Christopher Murphy

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Well, it is not surprising to me, would be my answer. I think, as the Senator knows, the marketing techniques of the companies that sell these guns are very disturbing. They often are marketing these guns in a way that would suggest that the intended use by the manufacturer is, in fact, to kill as many people as possible. They advertise the fact that you can conceal them easily, so they don't shy away from the fact that the collapsible elements make them easily concealable. The manufacturers are not suggesting that they should be used for mass slaughter, but they certainly are selling them in a way that speaks to an audience who is contemplating what they were contemplating. I yield to the Senator for an additional question.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Washington. Before yielding to the Senator from Michigan, let me note there are a number of House Members who have joined us on the floor. I thank them for their support in our effort to force a debate and discussion on the floor of the Senate today. I would note that of the House Members who have joined today, there have been a number from different States who have joined us. Representative Langevin was on the floor. I am particularly proud of all five Members from Connecticut who have stopped by on the floor for these proceedings, and I know we will expect more with that. I yield to Senator Peters for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. First of all, let me say that it doesn't surprise me because we know the level of carnage that entered that emergency room. But I think it should pain everyone to look at that pair of shoes, look at the blood splattered on them, think of the amount of blood that was lost by those who died and lived, and to think that we are not going to do anything about it. I yield for an additional question. I know the Senator from New York is waiting as well.

Mr. MURPHY. I yield for an additional question.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the question and for specifically referring to the GAO report. Over 10 years, 91 percent of people who were on the terrorist watch list who tried to buy a gun was successful in buying a gun--9 out of 10 times. The reason this is such an important issue that the Senator brings up is because, as he knows, people who are trying to commit political crimes against Americans, people who are trying to commit acts of terror against Americans, are increasingly turning to the firearm--to the assault weapon rather than to the IED or the explosive--in order to perpetuate their terror attack. So as studies have shown us--studies I referred to earlier today--the weapon of choice in homegrown domestic terror attacks is the firearm. Why wouldn't we do everything in our power to take that weapon of choice away from those individuals? We are making this country less safe every day that we allow for 9 out of 10 individuals who are on the terrorist watch list who seek to buy guns to buy them. By the way, as the Senator knows, that 1 out of 10 isn't denied a gun because he is on the terrorist watch list, that 1 out of 10 is denied a gun because he is on another list, because that individual has committed a crime that has caused him to be prohibited from buying a weapon. I yield to the Senator for a question. (Mr. TOOMEY assumed the Chair.)

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank my friend for coming to the floor and asking these questions and making these important points. Yes, this would make a difference. It would make a difference because we know every month there are people on the terrorist watch list who are trying to buy weapons. Not all of them are buying weapons for malevolent purposes, but we know individuals from the Boston bombers to the Orlando shooter were in the network of those who were being watched and monitored by the FBI, and they were able to buy weapons despite that. This would make a difference. If we were able to pair it, as we are requesting, with an examination of background checks, that would also make a difference for the thousands of people every month who are dying on the streets of America due to our inability to stop illegal weapons from flowing into our communities. So I thank the Senator for his questions. I yield to the Senator from Connecticut who has been with me since the very beginning. I yield to him for a question.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, through the Chair, that is exactly right. Let's make a start. I guess what is so offensive to the people Senator Blumenthal and I represent, especially in Connecticut, is that we have done absolutely nothing; that in the face of mass slaughter after mass slaughter, this body has taken absolutely no action. I know times are tough here. I know we are often at each other's throats. But that in and of itself is unacceptable. Let's find some limited common ground on issues that the broad American electorate support, and let's move forward on it. Maybe we wait to litigate some of the more controversial pieces until later on. As Senator Blumenthal said earlier, this level of death would be absolutely unacceptable if it came by way of disease or if it came by way of infection. No one would contemplate standing pat and doing nothing if a mosquito-borne illness were killing 80 people a day in this country or wiped out 50 in one evening. No one would accept Congress doing nothing and just moving on to the next piece of legislation after the next wave of people dies. That is just not something people would accept. But for some reason in this country, we have come to accept that gun violence is inevitable and that there is nothing we can do or should do about it. I am going to make this argument with greater specificity later this afternoon, but it is important for us to look at the data on gun deaths in America versus gun deaths in every other industrialized nation. It doesn't happen in other places like it happens here. And it is not because America has more people who are mentally ill. It