Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I have a question which I will preface with the context of that question. First, I thank him for his leadership.

We have worked together as a team on this issue of gun violence prevention and the fight against terrorism abroad and at home, and I thank our other colleagues who will be part of this effort. It is very much a team effort that we bring to the floor today, involving our friend and distinguished colleague from New Jersey, Senator Booker; Senator Feinstein, who has worked so hard on this legislation before we arrived here; our colleague Senator Durbin, who is with us now; and Senator Schumer. So many of us feel so deeply.

I think for Senator Murphy and myself, the deeply emotional experience of Orlando evokes the images and sounds and sights of Newtown on that tragic day when both of us were there and witnessed the aftermath of 20 beautiful children and sixth grade educators gunned down senselessly and needlessly in an act of unimaginable and unspeakable horror.

This effort is more than about just words. This Chamber is filled with words. Rhetoric is the business of the floor of the Chamber. We are here today to seek action, and action has been too long delayed on banning gun violence, the kinds of acts of hatred and terror that happened in Orlando. Actions speak louder than words, and the Nation deserves action. Ninety percent of the American people want sensible, commonsense measures like background checks to be adopted by the Senate.

There is no question that we are learning more in shock and horror about the details of Orlando. It seems to have involved potentially insidious bigotry and hatred, a pernicious, extremist ideology, perhaps inspired by ISIS and others abroad, as well as very likely mental illness of some kind. But we know it was an act of terror and hatred that can be prevented by the kinds of measures we are seeking today, specific measures preventing anybody who is too dangerous to fly in a commercial plane from buying a gun--no flying, no gun. Someone who is deemed to be a terrorist or deserving to be on the terrorist watch list should also be deemed too dangerous to purchase the kinds of weapons this individual was able to purchase.

We need to strengthen the FBI because its investigative authority, in effect--perhaps not legally but in effect--would have been strengthened by this kind of measure, enabling anybody too dangerous to fly to also be stopped from buying a gun. This individual could have been stopped-- not with any certainty, but at least the possibility is realistically there--and its investigations might have been continued and pursued had that law been in effect. Background checks are a means to enforce existing law and prevent categories of people already deemed too dangerous to buy guns--convicted felons or drug addicts or others in those categories adopted literally decades ago with the full support of the opponents of background checks who may be in opposition now. These measures complement each other.

We know we must fight terrorism abroad. We are at war against ISIS. We must pursue that war effectively, aggressively, and relentlessly. We must fight the homegrown terrorists who are either inspired or supported by ISIS, the lookalikes and soundalikes who claim allegiance to ISIS, whether they are supported or inspired, and for whom ISIS may claim responsibility.

The defenses must be hardened at home. That is part of what we are seeking to do here, just as we fight abroad against terrorism that would reach our shores and threaten our security.

Those measures must involve some military action, and that military action includes intercepting intelligence and finances, air superiority, and air aid for our allies on the ground, without committing massive numbers of U.S. troops to that effort. That war must be pursued even as we pursue the war against terror and hatred here at home.

But hardening our defenses requires that kind of action. So as a body we must commit to stop the terrorist gap from continuing to threaten our security at home, as well as implementing universal background checks that will keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. We owe it not only to the memory of the children and educators at Sandy Hook and to the countless innocent people who have perished since in the mass shootings that so preoccupy our attention but also the daily shootings--30,000 of them every year. In downtown Hartford and around Connecticut, no place is immune. No one is safe so long as there is this threat.

These measures are modest, and they should be followed by others, such as a repeal of PLCAA, the protection against domestic violence for victims, and the kind of measure I have offered, the Lori Jackson Act. The repeal of PLCAA, which my colleague from Connecticut and I have championed, would repeal immunity that is unique to the gun industry. A ban on illegal trafficking and straw purchases, mental health issues, and school safety steps are measures that must be pursued as part of a strategy to combat gun violence and terrorism, whether it is inspired by ISIS or an organization abroad or homegrown here. These measures are complementary, and they must be pursued together.

