. There are no easy answers to the problems African Americans face, but as Theodore Roosevelt put it a century ago, ``This country will not be a really good place for any of us to live in if it is not a really good place for all of us to live in.'' So while we take this opportunity to celebrate the wonderful accomplishments of African Americans through the ages, we should also rededicate ourselves to making America a really good place for all of us to live in.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to reauthorize the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail Route on behalf of myself and Senator Corzine. This bill makes a number of important changes to legislation that was enacted in 1988 and reauthorized in 1994 and 1999. The original legislation, which I co-sponsored, called for a route that links nationally significant natural and cultural sites associated with the coastal area of New Jersey. The New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail runs south for nearly 300 miles from Perth Amboy along the Atlantic Ocean to Cape May, then west along the Delaware Bay to the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Along the way are sites like the Barnegat Bay Decoy and Baymen's Museum, the Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge, and the Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area. Five theme trails, of which three are open, are planned to showcase different aspects of New Jersey coastal life: maritime history, coastal habitats, wildlife migration, historic settlements, and relaxation/ inspiration. The Trail is operated by a partnership that includes the National Park Service, the State of New Jersey, local communities, and private non-profit organizations. Fifty percent of the funding for the Trail is provided from non-federal funds. My legislation raises the funding authorization for the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail to $8 million, doubling the current authorization of $4 million. The legislation also: extends the deadline for project completion by 5 years to May 4, 2009; allows funds to be used for grants in addition to technical assistance; and requires the National Park Service to prepare a strategic plan for the long-term maintenance of this coastal route. A companion bill, H.R. 3070, has been introduced in the House by Congressman LoBiondo, with cosponsorship by the entire New Jersey delegation. New Jersey has a long shoreline of which we are extremely proud. This bill will provide the necessary resources and strategic planning to ensure that the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail fulfills its promise to the people of my home State and to visitors from around the world. The additional funding authorized in this bill will support: 1. Creation of a long-term strategic plan on the roles of the National Park Service and other Trail partners; 2. Development of two remaining theme trails (historic settlements and relaxation/inspiration); 3. Development of interpretive media such as videos, brochures and exhibits; 4. Technical assistance for the State park system, wildlife management, and historic and cultural sites; 5. Construction of a New Jersey State Park Service facility on the trail at Double Trouble State Park in the Barnegat Bay Region; 6. Continuing work on a welcome center at Sandy Hook; and 7. Construction of a welcome center in the Absecon region. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, which is needed to assure that funding for this valuable undertaking will continue to be authorized after May 2004. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to reauthorize the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail Route on behalf of myself and Senator Corzine. This bill makes a number of important changes to legislation that was enacted in 1988 and reauthorized in 1994 and 1999. The original legislation, which I co-sponsored, called for a route that links nationally significant natural and cultural sites associated with the coastal area of New Jersey. The New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail runs south for nearly 300 miles from Perth Amboy along the Atlantic Ocean to Cape May, then west along the Delaware Bay to the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Along the way are sites like the Barnegat Bay Decoy and Baymen's Museum, the Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge, and the Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area. Five theme trails, of which three are open, are planned to showcase different aspects of New Jersey coastal life: maritime history, coastal habitats, wildlife migration, historic settlements, and relaxation/ inspiration. The Trail is operated by a partnership that includes the National Park Service, the State of New Jersey, local communities, and private non-profit organizations. Fifty percent of the funding for the Trail is provided from non-federal funds. My legislation raises the funding authorization for the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail to $8 million, doubling the current authorization of $4 million. The legislation also: extends the deadline for project completion by 5 years to May 4, 2009; allows funds to be used for grants in addition to technical assistance; and requires the National Park Service to prepare a strategic plan for the long-term maintenance of this coastal route. A companion bill, H.R. 3070, has been introduced in the House by Congressman LoBiondo, with cosponsorship by the entire New Jersey delegation. New Jersey has a long shoreline of which we are extremely proud. This bill will provide the necessary resources and strategic planning to ensure that the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail fulfills its promise to the people of my home State and to visitors from around the world. The additional funding authorized in this bill will support: 1. Creation of a long-term strategic plan on the roles of the National Park Service and other Trail partners; 2. Development of two remaining theme trails (historic settlements and relaxation/inspiration); 3. Development of interpretive media such as videos, brochures and exhibits; 4. Technical assistance for the State park system, wildlife management, and historic and cultural sites; 5. Construction of a New Jersey State Park Service facility on the trail at Double Trouble State Park in the Barnegat Bay Region; 6. Continuing work on a welcome center at Sandy Hook; and 7. Construction of a welcome center in the Absecon region. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, which is needed to assure that funding for this valuable undertaking will continue to be authorized after May 2004. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Senator for yielding the time to me. I associate myself with the amendment that was initially introduced by my colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski. I rise to raise questions about that which is currently now being offered by the Senator from Idaho. There is no doubt about the appropriateness of the amendment, as it was presented by the Senator from Maryland, because it was her constituents, seven of them, who were shot by the sniper, six of whom died. For over a month in the fall of 2001, John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo terrorized the Washington metropolitan area through a series of vicious sniper attacks on innocent men, women, and children. In the area, Americans were afraid to walk outside, afraid to pump gas outside, school activities were moved to enclosed areas. Everyone was a target. As it turned out, there was ample reason to be frightened. From the trunk of Muhammad's car, the snipers used a Bushmaster assault weapon to shoot 13 people in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Ten of the 13 died. We have heard the names of those such as Linda Franklin, 47-year-old FBI analyst, standing with her husband in the Home Depot parking lot in Virginia. She was killed. Another was Pascal Charlot, a 72-year-old retired carpenter standing on a street corner, shot and killed. Another victim was Iran Brown, a 13-year-old boy who had just been dropped off at school. My fellow Senators now prepare to tell mothers and victims throughout the United States that they don't have a right to file a civil lawsuit against individuals and businesses that helped cause this tragic event. We had a debate on the floor yesterday. There was a question, a semantic question, about whether or not the Bull's Eye store was really closed. One of my staff people called the number and they said: Yes, we are open until 7 o'clock. Do you want anything--this is my edition: if you want anything shipped out, we will get you guns. So we argued about whether or not they were really closed or who had the license or what. Those are extraneous things having no significance in the debate. We see the same thing replicated here. If you meet certain conditions, you are still able to bring suit. But if one of the several conditions is present, then you can't bring suit. Why don't we tell it like it is? And that is, by whatever stretch of the imagination you want to bring, these people, the victims of the sniper attacks, are unable to bring a suit. There is no doubt about it. We can discuss language all you want, but it is the intent. Throw another obstacle in the way for these victims to get some justice, some sense of what it is that took place that was wrong and how we can help prevent it in the future. To hear these discussions immersed in language changes--I suppose if you study it closely enough, you will find punctuation changes. Bull's Eye claimed they didn't have any record of sale. They cannot explain how the snipers obtained the assault weapon. I have not heard any condemnation of their poor practices; that 237 weapons were lost. What a shame. If any normal store lost items that cost this much, they would be in a state of panic. Apparently, these guys did not care that much, but we still want to prevent those who have been victimized by their poor behavior from getting compensation that is justly theirs under normal circumstances. Why we have to take away people's rights is something, frankly, I do not understand. I hope the public at large begins to raise questions: What is this? Do you mean if I am injured in an automobile accident and the automobile manufacturer has been negligent, that they did not protect the gas tank properly, so it exploded when it was hit in the back, I shouldn't be able to get compensation for that small error? It may have burned you alive. Or if there was such a casual structure of behavior with a pharmaceutical company, and they put the wrong tablets in a bottle, or if someone there, in a moment of madness, put the wrong tablets in a bottle and a person becomes ill or dies, they shouldn't be able to bring an action? This strikes me as something that the citizenry, who is expecting us to take care of them, is unable to comprehend. This debate goes on and there is always another trick, another maneuver to try and interrupt the flow of what we would consider normal justice. I hope we will defeat the amendment because it adds nothing to the compromise that we have to arrive at to get the kind of voting pattern--the record that says, yes, we made sure the people who suffer these terrible damages have a right to compensation or to a review by the court to decide that issue. I hope we will defeat the Frist-Craig amendment and get on to the Mikulski amendment, which approaches the problem directly. These people have been severely injured by the actions of the snipers who got the gun illegally, inappropriately, improperly--call it what you will. I yield back the remaining time.