is not because America spends less money on law enforcement. It is not because America has a less well-funded system of mental health, although we have a terrible system of mental health that we should fix. The reason we have epidemic levels of gun violence is not that we are different from other countries in all of these other ways; it has to be explained in part because we have allowed so many people who shouldn't have guns to have them. There is a reason we are different, and thus we shouldn't accept it. I yield to the Senator from Florida for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for his lifelong leadership on this question. I feel as though I am in a caucus of giants here, where people are coming down to the floor--from Senator Durbin to Senator Schumer, to Senator Blumenthal--who have all been working on this issue about firearms, trying to protect Americans from gun violence far longer than I have. Of course, as one of the original authors of the bill, Senator Schumer knows better than anyone that had you known that you were building a bill that would only cover 60 percent of gun sales, you never would have designed it, nor probably voted for it, with the terms that exist today. What has happened is that over time gun sales have migrated to other places. What we are simply trying to do is to reinforce the existing intention of the law. We are not trying to change the law at all. For everybody who voted for that bill originally to make sure criminals were not able to buy guns, they did so because they believed they were going to cover the majority of sales that were done in a commercial atmosphere. Now commerce happens in gun shows and online, and we need for the system to migrate to it. The Senator is also right that protecting America from terrorist attacks is ineffective unless we do both--make sure people on the terrorist watch list can't buy guns and that the forums which that list reaches are both gun stores and gun shows but also Internet sales. Further, the Senator is right that this is the only place where this issue is controversial. This is the only place in which there is a 50- 50 argument over this question. You find any other forum in any other part of the country and it is 90-10 on this issue, which is why my friend from West Virginia has led on this because he knows that in all of our States, this is something that brings Republicans and Democrats and gun owners and nongun owners together. Maybe other things don't, but this issue does. I yield to the Senator from New York for a question.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, through the Chair, I thank my colleague for the question. From the layman's perspective, they don't seem like they are different weapons. They are both incredibly powerful weapons. They are both derivatives of weapons that were intended to kill as many people as quickly as possible.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am familiar with that report. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator for another question.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator. It is a glaring loophole, and it is unclear why it has persisted. This idea of closing the loophole has been backed by both Democratic and Republican administrations, and I think the Senator talked about how this has been a bipartisan commitment. The George W. Bush Department of Justice supported the exact same bill that we are talking about today, in 2007. Attorney General Holder, in response to a question from Senator Feinstein at a 2009 Judiciary Committee hearing, said: I think that legislation was initially proposed by the Bush administration. It was well conceived, and we will continue to support that. Not so long ago, this was an issue that was conceived by a Republican administration. It didn't seem to become controversial until gun lobbying organizations decided that it should be. We should remember that about all the things we are discussing here, because we live in a world today in which we think the issue of gun laws is the third rail of American politics. But all of the legislation that we are talking about could not have passed if it wasn't for Republicans and Democrats coming together, whether it be to support the existing background check system or to support the existing ban on assault weapons--plenty of Republicans voted for that--or to conceive of this idea of terrorists being kept off the list. Here is how it plays out in real time. Elton Simpson is the name of the individual who opened fire on a Texas community center that was hosting an event displaying cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. I think we all agree that was an act of terrorism that was perhaps as a result of the radicalization of this individual. He was reportedly on the U.S. no-fly list. One of the Boston marathon bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was reportedly placed on two terrorist watch lists in 2011. He committed that act with an explosive device, but he also killed a police officer with a handgun. Orlando is the latest example of crimes being committed by those who were in and around this database. The Senator from Nebraska asked the question earlier: How do we make sure that people aren't on there by mistake? Both parties will only support legislation that gives a practical means for individuals to grieve the fact that they are prohibited from buying a gun when indeed they should not be. I think at some level, we should accept that in virtually every Federal database that exists of people who are ineligible to buy a gun or people who are eligible to receive Medicare reimbursement, there are occasionally mistakes. But that does not stop us from trying to engage in collective action as a community to better protect our Nation. Let's get that list right. Let's give people the ability to get off it if they are on it wrongly. But let's accept that what we know is that in 90 percent of the cases over that 10-year period where people tried to buy a gun and were on the terrorist watch list, they were able to buy it. Let's be