We have lived too long, and I have worked literally for decades since I first supported a ban on assault weapons in Connecticut in the early 1980s and then defended it in court after it was adopted. These measures of protection will require steps against those kinds of assault weapons that are truly weapons of destruction, designed to kill and maim human beings as quickly as possible and as many people as possible.

Those assault weapons, whether they were involved in Orlando or not or in any of those other examples, such as Aurora, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook, clearly presented threats and were implements of destruction there. We must take action. We must come together. We must unify as a nation to recognize the common threat rather than divide ourselves with the kind of demagogy that has been all too common in the wake of these tragedies.

So I ask my colleague a question, and I look forward to continuing to ask questions and working with him as part of this team today to continue the pressure that we feel must be brought to bear at this moment of national crisis, when the conscience of the nation can be evoked, when we all owe it to ourselves to search our consciences and convictions, look at ourselves in the mirror, and look the Nation in the eye and say: We must act. We cannot allow this moment in our history to pass without action.

I ask my good friend and colleague, Senator Murphy, if he can understand why this body has so long refused to recognize the will of the Nation and why for so long the Senate has been, in effect, complicit by its inaction in these kinds of killings--30,000 a year.

What about the influence of the gun lobby has made it so powerful in exerting this hold over the Congress and many of our State legislators, and what can we do to address this public health crisis? It is more than just an epidemic; it is a public health crisis, a scourge of gun violence that we must counter.

If 30,000 people died as a result of Ebola or Zika or some other disease, the Nation would be rightly outraged. There would be drastic and immediate action. Why is there not for this public health crisis and this health epidemic that is not only threatening but is deadly to our Nation?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I need to follow up with an additional question, and then my colleague from New Jersey is on the floor to ask a question.

On the issue of Second Amendment rights, which Senator Murphy has just pointed out so well, that is the law of the land. There is a Second Amendment right for law-abiding people to buy and possess firearms. But is it not true that in these measures, we are talking about people who are dangerous and who are recognized to be dangerous? That is why they are on the list. And there is also a right on their part to remove their names from that list if there is an error or a mistake of fact that has caused them to be on that list without good reason. So these measures that bring us to the floor today acknowledge and recognize the importance of that Second Amendment right, and the potential impact of our opponents in their arguments against it--saying that there is a lack of due process and that the people will be denied that Second Amendment right--is really mistaken. Is that not correct?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Will the Senator yield?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I thank the Senator for yielding for a question only. I want to ask more specifically about a point he made so well at the very beginning of this conversation; that the fight against gun violence and extremism abroad and at home is not an either/or, that we need to fight the violent extremism abroad, whether it is called jihadism or radical Islam or violent extremists, whatever label we give it. This fight is about that battle and about enlisting our allies abroad in supporting us in that battle and combating the homegrown terrorists, the extremists who are supportive or inspired by ISIS or others abroad. We do not have an either/or situation here, as the Senator said so well. They are complementary.

My question to my colleague from Connecticut is whether these kinds of measures that we are seeking to advance on the floor today also empower and enable a stronger alliance with our allies abroad that are joining us in this fight.

I ask that question of him because he as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, as I am a member of the Armed Services Committee, is aware of the importance of acting with our allies abroad. These measures, do they not, enable us to form and enlist and advance those alliances?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you to my friend and colleague from Connecticut for yielding for a question and his holding the floor.

I want to follow a question that was asked by our colleague from New Jersey. I have heard him speak so eloquently about the people in his city of Newark, and, in fact, children dying in his arms as victims of gun violence. Those kinds of acts of violence are unpredictable.

The FBI was investigating the killer in the Orlando tragedy and knew of his potential dangerousness, but there are countless individuals who commit these acts of murder. Thirty thousand deaths every year occur as a result of gun violence. Many of them are unpredictable and perhaps unpreventable under current law, but they could be prevented with stronger laws.

