A bill to repeal the increase in micropurchase authority for property and services for support of Hurricane Katrina relief and rescue operations.

Mr. President, the actions that have just taken place have put us on S. 397, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Earlier this morning, I submitted for the Record some now 67 cosponsors, which demonstrates that this bill is clearly very bipartisan legislation, supported by a Republican and Democrat majority in the Senate.

The actions the leader has just taken to file cloture would allow the cloture motion to ripen by as early as 1 a.m. Friday morning. Amendments have just been filed by the leader, and we will begin the process of debate on this important legislation.

With that in mind, if this bill and this debate seem familiar to any of us,

it should, because the Senate debated a very similar measure a little over a year ago. At that time, we had a full debate over a number of days. It is worth noting that the Senate defeated every amendment addressing the actual substance of the bill. However, opponents succeeded in attaching a couple of unrelated poison-pill amendments that ultimately caused the bill to fail.

The need for this legislation is very real. Over the course of yesterday and today, some of us have expressed what we believe is the urgency of this legislation. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act would stop junk lawsuits that attempt to pin the blame and the cost of criminal behavior on businesspeople who are following the law and selling a legal product. In fact, the one consumer product where access is protected by nothing less than our Constitution itself is our firearms, and that is exactly what is at stake today: the right of law- abiding American consumers, American citizens, to have access to a robust and productive marketplace in the effective manufacturing and sale of firearms.

This bill responds to a series of lawsuits filed primarily by municipalities to shift the financial burden for criminal violence onto the law-abiding business community. These suits are based on a variety of legal theories. We heard some of them expressed by opposition to this bill earlier in the day seeking to hold gun manufacturers and sellers liable for the cost of injuries caused by people over whom they have no control--criminals who choose to use firearms illegally.

This is a bipartisan bill, as I mentioned. Let me acknowledge my primary Democrat sponsor, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, and thank him for his work on this initiative. Senator Baucus and I introduced this bill in February, and more than half of the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats, have now joined us since it was formally introduced in its final form.

Earlier in the day, I inserted into the Record all of those who are now cosponsors. This range of cosponsorship reflects extraordinary, widespread support that crosses party and demographic lines and covers the spectrum of political ideologies represented in the Senate. It demonstrates a strong commitment by a majority of this body to take a stand against a trend toward predatory litigation that impugns the integrity of our courts, threatens a domestic industry that is critical to our national defense, jeopardizes hundreds of thousands of good- paying jobs of hard-working men and women across America, and puts at risk the access Americans have to a legal product used for hundreds of years across the Nation for lawful purposes such as recreation and, most important, self-defense.

I have used the term ``junk lawsuits,'' and I wish to make very clear to everyone listening to this debate that I do not mean any disrespect in any way whatsoever to the victims of gun violence who might be involved in these actions. Although their names are sometimes used in these lawsuits, they are not the people who came up with the notion of going after the industry instead of going after the criminals responsible for the injuries or the loss of life of their loved ones. That notion originated with bureaucrats, anti-gun advocates and the lawyers who work with them.

Victims, including their families and communities, deserve our support and compassion, not to mention our insistence on an aggressive law enforcement effort that puts punishment where it ought to be rendered--to the criminal.

In the nearly 6 years of the Bush administration, death by guns and crime in which guns were used in the commission of that crime have plummeted. Why? Because this Justice Department has gone after the criminal and not the law-abiding citizen.

It is the criminal who acts illegally. It is the criminal who ought to be prosecuted. But somehow, some who are involved in this movement have a tremendously distorted idea that the person who produces a legal product and sells that legal product somehow is responsible because they just should have known that product might fall into the hands of a criminal and might cost someone their life.

If those laws need to be toughened or if law enforcement efforts need to be improved, then the proper source of help is legislators and governments to ensure the tightening of the laws and not the courts and certainly not law-abiding businesses or workers who had nothing to do with those who were victimized by the criminal element of this country.

No. These junk lawsuits do not target the responsible party in those terrible crimes. This is predatory legislation, looking for a convenient deep pocket to pay for somebody else's criminal behavior, and by every definition it therefore deserves to be called a junk lawsuit. If one wants to stand on the floor and defend that kind of action in the courts of America, so be it. I believe in the democratic process. But Americans get it, they clearly understand it, and so do Senators, and that is why now 67 Senators support this legislation. These are junk lawsuits because they are driven for political motives to hobble or bankrupt the gun industry as a way of controlling guns.

For decades, anti-gunners have come to the Senate floor or the House with one scheme or one idea after another, and the American people, based on what they believe strongly to be their constitutional rights, have rejected this. Now the anti-gun community attempts once again to come through the back door of the Congress by going in through the front door of the courthouse. It simply has not worked, and it will not work.

But there is another motive in mind. By definition, the legislation we are considering today aims to stop lawsuits that are trying to force the gun industry to pay for the crimes of people over whom they have no control.

I used an analogy last year. I will use it again today. It is like saying to GM, General Motors, or any car manufacturer that because somebody buys their car and gets drunk and gets in that car and kills someone out on the road, gee whiz, they should have known that a drunk would drive that car, and therefore they should never have produced it, and therefore they are liable. For years, I have always understood that there are some in our society who say no one is responsible for their action, no one should be held responsible for their action, and that is an underlying core of the debate we are talking about or the issue we are talking about today.

Let me stop a minute and make sure everyone understands the limited nature of the bill. Some will argue it differently, but I would argue those who argue it differently are trying to expand the definition of what we believe to be very clear within the legislation. What this bill does not do is as important as what it does do. This is not a gun industry immunity bill. I think I have already heard that said since the clock tolled 12 noon. This bill does not create a legal shield for anybody who manufactures or sells a firearm. It does not protect members of the gun industry from every lawsuit or legal action that could be filed against them. It does not prevent them from being sued for their own misconduct.

This bill only stops one extremely narrow category of lawsuits, lawsuits that attempt to force the gun industry to pay for the crimes of third parties over whom they have no control. We have tried to make that limitation as clear as we possibly can and in several ways. For instance, section 2(b) of the bill says its No. 1 purpose is:

to prohibit causes of action against manufacturers,

distributors, dealers and importers of firearms or ammunition

products and their trade associations for the harm solely

caused by the criminal or unlawful use or misuse of firearms

products or ammunition products by others when the product

functions as designed and intended.

We have also tried to make the bill's narrow purpose clear by defining the kind of lawsuit that is prohibited. Section 5 defines the one and only kind of action prohibited by this bill as follows:

[A] . . . civil action or proceeding or an administrative

proceeding brought by any person against a manufacturer or

seller of a qualified product, or a trade association, for

damages, punitive damages, injunctive or declaratory relief,

abatement, restitution, fines, or penalties, or other relief

resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a qualified

product by the person or a third party. . . .

We have also tried to make the narrow scope of the bill clear by listing specific kinds of lawsuits that are not prohibited. Section 5 says they include actions for harm resulting from defects

in the firearm itself when used as intended--in other words, a faulty product--that is, product liability suits; actions based on negligence or negligent entrustment; or breach of contract.

Furthermore, if someone has been convicted under title 18, section 924(h) of the U.S. Code or comparable State law--in plain English, that means someone who has been convicted of transferring a firearm knowing that the gun will be used in the commission of a crime of violence or drug trafficking--that individual is not shielded from civil lawsuits by anybody harmed by that firearm transfer.

I am not quite sure how much more clearly we can make the law.

Finally, this bill does not protect any member of the gun industry from lawsuits for harm resulting from any illegal actions they have committed. Let me repeat it. If a gun dealer or manufacturer violates the law, this bill is not going to protect them from a lawsuit brought against them for harm resulting from that misconduct. Section 5 further explains that this includes, but is not limited to, the situation in which these parties falsify the firearms records they are required to keep under Federal or State law or knowingly fail to make appropriate entries into those records or if they worked with others in making false statements about the lawfulness of the selling of firearms.

You will hear arguments on the floor about certain gun dealers and that we are now holding them harmless, even though on the surface of the argument it appears they violated the law. Let me again say, as I said, if in any way they violate State or Federal law or alter or fail to keep records that are appropriate as it relates to their inventories, they are in violation of law. This bill does not shield them, as some would argue. Quite the contrary. If they have violated existing law, they violated the law, and I am referring to the Federal firearms laws that govern a licensed firearm dealer and that govern our manufacturers today.

Another example of conduct that would not be shielded from a civil lawsuit under this bill is the case in which the manufacturer or seller aided, abetted or conspired with any other person to sell firearms or ammunition if they knew or had reasonable cause to believe that the purchaser intended to use those products for the furtherance of a crime.

How clear can you get? If a manufacturer or a federally licensed firearms dealer knew they were selling to somebody who had criminal intent in mind for the use of the weapon, the firearm they just purchased, they are in violation of the law and it does not protect them. This is not a shield to do just that.

What I have listed for the convenience of my colleagues is all spelled out in title V of the bill. For those who question it, read it. If you don't understand it, get your lawyer and read it again because we worked overtime to make this as clear as it possibly can be made. Again, this is a rundown of the universe of lawsuits against members of the firearms industry that would not be stopped by this narrowly targeted bill.

What all these nonprohibited lawsuits have in common is that they involve actual misconduct or wrongful actions of some sort by a gun manufacturer, a seller or a trade association. Whether you support or oppose the bill, I think you can all agree that individuals should not be shielded from the legal repercussions of their own lawless acts. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act expressly does not provide such a shield.

I am going to repeat this because some opponents continue to mischaracterize the bill. My guess is, in the closing arguments on Friday of this week, that mischaracterization will continue. This is not a gun industry immunity bill. It prohibits one kind of lawsuit, a suit trying to fix the blame of a third party's criminal acts or misdeeds on the manufacturer or the seller of the firearm used in that crime.

Even though this is a narrowly focused bill, it is an extremely important one. The junk lawsuits we are addressing today would reverse a longstanding legal principle in this country, and that principle is that manufacturers of products are not responsible for the criminal misuse of those products. You don't have to be a lawyer to know that runaway juries and activist judges can turn common sense on its head in a lot of cases, setting precedents that have dramatic repercussions and are potentially devastating in their results.

If a gun manufacturer is held liable for the harm done by a criminal who misuses a gun, then there is nothing to stop the manufacturers of any product used in crimes from having to bear the costs resulting from the actions of those criminals. So as I mentioned earlier, automobile manufacturers will have to take the blame for the death of a bystander who gets in the way of the drunk driver. The local hardware store will have to be held responsible for a kitchen knife it sold, if later that knife is used in the commission of a rape. The baseball team whose bat was used to bludgeon a victim will have to pay the cost of the crime. The list goes on and on.

Did that sound silly? Tragically enough, some lawyers and some activist judges and some runaway juries have taken us in those directions in the past. That is why we constantly, in the Congress, talk about tort reform, trying to narrow it, trying to make it more clear--still recognizing that law-abiding citizens have their rights and should not in any way be jeopardized in the legal sense from their constitutional right to go to court. At the same time, I don't think any of us believed that the court system of America would be gamed the way it has been gamed or that we would see the myriad of junk lawsuits that are being filed today and the venue shopping that continues to go on.

It is not just unfair to hold law-abiding businesses and workers responsible for criminal misconduct with the products they have made and sell, but this would also bring havoc to our marketplace. Hold onto your wallets, America, because those businesses will have to pass those costs directly on to the consumer if they plan to stay in business. Worse, some of those businesses will not be able to pass on those costs and still stay competitive. For some of them, this will mean layoffs, and ultimate bankruptcies, and the closure of the manufacturer's door.

We have already seen this in some of the firearm industry. In fact, these lawsuits have the potential to bankrupt the gun industry, even if they are not successful.

How could that be? The sheer cost of litigation, the repetitive filing of laws, the need to defend those lawsuits literally costs hundreds of millions of dollars. It is important to keep in mind that the deep pocket of the gun industry is not all that deep. In hearings before the House of Representatives, experts testified that the sales of the firearms industry taken together would not equal those of a single Fortune 500 company.

Why would I say that? People think this is a monolithic, large industry. It is not. It is a lot of small businesses, small manufacturers. In other words, all of them combined in America today would not equal one Fortune 500 company.

As of this year, it was estimated--and we can only estimate because the cost of litigation is confidential business information--that these baseless lawsuits have cost the firearms industry more than $250 million. Half of them have already been thrown out of court. Furthermore, don't think these companies can pass the costs off to their insurers because in nearly every case insurance carriers have denied coverage.

The impact on innocent workers and communities is not the only potential repercussion of these lawsuits. If U.S. firearms manufacturers close their doors, where will our military and our peace officers go to obtain their guns? As my colleagues know, the United States of America is the only major world power that does not have a government-run firearms factory. This is a little known fact but a reality. Yet last year we purchased more than 200,000 small arms for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. The very same companies that supply our troops in the war on terrorism, both abroad and here at home, are the targets of these reckless lawsuits that could force them to close their doors.

Some would say: Oh, gee, we buy some of our arms already from foreign countries.

Yes, we do. Does that mean that is where we should buy all of them; that we should be dependent on foreign

countries for the supply of firearms to our military? Surely we do not want foreign suppliers to control our national defense and community law enforcement--not to mention the ability of individual American citizens to exercise their second amendment-protected rights through accessing firearms for self-defense, recreation or other lawful purposes.

For all of those reasons, more than 30 States have laws on the books offering some protection for the gun industry from these extraordinary threats. Support has already grown in Congress to take action at the Federal level. The House has passed this measure several times. The Senate is now attempting to do so.

This would not be the first time Congress acted to prevent a threat on an industry. Some would wring their hands and say: Oh, dare not, dare not change the Federal law; dare not, in some way offer some protection. But let me tell you this is not the first time, and my guess is, with the courts and the trial bar where it is, it will not be the last.

For example, there are a number of Members in this Chamber who were serving in Congress when the General Aviation Revitalization Act was passed barring product liability suits against manufacturers of planes more than 18 years ago. Just a few years ago in the Homeland Security Act, Congress placed limits on the liability of a half a dozen industries, including the manufacturers of smallpox vaccine and the sellers of antiterrorism technology.