honest. This is only one element of what needs to be a broader strategy to combat either the potential radicalization leading to violence of American citizens or this broader question of combating gun violence at-large that Senator Durbin brought up. But it is an important glaring hole that needs to be corrected. I yield to my friend from Connecticut for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank my friend. Let me put it to the body this way, through the Chair. This is also about sending a message to everyone in this country that we are serious about taking on this epidemic of gun violence, whether it is a terrorist attack or it is an attack by someone who is deeply mentally ill, such as the attack in Newtown, or the ordinary, everyday violence that is just epidemic in our cities. I think it is incredibly important for us to send a message that we are serious about this and, frankly, not worry about whether we have addressed every aspect of this debate and solved every problem at once--not allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. I say that to my colleague, through the Chair, for two reasons. One is this notion I talked about earlier in which I really do worry that there is a quiet unintentional message of endorsement that is sent when we do nothing or all we do is talk. I believe that when there is not a collective condemnation of policy change from what is supposedly the world's greatest deliberative body, there are very quiet cues picked up by people who are contemplating the unthinkable in their minds. This isn't intentional. I am not accusing anybody of being intentional in their endorsement, but I think when we don't act, there is a quiet signal being sent to those whose minds are becoming unhinged and who are thinking about doing something truly horrific. Since we have been talking about this--since Sandy Hook--we haven't heard anything that would suggest that the highest levels of government condemn it with any real policy change. Second, this is more deeply personal, and I know both of my colleagues on the floor today share this point of view. Almost every one of us has had a conversation with a family member who has lost a son or daughter to gun violence. Too many of us have had that collective conversation with families who have lost a loved one or have spoken to someone who lost a family member or their loved one in a mass atrocity. As for me personally, I need to be able to tell them something. They need to be able to hear something that helps in their healing. The fact is, every day there are 80 sets of families who begin a process of grief surrounding the taking of a life through a firearm, and for many of them, their process of healing is encumbered by the fact that their leaders are not doing anything to stop it. If we could simply be compassionate as a body--forget the broader systemic impact of passing laws that will reduce the levels of violence in this country--that would enable us to help in the healing process of the families in Sandy Hook and Orlando. I know that after my colleagues met with the families in Sandy Hook, they came to the floor to plead for change. We should pass legislation. This is easy, given that it should unite broad members of the American public. I think the Senator's question is right: What are the other things we can do? We can go down the list. The Senator from Connecticut suggested that we make sure that individuals who have a restraining order against them by a spouse or partner aren't able to buy a weapon, and other suggestions have been to ban military-style assault weapons and provide more resources to law enforcement. There are a variety of other things we can do. Here is an easy place to start. Here is an easy place to start, where we know there is no real disagreement among the American public; 80 to 90 percent approval. We know there are Republicans and Democrats at least who can start negotiating this afternoon and this evening. Here is an easy place to start. I don't know, maybe it is a muscle. Maybe it is a muscle. Maybe once you start to exercise that muscle, once you start to get in the habit of coming together to try to find ways to address gun violence, it makes it easier to take the next step. And also, maybe people see that the sky doesn't fall. Maybe people will see that if we do expand background checks, that hundreds won't lose their right to go practice their sport, that people who want to shoot for sport don't all of a sudden lose access to that pastime. So maybe we will also see, as we have seen in Connecticut, that the sky doesn't fall when we pass these commonsense laws, that people still enjoy a fulsome right to own a firearm so long as they can prove that they are not a criminal, that they are not on the terrorist watch list, and that they haven't been adjudicated as mentally ill. I yield to the Senator for an additional question.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator. I think the question is simply: Why are you here--you asked for this job--if you didn't want to confront the big questions and the big problems? Nobody denies that this is an epidemic of criminal proportions. Nobody denies that this is happening only in the United States and nowhere else in the industrialized world. Nobody denies that crippling, never-ending grief that comes with a loved one being lost. Yet we do nothing. We just persist this week as if it is business as usual. Why did you sign up for this job if you are not prepared to use it to try to solve big problems? I appreciate the hope of my friend from Pennsylvania that we can find common ground. We have had a long time to find common ground. We have had 4 years since those kids were slaughtered in Sandy Hook to find common ground, but we haven't, which is why we are here today--to demand that we are not going to go along with business as usual any longer until we come together on at least two of the proposals that 90 percent of the American public supports. I yield to the Senator from Washington for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. That is right.