So my question to my colleague from Connecticut is whether this measure will enhance the fact-finding and investigative powers of the FBI in seeking to stop gun violence where we know it may occur and--in fact, as much as I deeply respect the diligence and dedication of the FBI--whether additional resources combined with this kind of measure will enhance their ability to stop these acts of hatred and terror such as we saw so tragically in Orlando.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank Senator Murphy. I wish to draw out a point he was making by posing another question. There is no one- size-fits-all fix to the problem of hatred and terrorist attacks in this country that involve gun violence. The kind of attack that we saw in Orlando may have been motivated by an insidious bigotry that involves deep-seated hatred or pernicious extremist ideology inspired by ISIS or some enemy abroad or mental illness. The facts are developing. We will know more, as the Senator from Connecticut knows. The point is that the laws we now have enable our enemies to weaponize the people in this country who may be prone to use assault weapons that are designed to kill as many people as possible and as quickly as possible. This idea of weaponizing our enemies or homegrown terrorists or people who can be inspired by the twisted insidious ideology that ISIS spawns should really bring us to recognize that there is not only a security threat abroad but one at home as well.

I ask my colleague, the Senator from Connecticut, whether people who are too dangerous to be permitted to board a plane should be in some way stopped from buying one of these guns that can be used--whatever their motive--to do the kind of destruction that we saw with such unspeakable horror in Orlando, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Columbine, and our own town of Newtown? We have met with these families in our State and in towns and cities across the country. We have heard their cries beseeching us to do something. Is there more that we can do?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. We need to be realistic, don't we, I ask Senator Murphy? The President has said we are not going to prevent every death from gun violence. I think we owe the President a great debt of thanks for his leadership and courage and strength for advancing the debate on gun violence and seeking specific, constructive steps that will help to stop it, but we know we are not going to be successful in preventing every single death as a result of gun violence. This kind of set of measures is a start.

My colleague from Connecticut has said it is an easy start. It is easy to understand and it is easy to see the effect and the tangible difference it can make. But obviously, if it were easy to achieve, it would have been done long ago.

Unfortunately, as he and I have said all too often and as we have had to say to those families from Connecticut and around the country who have come to us at the vigils and the townhalls and the public meetings and in our offices, there is no one single solution, and Congress has been complicit by its inaction on any solution to this problem. So we are not going to completely prevent all 30,000 deaths or every act of potential terror and hatred, like Orlando, but we can make a start, can't we?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Senator Murphy.

I want just to pursue some of the questions, the excellent inquiries that have been posed by our colleague from West Virginia and just to say that some folks in America who may be listening or watching or may hear afterward about this debate may say to themselves: Somebody who has been put on that watch list erroneously, someone who is precluded from boarding a plane or traveling in the United States--regardless of whether they can buy a gun or not--aren't they entitled to the due process right to correct that list?

The answer, in my view, is very simply yes, as a matter of constitutional right and due process, as a matter of equal protection, as a matter of the right to travel freely in the United States of America. If someone is on that list erroneously, he or she deserves the right to have that record corrected. I am going to pose that question to my colleague from Connecticut now.

But I have a second question, which is also probably on the minds of a number of our Connecticut constituents who are watching or listening or may hear about it afterwards: Don't we have some of the strongest gun protection laws in the United States of America, and isn't that enough? Why are we worried about this terrorist watch list? Why are we worried about background checks for the Nation as a whole when Connecticut has helped to lead the Nation; when Illinois, as a matter of fact, has strong gun laws, perhaps in theory; when California or other States pass their own laws? Why are we here on the floor of the Senate seeking action and saying enough is enough? Why are we so outraged and passionate about achieving gun violence protection barring people on a terrorist watch list from buying guns, making sure that we have universal background checks, a ban on straw trafficking, and illegal importation across State borders?