These are only a couple of examples of a significant list of Federal tort reform measures that have been enacted over the years when Congress perceived a need to protect a specific sector of our economy or our defense interests from the burdensome, unfair and, as I believe, frivolous litigation of the kind we see today.

It is high time we act to stop this threat to our courts, our communities, our economy, and, yes, to our defense.

I have heard some Senators talking about loading up this bill with political amendments that have nothing whatsoever to do with the legislation. Let me say right here and now these are killer amendments. Many of them know that. That is why they are trying to place them.

I ask my colleagues to support the underlying legislation. It is well written, it is thoroughly vetted with all of the interested parties. I ask my colleagues to look at it as they have already looked at it--in a very strong, bipartisan way. Here now in the Senate a supermajority, Democrats and Republicans alike, supports this legislation. I hope they would resist the kinds of amendments that are obviously intended to drag this bill down once again. Some attempted it last year, and they were successful in doing so. I hope those who have signed on as cosponsors are sincere in their support of the bill, as I believe they are, and they will allow us to move it through the process over the next several days in a clean and effective way.

Our courts are supposed to be a forum to redress wrongs, not enact political agendas. How many times has the anti-gun community been rejected by the American public through the voice of their Senator or through the voice of their Congress men and women? Time and time again. And yet because of their political alignment and their philosophical bent, they stay at the issue even though clearly and profoundly we have described it as and believe it to be a constitutional right of an American citizen to own a firearm. Well, because they have not been successful at the doorsteps of Congress, they have turned to the doors of the courtroom. Lawsuits are being filed. Lawsuits are being rejected. Thousands upon thousands of dollars are used in legal fees to prepare the arguments. New and inventive ways are approached: Let's try this angle, let's try that angle. Surely we can get to the deep pocket.

I am also amazed at those who would not suggest that American citizens are responsible for their own actions, and most assuredly the criminal element ought to be. We have watched some administrations walk one direction. But I tell you where this administration is. It believes the criminal element ought to be prosecuted. And guess what happened in America when we started prosecuting the criminal element and putting them behind bars. Crime began to go down very rapidly. The streets of America and the communities of America became safer places because those who would violate the law and, more importantly, those who use a gun in the commission of a crime get locked up. That is gun control in the right sense. That is gun control that a majority of the American people support and that the Congress has continually supported.

This legislation, as I have mentioned, is clear. It is well defined, and it is narrow by its action. We believe that is why a bipartisan majority now supports it and why it deserves to become the law of the land, so we don't have venue-seeking, politically minded efforts to ignore the criminal element in the zealous support or approach to gun control but to go after the law-abiding citizen who either manufactures the firearm or sells it under a Federal firearms license.

That is the essence of S. 397, and I hope as we work through this bill, the clarity of that issue comes forward.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I object.

Will the Senator yield?

Obviously, I have an amendment on the floor now, or I should say an amendment that was filed by Leader Frist. Under appropriate consultation, it is very possible there are a variety of amendments that could come to the floor prior to the ripening of the cloture motion. To now immediately move to that without consultation with the floor leader, myself, is something I will object to, and the Senator understands that. So let us not be tactical here. Let us work and cooperate. I am very happy to look at any amendments----

The Senator might have, but with that, my objection still stands until full consultation is brought, full cooperation is sought. I thank you.

Will the Senator yield again?

Last year this amendment was offered by Senator Boxer, modified by Senator Kohl, and passed the Senate. We are examining the amendment now. We have only had it for 30 minutes or less. The Senator is absolutely right. And the amendment is substantively the same, but there are some differences in it. We are analyzing to see what those differences might be.

So, you see, there was a basis for my objection--until we clearly understand it. I think the agreement the Senator

was speaking to was one based on the exact amendment of Senator Kohl of a year ago. So let us examine what those changes might be in the amendment and then there may be no objection on this side. But until that time I believe we have adequate time here to resolve the issue, and my objection would have to stand.

Mr. President, I will submit for the Record a letter from Beretta U.S.A. Corporation that the Senator just mentioned as an Italian subsidiary, fully owned U.S. corporation. It is a significant letter because it effectively refutes almost all of what the Senator has said. I say that in this respect. It is true everything the Senator has said, and that is not in dispute as it relates to who Beretta is and what they do. They make the standard sidearm for U.S. Armed Forces, and they have had a long-term contract right now to supply this pistol to our fighting forces in Iraq. These pistols have been used extensively in combat during the current campaign, just as they have been used since the adoption of the Armed Forces in 1985.

Beretta U.S.A. also supplies pistols to law enforcement departments throughout the United States, including the Maryland State Police, Los Angeles City Police Department, and Chicago Police Department.

But here is what is significant about Beretta. What Beretta says is exactly what the Senator refuses to recognize. The decision by the District Court of Appeals to uphold the DC strict liability statute as they have in the case of DC v. Beretta U.S.A. has the likelihood of bankrupting not only Beretta U.S.A. but every manufacturer of semiautomatic pistols and rifles since 1991.

The letter to this administration, to Vice President Dick Cheney, goes on to say:

There are hundreds of homicides committed with firearms

each year in D.C. and additional hundreds of injuries

involving criminal misuse of firearms. No firearm

manufacturer has the resources to defend itself against

hundreds of lawsuits each year and, if that company's pistol

or rifle is determined to have been used in a criminal

shooting in the District, these companies do not have the

resources to pay the resultant judgment against them in which

they would have no defense if the pistol or rifle was

originally sold to a civilian consumer.

That is the essence of a lawsuit that has just been decided in the District.

I did not say you didn't.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague.

Let me read another paragraph from that letter, which I think clearly spells out the fear that my colleague would wish to step aside from and argue that is simply not the case. He is dealing with a strict liability statute.

This paragraph says:

Passed in 1991, the D.C. statute had not been used until

the District of Columbia recently filed a lawsuit against the

firearm industry in an attempt to hold the firearm makers,

importers and distributors liable for the cost of criminal

gun misuse in the District. Although the Court of Appeals

(sitting en banc in the case D.C. v. Beretta U.S.A. et al.)

dismissed many parts of the case, it affirmed the D.C. strict

liability statute and, moreover, ruled that victims of gun

violence can sue firearm manufacturers simply to determine

whether that company's firearm was used in the victim's

shooting.

Now, does that take away the costs involved in the preparation, the hundreds of millions of dollars that are now being spent? No, it does not. This was a frivolous lawsuit from the beginning. It was clearly intended. And that is what the district court said. The District of Columbia did not hide it. They were after the industry because they believed the industry had produced the gun that the criminal used in the commission of a crime.

So it goes on. I submit this letter for the Record. I think the letter stands on its own. It clearly affirms why we are here on this floor debating S. 397 and the importance of this legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, we are going to make every effort, over the course of today and tomorrow, to screen the amendments that are coming forward because there is a pending amendment on the floor that would have to be set aside. We are looking at the Senator's amendment now. He has just submitted it to us. Once we have analyzed it, I will be happy to get with him to determine whether I feel comfortable or we feel comfortable with that amendment and go forward.

So at this time, clearly, I appreciate the Senator's sincerity, but I would have to object to the setting aside of the pending business on the floor, which is the amendment offered by the majority leader.

If the Senator will yield, Mr. President.

Mr. President, the rulings of the Senate. There is pending business before the Senate. It would take unanimous consent to set aside the pending business to go on to other business. So that is the circumstance we are involved in at this moment. And defending my right to the floor and the amendment before the floor, I am simply upholding that right to the rules of the Senate.

The leader has said, most sincerely, that we would examine all the amendments that are brought forth to determine if there are some that we can agree on, that ought to go forward, that fall, I think, into the conscript of those of us 67 Senators who are the supporters of this legislation and who would do so. But now it is the rules of the Senate that cause me to take the action I have taken.

Reserving the right to object, we appreciate the Senator coming to the floor. I know he is committed to these issues and has been for a good number of years. We are reviewing the amendment now consistent with all of the amendments that are being submitted at this moment. We have not yet completed that review. We received the amendment about 25 or 30 minutes ago.

With that, I object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, we are examining these amendments closely. As I had mentioned to the Democratic floor leader a few moments ago on the trigger lock amendment, it was not last year's amendment. We are examining it now. It is quite extensive. It is a new approach toward trigger locks and licensed gun dealers and a much broader issue than before.

I see another Senator on the floor to speak. Let me speak only briefly because the Democratic floor leader, Senator Reid, had mentioned in his debate a few moments ago a statement by Smith & Wesson in relation to the expenses involved as it relates to defending themselves in these frivolous lawsuits.

I have a letter from Smith & Wesson to Senator Bill Frist that I think is

important to recognize because it does put in context something that can very easily be taken out of context.

Michael Golden, president and CEO of Smith & Wesson, put it this way. He speaks to a letter in response to the Brady Center's wire story, obviously trying to knock down the claims of gun manufacturers in their support of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. He stated:

In the article, the Brady Center attempts to minimize the

financial implications that the numerous ``junk'' lawsuits

have had on the firearms industries. To support their

position, they cite, among other things, Smith & Wesson's

most recent 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange

Commission. They quote Smith & Wesson's filing, stating, ``In

the nine months ended January 31, 2005, we incurred $4,535 in

defense costs, net of amounts received from insurance

carriers, relative to product liability and municipal

litigation.''

As stated in our filing, the figure report reflects fees

incurred over a 9-month period, and is exclusive of

settlement amounts received from our insurers. Smith & Wesson

entered into settlement agreements with two of its insurance

carriers following years of coverage disputes. The settlement

amounts equal a fraction of the total fees incurred by Smith

& Wesson in defending against frivolous lawsuits. In fact,

over the past 10 years, Smith & Wesson has spent millions of

dollars defending itself against precisely the type of

``junk'' lawsuits that the legislation--

Referencing the legislation that is before us today--

is designed to prevent.

So they do openly support passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. They feel it is critical to not only the survival of Smith & Wesson but to the firearms industry of America.

I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, as most of our colleagues know, we are now on S. 397, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act. There is an amendment on the Senate floor for consideration at this moment. Cloture on the bill has been filed.

What I thought I might do is take a few moments to discuss some of the differences between S. 397, the one currently on the Senate floor, and S. 1805, the previous version of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act, which was considered in the Senate in the 108th Congress. Language has been added in this version to address developing issues or concerns expressed last Congress, garnering more support and adding more cosponsors on both sides.

As I announced this morning and submitted for the Record, we now have 61 cosponsors including myself. In some cases, the changes are just technical in their character.

But before I get to the changes, let me assure my colleagues that these changes do not alter the essential purpose and effect of the bill. As we have stressed repeatedly, this legislation will not bar the courthouse doors to victims who have been harmed by the negligence or misdeeds of anyone in the gun industry. Well recognized causes of action are protected by the bill. Plaintiffs can still argue their cases for violations of law, breach of warranty, and knowing transfers to dangerous persons. Specific language has been added to make it clear that the bill is not intended to prevent suits for damage caused by defective firearms or ammunition. The only lawsuits this legislation seeks to prevent are novel causes of action that have no history or grounding in legal principle.

This bill places blame where blame is due. If manufacturers or dealers break the law or commit negligence, they are still liable. However, if the cause of harm is the criminal act of a third person, this bill will prevent lawsuits targeting companies that have ``deep pockets'' but no control over those third persons.

The first change we made in this bill was to add the words ``injunctive or other relief' in the title of the bill. This is to make sure S. 397 will prevent all qualified suits and respond to concerns that the 108th version would only have prevented suits for damages. The version of the bill before us today will prevent suits that seek injunctive or other relief besides those seeking only money damages. Without adding this language, law-abiding firearms businesses could still be crippled by being prevented from manufacturing or selling firearms. Any court decision that incorrectly finds dealers or manufacturers liable for criminal acts of others will destroy an industry whether there is an award of money damages or not.

In the ``findings'' section of the bill, we have made a couple of changes that do not alter but strengthen and clarify the second amendment principles that are reviewed there.

That same section contains a new paragraph responding to questions about the bill's Commerce Clause implications. That new section expresses the reality that the bill actually strengthens federalism and protects interstate commerce. Thirty-three states have already forbidden lawsuits like the ones this bill seeks to eliminate. Advocates of gun control are trying to usurp State power by circumventing the legislative process through judgments and judicial decrees. Allowing activist judges to legislate from the bench will destroy state sovereignty. This bill will protect it.

A new paragraph in the ``purposes'' section of the bill echoes this change.

In the ``definitions'' section of the bill spelling out what we mean by a ``qualified civil liability action,'' we have added the words ``or administrative proceeding . . .''. This change responds to the experience of some in the industry, who have found themselves not only the target of junk lawsuits filed by a municipality but also the target of administrative proceedings, such as those to change zoning restrictions, also aimed at putting a law-abiding manufacturer or seller out of business just because it made or sold a firearm that was later used in a crime. However, it must be remembered that not all administrative proceedings involving someone in the firearms industry would be covered by this addition--only those that were ``resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse of a qualified product by the person [bringing the action] or a third party . . .''. Let me emphasize: this change is not intended to, and would not, have the effect of preventing ATF or any other Federal, State, or local agency from using administrative proceedings to enforce Federal or State regulations that control the firearms business. So we are not trying to circumvent the Justice Department in any sense of the

word; or, as I have said, State or local agencies that have the right to enforce the law. For example, if a dealer actually violated a zoning regulation or local licensure requirement, this provision would not prevent an action against the dealer. Likewise, if a dealer knowingly violated the law or committed any other infraction for which he or she could lose a Federal firearms dealer's license, this provision would not prevent ATF from initiating an administrative proceeding to revoke or suspend that dealer's license. This addition of the words ``administrative proceeding'' is simply intended to clarify that whether it is a reckless court or court-like administrative proceeding that is brought against a law-abiding business, based on a third party's misuse of a firearm, it is covered by this bill.