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and good friend from New Jersey with whom I have worked very closely on many issues. There is not anything that we have done that binds us more closely than this action because we are witnessing it firsthand. We talked to the two officers who were mentioned in Senator Corzine's commentary. To me, this whole situation is surreal. The fact is, when there is a photo opportunity with a cop who is in uniform, we can see him chased by six Senators to get a picture taken with him. When there are townhall meetings, Senators will talk about how brave those cops are and that what they do is they put their lives on the line each and every day, and many of their families may be thinking that just maybe they may not see daddy coming back from work. And here, the hard cold hearts are saying, well, listen, put your back on the line, put yourself on the line, but do not expect that we are going to help you collect any damages. You can be the breadwinner in the family, the only working person in the family. When that person is shot and killed, the incomes rarely continue for a significant period of time with enough income to take care of a family. What do you tell a family which has a couple of children and a spouse dependent on the wages of that police officer? You tell them, Well, look, just remember one thing. It is like being a pilot in the military. You could go out and lose your life. The difference is the military takes some care of you. There are insurance programs, other programs. Many of these small police departments don't have the kind of resources to provide on their own for the well-being of those families. This is an outrage that is being perpetrated on these law enforcement people. It is an outrage. I hope the public understands what we are doing here. We want the people to work in those dangerous jobs, but we don't want to let them on their own go to the courts. That is the process in this country of ours. We will not let them go to court to see if there are any damages. They never repair the damage to the mind. They never repair the damage to the heart. You can't repair the damage to the soul. But we at least ought to be able to say: Listen, if you can bring a suit that shows either the manufacturer or the distributor or the retailer, like the shop in Oregon, was negligent in their handling of the weapon--no safeguards on these weapons--we ought to be able to say to them, if anything happens to you, you can go to court and you can seek damages. But there is a group here who says no, we want to take away your right to sue. Do you know why? Because the NRA doesn't like it--putting it straight up. The NRA doesn't want that to happen. The NRA writes the legislation, for goodness sake. They don't want it to be available. They don't want these people to have the same rights everybody else has. If you are killed in an airplane crash or a car crash or otherwise, you have a right to go to court. I have heard the story about product liability. We are not going through that again. We don't worry about product liability. We worry about negligence and recklessness and you are blocked from bringing suit. It is outrageous. In the year 2003, 148 law enforcement officers across the nation were killed in the line of duty; 52 of those fallen officers were shot to death. I would like it if the managers of the bill who so desperately want this to pass would go to those families and say: You know what, we are sorry. Gosh, Joe was a good guy. We heard about him. He was a Boy Scout leader, all of those things. But that is the nature of the job. So you lost him. Go find another way, Madam Smith, to see if you can support your kids. See if you can get a job. You may have to leave the kids at home because you don't have enough money to take care of them and buy other things. Every law enforcement officer fatality is a national tragedy. The only place it doesn't ring true is here. They don't want you to have the same rights ordinary citizens have when they are injured. It is incredible to me. We go through semantic schemes here about: No, it doesn't really mean that. But it does block their right to collect damages if they are injured.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of police officers who object to this bill and feel they are not protected, including an ad run by the Brady Campaign.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Is the question being referred to me directly?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I would like to ask the Senator from Maryland a question.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I ask the Senator from Maryland, is there anything that is in the Craig amendment that changes the ability of these victims to sue? There are conditions, are there not, that he places in there that make them jump through another hoop in order to be able to sue?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. They may have not met these conditions but they still have had the damage and the tragedy that befell them?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Senator.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Many police officers and police chiefs wrote in their opposition to this bill, law enforcement personnel from various police departments around the country, including Chief William Musser of Meridian, OH, Police Department. He writes that he is opposed to this. We have officers from other States as well, including Chief Cory Lynn from Ketchum, ID, Police Department, in opposition to this legislation. This letter was printed in the Record of yesterday.