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Senator Blumenthal, and I want to thank you for your work on the Judiciary Committee for leading this fight to try to make sure that law enforcement has what it needs to protect this country. Again, I spoke to this broader conversation about how you protect this country from domestic terrorist attacks. I think there are a lot of people who want to drill it down to only one silo of conversation. As I remarked at the beginning, some people want to make this just about the fight in the Middle East. Some people want to make this just about surveillance. Other people want to make this just about gun laws. It is not any of those things. It is about a combination of efforts. So we have to admit that this fight against ISIS and against Al Qaeda in the areas in which they have large amounts of control is an ongoing fight. That is not going to be concluded tomorrow or next week or the month after. We think we are making dramatic progress, but it is going to take us a while. As I remarked at the outset, it also means that there is an inverse proportionality between our success in taking the fight to Al Qaeda and ISIS inside theaters of war and their importance in attacking us here at home in the sense that they are going to need to take the fight to us here if they are having less success in repelling our efforts to push them back inside the Middle East. That is where law enforcement comes in, Senator Blumenthal, and you are exactly right. Let's make it a priority to defeat ISIS. But let's admit that for the time being, they are going to try to launch lone- wolf attacks here. What we know is they generally don't go through the trouble of trying to coordinate these attacks ahead of time. So it makes it much more difficult to stop. They are trying to find someone who is on the fringes of society, who may be mentally ill or prone to radicalization and weaponize them. Sometimes it makes it difficult for law enforcement to find that needle in a haystack. What we know is that in this case, they had found that needle in a haystack. They had found him twice. Perhaps his inclusion permanently on one of these lists wouldn't have done much good because it wouldn't have prevented him from getting a firearm. There wasn't as much due diligence done as should have been. This clearly is an important tool of law enforcement, and we need to give it to them. I hope--and I think Senator Mikulski talked about this in her opening comments--we can talk about giving broader resources to the FBI and to law enforcement to do the job they need do. We ask them to do more and more, but we don't give them the resources that are necessary. If we are going to give them additional responsibilities-- keeping a better monitored, consolidated database, having a process for individuals to grieve their inclusion on it--then we have to make sure they have the resources necessary. To the Senator from New Jersey, I yield for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. And it was not. As we stated, this system worked for a very long time until all of these gun sales migrated out of the system. But we have plenty of examples in which we have passed sensible commonsense gun laws that didn't lead to all of the worst case scenarios that many people often proffer to us. I yield to Senator Manchin for another question.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for the question because of course this is a global fight against terrorism. This is not a battle that can be waged by one country and one country alone. The Senator is right that we are right now calling on our allies in Europe to take steps that would better protect all of us from these terrorist plotters. For instance, we have real concerns about the degree to which European nations are sharing data about potential terrorist plotters. Right now, law enforcement and terrorism surveillance in Europe is largely done on a country-by-country basis. Even within some countries, it is heavily siloed. In Brussels itself, I think by last count, there were six different police departments that didn't even communicate with each other. So there is a big problem in Europe about agencies not being able to talk to each other, and we are pressing Europe and Europeans to get more serious about both tracking terrorists throughout that continent and then sharing information with us. How is that relevant to the Senator's question? It is very hard for us to preach to the Europeans that they should get more serious about tracking terrorists if we have big holes in our databases as well, and we do today. From the information that is out there, we know that in Orlando, this individual was on a watch list. He came off of it. Because of the way in which the network of lists and notifications work today, the FBI was not notified when he went to buy a gun. We can have a debate as to whether he should have been prohibited from buying a gun if he was no longer on those lists, but it probably makes sense that the FBI should at least be notified so they can perhaps do some followup. As long as we have these gaps in our laws related to access to firearms for potential terrorists, then I think it is hard for us to tell the Europeans to do better. As the Senator knows, we also want to be able to connect what they know with what we know. There are American citizens who travel to other countries, and they may be radicalized in part in connection with those visits. We want to be able to get that information to the extent that a foreign country knows about the activities of American citizens when they travel abroad so that it is incorporated into our databases, incorporated into the list of people we are concerned about getting access to a weapon. I yield to the Senator from New Jersey for a question without losing my right to the floor. (Mr. SASSE assumed the Chair.)