Also in this section of the bill, we have added the words ``injunctive or declaratory relief, abatement, restitution, fines, or penalties, or other relief . . .''. This is to ensure that the bill encompasses all qualified lawsuits, regardless of the relief being sought.

In the section relating to causes of action that would not be barred by this legislation, we have specifically listed circumstances in which manufacturers or sellers ``knowingly'' violate a statute. In the last Congress, we had two different versions of this section: one required the violation to be both knowing and willful, and the other version didn't require either. Since a person cannot violate the law ``willfully'' without doing so ``knowingly,'' we have dropped the word ``willfully'' in this version.

Also in the section relating to causes of action that would not be barred by this legislation, we have made some clarifying changes to the paragraph concerning product liability actions. Again, this bill is not intended to prevent lawsuits against the industry for damages resulting from a defective product. Language was added to this section of the bill to make clear that even if the person who discharged a defective product was technically in violation of some law relating to possession of the product, that alone would not bar the lawsuit. For instance, if a juvenile were target shooting without written permission from his parents--that is a violation of current law, a violation of 18 U.S.C. 922y--and was injured by defective ammunition, the juvenile would still be able to bring a suit against the ammunition manufacturer.

The final major change, other than clarifications and emphasizing language, is the provision conforming the definition of trade association to the definition in the Internal Revenue regulations. The purpose of the change was to address some arguments that were made in the last Congress, attempting to stretch the concept of ``trade association'' to include groups that no one has ever considered to be a trade association. So, for anyone who might have been concerned that the National Rifle Association would somehow be protected by this bill--as was argued last time--being defined as a trade association, this change will prevent that from happening. We want that to be perfectly clear. It will also prevent illegitimate gun sellers, such as gangs or gun traffickers, from somehow qualifying as a trade association under the bill.

I believe that I have addressed most, if not all, of the significant changes in the bill. As we often find with legislation, while they are relatively small changes in the language itself, it took a lot of words to describe them. Even so, I hope this explanation is helpful to my colleagues.

This legislation is not identical to the legislation of the 108th, but it is to all intents and purposes the same, with the kind of clarifying examples I have just given. I certainly welcome the debate on the importance of this measure. I hope we can move it quickly through the Senate and conclude our work and provide this country with the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms as should be the case.

I yield the floor.

I will be very brief.

Mr. President, in the context of what the Senator from Connecticut has said, let me read some statistics from the National Safety Council injury fact sheet. I am talking about some very important statistics: Between 1993 and 2003, accidental or unintentional deaths by firearms has gone down 40 percent in America. Between 2002 and 2003, that reduction of accidental deaths has again gone down by 33 percent. Very significant numbers.

Here also are other significant numbers that my colleagues would want to be aware of that are tremendously important. Total unintentional accidental deaths in America, 101,500 in 2003; motor vehicle deaths of that year, 44,000; falls at home and work and on the streets of America, 16,000; drownings, 13,000; fire and burns, 4,300; ingestion of food objects, 2,900; firearms was down into the number of 700. That is less than 1 percent.

Here is what is most significant, because I don't take 700 unintentional accidental deaths by firearms lightly. But these are important statistics to understand as we look at the total scope of the legislation and even what the Senator from Connecticut said that I don't think pertains to this legislation.

Here are the statistics from the National Safety Council. Accidental firearms-related fatalities have been consistently decreasing for many years. Primarily, statistics show accidental firearms-related fatalities decline by 13 percent in one category, 2002 to 2003. Here is what is most important because we are all concerned about the young people of America. Over the past 7 years, accidental firearms-related fatalities among children under 14 years of age has decreased by 60 percent. Why? Because there are tremendous safety efforts not by the Federal Government but by private organizations and by responsible parents to teach their young people how to deal with firearms when they are either subject to them or find them in a location. These numbers are important in the context of this debate.

Again, this debate has nothing to do with crime on the street. This has everything to do with frivolous lawsuits against law-abiding citizens. I am afraid we have to start dealing with the criminal element instead of the law abiding.

I yield the floor.

What the Senator is saying, there have been 24 or 25 lawsuits filed against gun manufacturers and dealers by municipalities. Half of them have been thrown out of the courts as being frivolous.

The problem is, and the Senator well knows, this Congress has, from time to time when they have seen industries subjected to wrongful lawsuits, chosen to exempt them from the wrongful lawsuit but not from liability.

And millions and millions and millions of dollars spent. I appreciate the Senator's mindset on this issue. He is fundamentally wrong, and that is why we have the legislation now to provide a very narrow scope of protection, but certainly not from malfunctioning, not from bad product, only from that third-party criminal issue.

I am sorry to say the Senator would disagree with me, but a person who manufacturers a firearm is not the criminal who pulls the trigger and therefore should not be liable for that criminal act.

We did it for aircraft industry some years ago because of frivolous lawsuits that nearly bankrupted them until Congress stepped in and said, No, in certain categories that is unfair, and it allowed them to stabilize their economy and continue to build aircraft for the American consumer.

I apologize.

If the Senator will yield.

Mr. President, let me address the minority leader.

Certainly, all that he has said is exactly the conversation from my reference point that went on between him and the majority leader. There is no intent to block all amendments. That is not the intent of what the majority leader did.

We have seen these amendments less than 30 minutes, in almost every instance, prior to the time they were offered. Certainly, the Senator from Nevada knows the opportunity to examine and look at these amendments, in light of similar amendments offered last year, is a reasonable request. That is the request the majority leader and I, as the floor manager, have made. Those amendments are under review now.

The floor leader for the Democrats, Senator Reed, and I have visited about some of them that may well meet that scope, and we are reviewing them at this moment. This is not unprecedented, and the Senator from Nevada knows that. This is a procedure under the rules of the Senate that has been used over time. Has Majority Leader Frist used it? I don't know. I am not that good of a historian. But I have been here not quite as long as the Senator from Nevada, and I do know that both his side and our side have used it from time to time. It is clearly within the prerogative of the Senate to do so under its rules.

At the same time, clearly, what the majority leader has expressed was expressed in good faith with the minority leader. I would hope in the course of the evening--and we will certainly be on this legislation all day tomorrow because the cloture motion does not ripen until early Friday morning--- that it would be adequate time to consider several of these amendments that have been offered. I know that is the intent of this floor leader. And certainly I believe it is the intent of the majority leader to do so.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, my colleague is most sincere in his effort. We received the amendment about 30 minutes ago. We are taking a look at it now. I remind my colleagues, Senator Levin offered a similar amendment last year that dealt with gross negligence and reckless conduct.

I must say, my frustration with these kinds of amendments are that these are not well-defined terms. There are thousands, if not millions, of pages of case law that have attempted to define them, but not successfully.

I suggest to the Senator, he refers to State law and State venue. Thirty-three States have already very specifically restricted liability in the context of what we are attempting to do here. Thirty-three States have already spoken. We did table this amendment last year by a fairly substantial margin. So at this time, until I have had a chance to review----

I will.

Mr. President, I do appreciate the Senator's effort, but at this time, until we have effectively reviewed the amendment, I object.

Reserving the right to object, I know the intent of the Senator from Virginia is to file an amendment at the desk and not usurp the position of the current amendment that is before the Congress. I would have to ask the Parliamentarian as to the priority of that.

The Senator does not have to lay the pending amendment aside to file an amendment?

I would object to the laying aside of the pending amendment, which would not restrict the Senator's right to file an amendment at the desk and speak about it.

Will the Senator yield.

I thank the Senator from Virginia. I know he is sincere in the offering of this amendment. Of course, it will be reviewed by the Parliamentarian as to its germaneness postcloture. I would ask the Senator and his staff to examine the Frist amendment that was laid down and that is now pending because what we attempt to do by that amendment is to send a message, if you will, downline to federally licensed firearms dealers that there is no forgiveness here to bad faith and/or to the misuse or the misconduct within the current Federal statutes. We are examining now, but clearly that Washington dealer that the Senator referred to--

Washington State dealer the Senator referred to--yes, there are no gun dealers in Washington, this city--those were actions in violation of Federal firearms law. And of course the question is the administering of the law, and clearly that amendment does so.

But I have seen the amendment in quick glance, will review it to see if there can be some accommodation here. I know the intent of the Senator. It is intent in good faith to do exactly what he said and that is exactly what we want done. We do not want those who are under the umbrella of a federally licensed dealer to in any way misuse that law and not to be prosecuted for the misuse of that law.

That is the intent here. It is the frivolous lawsuits that we are attempting to block. We have been very clean and specific in the language of the bill. We have even refined it over last year in a way that I hope the Senator might be able to support in the end because I think it clarifies a complicated situation that is currently before manufacturers and licensed dealers.

I thank the Senator.

Exhibit 1

Beretta U.S.A. Corp.,

Beretta Drive,

Accokeek, MD, May 11, 2005.

Hon. Richard B. Cheney,

Vice President of the United States, Eisenhower Executive

Office Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Vice President: A few weeks ago, the Washington,

D.C. Court of Appeals issued a decision supporting a D.C.

statute that holds the manufacturers of semiautomatic pistols

and rifles strictly liable for any crime committed in the

District with such a firearm.

Passed in 1991, the D.C. statute had not been used until

the District of Columbia recently filed a lawsuit against the

firearm industry in an attempt to hold firearm makers,

importers and distributors liable for the cost of criminal

gun misuse in the District. Although the Court of Appeals

(sitting en banc in the case D.C. v. Beretta U.S.A. et al.)

dismissed many parts of the case, it affirmed the D.C. strict

liability statute and, moreover, ruled that victims of gun

violence can sue firearm manufacturers simply to determine

whether that company's firearm was used in the victim's

shooting.

It is unlawful to possess most firearms in the District

(including semiautomatic pistols) and it is unlawful to

assault someone using a firearm. Notwithstanding these two

criminal acts, neither of which are within the control of or

can be prevented by firearm makers, the D.C. strict liability

statute (and the D.C. Court of Appeals decision supporting

it) will make firearm manufacturers liable for all costs

attributed to such shootings, even if the firearm involved

was originally sold in a state far from the District to a

lawful customer.

Beretta U.S.A. Corp. makes the standard sidearm for the

U.S. Armed Forces (the Beretta M9 9mm pistol). We have long-

term contracts right now to supply this pistol to our

fighting forces in Iraq and these pistols have been used

extensively in combat during the current campaign, just as

they have seen use since adopted by the Armed Forces in 1985.

Beretta U.S.A. also supplies pistols to law enforcement

departments throughout the U.S., including the Maryland State

Police, Los Angeles City Police Department and to the Chicago

Police Department. We also supply firearms used for self-

protection and for sporting purposes to private citizens

throughout our country.

The decision of the D.C. Court of Appeals to uphold the

D.C. strict liability statute has the likelihood of

bankrupting, not only Beretta U.S.A., but every maker of

semiautomatic pistols and rifles since 1991. There are

hundreds of homicides committed with firearms each year in

D.C. and additional hundreds of injuries involving

criminal misuse of firearms. No firearm maker has the

resources to defend against hundreds of lawsuits each year

and, if that company's pistol or rifle is determined to

have been used in a criminal shooting in the District,

these companies do not have the resources to pay the

resultant judgment against them--a judgment against which

they would have no defense if the pistol or rifle was

originally sold to a civilian customer.

When the D.C. law was passed in 1991 it was styled to apply

only to the makers of ``assault rifles'' and machineguns.

Strangely, the definition of ``machineguns'' in the statute

includes semiautomatic firearms capable of holding more than

12 rounds. Since any magazine-fed firearm is capable of

receiving magazines (whether made by the firearm manufacturer

or by someone else later) that hold more than 12 rounds, this

means that such a product is considered a machinegun in the

District, even though it is semi-automatic and even if it did

not hold 12 rounds at the time of its misuse.

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (S. 397. H.R.

800) would stop this remarkable and egregious decision by the

D.C. Court of Appeals. The Act, if passed, will block

lawsuits against the makers, distributions and dealers of

firearms for criminal misuse of their products over which

they have no control.

We urgently request your support for this legislation.

Without it, companies like Beretta U.S.A., Colt, Smith &

Wesson, Ruger and dozens of others could be wiped out by a

flood of lawsuits emanating from the District.

This is not a theoretical concern. The instrument to

deprive U.S. citizens of the tools through which they enjoy

their 2nd Amendment freedoms now rests in the hands of trial

lawyers in the District Equally grave, control of the future

supply of firearms needed by our fighting forces and by law

enforcement officials and private citizens throughout the

U.S. also rests in the hands of these attorneys.

We will seek Supreme Court review of this decision, but the

result of a Supreme Court review is also not guaranteed. Your

help in supporting S. 397 and H.R. 800 might provide our only

other chance at survival.

Sincerest and respectful regards,

Jeffrey K. Reh,

General Counsel and Vice-General Manager.

Mr. President, I think if Senator Reid is ready, I am ready to propound a unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be temporarily set aside and that Senator Reed then be recognized in order to call up amendment No. 1626 on behalf of Senator Kohl; provided further that on Wednesday there be 1 hour equally divided for debate in relation to the Kohl amendment and that following the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Kohl amendment, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote.

I should say, yes, I would amend that unanimous consent to say Thursday, not Wednesday.

If the Senator wishes to make brief remarks, then I would put the Senate in morning business.

Surely.

Mr. President, let me thank Senator Reed for his cooperation and effort today as we work our way through this legislation. Several amendments that had have been brought to the floor with an attempt to offer them we are looking to see if we can work with our colleagues in acceptance of them. We have a broad base of support for the underlying legislation, and we want to be able to sustain that support as we go into final passage.

Mr. President, I don't know how many of our colleagues during this past number of hours have had the time to listen to the comments of our colleague from Rhode Island. I know we all have busy schedules and appointments in our offices and with the hearings we attend. I have had those meetings in my office as well. One thing I have not done today, which I do under normal circumstances, is put on the mute button when constituents come to my office. In the last couple of hours, I have not done that. I have been transfixed, listening to our colleague from Rhode Island.