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I ask to have the Presiding Officer call attention to the fact when I have 30 seconds remaining. We listen to the same rhetoric, decry the risk that our law enforcement people take when they go out to work and how we really respect them--except that we do not want to give them the same environment that every ordinary citizen in this country has. We hear about the fact that if you get the criminals off the streets and they do not come out again, and then they go back again, what does it have to do with whether or not we block the suit from law enforcement personnel who have been injured, who have families who want redress for them having been killed at work? It has nothing to do with it. That is the whole thing. It is an obfuscation of what this bill is about. This bill does not change a bit with this amendment. It just reinforces what the bill says, and that is, take away people's rights to sue, people's rights for redress. Whether it is an errant gun manufacturer, a dealer, a distributor, an errant airline, or an errant car manufacturer, people should have the right to sue. There have been opinions thrown around that, unfortunately, do not match that of a distinguished attorney such as David Boies who says this bill will cause a dismissal of the suit of Lemongello and McGuire immediately. The proposed immunity legislation would require the immediate dismissal of these claims. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record what the office of David Boies, one of the most prominent criminal attorneys in the country, has confirmed.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, today I rise to commend one of the many unsung heroes of our Senate family, Alma Kristoffersen, who will retire tomorrow after 20 years of service as a transcriber and reporting technician for the Congressional Record. I worked in the private sector for more than 30 years before I first came to the Senate. One of the things that struck me about this institution as I came to know it is the dedication, skill, and professionalism shown by the people who work in all capacities here. Senators and committees have their own staff, and we rely on them, to be sure. But we also rely on the hundreds of staffers who make up what I call the ``infrastructure'' of the Senate. For the most part, they go about their business unnoticed and certainly underappreciated. We have to remind ourselves now and then that this place would screech to a halt without their tireless devotion to their jobs and to our Nation. Alma is a fine example of that tradition. She has many talents, including a strong knowledge of grammar, spelling, and vocabulary; a quick wit; and dry sense of humor. But her most enduring asset is her absolute commitment to teamwork. She is always willing to volunteer for extra duties. Alma was born in Liverpool, England, and moved to the United States in 1968. She became a citizen in the early 1990s, qualifying for a high security clearance to work on classified material. She and her husband Tom have a son, Alex, who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Alma plans to enjoy all her various hobbies in retirement, including gardening, tennis, travel, and actually being able to attend her book club on week nights. I know that I speak on behalf of the entire Senate when I say how much I appreciate Alma's service to this institution and to the Nation. Alma's colleagues and friends here in the Senate, particularly in the Office of Official Reporters of Debates, will miss her, but we wish her a long and happy retirement, which she has certainly earned.

Mr. LAUTENBERG

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Madam President, returning to the gun immunity bill that is being presented, this is legislation that is being bullied through the Congress. I have been here a long time, now going into my 20th year. This is one of the most outrageous pieces of legislation I have ever seen. We have never seen such a complete sellout. This is like a fire sale to a special interest lobby. The bill is absolutely a free pass. It says to the gun industry: Do anything you want, and you have no one who can punish you by going to our court system, established effectively by our Constitution. They can do whatever they want, no matter how negligent, reckless, or irresponsible. Of all the people in society to provide special protections to, why in the world would we give immunity from redress to this industry? This immunity bill says even reckless behavior--forget about negligence. Negligence says I didn't mean to do it, but I didn't check on the process. Reckless behavior could be deliberate. There could be reckless behavior in the manufacture, sale, or distribution of guns. No matter how destructive the result is to life and limb of innocent people, the victims of that conduct cannot hold you accountable. It just does not make sense. We hear this claim from our friends on the other side about ``frivolous lawsuits'' is how they describe it. Frivolous lawsuits-- lawsuits that, frankly, are far from frivolous because the damage is beyond description when a family loses a child, a father, a brother, a mother, or a sister, or some child is permanently injured and cannot function normally. Frivolous? I don't call that frivolous. These are valid claims of wrongdoing by an industry that puts profit ahead of human life, and we can't let them go without consequence. Let us ask the gun victims if their lawsuits are frivolous. Ask those who have lost loved ones at the hands of the DC area snipers just over a year ago. And talking about the DC snipers, they were prohibited by law from buying guns. Under law, they could not sell guns to Lee Malvo. He walked into a gun shop and walked out with a sniper rifle. A sniper rifle is a