I think the answer is these measures are necessary because even the strongest State laws are basically ineffective--at least to protect many people--as long as stolen guns, lost guns, can be transported across State boundaries. Guns have no respect for State boundaries. In Connecticut we are vulnerable because of the weaker laws in other States. So this national protection is vitally important.

Is that not the case, I ask Senator Murphy?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I would be pleased to yield to other colleagues for their questions, but let me just ask the Senator one more quick question.

Again, somebody unfamiliar with this topic might be wondering. Convicted felons under law are barred from buying firearms. So someone who has been to prison, paid the price, done probation, been out of our prisons for years and years, and done nothing to repeat that criminal episode--whatever it was--is still barred from buying a gun. Yet someone who is deemed dangerous enough to be on a watch list or a no- fly list--the consolidated list that the Senator from Connecticut referred to earlier--is free to walk into any gun store or any gun show and, in 7 minutes--a reporter of the Philadelphia Inquirer, I believe, was able to do it in 7 minutes--simply present the money and walk out with an AR-15 automatic weapon, a firearm designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible, designed for combat and largely manufactured and used around the world to kill people--not predominantly for hunting or recreation. It is designed to kill people.

Isn't there an irony to this kind of an inconsistency? Irony is probably a euphemism. Or isn't that an outrage that the terrorist watch list people can buy an AR-15--no questions asked--in 7 minutes or less or slightly more? And a convicted felon, having committed a serious crime, having paid his dues to society, having paid a fine, having served time in prison, done and out--and we talk a lot now about a second-chance society, about their being able to live normal lives and work and so forth--is barred, even though that person may be far less dangerous, far less a threat to innocent people in Orlando or at Virginia Tech or in Newtown, CT, or to the 30,000 people every year who either are killed or kill themselves because of this easy availability of guns to people who are dangerous.

The terrorist watch list--again, not a panacea, not a single solution--barring those people from buying guns will not fix this problem alone, but it is a start. It sends a message, and it will provide hope to those families who have looked in our eyes, the families of Newtown, families across the country who have lost loved ones and who say: Why can't Congress act? That is why we are here saying enough is enough, if I am correct.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. And proudly so, along with our colleague from New Jersey standing with you as a team here, joined by so many colleagues. I thank the Senator from Minnesota. I see that Senator Murray of Washington State has joined us. Thank you so much.

I am going to ask a quick question, and then I have other questions I am going to ask afterward, but I want to pursue a point our distinguished colleague from Vermont raised about the perception of Americans who can't get that we can't get things done here. There are many issues and problems beyond our control. There are many issues and problems we cannot affect. The state of the economy, perhaps, we can impact. World problems seem intractable a lot of the time.

Here are commonsense, straightforward measures where the Senate of the United States and the Congress can get the job done--at least save lives. It is really that important. We can save lives if we do the right thing. The Senate has been complicit by its inaction in the loss of those lives--30,000 every year. Some of them at least could be saved by saying and putting into law the very simple proposition that if somebody is too dangerous to fly, if that person is on a watch list under an investigation, then they should be deemed too dangerous to buy a gun. They are at least as dangerous as a convicted felon who is now barred from buying a gun.

I wish to ask my colleague from Connecticut--the two of us have spoken to so many people across the country, some of them survivors of gun violence, families who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and others who are simply citizens who watch this carnage, not only in Sandy Hook and Orlando but on the streets of Hartford, moms and dads who have lost children and brothers and sisters. Isn't this issue of gun violence and terrorist attacks one of the signature issues of our time in showing the American people our government can work? We have talked about the message it sends to our allies. I asked a question about that point. We have talked about the message it sends to law enforcement, such as the FBI, but to the American people the failure to act not only makes the Senate complicit in a moral sense in those lives lost but undermines the credibility and trust of the American people in their government to protect them, to achieve the most basic assignment they give us, to make America safe and secure--safe and secure from the bad men like Adam Lanza, who killed 20 innocent children and sixth- grade educators, or the homegrown terrorist inspired and supported by ISIS or sent here by some foreign terrorist organization, or the twisted haters who are bigoted against LGBT or some other group. This signature issue is about keeping America safe and giving our law enforcement authorities and our protectors the powers they need to do their job.