I have witnessed a lot of people over my 24 years in the Senate make a case for or against a piece of legislation, and I do not recall another instance when someone has been as eloquent, as thoughtful, as well prepared as Jack Reed of Rhode Island has in presenting his case here today as to why this bill is a bad idea. I publicly commend him for his well-prepared, well-thought-out, passionate arguments on why this is a troublesome piece of legislation. I thank him for being a good educator on this subject matter.

Let me take a few minutes, if I can, to express some views. It is not every day that I question at all the majority leader's decision to seek to bring a particular piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate. As someone who has been in this body for almost a quarter of a century, I have great respect for the role of majority leader and how difficult a job it is. In fact, it is the job of the majority leader to set the agenda and to exercise his or her prerogatives to move that the Senate proceed to a particular matter. So I am not questioning his right to do so. I am questioning the wisdom of having made this decision.

In this case, I cannot let pass the decision the majority leader has made to bring us to consideration of a gun liability bill. By his actions, the Senate has been prevented from concluding consideration of the Defense authorization bill. We were making very good progress on that bill on a number of issues that were very important to our men and women in uniform, to the families of our service men and women, to their survivors, and to the veterans of this country who were also the subject of numerous amendments that would have been offered on the bill had it remained on the floor of the Senate for another couple of days.

In my years here, good debates on a Defense authorization bill, which is what this body is all about, have gone on 9, 10, and 11 days before a cloture motion would be filed. There have been other occasions when it has been filed in less time, but never in less than 5 days of debate. You always look forward to the week or two prior to the August break when we gather to debate and discuss the Defense authorization bill.

For the good part of the last 24 years, we have not had a debate on the subject matter of that legislation at a time of war. This time, of course, we were. Therefore, it was stunning to me to know, at a time when our men and women are in a dangerous place, when there are literally hundreds who have lost their lives, thousands who have been injured, and thousands every day who are putting themselves in harm's way, that the decision was made by this body, by the leadership of this body, to put aside that bill, which might do some things to make their lives safer, provide some security for the survivors of those who lost their lives, and be of some help to veterans. It is stunning that we would set aside those issues to take up this bill that is now before us. In my quarter of a century in this body, I don't recall the Senate ever being forced off of a Defense bill in this manner.

The distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee put it simply and succinctly several months ago in this Chamber. Senator Warner of Virginia said the following--when confronted, by the way, with a similar fact situation. There was a movement a year or so ago to take up the class action reform bill, of which I was the principal author at that time. I am a strong supporter of tort reform. There was a movement to bring up the class action reform bill.

In fact, I wrote a letter, with several other Members of this body, urging the leadership, as strongly as we felt about class action reform, not to set aside the Defense authorization bill in order to bring up the class action reform bill. That point of view prevailed and we stayed on the Defense authorization bill. But during consideration of that motion or that effort, the chairman of

the Armed Services Committee said, ``We are at war.''

We have men and women wearing the uniform of the United States Armed Forces who are this very moment being hunted by enemies of our Nation. They are in combat. They are under siege. They are enduring some of the harshest conditions ever faced by American soldiers.

That is exactly where we are today. Yet, unlike a year or so ago when we turned back the efforts of those who would have put aside the Defense authorization bill to deal with a class action bill, this time when it comes to the gun lobby we said no, the gun lobby is more important than the men and women in uniform, more important than the people who are putting their lives on the line every day.

So here we have now the majority of the Senate saying those soldiers will have to wait a while. This is evidently a higher priority, and it is this bill, a bill that would confer special privileges on a small but very powerful industry. I am frankly incredulous, to say the least, that we will apparently recess for an entire month having spent barely 2 days to decide on the critical needs of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, veterans, and their survivors. I think we should finish our job. It is the least the Senate could do for our troops before we take a month-long break from our work.

Our business is about choices, sometimes very difficult choices. You can't do everything at the same time. But I don't know how you could possibly draw the conclusion that this immunization bill for the gun industry is a more important piece of legislation than the Defense authorization bill, to provide additional protection and the needs of the people in uniform, for veterans, for survivors. I do not know how anyone could possibly draw that conclusion at a time we are at war. What do people think happened in London a few days ago, in Sharm el- Sheik a few days ago? What event has to occur to convince this body that we ought to be about the business of doing everything we can to protect this Nation? Instead, we decide it isn't quite that important, that this is more important.

I am stunned in many ways that anyone would even suggest this legislation in lieu of the Defense authorization bill. I can only imagine what the reaction would be if I were to come to this Chamber and offer a similar amendment that would exclude another entire industry from exposure to potential liability for wrongdoing.

I have more than a passing knowledge of the gun industry. The State of Connecticut, which I am proud to represent, has been, and to my knowledge remains, home to more gun manufacturers than any other State in America. I know of nine such companies that currently call Connecticut their home: Colt Manufacturing, Sturm Ruger, U.S. Repeating Arms, Marlin Firearms, U.S. Firearms Manufacturing, Charter Arms, L.W. Seecamp, Wildey, and O.F. Mossbert and Sons. From 1972 to 1997, more guns were manufactured in my home State of Connecticut than any other State. More than 25 million in all were produced in my small State of Connecticut. These are good people. These are good companies. And I represent good people who work in this industry. We produce fabulous guns. They are well constructed. They are the envy of the world.

Eli Whitney, of course, is best known as the inventor of the cotton gin. He also built a musket armory in New Haven, CT in the late 1700s. Since then, Connecticut has been the gun manufacturing capital of the country of our Nation, if not the world, for that matter. The first revolver was developed and mass produced in Connecticut in the 1830s by Samuel Colt and his wife Elizabeth who ran that company after Sam passed away at a very young age. That company today bears his name and that revolver became known as ``the gun that won the West.''

I also represent probably more insurance companies and more pharmaceutical companies in the State of Connecticut than almost any other State in the Nation. I am very proud to represent these industries. They do a first-rate job. But even though I support the people who work in these businesses and respect what they do, the idea that we would take any one of these industries in this Senator's State and absolve it from its legal responsibilities is stunning to me.

I have been a strong advocate of legal reform. I authored the securities litigation reform bill with the Senator from New Mexico. I wrote the uniform standards litigation bill. I coauthored the tort reforms on the Y2K litigation with Senator Bennett of Utah. I have been a proponent of asbestos litigation reform. I coauthored the Class Action Fairness Act. I am proud of the work I have done in the area of tort reform. We need it. It is necessary. In my view, these bills have struck the right balance between frivolous lawsuits, while retaining citizens' rights to seek the redress of wrongs in a court of law.

But the idea that we would take an entire industry and give it immunity from wrongdoing is simply wrong, in my view. We are saying to this industry, if you act irresponsibly or wrongfully, and if you can foresee the consequences of your irresponsible or wrongful conduct, you do not have to worry about being held accountable for your actions. No matter how much harm you may cause, no matter how many people die or are injured at least in part as a result of your wrongful conduct, you will not be held responsible. In this day and age that this body would so overwhelmingly endorse an idea such as this is breathtaking. And it is little more than ironic that such an idea would be put forward by some who routinely lecture others about the need to take ``responsibility'' for their actions.

Evidently, taking responsibility is a fine philosophy for some, the poor, the elderly, schoolchildren, and men and women who struggle each and every day to put food on the table for themselves and their families. But the gun industry is being absolved in this legislation of virtually all responsibility for its actions.

Let's consider some of the consequences of enacting this legislation. First, it will have absolutely no impact whatsoever on reducing the rate of gun violence in our Nation. In fact, this bill ignores the devastating toll firearm violence continues to take on our fellow citizens.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were more than 30,000 deaths in the United States from firearms in the year 2002 alone--30,000 deaths. That is, of course, 10 times the number of lives that were tragically lost on September 11 at the World Trade Center, here in Washington, and in a field in Pennsylvania. In fact, a year of gun violence in America nearly equals the number of Americans who died in the Korean war and almost half the Americans lost in the entire Vietnam conflict. The numbers are staggering. These numbers exceed by a huge margin the number of firearms-related deaths on a per capita basis in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and France.

Among those individuals most affected by gun violence are children. Firearms are the second leading cause of death among young Americans age 19 and under. Approximately 2,700 children under the age of 19 are killed each year as a result of gun violence or the improper use of guns.

The rate of firearm deaths of children under the age of 14 is already 12 times higher in the United States than 25 other industrialized nations combined.

Let me repeat that. The firearms death rate of children under the age of 14 is 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized nations in the world. One study noted the firearms injury epidemic among children is nearly 10 times larger than the polio epidemic in the first half of the 20th century.

Yet we are about to exclude an entire industry from even being brought to the bar to question whether they might be liable for some of these deaths.

The human cost of gun-related deaths and injuries is tragic in itself, but the economic loss is also significant. According to a study published in the year 2000, the average cost of treating gunshot wounds was $22,000 for each unintentional shooting and $18,000 for each of the gun injuries. These costs would undoubtedly be much higher today. The total societal cost of firearms is estimated to be between $100 billion and $126 billion each year. Who pays these expenses? By large measure, the American taxpayer does.

My colleagues speak against unfunded mandates, and yet this bill, if

enacted, burdens the Nation's cities and counties with billions and billions of dollars in medical care, emergency services, police protection, courts, prisons, and school security. It is shameful that, while tens of thousands of people are dying each year due to firearms and while the American taxpayers pay tens of billions of dollars to cope with the effect of gun violence, the Senate is doing absolutely nothing to make our streets and homes safer, in my view. In fact, we are doing quite the opposite through our actions today.

Second, the legislation will give this industry special legal protections no other industry in the United States has. Neither cigarette companies nor asbestos companies nor polluters have such sweeping immunity as we are about to give this industry.

Let me quote from a recent letter sent to all Senators and Representatives from over 75 law professors from across our Nation. According to them the bill:

. . . would represent a sharp break with traditional

principles of tort liability. No other industry enjoys or has

ever enjoyed such a blanket freedom from responsibility for

the foreseeable and preventable consequences of negligent

conduct.

Gun manufacturers and sellers are already exempt from Federal Consumer Product Safety Commission regulation, despite the fact that firearms are among the most dangerous and deadly products in our society. We have more regulations on toy guns than we do on the ones that fire real bullets. Imagine a toy gun that you buy from Mattel. The Consumer Product Safety Commission issues literally pages of regulations on what must be included in the production of that gun. There is not a single word in the regulations of the Consumer Product Safety Commission about the production of guns that may kill 30,000 people each year in this country.

The National Rifle Association made sure of this exemption 30 years ago, just as highly addictive tobacco products are not subject to regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.

I have supported tort reform in specific areas where I believe it is appropriate. My colleagues know I worked with many of them on these issues. At the same time I recognize that litigation has been a powerful tool in holding parties accountable for their negligence and providing them with the incentive to improve the safety of their products. It has been employed on behalf of other potentially dangerous products such as automobiles, lawnmowers, household products, and medicines to protect the health of the American people. The fact that guns are already specifically exempt from the oversight of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is reason enough, in my view, why we can't afford to grant the firearms industry legal immunity.

Third, this legislation is likely to increase criminal behavior, in my view, in our Nation. Consider the views of the people who know best, our Nation's law enforcement officers. Yesterday some 80 sheriffs, police chiefs, and others wrote to each and every Senator that this bill will ``strip away the rights of gun violence victims, including law enforcement officers and their families, to seek redress against irresponsible gun dealers and manufacturers.''

This legislation will do nothing to help our Nation's law enforcement officers to stop these criminals or to receive justice if they are shot or killed. Who better to listen to than our own police chiefs? Law enforcement officers will tell you this is a bad bill. It is a bad bill, and it is going to cause more problems in the streets of our country. And here is what two former Directors of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms had to say about this bill:

To handcuff ATF, as this bill does, will only serve to

shield corrupt gun sellers, and facilitate criminals and

terrorists who seek to wreak havoc with deadly weapons. To

take such anti-law enforcement action in the post 9/11 age,

when we know that suspected terrorists are obtaining

firearms, and may well seek them from irresponsible gun

dealers, is nothing short of madness.

If this legislation is enacted, it would remove any incentive under current tort law for gun manufacturers to make their firearms safer. Studies have shown that the technology is both readily available and very inexpensive to help avoid future gun-related tragedies. For example, a load indicator could be included to tell the user that the gun is still loaded. That is never going to happen now, I promise you. A magazine disconnect safety could be installed by the manufacturers to prevent guns from firing if the magazine is removed. Even childproofing the gun with safety locks can be done relatively easily. However, if this bill is enacted into law, gun manufacturers will lose the huge incentive to include such reasonable safety devices in their products.

Evidence has been uncovered that reveals that the gun industry has been engaged in irresponsible behavior for many years. Senator Reed and others have already mentioned one such industry actor, Bull's Eye Shooter Supply in Takoma, WA.

This gun store claims it ``lost'' the gun used by the Washington, DC, snipers, John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, as well as more than 200 other guns. Many of these firearms were traced to other crimes. Bull's Eye Shooter Supply had no record of the gun ever being sold and did not report it until the Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms recovered the weapon and traced it back. After the rifle was linked to the sniper shootings and the newspaper reported on the disappearance of the gun from Bull's Eye, the rifle manufacturer, Bushmaster, still considered Bull's Eye a good customer and was happy to keep selling to that shop.

The judge in this case has since ruled twice that the suit brought by the families of the DC area sniper victims against Bull's Eye and Bushmaster should proceed to trial, and a preliminary ruling has been rejected.

Nevertheless, this case, as well as other important pending and future lawsuits against negligent gun dealers and manufacturers, would be banned if this bill becomes law, as I suspect it will, according to the opinion of some of our Nation's most prominent legal scholars.