pretty big piece of equipment. I invite my colleagues to look at this image. This chart says they lost 237 guns; 237 guns for which they have no responsibility to account. They said: Gee whiz, how do you like that, we lost all these lethal weapons that may have just kind of walked out or fallen down a crack in the floor someplace. It is outrageous--including one of those weapons that wound up in the hands of those who committed these atrocities, Lee Malvo and John Muhammad. This is a picture of a gun shop that has become all too familiar. It is called the Bull's Eye Shooter Supply. They lost the guns. In the wake of the sniper case, we now know that in addition to losing hundreds of guns from their inventory, this gun shop cannot locate the firearms sales records they are required by law to keep to help police solve crimes. Those records that were recovered showed that Bull's Eye frequently sold numerous guns to individual buyers, a sure sign of phony straw purchases. But obviously this rogue gun store looked the other way. According to ATF records, between 1997 and 2001, guns sold by Bull's Eye were involved in at least 52 crimes, including homicides, kidnappings, and assaults. Guns in 52 crimes were traced back to this one gunshop. Under this gun immunity bill, Bull's Eye gets a free pass. They would not be accountable to victims of their negligence, and it is a despicable proposal. DC sniper Lee Malvo could not have legally purchased a Bushmaster assault weapon from Bull's Eye. He was too young. But he walked into the Bull's Eye store in broad daylight and walked out in a short time with a Bushmaster XM-15. That is the weapon he and John Muhammad used to murder and injure their victims. I ask my colleagues to take a look. How could he get behind the counter, walk out with a weapon, and not be noticed? It was captured on film, but they didn't see it. What an odd coincidence that is. It is outrageous. It is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who looks at this picture to know this weapon could not have disappeared without being noticed. Look at the size of it. It tells the story. But then I guess what is being asked for is sympathy for this gun shop, this place that let the murder weapon out of its sight and into the hands of these madmen who shot people at random. Let them get away with that, with no repercussion, no lawsuits: You injured my child, you injured my husband, you injured my wife? People were shot sitting alongside their mates, and we want to protect them? What do we have to protect them for? I don't understand it. To me there is an element of curiosity here that just does not register. I don't understand the wailing and weeping about how to protect these guys, these dispensers of murder. It is awful. Yet we hear the case: Gee whiz, if you had an automobile and a drunk driver drove it and killed somebody, why should the automobile company be responsible? We saw that once. Ford Motor Company made the Pinto. When it was struck from the rear, it would catch fire. We had people testify. They were so disfigured, it was painful to look at them. Imagine what it felt like to be one of them--so disfigured. They went to the Ford Motor Company and said: Change the design. Ford had a board meeting supposedly in which they said: Change the design? Do you know what that is going to cost us? The heck with it. Let's pay the damages that come from lawsuits. That is the way it goes sometimes. The automobile is not intended to be a lethal weapon, and we lose a lot more from fewer of these gun manufacturers every year than we do manufacturers of cars. We lose over 28,000 people a year, 11,000 of them homicides, the rest suicides, accidents. That is what happens. We have millions of cars on the road, and we do not have much more of a mortality rate with those cars than we have with these weapons. But we do not try to protect the automobile industry. We do not try to protect the aviation industry if there is negligence in an air crash. You can bet people have a right and do take advantage of the right to get some redress. They don't want the money, for gosh sakes. They do not want any other families to have to suffer the same humiliating loss they experienced. If anyone proposed that we go ahead and say to the airlines: Look, tell you what, for reckless behavior and one of those planes goes down with 200, 400 people on it, we know you really didn't intend to do that, so, therefore, you ought to be excused. We are not going to excuse them, and we should not excuse the gun industry, the people who manufacture these weapons in any form, any shape, disguises for assault weapons that say this really isn't an assault weapon. It passes the specifications test, except if you make an adjustment here in the cartridge carrier or there, it becomes, effectively, an assault weapon. No, we are saying, no, we are not going to punish you for that. Go ahead, be careful because people may not like you, but we are not going to punish you for it. That is the situation in which we find ourselves. Do we really believe that in this situation these weapons were lost or stolen from this store? It is ludicrous. So we should not pretend we do not know what really happened. What we are doing is closing our eyes to responsible behavior throughout our Nation. It is obvious they sold the Bushmaster to Malvo under the table, or however he got it. It is a pathetic and irresponsible recognition we are giving these people. Should Bull's Eye be held accountable for their outrageous actions that resulted in the death of innocent people? The sponsors of this bill say, no, they should not pay for approximately a dozen deaths. The sponsors of this bill say, no, this outlet should not be punished for murder; that, after all, they are okay. They sell things that