Christopher Murphy

Mr. MURPHY

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for that question. That is why it is so important to link those two pieces together. If you really want to protect this country from terrorist attacks by a firearm--as I stated before, that is the weapon of choice for those who want to do harm to this country for political reasons--then you have to both make sure those individuals are on the list of those prohibited from buying weapons and you have to make sure when you go and buy a weapon you intersect with that list. This has been a long trend line, as both of my friends know. It used to be that almost everybody who bought a gun went into their local gun store to purchase that weapon, and over the course of time, for a variety of reasons, the means by which you bought a firearm has diversified significantly. We now have lots of sales occurring online, as we do with almost every other commercial good, and there is this buildout of gun shows, which are places where both licensed and nonlicensed dealers go to sell their guns in a very organized and controlled fashion. We have story upon story of individuals who have gone to buy guns in those gun stores in mass quantities, knowing that they would not have to go through a background check and then selling them on the black market. So someone who knows they are prohibited from buying a gun decides not to buy a gun in a gun store; instead, they go buy a number of weapons at a gun show, which is unregulated. Those individuals who are not licensed gun dealers are able to sell their weapons without background checks at a gun show, and they can get as many as they want. That is not a secret. I mean, you don't have to scratch the surface of America's gun law or debate this subject very hard to find out that there are easy ways to get guns without getting a background check. You can also go online. You can very easily buy a weapon on ARMSLIST without going through a background check. We cannot adequately protect this country from terrorist attacks by firearm unless you do both, and that is why those two are linked together. As the Senator also knows, let's not shy away from the fact that the reason we are on the floor today is that this slaughter also happens outside the realm of terrorist attacks. In fact, the majority-- 95-plus percent--of Americans who have been killed by guns were not killed in a terrorist attack, but many of them were killed by guns sold outside the background check system. This is a two for one. If there are objections on the Republican side to the provisions of the Manchin-Toomey legislation, I hope that over the course of this afternoon and this evening we can come together on those issues. If you pass some version of that legislation, which is supported by 90 percent of the American public and the vast majority of gun owners, in conjunction with putting terrorists or would-be terrorists or suspected terrorists on that same list, then you have not only protected our country from terrorist attacks, but you have also addressed this epidemic that we all live with on a regular basis, whether it be in Newark, Bridgeport, or, as Senator Durbin talked about, Chicago. The regularity of gun crime that is often associated with weapons that were purchased outside of the background check system is not an inevitability that we have to accept. We can do something about it by coming together today. I think that is what my friend is getting at by linking together two policies that have to be interdependent in order to protect ourselves from a terrorist attack, and it is also about this broader issue of taking on crimes in our city. I yield to the Senator from Connecticut for a question without losing my right to the floor.

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.

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. 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. 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 very much. I yield to my good friend, the Senator from Colorado, for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his comments and the question. Of course, the answer is that there is absolutely no risk involved in the votes that we are hopeful to bring forward in the Senate. Why? Because these are propositions that are supported by the vast majority of the American public. There is no controversy over either of these issues. The risk is in doing nothing. The risk is in continuing to allow for this very large loophole for would-be terrorists to walk through. I won't read it again, but several times on the floor today I have read this quote from a now-deceased Al Qaeda operative in which he very clearly advertises to recruits here in the United States: 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. . . . So what are you waiting for? This is one of Al Qaeda's top operatives, directing individuals in the United States to take advantage of this loophole. We have seen this trend line away from other means of terrorist attacks to the assault weapon, to the firearm. So we should pay attention to this trend and do something about it. The real risk is doing nothing, Senator Casey. There is no risk in voting for this. You will be celebrated by the American people. After tonight, I hope there will be even more who will join our call. The real risk is in standing pat and allowing for ISIS to recruit straight into the loophole that we have created. Think about what we are doing. We are selling guns to the enemy knowingly if we allow our set of laws today to persist. That is why we have to move forward and enact these commonsense measures. With that, I yield to Senator King for a question, who has been great to be with us for the majority of this late evening, without losing my right to the floor.