There are many more instances of the gun industry not taking steps to prevent guns from reaching the illegal market. According to Federal data from the year 2000, 1.2 percent of dealers account for 57 percent of all guns recovered in criminal investigations. Undercover sting operations in Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana have found that such dealers routinely permit gun sales ``to straw purchasers,'' individuals with clean records who buy guns for criminals, juveniles, or other individuals barred by law from purchase.

If the Senate bill is enacted, police officers shot by a gun bought by a ``straw purchaser'' would no longer get his day or her day in court.

Gun shows are also an important source of guns for criminals. Studies have shown that unlicensed dealers often sell large quantities of weapons at these shows without having to run criminal background checks or keeping records. Many of my colleagues might recall that a gun show was the source of the firearm purchased by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold before they went on their murderous rampage at Columbine high school, but the Senate bill would not hold such gun dealers responsible for the injuries and deaths their firearms cause.

Supporters of this legislation contend that there is a gun litigation crisis in America and that many of the cases being brought against the gun industry are frivolous. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there are no massive backlogs of claims against the gun dealers and manufacturers burdening our court system. About 10 million tort suits were filed in State courts from 1993 through the year 2003; 57 of them were against gunmakers or dealers, 57 out of 10 million cases. Is that a litigation crisis, with 57 lawsuits out of 10 million other suits filed in the same relevant area? And the result of those 57 cases. The impact on the gun industry has hardly been crushing. Some of these suits have been dismissed. Some have been settled. Some have been appealed.

The industry claims it is spending $200 million a year on litigation costs. Yet it offers absolutely no data to support this. There is evidence that litigation costs are virtually insignificant: 57 cases in 10 years out of 10 million tort cases being filed. That alone ought to tell you this is a frivolous piece of legislation. This is what is frivolous, to suggest we need to clean up a problem involving 57 cases, many of which were dismissed.

One major gun manufacturer in a filing last November with the Securities and Exchange Commission--a filing, by the way, that it made under the pain and penalty of perjury--said this:

It is not probable and is unlikely that litigation,

including punitive damage claims, will have a material

adverse effect on the financial position of the company.

Another gun manufacturer said this to the SEC in March of 2005:

In the nine months ended January 31, 2005, we incurred

$4,535 in defense costs . . . relative to product liability

and municipal litigation.

That is a litigation crisis? It is outrageous to claim it is.

Of the small number of lawsuits filed against this industry, none to my knowledge have been dismissed as frivolous. On the contrary, there have been favorable rulings on the legal merits of many of these cases. Courts have recognized such cases are based upon well-established legal principles, negligence, product liability, and public nuisance. Important information on the gun industry's wrongful actions, which has been cloaked in secrecy for many years, has been revealed and injured parties have been compensated, fairly and justly. These cases, however, will be precluded, and the information gleaned from them will be lost if the gun industry is granted immunity, as it seeks with this legislation.

Rather than giving special immunity to those manufacturers and dealers who wrongfully make and sell guns to criminals, the Senate should be today or at some point--again I wish we were back on the Defense authorization bill--at some point we should work to protect our police officers and the people they protect every single day. Instead of zeroing out the COPS program we ought to take our time to do something about strengthening the police departments of our Nation. Rather than placing more guns on the streets, the Senate should be considering more responsible gun legislation such as making the ban on assault weapons permanent and closing the gun show loophole.

Rather than encouraging reasonable and safe gun use, the Senate is destroying any incentive for gun manufacturers to improve the safety of their deadly wares. This legislation, to this Senator, is an outrage. And, I represent more of these manufacturers than any other Member of this body. I know it is not common for a Senator to get up and speak against an industry in his State, and I have at least nine of them, as I said earlier, that have produced 25 million guns in the last 12 or 13 years. I respect my manufacturers. They are good people. But the idea that I would immunize nine industries in my State from their wrongdoings is incredible. While it may seem strange to have the Senator from the largest gun-producing State making these statements, I feel strongly. It is wrong to be doing it. It is an outrage.

You can say this is wrong, and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for taking an entire industry and not holding it liable for the harm it may cause to people across the country. Thirty thousand people die every year, almost 3,000 kids, and we are about to say to the manufacturer of the products that kill them to take a walk and that you never have to show up again in court. That is shameful.

I yield the floor.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I cited statistics between 1993 and 2003. There were 10 million lawsuits brought in the United States for wrongful death under the tort system. Of those 10 million, we have been able to find 57 in 10 years, 57 cases brought against gun manufacturers and gun dealers. Is the Senator telling me those are frivolous, 57 lawsuits out of 10 million? Is that a crisis in litigation?

I am happy to yield.

So what is the problem?

For 24 cases in 10 years?

You are going to have your way if this bill is adopted, but that is the only industry in America with this special status. You would not do it for the automobile or chemical industry.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I believe the legislation before us today is a good tort reform bill. It deals with a discrete area of abuse in our legal system. We in this Congress have the responsibility to monitor our legal system. If it is not functioning well, we ought to deal with it. It is a practical act to protect manufacturers and sellers of a lawful item, and it has constitutional implications because the destruction of our firearms industry in America indeed would implicate and undermine the constitutional right Americans have of keeping and bearing arms. It is good for jobs.

We know American manufacturers are under siege from lawsuits, and we could end up losing an entire industry, which is a pretty big industry. It is good for our police and national defense; that is where they get their firearms. The Secretary of Defense wrote us a letter indicating-- actually, the legal counsel wrote the letter to say they support it because they are concerned about the manufacturing capability of firearms used by our military. The same companies fighting these suits are also the companies that produce firearms for the military and our police forces.

It is good because it restores the historic principles of what liability should be in our country. Where and how should one be liable? What acts can justify someone coming and taking your property? What kind of acts of wrongdoing do you have to commit before that is possible? Also, we might ask ourselves, what industry might be next? If we erode the classical defenses and principles that protect legitimate businesses in this case, what business might be next? I was pleased to hear that we achieved a bipartisan consensus, it seems, with 61 cosponsors for the legislation. I had hoped we would move it through rather rapidly. I knew a good number of Senators cared deeply about it and did not approve of it, and they wanted to speak about it. But the truth of the matter is, this is taking quite a long time. We have had a filibuster even on a motion to proceed to the bill, which included 30 hours of post-cloture debate on that, and 66 Senators voted to have cloture and bring this bill up on the floor for debate. So we have good, strong, bipartisan support for moving forward with this legislation.

I know the majority leader is committed. We can complete it, even if we have to go into the weekend. Hopefully, that won't happen, but I am prepared to be here and I think most Senators are. After this amount of effort, let's complete this. We can see the end in sight. I urge that the discussions going on allow us to proceed more rapidly. I hope we will have good success on that.

I believe the opposition to this legislation spins out of a hostility to firearms by some. If you look at it, it is mostly in the big cities where they are not familiar with hunting, outdoors, and recreational shooting. The emotional fervor for radically limiting the historic American right to keep and bear arms arises out of a fear of crime and a desire to be safe and, I think, a misunderstanding of the nature and character of decent, law-abiding citizens in this country who possess firearms and use them to hunt and for recreational purposes on a regular basis. But I understand crime is a big part of the objection to firearms. It is out of that fear and concern that we have mayors and cities passing laws that create strict liability, such as the District of Columbia. In a recent case that ruled against the Beretta Company, Beretta wrote us that if this law remains in effect, they could become liable for every murder using a Beretta handgun that may occur in Washington, DC, even though they may have lawfully sold the gun through a dealer in Alabama, Minnesota, Maine, or California. But if it ended up here some way by some criminal and somebody got shot, they have the ability to hold the manufacturer or the dealer liable for that. They become an insurer against criminal activity by criminals.

It is not a sound principle of law. It cannot be defended on principle. That is what we are trying to curtail here--this utilization of the legal system, the court system, the lawsuit system, to effect a public policy end that has not been supported by the people and actually could threaten the ability to keep and bear arms and threaten an entire industry in our country. I understand what is bringing this up.

I want to share some important things. What is causing crime? We don't know for sure. We know some of the causes. What can we do to deal with it? How can we utilize gun laws to reduce crime and violence and make

our communities safer, do the right thing? Does passing more and more burdensome laws and regulations that fall on lawful gun owners help reduce crime? I submit to you it does not.

There are dramatic numbers that I think indicate the effectiveness of gun law prosecutions to reduce crime. When I came to the Senate in 1997, I had been a U.S. attorney and, as such, prosecuted criminals who utilized guns and violated Federal gun law. I know the Presiding Officer has done that, too; he has been a prosecutor. He dealt with these Federal gun laws. What we did was focus on the law that dealt with criminal behavior, and we were aggressive about it. I remember coming up with a name for our project. We called it Project Triggerlock in, I guess, the late 1980s. We had a newsletter and we talked with all our sheriffs and local police about the new, tough Federal gun laws that crack down on the utilization of a gun during a criminal act, and the 5-year mandatory penalty without parole if you carry a firearm during a drug offense, or if you possess a firearm after having been convicted of a felony, you would go to jail and it would be without parole.

I thought it was an effective thing and we worked hard to prosecute those cases. Then I was elected Alabama attorney general and then I came to the Senate. When I came here, there was one new gun law after another that attempted to restrict gun ownership and the ability to get guns. We were voting on them all the time. I began to say, what are we doing prosecutionwise with the laws we have? I began to inquire in the Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member. In 1997 when Attorney General Janet Reno or the division chief, or the head of the ATF came up, I began to ask questions.

If you can see this chart, you begin to see where my concerns came from. Going along in the 1990s, in 1992 and 1993, there were 3,700 and 3,800 gun prosecutions per year. They began to drop off 20 percent. By 1996, they had fallen 20 percent, and by 1997, 20 percent. We began to ask questions about that and push this issue with the Attorney General. I raised it every time she came before the committee with her staff people. I think maybe that or other things happened that began to show a trend change. We started moving up a little bit. By 2000, we were back up to 6,000 gun prosecutions.

President Bush campaigned on it. When John Ashcroft came up for his confirmation, I reminded him of the promise the President had made. I asked Attorney General Ashcroft: Will you make prosecution of gun crimes a high priority by the U.S. Department of Justice? He said: Yes, sir, I will. Now we have Attorney General Gonzales. Look at these numbers; they have doubled since 2000. We have 11,000 prosecutions per year now. Many of those carry significant time in jail. If a person carries a fully automatic weapon--a MAC-11 or a machine gun of some kind--during a drug trafficking offense, the penalty they suffer is 30 years in jail without parole. We saw that happen all over Miami. People were shooting. There were gang wars, with machine guns that were used to shoot people down.

These tough laws that were passed in the early 1980s cracked down. Now you don't see machine guns among drug dealers. In fact, because of these prosecutions you are seeing fewer and fewer drug dealers carrying guns and fewer other criminals carry guns because they know if they get caught, they will be sent to Federal jail without parole for a long time.

I want to talk about that. Somewhere along in 1998, 1999, or 2000, we had before the Judiciary Committee the testimony of a very impressive U.S. attorney from Richmond, appointed by the Clinton administration. He was an African American. He had developed what he called Project Exile. I called it ``Project Trigger Lock with Steroids.'' It was a better plan than I had developed. He believed if you utilize these laws aggressively, you could save lives. He saw people in his community dying in shootouts and criminal fights, he believed, unnecessarily. So he started this project.

He put up billboards that said: You use a gun, we will send you off for a long period of time. You will be exiled. You will go off to a Federal jail. You don't get to go to the county jail. You will go off to the Federal jail, 10 years without parole, 20 years without parole, depending on the offense. He had some dramatic results from that project.

I will be pleased, I say to the Senator from Idaho.

I could not agree more. The U.S. attorney in Philadelphia was aggressive on some of these cases, and they would make a big bust with State and local law enforcement and Federal officers. The criminals did not want to go to the Federal court. They were afraid they would go there and sort them out, and the ones who had the guns would be the ones sent to Federal court, and they would get tough time.

Here are some of the numbers that occurred on Project Exile. From 2000 to 2003, Federal gun crime prosecutions nationally increased 68 percent. There is this perception that Republican administrations, because they are dubious and concerned about encroaching controls on the right of lawful Americans to have guns, that they are somehow soft on gun crime, that they do not care about people being victimized by crime.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as these numbers will show. From 2000 to 2003, Federal gun prosecutions increased 68 percent. Between the year 2002 and fiscal year 2003, the number of Federal firearms prosecutions nationally increased nearly 24 percent. In Colorado, for example, under their Project Exile program, Federal firearm charges between 1999 and 2003 were brought against more than 600 defendants, and in 365 of those cases that were completed, prison sentences were handed down totaling 18,671 months or 1,600 years.

As these prosecutions have increased, the number of crimes where a gun is used has decreased. Surprise. Between 1999 and 2000 and between 2001 and 2002, the violent crime victimization rate plunged 21 percent. Approximately 130,000 fewer Americans were victims of gun crime in 2001 and 2002 than in 1999 and 2000.

Project Exile began as a coordinated approach to fighting gun violence in the Richmond metropolitan area. That is where it started. It began in 1997 by a group of Federal prosecutors. They did a communitywide effort. In 1997, there were 140 homicides in Richmond. Just one year after the project was initiated, the overall murder rate dropped 36 percent, the number of firearm homicides dropped 41 percent, and robberies dropped by one-third.

In 2000, 3 years after Project Exile was implemented in Richmond, there were only 72 homicides during the year 2000, close to a 50- percent reduction. In its first year, Project Exile achieved the following: 372 persons were indicted for Federal gun violations, 440 guns were seized, and 196 persons sentenced to an average of 55 months of imprisonment.

There are three essential elements: Federal prosecution; integrated and coordinated partnership among local, State, and Federal law agencies; outreach for community involvement; and increased public awareness where we make sure the people in the community know in advance that if they carry a gun around while they are carrying on their criminal activities, they are in big trouble.

One of the main reasons that Project Exile has been so successful is the campaign to educate citizens about the lengthy terms they would be facing. Billboards all over Richmond broadcast it: An illegal gun gets you 5 years in Federal prison. It resonated throughout the community. Police and criminals knew the stories of what was happening on the streets. The criminals would throw away guns when officers

approached. They would confess to almost anything, but they would not confess to having a gun, and they specifically referred to Project Exile. So we know it was having an impact.