kill people or close their eyes to the distribution of weapons. The sponsors of this bill say, no, if one is negligent, they cannot be held accountable. It says if they are reckless, they cannot be held accountable. The bottom line is there are many victims with valid legal claims who will have their lawsuits wiped out. It is outrageous. Today we were visited by a policeman from my home State, the town of Orange, NJ. He was shot in an exchange of fire with an assailant. He has a lawsuit in place. He can no longer work at his job. We are saying, too bad. Why were you standing in the way of that bullet when it came? Essentially that is what we are saying: Why did you get in the way of the guy who was going to pull the trigger? You should not have done that. They should not be punished for their complicity by getting a gun for this would-be murderer. This bill before us tells Bull's Eye and their cronies in the business, keep up the good work; do not worry about it; in the Senate, we are going to take care of you. We are going to immunize them from wrongdoing. Why on God's Earth do they want to immunize these people? I do not understand it. I have seen pretenses at logic that said, well, we will have no gun industry to supply our Army. Baloney. Everybody knows that is a phony argument. They will get their weapons made. We can protect those who make arms for the military and we can make sure they are under better care than we see now. The snipers who did the killing wreaked havoc on our society and now we want to reward the gun dealer responsible for illegally giving them their killing weapon with immunity from civil lawsuits. This is absurd. This Senate is about to make these sniper victims and their families victims a second time. After all they have gone through and that they are going through, we are going to pass a bill to take away their fundamental legal rights. It is reprehensible. There are so many other people who are going to be denied justice by this bill. I want to take a moment to tell the Senate about two brave police officers, one of whom I mentioned earlier, who are going to be victimized by this bill, Ken McGuire and David Lemongello. They are two police officers from Orange, NJ, who were shot and seriously wounded by a criminal who obtained his gun through the negligence of a gun manufacturer and gun dealer in the State of West Virginia. The criminal who shot them was barred from legally buying guns, but he was able to obtain these weapons from a straw purchaser who was sold 12 guns by a West Virginia gun dealer in a single transaction. This gun dealer completed the sales in spite of the obvious signs that the purchaser was not buying the guns for himself. The gun dealer admitted he was suspicious of the transaction but turned the other way. Then less than 6 months later, Officers McGuire and Lemongello were shot by one of those weapons. Is the police officers' lawsuit against the gun dealer frivolous? A West Virginia judge ruled the officers' claims are supported by West Virginia negligence and public nuisance law and that the officers' case should proceed against the dealer as well as the manufacturer of the gun who imposed no requirements on its dealers to cut large volume sales. If this gun immunity bill is passed, the rights of these two brave police officers are abolished. To make matters worse, it will allow other gun dealers to look the other way and complete suspicious sales because, well, there are not any consequences; we cannot be sued for our negligence. I want my colleagues to know Officer Ken McGuire is in the Capitol today. He is here to ask Senators not to take his rights away, and I ask my colleagues to give him a moment of their time if he approaches you. These lawsuits are the only real way to hold these rogue dealers accountable because current laws regulating dealers are a joke. The ATF is restricted to only one announced inspection per year. In reference to Bull's Eye, I heard the Senator from Idaho say the shop is shut down now. He is very careful with the things he said, but I think he made a mistake. It just is not true. Bull's Eye took advantage of the weak gun dealer laws and merely transferred its license. They are very much in business. My staff called Bull's Eye today and they said they are open until 7 p.m. It does not sound to me as though they are closed. So if someone from the Senate wants to make a quick trip over there today to pick up an assault weapon, they have until 7 Pacific time to do so. There are a host of other cases that would be affected if this bill is passed. Supporters of this bill will be trampling the rights of innocent victims who only want their day in court, to which I think they are entitled. The supporters of this bill claim the lawsuits against the gun industry are frivolous. Frivolous? Ask Denise Johnson whether her lawsuit is frivolous. She lost her husband at the hands of the DC area snipers. On the morning of October 22, 2002, Denise Johnson said goodbye to her husband Conrad with her usual ``be careful.'' Neither he nor her children had any idea this would be their last words to their husband and father. This 35-year-old bus driver was shot on October 22 in Silver Spring, MD. He was standing at the top step of his empty bus when he was hit. He was killed instantly by the Bushmaster portrayed here that Bull's Eye ``lost'' to Lee Malvo. Some have the impression it is only the DC sniper victims and Officers McGuire and Lemongello from New Jersey who would have lawsuits blocked by this bill. Unfortunately, there are many other victims of gun violence with valid cases who would have their suits dismissed. I ask the sponsors why do they want to do that? Why? Loss of a family member? Perhaps it is the principal breadwinner in the family. Should we have the