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

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for this clarification. I, in fact, don't think there is anything about this debate that we are having that, as they would describe it, is a debate about the Second Amendment. There is no dispute that the Second Amendment now, in the wake of the Heller decision, guarantees the right of an individual to own a firearm. That is the law of the land. But that same decision very explicitly makes it clear that it is within the right of Congress to put parameters around that right to make sure, for instance, that criminals or would-be criminals don't get access to firearms. So this certainly is not a debate about the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is clear. Right now, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, it guarantees an individual's right to a firearm, with reasonable conditions placed upon it by Congress. So we are simply debating the extension of a widely accepted condition on the Second Amendment, which is the inability of criminals, and as we are debating today, individuals on the terrorist watch list. I yield to the Senator for a question.

Mr. MURPHY. I yield back to the Senator from Rhode Island for a question.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for the question. I think the flood of special interest money into politics is the answer for why lots of things don't happen here, and, frankly, it is also the answer for why a lot of things do happen here. So I think you are spot-on, through the Chair to Senator Udall, that part and parcel of this conversation is a conversation about reforming the way in which influence is exerted in this place. Something is wrong when 90 percent of the American public says that they want expanded background checks, and something is wrong when 75 percent of the American public says they want people on the no-fly list to be prohibited from buying guns, and we don't act on it. I can't give specific diagnoses as to why that is, but it certainly speaks to the need for the reforms the Senator is talking about. I yield to the Senator for an additional question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator from Delaware who, earlier on the floor, talked about this notion that ISIS is on retreat inside the Middle East, and they have only a handful of motivations remaining for people to join their movement. No longer is the inevitable geographic expansion of the caliphate available to them as a reason for recruitment, but the belief or the argument that the East is at war with the West certainly is still available to them, especially if we react in the wrong way to the threat that is presented to us. Frankly, we have not gotten into a discussion thus far on this floor about what one of the Presidential candidates is proposing, but part of the reason we are demanding a vote on these measures is because this is the right way to respond. There is a latent fear in the American public that is understandable. There is a wrong way to respond to that that will, frankly, make us less safe. There is a right way to respond, and I think the American public gets that because of the 90-percent approval ratings of the things we are proposing. I thank the Senator, and I yield to the Senator from Wisconsin for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the time she has taken to talk about each of these beautiful individuals--these young men and women who went to a dance club to celebrate their lives and their friends and Pride Month and who will never, ever walk the face of this Earth again, and their friends and families will never get to celebrate these individuals' lives. It is a reminder, as you talk about who these people are individually, as much as we talk about statistics--the 30,000 who have died--that this is about lives. You could tell the story, for each one of them, of 20 other people whose lives will never be the same because of this tragedy. You could put nearly two of those charts up every single day, and that is what is so scary. We are fixated on this tragedy because it is unique and horrific, but we could put up that chart every day, and it is important to tell their stories--to tell who they were--because hopefully that is part of the imperative for us to act. Senator Udall has been patient and on the floor, and I know there are others who are waiting to speak. So let me yield for a question to Senator Udall, who has been a great friend on this issue, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the question. It is simple. We are asking for the two sides of the aisle here to come together and bring us votes on a bill that would prevent individuals who are on the terrorist watch list--the no-fly list--from being able to purchase firearms and then, second, to expand out those purchases that are covered by background checks to places where gun sales are migrating, which is largely gun shows and Internet sales. These are both measures that are supported broadly by the American people. To the Senator from New Mexico, we are asking for more than just votes on these measures. We think there is common ground on these issues. We can't think of any excuse why we can't come together and figure out a way to get these passed. We have taken votes in the past, and votes are important and would be important if we took them, but what would be more important is to bridge our differences. There are plenty of people who aren't on the floor today who can make that happen so that we can pass legislation rather than just debate and vote on it. I yield to the Senator for an additional 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. 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. I thank the Senator for his remarks. I thank him for his focus on assault weapons. We are asking for two different proposals to come before the Senate, not one on banning assault weapons, but it remains a passion of many of us. One of the most gruesome facts from the Newtown killings is that there were 20 kids who were shot with that weapon, and not one of them survived. All 20 of them died. That speaks to the epic, life-ending power of an exceptional weapon. I yield to the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, the Senator from Delaware, for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Nobody believes that, no.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator. My friend from Massachusetts was so eloquent earlier on the floor, and I yield to Senator Markey for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for the question. I will forgive the disparagement of Connecticut's small size, but the answer is no. The only limitation would be that if any of those individuals were not permitted to fly because they were on the terrorist watch list, they would not be able to purchase a gun. In 2015 there were only 200-some- odd individuals who were on the no-fly list who attempted to buy a gun. Other than that limitation--and I imagine there are very few or no ranchers who are on that list.