There are a number of important laws that are bread-and-butter laws that allow proper focus on criminal use of firearms. What I want to say is real simple. I don't want to overstate all of this, but it is significant. The simple fact is, it is not how many laws we pass, it is not whether we pass some convoluted law about this, that, or the other in Federal laws. It is whether we are allowing the gun prosecutions to drop 20 percent or whether they have gone up from under 4,000 to almost 12,000, three times.

If we maintain aggressive, systematic prosecution of dangerous criminals who carry firearms and they are sent to jail for long periods of time, we will protect the public. That is what I am saying. These other things make life more difficult for lawful gun owners and implicate, sometimes improperly, the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But the real power of reducing crime, making our streets safer, resides in effective prosecution of these cases.

I could not be more pleased to see some of the good numbers we are getting in terms of reducing crime.

Look what is happening in States. It further amplifies what I have said. The overall homicide rate in jurisdictions that have the most severe restrictions on firearms purchases and ownership--let's look at this. Let's look at the homicide rate on the States that have the toughest firearm purchase laws, States that make it the hardest to buy a firearm: California, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, DC. Their homicide rate is 23 percent higher than the rest of the country.

The Federal Gun Control Act of 1968 imposed unprecedented restrictions on gun manufacturers, dealers, and owners. However, in the 5 years after its enactment, the national homicide rate averaged 50 percent higher than in the 5 years before the bill was enacted. The national homicide rate was 75 percent higher 10 years after the enactment of the Federal Gun Control Act, and 81 percent higher after 15 years. So passing a law that is not effectively prosecuted--not aggressively, systematically prosecuted, to the extent the criminals know you mean business--does not mean anything. You end up with just restrictions, regulations, costs, and burdens on honest Americans.

I have offered legislation--I am having a hard time getting any cosponsors on the Democratic side, but I think the Federal crack cocaine laws tend to be too tough, and they tend to fall disproportionately on African Americans. I think we ought to fix it and do something about it. I have proposed and written legislation and offered it more than once to do just that.

I am not here as one who believes locking people up and throwing away the key is the answer to fighting crime, but it is a big part of fighting crime that people receive substantial punishment if they represent a danger to the community or if they commit a serious crime.

Look at the incarceration rates: From 1980 to 1994, the 10 States with the greatest increase in prison population averaged a decrease of 13 percent in violent crime, while the 10 States with the smallest increase in prison population averaged a 55-percent increase in violent crime.

They say lock everybody up. Everybody does not shoot someone. There is only a small number of people in this country who have the maliciousness, the violent nature, or the hostility or meanness to go around shooting somebody. The more of those you can identify, the more of those you lock up, you can reduce the violent crime rate. You can make our communities safer and protect innocent Americans from that kind of activity. It is just as plain as night and day.

If you put violent criminals behind bars and keep them there, good things can happen. In 1991, 162,000 criminals who were placed on probation committed 44,000 violent crimes during their probation. A fourth of them committed a violent crime while they were out on probation. Twenty-one percent of the persons involved in the felonious killing of law enforcement officers during the last decade were on probation or parole at the time they murdered a police officer.

Some say if you really like police officers, you will vote against this bill because somehow this bill has something to do with protecting police officers from being murdered. Police officers are not telling me if one of their brothers or sisters is killed by a criminal that they want to sue Smith & Wesson. They are saying they want the criminal convicted and prosecuted. They believe if more criminals were prosecuted aggressively and fewer were given parole and probation early, then more police officers would be alive and healthy today. This is what we need to do.

I want to share this story on this general subject. It came to my attention recently, in June of this year. Leura Canary, a fine U.S. attorney in Montgomery, AL, the Middle District of Alabama, presides over 23 counties in the southwestern part of the State as a Federal law officer, and she works with others. She was presented a national award for most improved gun violence program.

I saved this release and would like to share it with you because it is emblematic of what we can do to save lives, protect the innocent, and reduce crime in America.

She calls their program Alabama ICE. It emphasizes cooperation among Federal, State, and local law agencies. They developed in the region an effective task force, a task force to combat gun crimes. The task force developed a training program and a case preparation technique plan. It produced significant results. Look at this. Federal gun prosecutions in the middle district of Alabama tripled in fiscal year 2003 over fiscal year 2002. Three times as many were prosecuted. And the number of gun crime matters referred for prosecutions increased 257 percent in that same period. Between 2000 and 2003, the number of gun prosecutions in the middle district has increased 513 percent.

She obviously took Attorney General Ashcroft's injunctions and directions to heart, a fact mentioned by Attorney General Ashcroft in his keynote address.

According to local officials, these efforts--local officials, not the U.S. attorney--have had a measurable effect on violent crime. In calendar year 2003, there was a 42-percent reduction in criminal homicides in the city of Montgomery over the previous year, 2002, a 42- percent reduction in the number of people murdered in the city of Montgomery.

Montgomery Police Chief John Wilson, whom I have known for quite a number of years, and who has been a professional in his career, who was an early partner in this effort, Alabama ICE task force, said:

Alabama ICE is the only new program we implemented during

this time period which targets violent crime in our city. I

believe that ICE is a major factor in these reductions in the

number of violent offenses. Without this program, these

criminals would still be in our community committing crimes.

And, I would add, murdering people.

Local Alabama ICE task force members also expressed their reactions to the program and the award. Chief Anthony Everage of the city of Troy, a midsized or smaller city, said this:

I think this is an excellent example of what can be

accomplished through a joint effort by the United States

Attorney's Office of the Middle District and law enforcement.

Ms. Canary presented this very effective program along with a

plan of action to our agency and the implementation has and

will continue to make Troy a safer place.

``When Alabama ICE was implemented in Dothan, it was as though someone threw a large rock into still waters. The ripple effect shuddered through the criminal culture almost overnight. The word is out, get caught committing a crime while holding a gun and you're done. Even Johnny Cochran can't get you off,'' said Dothan Police Chief John White.

Actually, Johnny Cochran supported this effort and warned that people who commit crimes with guns suffer serious Federal time, because he knew innocent people's lives are at stake.

District Attorney Randall Houston of the 19th Judicial Circuit of Autauga, Elmore, and Chilton Counties, stated:

Working with Federal prosecutors has expanded our charging

options and our ability to lock up the most dangerous

criminals in our community. We received this award because of

the effectiveness of our partnership in combating crime.

Sheriff Jay Jones of Lee County said:

This award represents the positive result of criminal

justice agencies on Federal, State, and local levels working

in concert to confront and effectively reduce the incidents

of gun violence in our community.

Is that not what it is all about, reducing gun violence?

Actual, measurable reductions in violent gun crimes have

occurred in all of the fine programs implemented throughout

the United States, and of those the program in the Middle

District, administered under the direction of U.S. Attorney

Leura Canary, was chosen as one of the best. It puts an

exclamation point on the statement of hard work that so many

law enforcement agencies in central Alabama do each day to

provide for the safety of the public.

Sheriff Jimmy Abbett of Tallapoosa County said:

Alabama ICE has been very beneficial to our department in

the successful arrest and convictions of persons in our area.

The U.S. attorney has provided a willingness to work with

local agencies. . . . The program . . . has provided local

law enforcement agencies another tool to take the habitual

criminals off the street.

That is what it is all about. Violent crime rates have reached the lowest level in 30 years, almost to the level of 1950. The crime rate went up steadily beginning in the 1950s into the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. In 15 years the murder rate doubled in this country. President Reagan came in and we saw about a 20-percent reduction. Then that flattened out during the crack cocaine years and then in the 1990s we began to see this go down.

One of the reasons is the Project Exile program that began in 1997 and is now spreading all over the country, which focuses on the criminal use of firearms. Whereas I am proud to review any legislation anybody wants to offer, I would note this, that I am willing to bet--I do not have the numbers on it, but I am willing to bet that perhaps 90 percent of the cases prosecuted in Federal court under these Project Exile type programs, the main ones are prosecuting any criminal in America who carries a firearm or possesses a firearm after having been convicted of a felony. If one is a felon, they are no longer able to possess a firearm. If firearms are kept out of the hands of felons, we are going to have less murders.

The next one is very close and very significant. It is carrying a firearm during the commission of a crime. It can be a crime of violence, a drug crime, a burglary, or a robbery. If someone is carrying a gun during criminal activity, they have a mandatory 5 years, 60 months, without parole, if they are convicted, in addition to what time they get for the underlying crime. That information is getting out there. The word is out there. Fewer and fewer criminals are carrying guns because of that.

Then there is carrying a sawed-off shotgun, possessing a firearm where the serial number has been erased or erasing a serial number. Those are the kinds of activities that form the bread and butter of the criminal prosecutions I mentioned today. That is what will break the back of crime. That is what can hold out hope that if we effectively and professionally maintain the pressure on the criminal gun element through these prosecutions, we can reduce crime, make our communities safer, and save innocent lives.

I do not think suing gun manufacturers is the right approach. That is not the way we are going to deal with it. We have the right approach. It was proven by the U.S. attorney in Richmond. It is being replicated all over America today. The Attorney General is driving this as one of his highest priorities, and if we stay on it, we are going to continue to see the murder rate in this country go down. Who knows, the murder rate could actually reach the level of the 1950s. We are not far from that today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?

I hope the Senator is not too disturbed with me. I noticed in the New York Times today they had my picture in there and they described it as that of Senator Reed. It probably will cost him 50,000 votes in his home State. But it was not my fault and if the Senator sues anybody, sue the New York Times.

Mr. President, I rise to ask my colleagues to support the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. This act has strong bipartisan support. Sixty-one Senators are cosponsoring this legislation. I am very proud to be an original cosponsor of this bill. I thank my good friend from Idaho, Senator Craig, for his leadership in introducing the legislation and bringing the bill to the Senate floor, managing the legislation and doing an exemplary job.

The legislation we are considering will correct a significant injustice that threatens the viability of a lawful U.S. industry; that is, the firearms industry. An increasing number of lawsuits are being filed against the firearms industry seeking damages for wrongs committed by persons who have misused the industry's products. These lawsuits seek to impose liability on lawful businesses for the actions of people over whom the industry has no control. Outrageous. Businesses that comply with all applicable Federal and State laws and produce a product fit for its intended lawful purpose, including elk hunting, duck hunting, target shooting, or personal protection, should not be subjected to frivolous lawsuits that have only one goal--to put them out of business. This is an unacceptable burden on lawful interstate commerce. No other law-abiding industry faces this kind of attack.

People in my State are proud of their independence. We are proud of our outdoor heritage. Montanans are avid sports men and women. We cherish our right to hunt and fish and enjoy the outdoors. Passing this bill will allow us to protect that right by ensuring that the firearms industry stays in business.

Each year, hunters, shooters spend nearly $21 billion. This, in turn, generates more than 366,000 jobs that pay more than $8.8 billion in salaries and wages and provide $1.2 billion in State tax revenues. In addition, excise taxes imposed on firearms under the Federal Aid to Wildlife Restoration Act, also known as the Pittman-Robertson Act, generate critical revenues for State fish and wildlife conservation efforts and hunter safety training. For example, the Pittman-Robertson Act generated more than $150 million in revenue in 2002 alone.

In Montana, hunters and sportsmen generated $250 million in retail sales, generating about 5,592 jobs, over $100 million in salaries and wages, and $11 million in State tax revenues--no small matter.

In addition, threats to the U.S. gun industry also pose a threat to the U.S. military. Many domestic gun manufacturers supply the military with necessary firearms. If these companies are forced out of business, the U.S. military must look abroad to arm itself, and we cannot let that happen.

In short, the U.S. firearms industry serves America's gun owners, serves our sportsmen, and our military very well. It provides good- paying jobs for many Americans. It provides revenues that benefit all Americans. The industry should not be penalized for legally producing or selling a product that functions as designed and as intended. But that is exactly what certain groups are trying to do by asking the courts to step in and micromanage the industry. The Congress and most State legislators have refused to do so.

Let me list some of the demands so you get a flavor of how credible these lawsuits are. Some of these lawsuits would require one-gun-a- month purchase restrictions not required by State law. Others require firearm manufacturers and distributors to participate in a court- ordered study of lawful demand for firearms and to cease sales in excess of lawful demand, if you can imagine. Others require a prohibition on sales to dealers who are not stocking dealers with at least $250,000 in inventory, talking about the small gun

dealers. Others would require systematic monitoring of dealers' practices by manufacturers and distributors.

These are just a few of the sweeping demands made in the lawsuits that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act seeks to stop. As you can tell, these suits are asking the courts to step well outside of their jurisdiction, to legislate regulation of the industry. They also have nothing to do with holding accountable those who actually misuse the firearms.

Most courts have dismissed such lawsuits that are brought before them. A New York appellate court judge stated:

The plain fact is that the courts are the least suited,

least equipped, and thus the least appropriate branch of

government to regulate or micromanage the manufacturing,

marketing, distribution, and sale of handguns.

However, the time, expense, and effort that goes into defending these nuisance suits is a significant drain on the firearms industry, costing jobs and millions of dollars, increasing business operating costs, including skyrocketing insurance costs, and threatening to put dealers and manufacturers out of business. That is why this bill is so necessary.

Let me be clear about a couple the things. This bill will not close the courthouse doors to legitimate suits against the firearms industry. It will not shield the industry from its own wrongdoing or from its negligence or if the industry puts out a bad product. For example, the bill will not require dismissal of a lawsuit if a member of the industry breaks the law or if someone in the industry acts negligently in supplying a firearm to someone they have reason to believe is likely to misuse the firearm or supplies a firearm to someone they had reason to know was barred by Federal law from owning a firearm or a representative of the industry who designs a defective product. The bill also doesn't protect unlicensed dealers. The bill would only protect federally licensed manufacturers, dealers, or importers of firearms.

