Capitol Words a project of the Sunlight Foundation

Sen. Richard J. Durbin

Mr. President, this week is the last week the Senate will be in session before we take a break for the Easter holiday. During the period of that break, on April 20, we will remember an anniversary. It is a sad remembrance. It is the 1-year anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

Most of us can remember the scenes from television played and replayed so often. The scenes of children, not unlike our own children, racing out of the school away from other kids who were shooting away with weapons. You can remember, I am sure--I will always remember--a young man who dragged himself, having already been shot, out of a window, trying to fall to the ground and get away from danger. We saw that terrible scene on television.

We watched as the funerals unfolded one after another; 12 innocent students were killed and 23 were injured.

We finally came to realize as a nation that the tragedy which struck in Colorado could touch any one of us anywhere and at any school. Columbine was not the most predictable place for this to occur. Columbine was a place where you would have thought that would never occur. But sadly, this is the reality of America where too many guns are used in crimes of violence.

If you look through the chronology of school shootings since 1997, Bethel in the State of Alaska; Pearl, MI; West Paducah, KY; Jonesboro, AK; Edinboro, PA; Fayetteville, TN; Springfield, OR; Littleton, CO; Conyers, GA; Deming, NM; Fort Gibson, OK; Mount Morris Township, MI--you will remember that episode in Michigan. It wasn't that long ago. On February 29, a 6-year-old boy went to his first-grade classroom, pulled out a 32-caliber Davis Industries semiautomatic pistol, pointed it at his classmates, and then turned the gun on Kayla Rolland, 6 years old, and fatally shot her in the neck.

This sad reality is on the minds of American families. The obvious question of the Senate and the Congress is: Is there anything you can do? What can you do? What will you do?

The first anniversary of Columbine will come and go next week, and sadly Congress will have done nothing--absolutely nothing.

We passed a bill last year on the floor of the Senate which at least moved us closer to the possibility of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and children.

There was an idea behind this law that was not an unreasonable or radical idea, which was the suggestion that if a person bought a gun at a gun show, that person would be subject to the same background checks as a person who bought one from a licensed gun dealer. We don't want to sell guns to criminals. We don't want to sell them to people with a history of violent mental illness. We certainly don't want to sell guns to children. Why wouldn't we check at a gun show to make certain that we are keeping guns away from those people? That is what the law said. That was what was passed here in the Senate.

The background check has become automated and computerized. Within 2 hours after the name is submitted, some 95 percent of all of the names submitted--they run them through--95 percent of the people who buy a gun at a gun show would be delayed 2 hours from buying a gun. For the 5 percent where questions are raised and they can't give them an immediate answer, that 5 percent is 20 times more likely to be in a prohibited category; that is, they are 20 times more likely to be criminals, people with a history of violent mental illness, or those who should otherwise be disqualified.

The law we proposed was not a radical idea. It said: Can you wait 2 hours at a gun show so we can do a background check and make sure that people who should not buy guns, don't buy them? It is an inconvenience. But you know, we put up with inconvenience every day for the security of ourselves and our families.

When I flew through O'Hare Airport yesterday to come to Washington, I went through a metal detector. They stopped me: Take the change out of your pockets and go back through. That is an inconvenience. That is a delay. I am prepared to accept that. If it means there will be fewer terrorist attacks and fewer threats on people traveling, I accept it.

That is what this law says; it is an inconvenience. At a gun show, wait for the background check to be completed before you are allowed to get your gun. That is what we proposed.

Second, we said if you are going to own a gun, you have a legal responsibility to store it safely. You exercise your constitutional right under the second amendment to buy a gun, but then when you take it home, for goodness' sake, put it in a place so children can't get their hands on it.

We called for trigger locks, and that is becoming a popular, common suggestion--it is not an unreasonable suggestion, certainly--so children don't get their hands on guns. Every day in America, we lose just as many kids to guns as we lost on April 20, 1999, at that one high school in Colorado--12 kids a day die because of guns. Some are suicides, some are drive-by gangbanger shootings, and others are just accidents where curious kids play with guns and shoot themselves or their playmates.

Our bill said let's require trigger locks on guns, let's make sure they are stored safely and the kids, such as this fellow in Michigan, do not end up with a .32-caliber Davis industries semiautomatic pistol in the first grade where he killed Kayla Rowland. That was the second part of this bill.

The third part said you don't need these high-capacity Ammo clips with hundreds of bullets in them if you are going out to shoot a deer. If you need a semiautomatic weapon to shoot a deer, maybe you ought to stick to fishing. We are saying we don't need to make these clips in the United States nor do we need to import them. These are people killers. These are not guns used in sporting or hunting enterprises. That was the third part of the bill.