Mr. MURPHY. Another qualified right of the Bill of Rights.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Oregon for his passion on both of these topics and for laying out the challenge for us, which is to move forward on these consensus proposals to close the terrorist loophole, to expand the number of sales that are subject to background checks, and to make sure everybody who buys a gun through a commercial sale has to prove they are not a criminal, but linking together what I would call doubling down on inclusiveness that has to happen in the wake of Orlando. An incident like this has a tendency to pull a community apart. Yet what we know is that the way to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again is for to us recommit ourselves to inclusiveness and to tolerance and to fighting discrimination. I can't say anything more than the Senator said with respect to that commitment as it applies to LGBT Americans. I do hope we are able to move the Equality Act through this body. I think we are in a long and frustratingly slow transition to a place that we all know we are going to get to, which is the full right to individuals no matter their sexual orientation. I also know that coming off this tragedy, there is going to be a tendency to marginalize another community, and that is the Muslim community in this country. As we talk about our efforts to build an inclusive society, we have to remember that the way in which we make our Nation safe is by building these inclusive communities where Muslim Americans feel a part of the whole, not feel excluded, because it builds and plays straight into the recruiting rhetoric of these terrorist groups if we are divided, if we push people out to the extremes. So I think this is a very important message for us all to hear, that fighting terrorism, whether it be hate-based crimes or politically based crimes inspired by terrorist groups--we combat it best, yes, when we tailor our gun laws to make sure that those who are thinking about these crimes, these horrific murderers, don't get guns, but also when we build these inclusive communities, which acts as a pretty strong prophylactic to terror. I yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I yield to Senator Baldwin for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Nebraska for his question. There is something called the consolidated watch list, which is an amalgam of a number of different databases. As the Senator understands, one of them is the no-fly list. The legislation Senator Feinstein has propounded and will propound refers to those consolidated lists and then provides the ability for an individual to contest their placement on those lists, to be able to be notified why they were prohibited from buying a gun and to be able to contest that with either the agency that put them on that list or with the NICS database itself. I take seriously this issue of due process. As we know, there are certainly people who are on that list who should not be--as, frankly, there are people today on the list of those prohibited from buying guns who should not be. There are mistakes made on the NICS list today--names that get put on there that shouldn't be put on, people who may have been wrongfully convicted. I would agree with the gentleman that it is important that the legislation we come to agreement on specifically refers to the set of lists--which I would suggest mirror the consolidated database that is maintained by Federal law enforcement--and have a very explicit right to get off that list. I don't think it is impossible that we can come together on that in very short order. I yield to the Senator from Illinois for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. That is true. I thank the Senator for making that patently clear. What we are suggesting here is that the way we can come together in this body is around the simple premise that individuals with serious criminal records, individuals who have been deemed mentally incompetent or incapable, and people on the terrorist watch list shouldn't be able to buy firearms. That is it. That is what we are talking about here today and to build out that system in an effective way that is as foolproof as possible. That has nothing to do with the limitation on an individual's Second Amendment right. If someone wants to go buy a firearm, they are not a suspected terrorist, they do not have a serious criminal record, and they have not been judged or deemed by a judge to be mentally incapable of making their own decisions, then there is nothing in what we are proposing in this body to come together on that would restrict that. I yield to my friend, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, for a question, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator. The Senator from Illinois, like Senator Blumenthal, has been a leader and a hero on this issue since before I got to the Senate, and he is exactly right. The state of this Nation is not just this repeated story line of mass shooting after mass shooting, it is the fact that even on days when there is not a mass shooting, there is the equivalent of a mass shooting happening in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, or New Orleans every single day. The numbers over Memorial Day weekend over Chicago are absolutely chilling. Think about living in a city in which, over the course of what should be a celebratory weekend, there are 60-some odd incidents of gunfire, and that is just gunfire that hits people. So it is critical we acknowledge that this epidemic that we are often focused on because of these mass shootings is an epidemic that exists every single day in this country. Senator Durbin is right that part of the reason we are asking that expanded background checks be part of this agreement that we come to over the course of today is because while we are on the bill that funds the Justice Department, while we are debating the bill that funds, in part, the background checks system, let's make sure it works. As the Senator knows, the data is clear: In jurisdictions that have near- universal background checks, there are less gun deaths--period, stop. In jurisdictions that decide they are going to apply background checks to as many sales as they can--let's be honest, you often can't get every sale, but you can certainly say, if you are selling guns online through advertisement or you are selling guns at a gun show that is organized and marketed, that those sales should be subject to a background check. In States that do that, they have lower rates of gun crimes. As the Senator knows so painfully--because Chicago sits right at the intersection of other jurisdictions--States can't do this by themselves. Even if a State decides to expand out the forums in which a gun sale is subject to a background check, if the other State next- door--let's say Indiana--has a lower standard, then your law is virtually meaningless. Of course, that is the story line in Chicago. The story line in Chicago is a handful of gun dealers--irresponsible gun dealers across the State line--selling guns to individuals who then take them into Chicago. This is certainly a debate brought on by another mass shooting, and we certainly have an obligation to make sure the terrorists don't obtain guns, but the Senator is right that this ultimately has to be an issue of doing something about our urban gun violence as well.