So I ask my colleague from Connecticut--we have joined today in this effort--is there a message to the American people here, that we are sending the message that enough is enough but also enough killing is enough, enough inaction is enough, we have seen enough, the time for action is now?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I want to thank all of our colleagues who have come today and thank Senator Murphy, my friend and teammate in this cause and in so many other causes, and just bring us back to the issue of why we are here today. Senator Murphy, Senator Booker of New Jersey, and I have come to the floor to make three essential points. I am going to ask my colleague from Connecticut whether I have hit these points--the reasons that have brought us here today, along with so many eloquent colleagues, I might add. I am deeply grateful to them. We are here debating an appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, and Science. But we are here on a much larger issue.

Why is this debate different? Why is this day different? Orlando has hopefully brought us to a tipping point, changed the dynamic, and enabled us to break through the paralysis and the complicity by inaction that has characterized the U.S. Senate on the issue of stopping acts of terror and hatred in our country. Those acts may emanate from abroad. We have to fight the terrorism that is inspired or supported by our enemies abroad, as well as people who are motivated by the twisted, insidious ideology that may be inspired or supported abroad, the pernicious hatred and bigotry that may be exemplified by Orlando and mental illness or whatever the cause.

There are three simple points, are there not? There will be no business as usual until there is action. Enough is enough. We are here to say the time for business as usual on a routine appropriations bill, CJS appropriations--that time is done. We are here to make a historic point and seek to change the dynamic and seize this moment of national tragedy and demand action. That is what the American people want, and that is the second point.

There is a national consensus that it is not only our opportunity but our obligation to protect the American people, to make our Nation safer, to assure that whether it is twisted ideology, pernicious bigotry and hatred, mental illness, or any other cause, we can and we will take steps to stop it.

Third, closing the terrorist loophole must be accompanied by universal background checks. For someone to be too dangerous to board a plane and still be able to buy a gun makes no sense. But beyond the intellectual, nonsensical quality of it, there are real, practical safety implications. Somebody who is too dangerous to board a plane, to travel by air, should be deemed too dangerous to buy a gun and as dangerous as a convicted felon already precluded by law from buying a gun. But that terrorist now, even if he were barred from buying a gun, could easily go to a gun show and buy a gun because there is no check whatsoever at those gun shows, not on the NICS system, let alone on the terrorist watch list. The two measures--closing the gun show loophole or the background check gap and closing the terrorist gap or loophole-- go hand in hand. They are a start. They are not a panacea. They are not a complete solution.

We are going to be talking throughout the evening about other measures that can be taken. Those three points are essential: No business as usual--enough is enough; a national consensus in favor of commonsense, sensible measures to make our Nation safer from gun violence and from acts of terror and hate, inspired and supported by forces of evil abroad and at home; and, finally, combining these two measures, closing the terrorist gap loophole and also making sure there are background checks on all gun sales in the country.

Are those not our essential points, I ask Senator Murphy?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Those points really should be bipartisan. They should attract support from both sides of the aisle. There is nothing Republican or Democratic about any of these points, is there?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Senator Murphy's very eloquent reference to a family we met just a day or so after the loss of their child brings back a memory that always evokes an almost indescribable emotion from me. My heart goes to my throat whenever I think of that couple saying to me: We are ready now, ready to help, ready to take action. And that has been the story of the Newtown and Sandy Hook families who lived through that loss. They came here and told their stories to our colleagues, nearly achieved--or helped us achieve--a victory. We came within four or five votes of that outcome. And from the Gallery of the Chamber, when we failed came the cry ``shame,'' and it was indeed shameful that the Senate failed to move forward.