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, first, I extend my thanks to Chairman Shelby and Ranking Member Mikulski for putting together a truly bipartisan bill. I am honored to be a member of the Appropriations Committee and honored to support this bipartisan compromise. This was a difficult bill to put together, but they did very good work to make this a product both sides could support. I thank them for allowing me to be a part of that process. Second, let me acknowledge the remarks of Senator Mikulski, who noted that in many ways the world and the country have changed since this bill was scheduled to come to the floor. Our hearts break collectively in this country for the citizens of Orlando. In particular, for those of us from Connecticut, our hearts break for the people of Orlando because we know in a very real way about the pain that exists there today, and we also know how that pain is really never-ending. The ripples of that pain are unceasing and unrelenting, and they span generations, neighborhoods, and years. Newtown is still putting itself back together and probably will be for a long time, and the same goes for Orlando. Our hearts break for what that community is going through. The world is different today than it was at the end of last week. There is a newfound imperative for this body to find a way to come together and take action to try to do our part to stem this epidemic of gun violence and in particular this epidemic of mass shootings that plagues this Nation like no other industrialized nation in the world. There is something fundamentally different happening in the United States that causes us to have these catastrophic-level mass shootings on almost a monthly basis. In 2015 it caused us to have 372 mass shootings. The definition of a mass shooting is when four or more people are shot at any one time. Every day results in 80 or more people being killed by guns through domestic violence, accidental shootings, and homicides. It won't surprise you to know that for those of us who represent Connecticut, the failure of this body to do anything at all in the face of that continued slaughter isn't just painful to us, it is unconscionable. I can't tell you how hard it is to look into the eyes of the families of those little boys and girls who were killed in Sandy Hook and tell them that almost 4 years later, we have done nothing at all to reduce the likelihood that that will happen again to another family. I shudder to think what it will be like for Senator Nelson 4 years from now to talk to the parents of those who were killed this past weekend in Orlando and tell them that 4 years after Orlando and 8 years after Newtown, Congress has been utterly silent. I have stood on this floor dozens of times talking about this subject. I often come down to tell the story of the voices of the victims of these gun homicides and mass shootings just to make sure people know who these victims are. They are real people with families. This isn't new to me, but I am at my wit's end. I have had enough. I have had enough of the ongoing slaughter of innocents, and I have had enough of the inaction in this body. Every shooting is different. There are a different set of facts around every single shooting. The story in Newtown was about a deeply mentally ill individual who had been isolated in his school and neighborhood. It was a story about a young man who had a fascination with violent content and violent video games. It was a story of a young man who had access to a very powerful weapon and who was able to shoot and kill 20 kids. The shooting in Orlando has a different set of facts as well. There is clearly a terrorist connection. It is a story about radicalization. It is also a story about a very ill, very confused young man. It is a story of access to a very powerful weapon. It is a story about interaction with the FBI and the holes in the network of surveillance and checks that we need to discuss. Every set of facts is different, but what unites all of these shootings--from Littleton, to Aurora, to Newtown, to Blacksburg, to Orlando--is that the weapon of choice in every case is a gun, often a very powerful gun, an AR-15 or AR-15 style of gun that was designed for the military and law enforcement to kill as many people as quickly as possible. What unites all of these incidents is our failure to do anything about it. No one can guarantee that a shooting won't occur. No set of laws can allow us to say with certainty that there won't still be killings in Chicago, New Haven, and Los Angeles. There is no legislative guarantee that there won't be another Omar Mateen. But the idea that we haven't even tried or proffered ideas on this floor and debated them is offensive to those of us who have lived through these tragedies. I have great respect for the product that Chairman Shelby and Ranking Member Mikulski have put on the floor. I know this isn't going to make me popular with many of my colleagues or with the leadership of this body, but I don't think we should proceed with debate on amendments to this bill until we have figured out a way to come together on--at the very least--two simple ideas that enjoy the support of 80 to 90 percent of Americans. These two ideas, two pieces of legislation, would have been potentially dispositive and impactful with respect to the case in Orlando. Senator Feinstein has introduced one of those pieces of legislation which would simply say that if you are on a terror watch list, you shouldn't be able to buy a weapon. I heard one of my colleagues talk about reservations