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank my colleague for his question. I think this is a question people throughout this country are asking today: Why are these measures we are asking for consensus on today so controversial in the Senate when they are not controversial in the American public? My colleague Senator Booker talked about the statistics. It is not just that 90 percent of the American public supports expanded background checks to make sure people aren't criminals when buying guns; it is that the majority of gun owners support expanded background checks. It is Democrats who support it. It is Republicans who support it. Similarly, on the issue at hand today, which is making sure potential terrorists don't obtain weapons, a similar majority of the American public supports that as well. There is less polling on that question, but suggestions are that 75 to 80 percent of Americans support the idea that if you are on the terrorist watch list, if you are on the consolidated list, then you shouldn't be able to obtain a weapon. The question of my colleague is, Why can we not get consensus here? I guess, at some level, it is tough for me to answer that because it seems so clear to me that I am willing to vote for those measures. I am willing to cosponsor them. I am willing to come to the floor and speak in support of them. In many ways, it is a question for those who are blocking these measures from coming forward. As I said before, I believe much of it is rooted in what I believe is a misunderstanding of the Second Amendment. It is not an absolute right; it comes with responsibilities and conditions. I think a lot of it is a misunderstanding about the data that suggests--State by State, community by community--if you have tougher gun laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals or prevent these powerful military-style assault weapons from flowing through your streets, you are going to have less level of gun homicide. So part of our effort--and part of my belief--is to come to the floor today to continually reinforce what the real story is about the nature of the underlying right and about what the data tells us, but also, Senator Booker, about what we know to be the threat to this country. Research shows that on U.S. soil, people who are seeking to commit acts of terror rely almost exclusively on guns. And when guns are used in potential acts of terror, they are vastly more likely to result in casualties--when guns are used. Now, this isn't me talking. This is an analysis of domestic terror attacks in the United States by Professor Louis Klarevas of the University of Massachusetts. He showed that since September 11, 2001, 95 percent of the associated deaths connected with terrorist attacks-- with terrorism--were committed with guns. According to a project run by the Department of Homeland Security's Center for Excellence at the University of Maryland--something called the Global Terrorism Database, which is a government database run by the Department of Homeland Security--terrorist attacks in the United States are 10 times more likely to result in fatalities when they involve guns than when they do not. Between 1970 and 2014, nonfirearm terrorist attacks resulted in deaths 4 percent of the time, whereas 40 percent of the attacks involving firearms resulted in deaths. If you really want to get down to the chilling bone here, Mr. President, listen to the words of one of the most notorious Al Qaeda operatives--actually an American who is now deceased--whose name is Adam Gadahn. He released a video in 2011. In it he said: In the West, you've got a lot at your disposal. Let's take America for example. America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for? Even if his facts weren't 100 percent correct on whether you can get a fully automatic weapon at a gun show, this is clearly a message being sent by some of the most notorious operatives and recruiters within the Al Qaeda and ISIS network: Go get a gun. They are easily obtainable. Do as much damage as possible. So to answer Senator Booker's question, I guess I don't want to sit here and impute malevolent motives or intentions or the interference of interest groups on my colleagues. I just have to believe that we have the facts wrong and that we are maybe misreading our constituents. I know people who listen to the NRA are very vocal. I know they call in to all of our offices frequently and express their opinions very strongly. I will admit that the majority of Americans--and this majority exists in every single State--who support expanded background checks, support keeping terrorists off the watch list, they are maybe not as passionate in their views. So it may also be that there is a misread coming on where the American public exists on this question. I think there are more and more Americans who are rising up and choosing to make this a priority when they come to the polling places and when they talk to us. To Senator Booker, I think this is just about trying to do our best to correct the record--as the Senator said, doing our best to explain that what we are asking for is not revolutionary. It is not radical. It is simply commonsense. If we lay it out in plain facts, most of the people we represent would expect that we would have already taken care of this. If we told them we have not yet put individuals who are on the terrorist watch list on those that are prohibited from buying guns, I think they would be very surprised. If we told them that the majority of gun sales happen without background checks, I think they would probably be surprised by that. I think they expect us to act on this. I know the Senator from Nebraska is looking to ask a question. I would be happy to yield to the Senator from Nebraska for a question without losing my right to the floor.