This bill is only intended to protect law-abiding members of the firearms industry from nuisance suits that have no basis in current law, that are only intended to regulate the industry or harass the industry or put it out of business, none of which are appropriate purposes for a lawsuit.

Certainly, regulating the industry is well outside the appropriate role of the courts.

We could all agree that when a firearm is used in a criminal or careless manner that causes serious injury or loss of life, that is a terrible tragedy. Those responsible should be punished to the full extent of the law in both the civil and criminal areas. That includes the firearms industry, if one of its members breaks the law or acts negligently in selling a firearm to a criminal or other person they should have known would use the firearm to hurt another person. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act will do nothing to change that or shield the arms industry from criminal wrongdoing.

At the same time, it is not right or fair to hold law-abiding members of the industry accountable for independent actions of third parties who use a firearm in a manner that industry never intended. Why, for example, should the industry be held liable if a member of the industry sells a gun to a lawful customer and that gun is then stolen from a customer and used in a crime? That makes no sense.

Again, the fact that a crime occurred is sad and tragic, but that doesn't mean that the firearms industry is in any way responsible for such a gross misuse of its product. But that is exactly what is happening in some of these lawsuits. This bill would put a stop to that. It is a very short, simple bill with a simple purpose. Nothing is hidden in it. It is also critically important to a vital national industry. We need to pass it, pass it now, as the situation will only get worse. I ask my colleagues to give it their full support.

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

Mr. President, every few minutes, a new Chevy Malibu, a popular family sedan, rolls off the assembly line of General Motors Corporation's Fairfax plant Kansas City, KS. The invoice price starts at $17,600.

And every few minutes, across the ocean, a new Toyota Camry, a popular family sedan, rolls off the assembly line of the Toyota Motor Corporation plant in near Nagoya, Japan. The invoice price starts at about $16,600, a full $1,000 less than the Malibu.

One reason for the price difference between the Malibu and the Camry is health care. Yes, health care. For GM, health care costs amount to more than $1,500 for every vehicle it produces. For Toyota, health care costs account for closer to $500 for every vehicle that it produces. That is about the thousand dollars difference.

Two-thirds of Americans get their health insurance at their jobs. The system started in World War II, when the Government capped wages. Employers competed for workers by offering more generous fringe benefits. After the war, a Government tax preference further encouraged employers to provide health insurance.

Almost all Japanese get their health insurance through their government. That is true of pretty much every other major industrialized country.

America's system has yielded high health care costs. The average American spends more than $5,000 a year on health care. That is 53 percent more than the next most costly country. The average Japanese spends only about $2,000 a year on health care.

Last year, GM paid $3.6 billion in health care costs for about 450,000 retirees and their spouses. When GM workers retire, GM continues to pay much of their health care costs as part of the worker retiree benefits plan.

This year, 1,200 Japanese Toyota employees will retire. Within 2 years, pretty much every one of them will switch from Toyota's health insurance plan to the Japanese national plan. At that point, Toyota will pay absolutely nothing in health care costs for those 1,200 retirees and their spouses.

General Motors provides more medical benefits than any other private entity. GM covers 1.1 million Americans, including workers, retirees, and their families. Last year, GM paid for more than 11 million prescriptions for its hourly workers.

Premiums for health insurance have increased 15 percent or more in many years. GM expects that its health care bill will go up $1 billion this year, to $6.2 billion total. That is a year. Last year, GM spent $1.4 billion on prescription drugs alone. Last year, GM put $9 billion into a trust fund to pay for health care costs.

Remember, when those retirees leave Toyota, they do not cover the health care costs. The government does it in Japan.

In the late 1970s, GM controlled nearly half of the American car market. Since then, competitors such as Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have cut GM sales to about a quarter of the American market.

In the fiscal year ending March 2004, Toyota earned $10 billion in profits. GM has now been losing money for three quarters in a row. GM lost more than a billion dollars in the first quarter of this year alone.

Toyota is making nearly $1,500 a car in profit. GM is losing more than $2,300 per car.

Now, part of the blame for GM's declining market share lies with GM's inability to adjust to change. In the wake of the OPEC oil embargo, Japanese car makers sold low-cost, fuel-efficient cars to American families. But OPEC imposed its oil embargo more than 30 years ago, and Japanese car companies still lead the way in energy-efficient cars. Today, only Toyota and Honda mass produce fuel-efficient hybrid sedans.

But part of the blame also lies with the American health care system. Carrying the burden of health care costs handicaps American companies in their race for global markets.

Americans are smart. Americans work hard. But American manufacturers cannot compete with foreign manufacturers when American companies have to bear the extra load of these higher health care costs.

You might think that because Americans pay more for health care, well, at least we get better health care. But we do not.

The average American does not have better access to health services. Forty-five million Americans lack health insurance. Fifteen percent of our population is uninsured. Japan offers better

access to the dialysis and diagnostic image services--MRIs and so forth--than America does.

Nor do we have better outcomes. That is a fancy term for saying our people are not healthier after they see a doctor and go to the hospital. We are not better. The average American woman can expect to live to age 79. The average Japanese woman can expect to live 5 years longer, to age 84. People can expect to live longer in Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Britain. And all of those countries spend less per person on health care than do we.

America's fragmented system yields high administrative costs. In 2003, administrative costs accounted for nearly a quarter of American health care costs. That is $400 billion--a quarter of what we spend on health care.

America is the only country in the industrialized world without a national health system. We do not have a single-payer system like Canada, Britain, or Switzerland. Instead, we have a system of uncoordinated payers, from private insurers to Medicare, from employers to State Medicaid programs. It is very uncoordinated, very diverse.

America's massive $2 trillion health care bill ought to buy more. America's health care system needs serious reform.

National health care reform appears unlikely any time soon. But we have at our disposal--if Congress can act--the means to attack some of the most glaring inefficiencies in our health care system and reduce unnecessary costs.

We can improve health care by facilitating the use of health information technology. We can improve health care by tying payment to the quality and value of care, rather than just spending on whatever services the doctors and hospital provide, irrespective of the quality and the outcome.

By encouraging investment in health information--technology, computers, interoperability, getting rid of the paperwork--we can reduce unnecessary administrative costs, and we can enhance patient safety and clearly improve the quality of care.

Let me explain. America often invents new medical technologies. We often adopt new medical technologies early. We are leaders in the areas of drugs and devices, pills and procedures, science and surgeries.

But we have not complemented this innovation with the proper use of health information technology. The staggering cost of administering American's pen and paper system of health care claims proves the point.

Mr. President, 30 to 40 percent of American health care transactions still rely on paper claims. That is according to health economist, Ken Thorpe of Emory University. These claims can cost from $5 to $20 each.

But administering health care claims electronically can cut those costs to as little as 50 cents each. Professor Thorpe estimates that requiring automated claims processing would save the Federal Government nearly $80 billion over 10 years. Significant savings would also accrue to the private sector, if it fully automated claims.

And proper use of health IT can prevent unnecessary medical errors, hospitalizations, and other health care services.

Each year, about 7,000 Americans die because of errors in administering their medication. I also had a figure--and nobody disputed this--that the equivalent of two 747s crashing today is the number of Americans who die today because of medical errors. That is many more than people who die of gun deaths or in traffic accidents. The equivalent of two 747s crashing every day is the number of Americans who died on account of medical errors--not bad outcomes but medical errors.

Technology can help ensure that medical professionals give the right drug to the right patient at the right time. We are talking about drugs. We can help to do that by putting bar codes on all drugs, and by using health information technology to link medication administration to a patient's clinical information.

The inability to exchange clinical data among providers often causes duplication of diagnostic tests. Clearly, if you take somebody in Montana who goes on vacation in the great State of Louisiana and gets ill--maybe has a heart attack--and he goes to see a doctor, or goes to the emergency room, that doctor looks at the Montanan, administers some tests, and has no record of the Montanan who happens to be there on vacation--no idea what is going on. He has to start from scratch and run all these tests all over again. Clearly, it is unnecessary duplication. Just think how much more efficient we would be if that Louisiana doctor in that hospital could push a button and my Montanan's health care record would be available. Clearly, it could protect the right of privacy and confidentiality, but just think of the savings that can be made. Think of how much better the health care would be to my Montanan in Louisiana.

We could help make it easier for one doctor to pull up that x ray that another doctor took a week before. Duplication is eliminated and the quality of care clearly improves.

Medicare spends $50,000 more for the average 65-year-old in Miami than for the average 65-year-old in Minneapolis, MN--$50,000 more per beneficiary in Miami than in Minneapolis, MN. You might ask, why is that? In their last 6 months of life, Medicare beneficiaries in Miami visited specialists six times more often than those in Minneapolis. You might say, they are healthier; more is spent on them. Or they go because there are more specialists in Miami compared to Minneapolis. But that is not what is happening.

By using health IT appropriately, we can reduce error and duplication and overuse of services. We can also coordinate senior care to ensure that they receive adequate preventive care and management for their chronic conditions. In fact, patients who see primary care physicians in Minneapolis tend to be healthier, where fewer dollars are spent, than do seniors in Miami who see more specialists. That is counterintuitive, but that is the fact.

Why is America falling behind in health information technology? Part of the reason is lack of investment. The health care industry invests only about 2 percent of its revenues in health information technology. Other information-intensive industries invest about 10 percent. Think of the banking industry.

As a result, many health practitioners in America have limited information technology capability. In Britain, nearly all general practitioners--98 percent--have a computer somewhere in their office. In America, extremely few small physician practices--just 5 percent-- use anything but a pen and paper.

We have to help ensure that health information systems can communicate with one another. We need an agreed-upon set of standards so that health information technology systems can work together. Otherwise, we will have a Tower of Babel preventing communication of critical health information.

We can do better, and that is why I have worked with my colleagues on the Finance Committee and on the HELP Committee to introduce the Better Healthcare Through Information Technology Act, a bill which facilitates nationwide adoption of information technologies in the health care field. It will help those systems to talk to one another, it will set up loans and grants to encourage the use of more health IT, and it will help us to improve health care quality.

We need to emphasize quality care. Medicare is the dominant care in America's health system, but Medicare is at best neutral and at worst negative toward quality. Medicare pays for the delivery of a service; Medicare does not pay for the achievement of health. And we see the effect. Patients receive recommended treatments only about half the time, and more care is often not producing better care.

Among the 50 States, levels of cost and quality vary greatly. In my home State of Montana, for example, Medicare spends about $5,000 per year per beneficiary. Quality of care ranks near the top. By contrast, some States spending around $7,000 a year per beneficiary--$2,000 more--have quality that ranks near the bottom.

States such as Montana, with its higher proportion of primary care practitioners, often produce lower costs and better quality. Less expensive care, when concentrated and patient centered, can do more for a patient than high-cost services.

I have introduced a bill with my colleagues, Senators Grassley, Enzi, and Kennedy, that will build value into the

way Medicare pays for its services. The Medicare Value Purchasing Act of 2005 will provide higher Medicare reimbursements to providers who show they are working to improve the quality of care they deliver.

Together, these two bills I mentioned form a package. This quality bill goes hand in hand with the health IT bill I just mentioned. Together, they will help improve American health care and help keep American businesses competitive.

In his recent book about competitiveness, ``The World is Flat,'' Tom Friedman talks about the need to strengthen what he calls the ``muscles'' of the individual American worker. Part of the solution to global competition, he says, lies in ensuring that the American health care system provides our workers with access to health care services without placing them or their employers in financial jeopardy. That means congressional action on health quality, and it means congressional action on health IT. I stand ready to work with my colleagues to realize that goal. Until we act, health care costs will continue to make America less competitive. Until we start investing in health IT, we risk falling further behind. And until we start paying for health care quality, we risk slowing our progress to a better future.

A little more than a century ago, in 1903, a man named Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, MI. That same year, a man named Orville Wright became the first person to pilot an airplane in powered flight. Americans have been at the forefront of transportation ever since. In 1929, the Duesenberg J, a premier four- door luxury sedan, began rolling off the assembly line. The price was expensive at that time, starting at $13,000.

Like the automotive industry, health care has come a long way in the last century. And like the automotive industry, health care needs to adjust and adjust dramatically to change. If we invest in health IT and start paying for health care quality, we can help both the American automobile industry and the American health care system to keep moving forward.

I yield the floor.

And may Ford produce many more.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment and send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I think the Senator from Idaho makes it very clear what seems to be going on now. I heard a few moments ago the majority leader's response to Senator Kennedy, saying there would be an opportunity to present amendments, to debate this bill. I would also note that prior to any other action, cloture was filed on this bill.

I would be happy to yield.

If I may reclaim my time----

Reclaiming my time, I thank the Senator.

This amendment has been shared with the majority. It has been reviewed by the majority. We are not attempting to surprise anyone with this amendment. It deals with child safety locks. In fact, it is an amendment that was offered to the bill last year and passed overwhelmingly. It is my intent to provide opportunity to discuss issues with respect to gun legislation and to present them to the Senate.

Again, I would note when the majority leader requested unanimous consent to lay aside one of his amendments to offer another amendment, no one on my side objected because in fact we thought we were proceeding in good faith, that we shared amendments if we had an opportunity to look at the amendments beforehand, that we could proceed in an orderly and reasonable fashion. But I am a bit shocked. This amendment has been with the majority for the last, I would suggest, 30 or 40 minutes. It is an amendment that was presented in substance before to the floor. So I am a little bit surprised about the Senator's reaction.

Reclaiming my time, again, I appreciate the Senator's comments with respect to the amendment, but once again I think we provided you the opportunity to look at the amendment.

There are several issues here. The first issue is whether you think it would be appropriate to support and vote for it, which presumptively comes after debate. But the first issue is allowing us to offer the amendment. You might very well object to the substance of the amendment. You might very well urge our colleagues to reject it. I respect that. But the right to deny the amendment since you object goes against what the majority leader said in how we conduct this debate.

I will make a few comments now in general and I hope perhaps during the course of my comments the review of the amendment would allow us to formally offer it.