about this legislation, but I am certain there is a way to bridge any divide we have on how to administer that protection in a way that could bring Republicans and Democrats together. Second, in order to make that protection meaningful, we also need to make sure that wherever a would-be shooter buys a gun, he goes through a background check. If you put terrorists or suspected terrorists on a list of those who are prohibited to buy guns, it doesn't do much good when around half of all gun purchases today are made outside of the background check system. Let's say that the Orlando shooter was on a list that prohibited him from buying a weapon and he went to a store and was denied that AR-15- style weapon because he was on that list. But all he would have to do is go to a weekend gun show or go online, and he would be able to get that weapon without a background check. So if you really want to prevent terrorists or would-be terrorists or suspected terrorists from obtaining weapons, you have to pass legislation that puts those on the terrorist watch list on the list of those who are prohibited to buy guns; give them an ability to get off that list if they are on there without reason, but put them on that list as a default. Second, we have to expand the sales that are subject to background checks to make sure that we are creating a web that catches that potential terrorist when he tries to buy that weapon. I am prepared to stand on this floor and talk about the need for this body to come together on keeping terrorists away from getting guns-- through those two measures--for, frankly, as long as I can, because I know we can come together on this issue. I know there is other really important business to be done here. I know other people have amendments they would like to call up. I know there are other issues that Senators would like to raise. But having come through the experience of Newtown, I have had enough. It has been 4 years and nothing has been done, despite the fact that 90 percent of the American public wants us to act. The vast majority of gun owners want us to expand the reach of background checks. Polls suggest that 80 percent of Americans believe that people on a terrorist watch list shouldn't be able to buy guns. There is no controversy out there about these two provisions. We can work it out. We can work it out today. We got a majority of the Senate to support Manchin-Toomey. That legislation still exists. Senator Schumer has introduced other legislation. Senator Feinstein has introduced a bill to keep terrorists from getting guns. I am certain there are ways that it can be made better. As someone who represents the community of Sandy Hook, which is still grieving today, I am going to stand on this floor and talk about our experience at Sandy Hook and Orlando's experience and the need to come together on this issue of making sure that dangerous people who have designs on mass murder don't get dangerous weapons, as long as I can, so that we can allow time to try to figure out a path forward, to bring this body together on the issue of changing our gun laws so that they reflect the will of 90 percent of the American people. I know what I am suggesting is extreme, but we have had enough of inaction in Connecticut. I just don't want the Senator from Florida, who just spoke, to say to those families 4 years from now that he couldn't do anything either. Let me tell my colleagues what I mean about how this affects Sandy Hook in an ongoing way and why I couldn't help myself but to come down and take this stand today. The families that are dealing with this grief in Orlando are spread out all over the country and all over the greater Orlando area. It is awful. We just can't imagine--I certainly can't imagine--what it is like to lose a child. These are young men and women who died in that nightclub. But it is something different to lose a 6- or 7-year-old. It is something different when four or five of those kids lived on one road in Newtown. All of a sudden, overnight, four or five kids disappear. They are gone. It is something different when all of the other kids in that school heard those gun shots. They had to flee, stepping over the bodies of the administrators and their teachers. That pain stays with you for a long time as a community, such that in the months and months after what happened in Sandy Hook occurred, you could be in a classroom and hear a young child scream out a word that seemed like a non sequitur. In one particular class the word was ``monkey'' and, every so often, we would have a student stand up and yell ``monkey.'' That was a safe word. The teachers had worked out that if a conversation started in class about the shooting, about maybe what one kid had seen and another student didn't want to be a part of that conversation--because we remember there were survivors from these classrooms as well as from the classroom next door--if one kid didn't want to be in that conversation, then that one child would stand up and say ``monkey'' at the top of their lungs, and a teacher would come over and break up that conversation. I don't know why, but I think about that a lot--about a little kid standing up and screaming ``monkey'' in the middle of the classroom, just as a reminder of how the trauma of these events doesn't end. They say in cities across America that when one American is shot, there are 20 people surrounding them--friends, family members including aunts, uncles, children--who experience post-traumatic stress after that event. Studies suggest that there are 20 people that experience