family suffer from now newly found poverty and doing without the capacity to pay the rent, perhaps be evicted from their homes? Why do we want to punish them a second time? Was it not enough they suffered like that the first time? We want to cut away from them their right to have redress for what took place. There is Tenille Jefferson. Her 7-year-old son was killed by another child with a .44 caliber rifle. This tragic shooting occurred because the gun ended up in the streets after being negligently sold through a gun dealer to an illegal drug user and gun trafficker. Then there is Sherilyn Byrdsong who lost her husband, former college basketball coach Rick Byrdsong, when he was shot and killed as he walked with their children in Evanston, IL. The crime was committed by a white supremacist, Benjamin Smith, who targeted minorities in a shooting spree through Illinois and Indiana. Even though Smith was prohibited from buying guns, he was able to obtain a gun because of the actions of a reckless gun dealer. This reckless dealer sold one gun trafficker over 70 handguns in less than 2 years, almost all of them Saturday night specials, commonly used by criminals. Mrs. Byrdsong's lawsuit is pending in a State court in Chicago. Other victims of this same shooter have joined the lawsuit. If this bill passes, their lawsuits are wiped out. I cannot understand why we would want to do that in this, the Capitol of this Government of our great country. I can't understand why we are bent on taking away people's rights and making them suffer because of a special interest group that has a special reach to those in this Senate and the House who say: We have to take care of this industry. This is an essential industry. We want this. Maybe we can build this into a major industry, make it bigger than it is, sell more guns. That is hardly a way to see a productive existence in a society that essentially has respect for the law. The Reverend Stephen Anderson, a minister shot during this spree I was talking about, on his way to join his family in a Fourth of July celebration, would have his lawsuit dismissed. Steven Kuo, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, would have his rights taken away. Hillel Goldstein, one of several Orthodox Jews shot when walking home from temple services, would have his family's lawsuit terminated. There are other cases that would be dismissed--the parents of 15- year-old Kenzo Dix, who was shot and killed unintentionally by a 14- year-old friend because the gun lacked well-known safety features. The boy thought his father's pistol was unloaded as he had emptied the magazine. Had the gun included an indicator that alerted him that a round was in the chamber, or an integral lock that would have prevented him from firing, Kenzo would not have been killed. But Kenzo's parents' case would be terminated by this bill. The family of Joan Moore, who was shot and killed by a mentally deranged man in the town of Belle, WV, would have their suit dismissed. Her family brought suit for negligence against the gun dealer who sold a 9 mm rifle to Moore's killer, 18-year-old Robert Copen. Mr. Copen stood in the gun shop's parking lot all day in plain sight, smoking marijuana before he entered the store. He apparently acted so oddly while in the store that an employee asked his supervisor if Copen should be trusted with a gun. Management told the employee to go ahead and make the sale anyway. This gun dealer was clearly negligent. But Mrs. Moore's family would lose their rights under this bill. This Senate looks as if it wants to administer a second punishment because the first punishment was not severe enough. It is shocking to believe this could take place. Since when is Congress in the business of rewarding the worst in our society? Why would we want to send a message that says: Circumvent the law, put our families in danger, and we are going to protect you? The reality is that the gun industry engages frequently in improper conduct with deadly consequences. We have seen many examples of this. Corrupt dealers who frequently sell to criminals would be immune. Straw purchasers who work with rogue gun dealers to obtain guns for people who are not eligible to buy guns would be immune. Dealers who engage in large volume sales, such as the Illinois dealer who sold 60 Saturday night special handguns to one customer, would be immune. And, of course, there is the problem of gun shows, where criminals and terrorists can buy guns without background checks. As many here know, the Senate passed my gun show amendment with the help of Vice President Gore, a 50-50 tie in 1999. But the House Republicans killed the provision in conference. They were not willing to shut down dealers who are not required to get any data about a purchaser--no names, no addresses, no pictures, nothing, not even a fingerprint. If the NRA immunity bill is signed into law--and I call it the NRA immunity bill deliberately because that is who we are servicing today. We are not servicing this list of people who had the punishment we have seen, punishment that should never be permitted to be put upon a family, a loss of a child, a loss of a husband, a loss of a wife or mother. We should not do that. But if the NRA immunity bill is signed into law, victims of industry recklessness will be denied their day in court. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to me, and I am sure it doesn't make sense to people across the country. And I hope they are listening. People across the country have to understand what we are doing. We are protecting an industry that provided the murder weapon to kill lots of people. Why in the world do we want to protect those people? If your behavior is bad, no matter what the product is, if it is a toy, if it is a crib or otherwise, and it is made improperly, you pay a price for it. I come from a State where pharmaceutical manufacturers are a giant industry. Let a pharmaceutical manufacturer put the wrong ingredient in the capsule which hurts somebody's health, they go to court. They are very conscious of that. They are very much afraid of the repercussions of a lawsuit. That is what makes people pay attention. It does it in that industry. It does it in all other industries. But we want to exempt this one industry for their noble behavior, for their concern for human life, for their concern for jobs, I heard earlier. The Senator from Illinois scoffed at it and said: Oh, I didn't know we were talking about a jobs bill. Why don't we make hand grenades and distribute them freely? You could get people to do that. This is ridiculous. Unfortunately, it is not about common sense but, rather, it is about dollars and cents. It is about political support on the outside. It is about nasty mail campaigns. It is about the deterioration of common sense and collegiality. It says: Look, I don't owe my constituents all that. What I do owe is I owe some special interest friends of mine who helped author the legislation in the House that applies to this. We know the role that the NRA plays in financing political campaigns. It seems as if it is paying off for them right now. Thankfully, there are still people here who see their responsibility differently, who will stand up for principle, who will do all they can to prevent this unconscionable piece of legislation from passing. We have friends on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans. This isn't the special property, the unique property of Republicans. It is people who are not looking clearly at the problem, who are not willing to say: Hey, I can catch a little abuse from the NRA and its membership and its friends. I took a lot of it in my previous term in the Senate. But we did take gun permits away from spousal abusers. Some 40-plus thousand were denied gun permits because of a piece of legislation we passed. Does anybody regret that fact? I wonder, if we asked the question, do you, sir/ma'am, regret the fact that we have taken away those permits from those spousal abusers, permission to buy guns, permits. I wonder if you feel badly about that, and about other things that try to curb gun violence. This bill takes away a critical tool in the fight to eliminate gun violence. It is comparable, in my view, to taking away medication from doctors trying to treat a deadly disease, perhaps to prevent death, or immobility, or mental fatigue in a person without proper medication. Why do we not want to prevent the possibility that someone can be permanently injured or incapacitated? What are the symptoms of this disease? In the year 2000, there were more than 28,000 firearm-related deaths in the United States. About 11,000 were homicides. These deaths and injuries cost an estimated $2.3 billion a year in lifetime medical expenses alone, much of which is borne by the U.S. taxpayer. The total societal cost of firearms is much higher--an estimated $100 billion a year--and the cost to families cannot be measured. But we know this: The bill on the floor today is a direct attack on people who have already suffered a tragedy. This bill is an embarrassment to the Senate, to our Government, and our Nation, and it ought not to be permitted to go forward. I ask my colleagues one thing. Before you cast your vote on this bill, spend a second thinking about a child's face who learns that daddy is dead, or about a father's face when he learns that his child is dead--killed not by nature or something that perhaps could not be prevented. Much of this can be prevented. Think about these victims. Give them their fair consideration before you victimize them once again. I hate to think that this wonderful body in which I am privileged to serve would want to inflict punishment on those who have already suffered so deeply, or who will suffer so deeply by protecting those scoundrels who break the rules with reckless behavior. Imagine what is being said--that even if you are reckless, you are going to be immunized by this legislation. Negligence is bad; reckless is unacceptable under any condition. I hope I am talking for the majority of those so we can get a vote against this bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. The Senator is absolutely right. My question was, Did the Senator know that the new owner of the license was the friend of the former owner?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I thank the Senator from Idaho. One thing I know is that we often disagree, but I would never accuse him of these statements. He is an honorable man. We have our differences on things that we ought to be putting into law. But I would like, if I may, to correct my friend's impression because not only was there a phone which was answered but the now owner of the license is a good friend of the former owner. If one looks at the pictures that we displayed, the weapon used was a pretty sizable piece of equipment. As I remember from what I saw on the film shown on television, there was evidence that this Lee Malvo was carrying a weapon out of that store. The camera saw it. Certainly it could have been negligence. It could have been reckless or maybe the gun was paid for by a friend, and with the wink of the eye, out it went. But to give this criminal credit for telling the truth is something that I--

Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I wonder if I could ask the distinguished Senator a question.

Mr. LAUTENBERG. I believe the Senator has examined the opinion offered by Mr. Lloyd Cutler and others. Is it not their opinion that these lawsuits would be obstructed from proceeding as a result of this law being put in place?