Gun Show Loophole

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, on March 14, 2014, a popular teacher named Michelle Wilcox got into an argument. People get into arguments all the time. It is part of life. But this argument ended, as all too many do around our Nation, in tragedy: suddenly, the man with whom Ms. Wilcox had been arguing pulled out a firearm, chased after her, shot her, and left her body in a grassy patch near a preschool.

In this case, as in so many others, the presence of a gun turned an ordinary altercation into a horrific murder. Had a firearm not been present, Ms. Wilcox might have been able to walk away that fateful morning--frustrated, angry, but alive. Instead, she was murdered, her husband of 12 years now awaits trial, and their child has lost its mother. A momentary bad decision ended one life and has irrevocably changed so many more.

We may not know if anything could have prevented this tragedy, but we do know that this grim scene repeats itself all around our Nation, almost every day. Statistics compiled by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence show an indisputable correlation between domestic violence incidents and firearms: that, for instance, abused women are "five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser owns a firearm.'' Other statistics indicate that domestic violence assaults involving a gun are ``23 times more likely to result in death'' than those involving other weapons, and that over "two-thirds of spouse and ex-spouse homicide victims in a 28-year span were killed with firearms.'' And in 2011, almost two-thirds of women killed with guns were killed by their intimate partners.

These sad figures show the importance of keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers. But all too often, our Nation's system to prevent such dangerous individuals from getting guns fails. It failed in the case of Christen Naujoks, a student at the University of North Carolina. For a brief time in 2004, Ms. Naujoks dated another student, John Peck, before ending the relationship. Mr. Peck had previously been convicted of sexually assaulting another woman, and as a result was legally prohibited from purchasing a gun. This didn't stop him, however, from exploiting a loophole in current law that allows individuals to purchase guns from private sellers' without undergoing a background check. Mr. Peck bought an assault rifle from a private seller, and on June 4, 2004, murdered Ms. Naujoks by shooting her 11 times in front of her apartment building. Three days later, Mr. Peck committed suicide during a police shootout.

There is legislation pending before the Senate that, if enacted, could prevent future convicted domestic abusers from evading background checks to buy murder weapons. These bills could be the critical difference in preventing another domestic argument from becoming something so much worse. We owe it to the memory of victims of domestic violence around this country to take every step possible to prevent similar incidents in the future. I urge my colleagues to pass gun safety legislation that closes the gun show loophole.

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