levels of trauma. Often in our cities, that leads to a cycle of violence; the anger that comes from a loved one being killed often leads to someone else getting killed as well. It is part of the reason why, over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, there were over 60 people who were shot. So this grief is never-ending for communities like Newtown, which is why I am as passionate today as I was in the days and weeks following, and why, for me, Orlando was a breaking point. I just look at myself in the mirror and I think--as we will hear from some of our colleagues who will interject with questions and who have reached a breaking point as well--that we couldn't proceed with business as usual in the Senate this week, that we couldn't do what we have largely done after mass shooting after mass shooting; we couldn't go on and debate other issues and ignore the fact that the vast majority of Americans--80 to 90 percent--want us to take this action, and that it would be impactful. Now, again, you can say what I am proposing today wouldn't have changed the result in Sandy Hook because this individual in Sandy Hook did buy the weapon with a background check through a legal means--his mother. I understand that. There is no one change in law that is going to apply to every situation. But it potentially would have been impactful in Orlando. As I am sure Senator Feinstein will explain later today, there is a possibility that if her bill had been in effect, the FBI could have put this individual on a list that would have prohibited him from buying a weapon. And had we expanded background checks to make sure that they applied to Internet sales and gun show sales, then he might have been stopped in his ability to get this weapon. We can't know that for sure, but we certainly can say that it would have been less likely that he would have been able to get that weapon and carry out this crime had those laws--again, supported by the vast majority of the American public--been in effect. And by acting, by coming together and finding a way to act on these two noncontroversial measures, I think we also send an important signal to the American public and to would-be murderers that we are serious about stemming this epidemic. I think people notice when we remain silent. I know it is unintentional, but it almost seems to some people as if we don't care about what happens when we don't try to do anything about it. I understand that we have deep disagreements about how to proceed, but with the exception of one week in 2013, we have not brought a debate to this floor in which we try to hash out our differences. The Republican leadership didn't announce in the wake of Orlando that we are going to spend this week working on trying to enact measures to make sure that another mass shooting doesn't happen. And there is a fundamental disconnect with the American people when these tragedies continue to occur and we just move forward with business as usual. So I am going to remain on this floor until we get some signal, some sign that we can come together on these two measures, that we can get a path forward on addressing this epidemic in a meaningful, bipartisan way. Orlando is the worst mass shooting in American history. A gunman shot and killed 49 people and shot and injured at least 53 others outside of Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. At about 2 o'clock in the morning on Sunday, a gunman opened fire inside Pulse, a large gay nightclub in downtown Orlando. It opened in 2004. The owner started it to, frankly, promote awareness of the area's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, and they host monthly LGBT-related education events. There was one ununiformed Orlando police officer working security at the nightclub, along with a number of other private security officers. The police officer working security exchanged fire with the gunman after this incident began. The gunman proceeded to retreat back into the nightclub and take the remaining club-goers hostage, where he held them for three hours until 5 a.m. A SWAT team comprised of true heroes stormed the club with stun grenades and an armored vehicle. The gunman was killed in the resulting firefight. One officer was injured. Law enforcement rescued approximately 30 hostages. In a press conference at about 10:30 that morning--we all remember this--the police indicated that 50 people were killed and 53 more were injured. The shooter was identified as Omar Seddique Mateen, 29, a U.S. citizen from St. Lucie County, FL. We now know that this shooter became a person of interest to law enforcement in 2013 when the FBI learned that he had made comments to coworkers alleging possible terrorist ties, and again in 2014. The FBI did open an investigation into the shooter, but it was subsequently closed when they didn't think that it warranted any further investigation. Mateen was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and a Glock handgun. He did obtain licenses to buy both of these guns legally--a handgun and a long gun. He bought them about a week or two before the incident, so it is pretty clear he was buying these weapons with an intent to kill civilians. Prior to the shooting, Mateen called 911 and pledged his allegiance to ISIS. He mentioned the Boston bombers. It is a complicated story line, and we know some of the other story lines about this shooting, as well, including whether he had been frequenting that club prior to entering it as the shooter. It is a complicated story line. But at the root of it is someone who had been flagged