Again, there have been some comments about these junk lawsuits. These comments might have some resonance in this Chamber, but I doubt if we were talking to the widow of Conrad Johnson we would have the temerity to say the suit she filed on behalf of the family was a junk lawsuit. Or if you had a working man, someone sitting in his bus seat in the early morning having a cup of coffee and reading the paper--and when I read about that, it reminded me of what my father did every day as a school custodian. He would get up in the morning, read the paper, have a cup of coffee either at the school or someplace else, in the kitchen--and then suddenly his life was ended by snipers, leaving a wife and children. Then they find after the tragic incident the weapon was obtained by the snipers because, in my view, of the incontrovertible evidence of gross negligence, 230 or more weapons misplaced by the dealer, not realizing that a teenage boy walked into his gun shop and took a 3-foot assault weapon off the counter and walked out. That is not negligence?

Oh, and, by the way, because we were able to stop this legislation last year and because in that case the defendant recognized that if they went to a jury of 12 Americans sitting and deciding whether they were responsible in their actions, they settled.

That is not a junk lawsuit. Is it a junk lawsuit when two police officers are called to a violent scene and find themselves in a crossfire, find themselves critically injured, brought to a hospital, given their last rites, and then it is discovered the weapon that harmed them was purchased by a straw purchaser? Or that an individual walked in with a female companion, pointed out the guns, bought 12 of them at one time for cash, had her buy them because he could not pass a weapons background check, jumped in a car, took off--in fact, so obviously that the dealer called the ATF and said I took the money, gave them guns, but watch out. Negligence.

Both those lawsuits would have been stopped by this legislation. Those are not frivolous suits. Those are examples of people being hurt, police officers, bus drivers, through the negligence of gun dealers and gun manufacturers.

There is this constant refrain, the law is clear, the law is clear, we can't blame someone else for criminal activities, when in fact the law is quite clear on this point. I mentioned it before. What is the law of the United States? Well, in terms of tort law these laws are summarized, updated constantly in what is known as restatement. Basically it is a catalog of different positions of the law. Everyone knows it. Everyone coming to the floor, having passed a bar in one State of this country, knows the restatement basically says what is the settled law, the settled law with respect to criminal activity. I will read it again.

Section 449 of the Restatement Second of Torts:

If the likelihood that a third person may act in a

particular manner is the hazard or one of the hazards which

makes the actor negligent, such an act, whether innocent,

negligent, intentionally tortious, or criminal does not

prevent the actor from being liable for harm caused thereby.

What does that mean? It means you have a duty to the public to take certain steps, and if you don't take those steps, even if in the chain of causation there is a criminal act by another party, you are still liable--not for that criminal act, you are still liable because you failed in your duty.

What this bill does is--this great talk about responsibility--it says everyone is responsible except the gun industry. Automobile manufacturers are responsible. In fact, when we get in our vehicles and drive home tonight, we are all going to benefit because years ago under the laws of tort and negligence, automobile companies were forced to improve the safety of their vehicles for the protection of the public. Now the logic that, oh, they can't be held liable for this because no one intends to crash the car, well, that is right; no one intends to crash an automobile, but if the design of the automobile is defective, if there are safety precautions that could be taken, those have to be adopted because they have a duty to the public to provide a safe product, to avoid obvious dangers.

This is a situation in which we have the obligation to take steps. So this notion about criminal intervening activities is not the law. That is not what the black letter law of this country says. The idea that manufacturers are not subject to the common obligation or duty to provide safe products, even if they are not required by statute, that is not the law either.

There is also a deliberate attempt to confuse two very different principles. We have criminal laws, we have regulations, we have statutes that require certain behavior. They define a range of activities that are impermissible. What this bill says is, if you violate a law, one of those aspects of impermissible behavior, yes, maybe you can sue a gun manufacturer. But there is a whole other range of activities--accidents, unreasonable behaviors--that are not defined by law. They are not the criminal, but they do involve opportunities under civil litigation to go to court and say this person acted unreasonably. They did not technically violate a statute. They acted unreasonably.

This statute essentially says, by and large, you can show they violated a very narrowly drawn legislative enactment or statute--they failed to fill out a record, et cetera--yes, maybe you can go to court.

What about all the cases we have talked about, the cases of the straw purchaser where weapons were sold and, obviously, to the casual observer, in a very peculiar way. Why didn't that fellow, I believe, in South Carolina, who is buying the pistols that eventually wounded officers Lamongello and McGuire, why didn't he offer his name? He obviously was picking out the weapon. Why did they buy 12 at one time? There is no law against buying 12 weapons at one time. Isn't it curious that would happen?

Again, we have a situation where this legislation has been carefully worked out to stop these lawsuits. Not the frivolous lawsuits, all lawsuits except under very narrow circumstances. And those circumstances do not seem to apply to the cases that have been filed. The exceptions would not have kept alive a suit by Officers Lamongello and McGuire or by the families of the victims of the Washington, DC, snipers or in the situation of Danny Guzman and Kahr Arms. That is more than coincidental. It is very deliberate.

Again, as I mentioned before, this legislation can't be the panacea for the gun industry, the one touted by the NRA, as we have to have this on one hand, and then allow all the good suits there, the really good suits, the ones, in fact, that have been filed. And it is not. It is designed to stop practically every attempt to be compensated for the negligence of a manufacturer, a gun dealer, or a trade association.

All of the particular aspects of the bill provide some window dressing--it sounds good, section XYZ of the United States Code--but when it doesn't work in practice, that is all it is. This explosion of suits, where are they? A small number of suits filed in this country involve anything covered by this legislation. The cost to the industry? This cost goes up $50 million every day we are here talking about it.

What we know for a fact is that the industry has pooled $100 million to protect themselves, preemptively, to ensure that the communications are covered by the attorney-client privilege, to ensure that doctors are all centralized so they cannot easily be accessed because of attorney-client privilege. They are using our system of civil justice in the courts very well to protect themselves. They are unwilling to let others use the same devices to protect themselves.

This great surge of lawsuits, as was indicated before many times in the Senate, financial reports filed with the SEC, many of the companies are privately held so only few report publicly, indicate to their shareholders there is no material financial risk involved with these suits by municipalities or individual litigants. The litigation costs out of pocket for one of these publicly reporting companies is about $4,500 in the last several months. Hardly a crisis.

And then there is the suggestion that our defense will be imperiled. As I pointed out in my opening remarks, voluntarily the Defense Department is contracting with foreign manufacturers. It is not because of lawsuits. In fact, I don't know what the status is of the civil law in Europe, but I would be surprised if it was more lenient than our laws at present, but they are doing it because they want better weapons.

I can recall as I entered the Army in 1967, the Colt .45 automatic was the side arm of the U.S. Army and had been since the Philippine insurrection in 1903. Now it is a Beretta Italian model produced by an American subsidiary, wholly owned subsidiary of an Italian company, and not, I don't believe, by a national armory of the Italian Government. They are a privately held company.

This notion that this has anything to do with the national defense is unsupported, unsubstantiated by any fact and by the behavior of the Pentagon. They are not coming to us and asking us for this bill so they can keep alive the necessary firearms manufacturers in the United States. They have made a conscious choice for many reasons to go overseas to buy these weapons.

Again, I am in a situation where we are attempting to reach into the courts of each State of the United States and tell them that their legislatures--that propound many of these rules with respect to civil liability--cannot do that. What can be more antidemocratic than that? Then, going to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and saying: You know, those laws and rules you passed about liability? Can't do that. We don't like it. Or the gun industry doesn't like it.

The case most frequently cited to suggest a crisis is the result of the deliberations of the Washington, DC, council that passed a strict liability bill. That bill was upheld by the DC Court of Appeals. The DC Court of Appeals did not create a rule of strict liability. They said, essentially, the democratic process is working. Elected representatives of the people decided that would be the rule. As a court we cannot step in and overturn that. That is democracy. Of course, we are deciding we can step in and overturn the rules of 50 States. That is antidemocratic.

This legislation is going to deny people who have been hurt the right to bring their case. They might not succeed. As my colleagues have pointed out, many of these cases have been turned down because they could not show that the duty owed to the public was violated by the particular manufacturer or gun dealer. But they have the right now to make that showing. We are taking that right away from them. This right is something that I would think we all would protect, not try to circumscribe and deny, and you cannot go into court with a theoretical complaint saying: I do not like the law; make new law, Your Honor. You have to have a case. You have to show harm. You have to show what the duty of the defendant was, how that duty was breached, and how that breach caused the harm.

That is the way our system works. But not after this legislation passes. You can have the duty, you can have a breach of that duty, and you can have grievous harm. But the victim cannot go to court. It is not about an avalanche of lawsuits. There are a minuscule number of suits filed in this regard. It is not about courts out of control. In some sense it is Congress out of control, saying to State governments, we don't care what the State rules are, we are making the rule.

We should be able not only to talk about but to offer amendments. I hope in the intervening time we have had to analyze the amendments that we could offer amendments and talk about them. I hope that is the case.

I yield the floor.

If the Senator will yield, I notice you read the letter, but the subject of that letter is strict liability, which in layman's terms--and I will consider myself a layman--means that there is no real judgment about the behavior of the defendants; that if they can prove it was a weapon manufactured by Beretta, and it was involved in a crime, they would be liable without a showing of duty or negligence and whether they took rational and reasonable steps. That is what strict liability is.

There is a difference between strict liability and negligence. The legislation we are considering is not about strict liability alone. It is about negligence. It goes way beyond that letter. If we were debating legislation that said essentially a company may not be held strictly liable for X, Y, and Z, this would be a different debate entirely.

This legislation goes way beyond strict liability. It says that negligence cases, those that you must show that, in fact, the manufacturer or the dealer had a duty and unreasonably failed to perform that duty, that is what you have to show. In fact, I think I accurately represented what was in the letter.

I appreciate that. I do. But the point is we are taking a legal theory of strict liability, which they are upset about, obviously, and concerned about, but it does not translate to this bill. None of these cases I talked about--Lemongello or the case with respect to Guzman--is arguing these manufacturers or sellers are strictly liable. They are saying, essentially--now there might be other cases-- but they are saying, essentially, they had a duty, they were negligent.

This legislation we are debating today would wipe away their rights to make a negligence claim. So I agree entirely with the letter in terms of its accuracy. That is what they are talking about. They are concerned about it.

Frankly, if I were the general counsel of Beretta, I would be concerned about it. It might not move me to do the same thing they are suggesting. But we have to be very clear about this legislation, which goes way beyond the strict liability. Again, if we were talking about limiting strict liability suits, this would be an entirely different debate. I do not think I would necessarily agree, but certainly I would be looking at an almost entirely different subject matter.

I thank the Senator for being extremely kind in yielding me time and also being extremely accurate in summarizing my views.

Reserving my right to object--and I will not object, obviously--I know the Senator is looking carefully at these amendments. I make a point, I have served in the House of Representatives where there is a Rules Committee that looks at every amendment and decides what is coming to the floor. In the Senate that was never the practice. We are trying to be extremely cooperative and transparent in what we are doing, going, we hope, the extra mile. I hope it is reciprocated so we can get to amendments and get to votes. That is how in the Senate amendments are decided, not by a committee putting them up or down for consideration, but by Members voting. I do not object.

Will the Senator yield?

For the record, there are three amendments we have attempted to offer. One is an amendment authored by Senator Kohl, which I offered on child safety locks. The floor manager and I have discussed this amendment. There are some technical concerns about it. But that is one.

The second is an amendment Senator Corzine would like to offer about exempting law enforcement officers from the provisions of the bill.

The third is an amendment Senator Lautenberg would like to offer with respect to the denial of immunity when the victims are children.

These are the three amendments. But we are not seeking any extraordinary, provocative amendments. We are trying to get amendments up that are relevant to this discussion about gun safety. I honestly believe that 3 hours--my amendment is going to take 3 hours--and at least several hours for the other amendments will be sufficient time to review this.

I am not going to make a formal parliamentary inquiry now, but I am not under the impression, under the rules of the Senate, that a Senator must get the permission of any other Senator to offer an amendment. If he has the floor, and particularly before cloture, the amendment can be offered. I will seek to clarify that. I do not want to be in error on that point.

But we have gone to great lengths to be cooperative, collegial, to be able to offer these amendments, and to this point we have got this sort of silence--or not silence, but simply: We are looking at it, we are looking at it, we are looking at it. I do not think we can continue in this posture indefinitely.

I thank the Democratic leader.

I am. Go ahead.

I will bring up the amendment and make brief remarks.

Mr. President, I will call up amendment 1626 on behalf of Senator Kohl.

I thank the Chair.

Very briefly, this amendment is a very important one related to safety for children with respect to firearms. There are more than 10,000 accidental shootings a year in this country, and many of these shootings result in the senseless deaths of children, and many of those accidental deaths do not fully take into account the violence because, in addition to that, there are many young people who tragically use a firearm to take their own lives. So we are looking at a situation where nearly 3,000 children, young people, die each year from gun-related injuries. And this recitation of numbers is not only

grim but to all of us, I believe, unacceptable and particularly painful to families who must bear this terrible loss.

This legislation is simple, straightforward, and effective. I must commend Senator Kohl for his authorship and for his persistence in pursuing this legislation. It mandates that a child safety lock device or trigger lock be sold with every handgun. Most locks resemble a padlock that locks around the gun trigger and immobilizes the trigger, preventing it from being used. These and other locks can be purchased for every gun for less than $10 and thus used by thousands of gun owners to protect their firearms from unauthorized use.

This approach is supported by a huge number of individuals. In fact, this Senate has gone on record previously overwhelmingly supporting this amendment. Polls have shown that 73 percent of the American public supports this amendment, including 6 out of 10 gun owners.

This legislation is not only well meaning and well intended, but it could be very effective if we adopt it. I am pleased to see we are now moving to consider this amendment. I am delighted that tomorrow morning we will get a chance for further debate and a vote on this amendment.

I yield my time.