My colleague from New Jersey, Senator Booker, has described the real- world impact in such graphic and powerful terms that I hesitate to follow him, but I want to make two points and ask my colleague from Connecticut whether he agrees with them. The first is that those families from Connecticut in a sense represented the community as a whole--the Newtown community, the Connecticut community--through organizations like Sandy Hook Promise and the Newtown Action Alliance and others around the country--Everytown, Americans for Responsible Solutions. They are doing what proponents of sensible, commonsense measures have done for much longer, which is to organize and to galvanize and educate and raise awareness. And that, in the end, will be the way we win. I pay tribute to them tonight. I thank them and the families for their courage and strength again.

I want to bring this issue home to Connecticut, where my friend and colleague Senator Murphy and I live and where we went through the searing experience of the Newtown tragedy. I had been involved for two decades in gun violence prevention, helping to advocate and then to defend in court our ban on assault weapons--one of the first State laws in the country. But that experience transformed many of us in our State, and it impacted people of all ages to be more vigorous advocates and more articulate advocates.

I want to read a letter from a young man who lives in Danbury, CT.

I am a constituent of yours and I became a victim of gun violence when my 7-year-old cousin, Daniel Barden, was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. I am no longer ``saddened'' by recent mass shootings; I am instead angry and frustrated by the inaction of this Nation's leaders to implement obvious and basic safeguards to gun ownership such as universal background checks, CDC research into gun violence, limiting magazine capacity, restriction of gun ownership to domestic abusers and people on terrorist watch lists, to name a few. One of the most infuriating aspects of the continued mass shootings in this country is that they are so eminently preventable. We can't do much about earthquakes or hurricanes, but it is pretty simple to just NOT SELL military grade weapons to civilians or just NOT SELL AR-15s to domestic abusers who have been investigated by the FBI for terrorist connections and threats.

I am furious and feel powerless. I beg you to stand up for me, my family, everyone who has ever lost family or friends to senseless gun violence, and for our society as a whole, which we are currently failing to protect. Enough is enough.

That is from a young person who lives in Danbury, CT. It summarizes the feeling of powerlessness and helplessness and fury that Americans all across the country feel.

Just to give one example, I understand that in the last 96 hours, 500,000 people have signed a petition in favor of banning assault weapons--half a million people in just 96 hours, a petition circulated by MoveOn.org.

Assault weapons are designed for one purpose: to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. They are combat hardened and tested and used. They are military-style assault weapons--AR-15s. As some of our colleagues have said, most hunters would not use them to shoot deer or other animals. Yet they are sold freely.

Our request is a much more limited one than even assault weapons, as much as they need to be banned in terms of new sales. We are simply saying don't sell those weapons to somebody who is on the terrorist watch list, somebody who is under investigation for potentially being supported and funded and maybe educated and trained by one of our adversaries, our enemies abroad, like ISIS. And don't sell those kinds of weapons or any others to anyone without a background check because they may fit that category or the other prohibited categories that are already in the law. It is simply a means of enforcing the law.

These proposals are really relatively modest, and so are the others that this young person has advocated that we adopt--``obvious and basic safeguards,'' to quote him or her, ``to gun ownership such as universal background checks, CDC research into gun violence, limiting magazine capacity, restricting gun ownership to domestic abusers and people on terrorist watch lists, to name a few.'' All of them should be adopted. We are asking for two. We are asking for votes. We are asking for action. And we are saying: No more business as usual.

Connecticut also had a connection to Orlando--a 37-year-old young woman named Kimberly Morris, educated in Torrington, CT, at the Torrington High School and then at Post University in Waterbury, CT. Kimberly Morris was known as a ``scrappy player,'' according to Charlie McSpiritt, the Torrington High School's former athletic director. He can still remember Morris because she ``played the game to her fullest.'' She was ``a tenacious'' small forward on the basketball team as well at Post University in Waterbury. Her teammate Narvell Benning, who played for the men's team, said: ``She didn't let nobody push her around.'' She was 37 years old. She is among the older victims who were killed in Orlando.