by the FBI. The root of it is someone who had access to a weapon that was not designed for civilians. AR-15-style weapons weren't legal in the United States until 2004 after being banned for 10 years. It is not coincidental that there was a massive increase in mass shootings in this country after 2004. We are still gathering information on the exact nature of the motive, but what we know is this incident is the deadliest mass shooting and the highest casualty mass shooting in American history, but it is not the first, and if we don't do something, it won't be the last. In 2009, in Fort Hood, TX, a gunman shot and killed 13 people and shot and injured 30 others at the Fort Hood military post. In August of 2012, in Oak Creek, WI, a gunman shot and killed six people and injured three others at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek. In June of 2015, in Charleston, SC--and we are sitting on the 1-year anniversary of this mass shooting--a gunman shot and killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Church, one of the oldest Black congregations in the South. About a month later, in July, a gunman shot and killed five people, including two U.S. marines and a naval officer, and shot and injured two others. In San Bernardino, at the beginning of December of 2015, 2 gunmen killed 14 people and injured 21 others at the Inland Regional Center. I mention these particular shootings because these were the shootings that were investigated as acts of terrorism. These are the shootings that have involved connections to radical groups or the intention to commit an act of terrorism against a minority group. So I think it is right that we drill down today on this issue of stopping would-be terrorists from getting guns because just since 2009 this would be the sixth American mass shooting to be investigated by the FBI as an act of terrorism. We think of terrorists as using bombs or improvised explosive devices as their weapons of choice. In fact, the reality is that over the course of the last 12 months, it has been the military assault weapon that has been the weapon of choice of would-be terrorists. The San Bernardino shooter and the Orlando shooter chose a gun, not a bomb, in order to carry out their attacks. Why? Because it is, frankly, a lot easier to get a powerful rifle that was designed for the military than it is to obtain or construct a military-capacity bomb or explosive device. We have to admit that there is this trendline heading in the direction of powerful firearms that used to be banned in this country-- and by the way, through bipartisan legislation--to carry out this destruction. You don't have to listen to me; you can listen to terrorist organizations themselves. ISIS today relies on lone wolf attackers in order to perpetuate its mythology of increasing strength. Why is that? Well, it is because we have actually had success in reversing their territorial gains in Iraq and Syria. ISIS is on the run in the Middle East. They are far from being defeated, and we need to keep up strong steps to continue to support the Syrian rebel forces and to support the Iraqi Army to push ISIS back. They have two narratives that they proffer in order to recruit people into their ranks: No. 1 is that the caliphate was inevitable and growing, and for a long time it was. That so-called caliphate--their geographical territory of control--was growing. No. 2 is that the East is at war with the West, that this is a fight between the Muslim faith and the Christian faith. Well, that first narrative is not as available to them as it used to be because the people who are thinking of signing up for ISIS don't have to read too deep in the news to know that the so-called caliphate is shrinking, not growing. It doesn't look so inevitable that ISIS is going to control big portions of the Middle East for the long term. Looks like the gig might be up for them, so they are now more than ever relying on the second narrative--that this is a much broader war between the East and the West, and so lone wolf attackers in places such as Paris or Brussels or Orlando or San Bernardino become much more important to their continued international growth. So it is not without coincidence that terrorist groups have made it very clear to potential converts in the United States that a firearm works just as well as a suicide bomb. They took credit very quickly for this attack, and they are going to be hoping there are others who will go to a store and buy a powerful assault weapon and turn it on Americans. It is our duty to do everything possible to make sure that doesn't happen. It isn't an either/or proposition. It is not fight them there or fight them here. It is not focus on terrorism or focus on guns. It is both. It is the need to continue to support the momentum that exists on the ground in the Middle East to defeat ISIS and defeat them for good and to harden our defenses here in the United States to make sure these potential lone wolf attackers can't get access to an assault weapon. Think about this statistic today. We know who is on the list of those who are being watched as potential terrorists, and we can match that against who has requested to buy a weapon, and the statistics are pretty stunning. Individuals on the consolidated terrorist watch list cleared a background check when seeking to obtain a gun in 91 percent of the attempted transactions between 2004 and 2014. That is a total of 2,043 successful transactions out of 2,233. There are 2,000 people, over the course of 10 years, who are on the terrorist watch list and who