We almost lost the gun shows provision I have just described on the Senate floor. The gun shows amendment passed by one vote, the vote of Vice President Gore, who under the Constitution can break a tie. He showed up that day and cast the deciding vote. We passed the gun shows amendment by one vote after Columbine, after this national tragedy. We passed it by one vote. We sent it across the Rotunda to the House of Representatives. Now it is their responsibility. We gave them 2 or 3 weeks to prepare to debate the bill. But we obviously gave the gun lobby at least the same period of time to prepare their campaign against it. And they were successful. They watered down the gun shows amendment. They took the viable parts out of it. They passed a shadow of what we passed in the Senate.

At that point, it goes to the conference committee and the House and Senate sit together and try to work out a compromise. Here we sit, almost a year after Columbine, and we have done absolutely nothing. Families across America who expect this Congress to do the most basic things for gun safety have a right to be angry that this Congress is so insensitive and unwilling to address this critical issue of gun safety, of safety in the classrooms, keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, violently mental ill people, and children.

The other side says, of course, it isn't about new laws. We hear the gun lobby say we have plenty of laws, it is about enforcing the laws on the books. How many times have we heard Charlton Heston and those folks come up with that argument? I don't disagree with them. I think enforcement is critical and existing laws should be enforced.

So last week while we were debating the budget resolution, I brought a proposal on the floor of the Senate. Many Members, frankly, subscribe to the NRA position that we need more enforcement. I said let's put more agents and inspectors in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms so they can find the gun dealers who are breaking the law and selling their guns to criminals; let's put 1,000 more prosecutors across America to enforce those laws, prosecute those laws, and put people in jail who violate those laws.

Unfortunately, I couldn't succeed and I didn't prevail. A Senator came to the floor and offered an alternative which took out all the money for the ATF agents and inspectors. He didn't want to put more enforcement in the gun laws of America. And he prevailed. The argument that this is about enforcement doesn't square with the vote that took place last week.

There are 102,000 gun dealers across America, about 80,000 who actively sell weapons that are used in sport and hunting. When we did a survey, out of those 80,000 federally licensed gun dealers, we found if we narrowed it down to those gun dealers who sell guns that end up being used in crime, traceable guns used in crime, only 1,000 of the 80,000 gun dealers are the culprits, the ones selling guns to people that are ultimately used in crime. Over half the guns used in crime in America come from 1,000 of the gun dealers out of 80,000.

It makes sense to me to go after these 1,000, and it makes sense to me to give resources to the ATF and the Department of the Treasury to go after these gun dealers, close them down if we have to, but enforce the law. Don't let people--whether they are in Illinois, my home State, or any other State--sell guns that are going to be used in a crime.

When I put the amendment on the floor, the other side couldn't accept that. They didn't want to put more enforcement in the gun laws. So they came up with a much weaker alternative.

Here we are at the traditional and historic standoff. This Congress failed to act for 1 year after Columbine. The images are still fresh in our mind of those kids running for their lives out of their own high school; those caskets, one after the other, at funerals; grieving parents, grieving communities, and a grieving nation; and this Congress, unable and unwilling to respond or act. It is shameful. It is disgraceful. And it continues. The school violence, the gun violence that struck Columbine, continues. Look beyond the schools. We see it in the streets and the neighborhoods, and more children will die today in America, 12 more, the same number killed at Columbine--12 more--because we will not take the initiative for gun safety.

Has this Congress reached such a point that we are under the thumb of the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby? That we would let those well dressed lobbyists down on K Street rule our agenda to the point where American families are being ignored? I hope not.

I hope when we remember in just a few days the anniversary of Columbine, families across America will take just a few minutes, get on the phone, and call their Congressman and their Senator and ask them one simple question: I just heard about Columbine; what have you done with your vote to make my kids safer in school since this tragedy? If citizens will call and ask that question, perhaps we will see a change of sentiment here on Capitol Hill.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Sen. Barbara Boxer

Mr. President, I ask to speak as in morning business.

Sen. Barbara Boxer

Mr. President, I thank once again the Senator from Illinois for his eloquence on the issue of sensible gun laws and add my voice to his plea that the Senate do what it is supposed to do, which is to bring out the juvenile justice bill with five sensible gun control measures, sensible measures that will reduce gun violence.

I thank the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, who is on the floor as well, for his very important sense-of-the-Senate Amendment to the budget resolution, which actually says it is the opinion of the Senate that we ought to be voting on those gun measures. It passed by a slim majority, but so far we have not seen any results.