What is so striking about the biographies of these men and women is how young they are and how much life they had ahead. They were not as young as the 6-year-olds gunned down in Sandy Hook, those 20 beautiful children, but Kimberly, like those children, had her whole life ahead.

So my question to my colleague is whether Connecticut still feels the impact, and whether Connecticut wants us to act at a national level as well, as the Nation?

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you. And I will ask a question of my colleague and friend from Connecticut, but first I want to thank all my colleagues who have been here over these 12 hours off and on, speaking so powerfully, as our friend from Virginia just did about his experience.

Every one of us has this kind of experience that brings us here and binds us together in this cause because we have seen the flesh and blood and emotional impacts. And I want to read a letter also from a Newtown survivor--another. I read one earlier. This is from someone who lived through Newtown and wrote me after Orlando, and she said:

As a Newtown teacher who was in lockdown at the Middle School on 12/14, this work is particularly important to me. That could just have easily been my classroom, and I find it abhorrent that we have chosen as a nation to be complacent in the face of mass shootings. It is incumbent upon us, our elected officials to enact meaningful change in order to save lives.

I urge and implore citizens around the country, people who are watching this proceeding, who are listening to the powerful words of my colleagues--most especially Senator Murphy--to let us know that you hear us, and equally important to let the other side of the aisle know, which right now is vacant--completely empty. This side is full, the other side is empty. Let them hear how you feel, the same way this teacher who lives in Trumbull, CT, let me know how she feels.

There is a lot of talk these days in our politics about the need for change--on the Presidential campaign, in the Senate campaigns, at every level of our elected process. Politicians are telling people they will change things in Washington. Well, we can give people change in our laws, in our enforcement practices, in our culture. It all has to change for lives to be saved. It isn't only new laws, there has to be more resources for the enforcement of that law.

The background check is actually an enforcement tool. Expanding that check gives law enforcement the ability to stop people already prohibited by law from buying guns. The terrorist watch list and the Attorney General's discretion based on evidence to stop people engaged or preparing for terrorism to be barred from buying guns is an enforcement tool. It protects people. So people should demand changes not just in the abstract and in general terms but in the way we deal with guns.

This day has been enormously meaningful because of the reaction it has provoked across the country in our offices, the phones that have rung, the tweets that have emanated, and the messages we have received in every form, but it must be followed by action. In this Chamber we hear words. This place is filled with words. It is what we do in this place--we talk. But actions speak louder than words. Now is the time for action. Enough is enough.

Give us the votes. Give us the votes on these amendments. Let us vote. That is the reason we are here. Let us act to fulfill the expectations and the wishes of the American people who are begging for us to take meaningful action. We need to do our job. That is our job-- to act and to protect the American people.

I would ask my colleague from Connecticut whether he believes we can reach a resolution here that will permit us to act, whether reasonable minds can come together, whether we can forge consensus involving the other side of the aisle, whether we can bridge the partisan gaps and come together in a meaningful way--as we have done on veterans issues, on immigration reform, and on other issues, where we may not have crossed the finish line in the House of Representatives but, in the past, we have succeeded in bridging our differences. Is that possible?

I want to hear from the American people that they think it is not only possible but necessary, and it is our job.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I thank Senator Murphy. And I join in thanking all of the staff who have worked over this day and into the night and into the next day at great personal sacrifice and at great benefit to the U.S. Senate.

I want to thank my colleague Senator Booker for his eloquence, his perseverance, and his dedication to this cause, and Senator Murphy for his courage and strength in this cause that brings us here today, tonight, tomorrow, and in the days ahead because this experience is, as he has said, only the next step, and this legislation is only a next step.