walked into a gun store and bought a weapon. Now, those are only the ones we know about, because 40 percent of gun sales happen outside of gun stores. So there are likely another 1,000 to 2,000 people on the terrorist watch list who got guns through other mechanisms. If we are serious about taking on terrorism, then we have to beat these guys where they live in the Middle East, and we have to support the administration's efforts to do that and supplement them, but we also have to make sure these potential mass shooters don't get their hands on powerful weapons, especially when we know they have connections to terrorist sources. In order to do that, we have to do both. We have to put those people who are on the terrorist watch list on the list of those who are prohibited from buying weapons, and we also have to make sure that wherever that person is going to buy a weapon, they are checked to make sure they aren't a terrorist. Mr. President, I don't know how long I will last here, but I hope I will be able to give time to our leadership to come together and try to find a path forward on legislation that will make this country safer and will acknowledge that our gun laws are part of the story--not the whole story but part of the story--as to why this mass slaughter continues in this country. I live every single day with the memory of Sandy Hook. I know this is inconvenient for the leadership and for colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I get that. Most of the time around here, I am a team player, but I have had it. I have had enough, and I just couldn't bring myself to come back to the Senate this week and pretend like this is just business as usual. We have to do something. We have to find a way to come together. I don't know how long this will take, but I am going to stand here and continue to hold the floor while we give time for our colleagues to try to figure out a path forward to recognize that without changes in this Nation's gun laws supported by the vast majority of Americans, the slaughter will continue. I see my colleague from Connecticut rising. I will yield to my colleague from Connecticut for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. MURPHY. Senator Kaine, they support it. NRA members support it at the exact same rate that non-gun owners and non-NRA members support it. In fact, NRA members, frankly, have been historically those who have been most supportive of provisions that would prevent guns from getting into the hands of criminals because by and large NRA members are law- abiding gun owners. Historically, they have had some of the greatest concern about this, which is why it is so hard to understand this disconnect between where their members are, where gun owners are, and where the advocacy organization is.

Mr. MURPHY. When you present these issues to the American public, they scratch their heads, or they scratch their heads because they assume already that individuals on the terrorist watch list cannot buy guns. They think it is absurd that we passed a law that subjects toy guns to a greater standard of negligence than real guns. I mean, that is what that law effectively did. That law said that if you sell a toy gun, then you are going to be subject to a higher standard of negligence if that gun misperforms than a gun company is going to be held to if its gun--its real gun--misfires. When you explain that to somebody in your State, whether you are in a red State or a blue State, they scratch their heads. It doesn't make sense to them.

Mr. MURPHY. I thank the Senator for that question. You just have to look to the data for the answer. We have had pretty robust survey data on the question of support for expanding background checks or support for denying access to guns for people on the no-fly list. It is universal. Everyone wants these changes. Republicans want them; Democrats want them. Non-gun owners want them; gun owners want them. The vast number majority of NRA members support the bipartisan provisions that we are proposing for bipartisan action today. I would suggest the same thing is true for protecting victims of domestic violence. This has nothing to do with being a Republican or a Democratic gun owner or a non-gun owner. When you tell people that somebody who has a restraining order lodged against them shouldn't get a gun, everybody nods their head. I thank Senator Klobuchar for being such a leader on that particular issue because it is one in this basket of changes we are requesting that is controversial only here. It is controversial only in Washington, DC, and in the political arenas of this country. It is not really controversial out in the broader American public. I thank the Senator.

Mr. MURPHY. I think this is a wonderfully simple question which a lot of people are probably asking: What is the problem? Is there a catch? Why isn't there consensus? The simple answer is that there is no catch, and there is no secret agenda. There is no alternative story line. This is about saying that if you are on the terrorist watch list, you shouldn't buy a gun, period, stop. And if you want to buy a gun in a commercial sale, you should prove that you are not a criminal first, period, stop. Those are the only two things that we are asking for a debate and a vote on--no secret agenda, no hidden prefaces. That is it. I thank Senator Donnelly, and I yield to my great friend who has been with us for a majority of the evening here on the floor. He has not yet posed a question. I yield to my friend from Hawaii for a question without losing my right to the floor.