We have talked a lot in great--and some of it very powerful and compelling--terms about what is at stake here. Certainly the reason we are here has to do with the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. But the numbers are important. Numbers are cold, hard, and stark. Forty-nine people were killed in that single attack in Orlando, but in an ordinary day in America, dozens of people are shot without any notice. It is not a headline, barely a mentioning. Certainly there are no speeches on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The fact is that gun homicides are a common cause of death in our Nation-- the greatest, strongest Nation in the history of the world--killing about as many people as car crashes, and in direct contrast to the experience of other countries where, for example, in Poland and England, only about one out of every million people dies in a gun homicide--about as often as when an American dies from an agricultural accident or falling off a ladder.

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I will offer it at another time. Thank you.

The point is that we can do something about these numbers. We can reduce them, and we can save lives if we adopt commonsense central measures such as are going to be debated specifically and given a vote in the U.S. Senate.

A result of our staying--our colleagues and the three of us staying-- is no more business as usual. Enough is enough. Let's listen to the American people. There is a consensus. The poll numbers show that 90 percent of the American people think we should have background checks. The majority of gun owners and the majority of people also think that someone suspected of terrorist activities based on evidence should be barred from buying a gun. That is a national consensus, as well, and makes good common sense. If we are at war with ISIS--and we are--we should stop ISIS inspired or supported terrorists in this country from buying guns. If we think ISIS is trying to create extremist violence here that leads to the kind of attack that we saw in Orlando, those individuals who are motivated by the twisted, pernicious, insidious ideology of hate should be barred from buying a gun. These determinations are not based on speculation; they are based on evidence and facts under the measure that we have proposed, and they provide due process for someone to have his name removed if that determination is made in error that he is on the list or that he is barred from buying guns.

The details are important, as they are in every law, because they are a guarantee of due process and individual rights. The same is true of background checks. Somebody who is mistakenly on the NICS list should have that name removed. But facts are important; evidence is critical. That is what is involved in these measures, which are a start.

Laws work when they are enforced. We know they work in Connecticut because there was a 40-percent reduction in some crimes in the wake of the permit to purchase laws passed in 1994. That study was recently done by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, saying to those doubters or skeptics that the permit-to-purchase laws passed in Connecticut in 1994 actually were a huge success for public safety.

My colleague from Connecticut has cited other efforts that show that laws work when they are enforced, and national laws are important because Connecticut cannot itself create the kind of protections that our citizens deserve. Borders are porous to the trafficking of guns. Guns have no respect for State boundaries, nor do the traffickers, so we need national laws to protect the citizens of every State.

We are here because there is a national consensus in favor of those laws, and we know that we have an obligation and a historic opportunity to be changemakers in this body. The American people want change on both sides of the political aisle. We know that voters want Washington to change, they want the political system to change, they want our laws to change, and they want the system of public financing to change, so that the public interest, not special interests, will prevail. Other measures surely should be sought--the repeal of the unique immunity and shield from accountability that gunmakers have, the inability of a protective order to protect against domestic abusers that have guns, the absence of laws to protect against straw purchasers and illegal trafficking. There ought to be national laws, again, that provide those protections.

Of course, even for licensed firearms dealers, a person whose background check is not completed in 72 hours can still buy a gun, even though if the background check had been completed, he would have been barred. That is the reason that in Charleston, SC, nine people were murdered by Dylann Roof, who obtained that gun even though he was in effect legally barred from buying a gun because the background check was not completed within 72 hours.

There are many more steps that need to be taken, and even with the passage of measures that we are advocating today, there is no single solution.

We are only at the beginning of the efforts to pass these measures, but we have at least changed this debate. We have changed the context of this consideration, and the reason is that Senator Murphy has shown the leadership that he has shown. We are grateful to him for it, and we will continue this fight together.

So my question, generally, to my colleague from Connecticut is, How should we close tonight, and isn't he glad there will be no more questions?

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