Background Check Expansion Act

Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Warnock and others for coming to the floor today to raise this truly existential crisis, put it in front of our colleagues.

I have lost count of the number of times I have come down to the floor of the Senate to talk about this immoral anomaly in which you are subject to the risk of death by gunshot wound in the United States at a rate 10 times higher than any other high-income nation.

I wish there were a truly complicated set of factors that play into the reason why we have so much more gun violence here than in other nations, but it probably isn't that complicated. We don't have more mental illness in this country. We don't spend less money on law enforcement. We don't have angrier people. We just have a lot more guns, and we are much more permissive in this country about allowing felons, dangerous people, and the mentally ill to get their hands on guns, and we are much more permissive around the question of which kinds of guns get in the hands of private citizens, especially guns that are designed to kill as many human beings as quickly as possible.

As you can imagine, because I have a pretty high profile on this issue, when I am back in my State, I get confronted a lot by supporters of the Second Amendment, NRA members, who want to have a conversation with me about why I believe what I believe. That conversation normally starts with the assumption that I want to

take guns away or ammunition away from law-abiding gun owners.

Almost without exception, when I get confronted by somebody who wants to talk about guns with me, who comes from that gun-rights side of the debate, as quickly as I can get the debate to background checks is when we start agreeing. I have found very few of those conversations in Connecticut where, even in the most heated of arguments, we don't find quick agreement on the simple idea that before you buy a gun, you should have to prove that you are not a criminal or you are not seriously mentally ill. Why? Because law-abiding gun owners have gone through background checks. They know that in 90 percent of the cases, those background checks are processed instantaneously, while you are in the store. For most of the people who are talking to me who aren't mentally ill and who don't have criminal histories, that is their only experience, is that a background check is not a barrier to purchasing a gun.

So it is just not surprising to me to hear the data that Senator Warnock is talking about--90 percent of Americans supporting universal background checks, checks on every gun sale; 89 percent of Republicans, 89 percent of gun owners, 70 percent of NRA members--because even the gun owners, even the people who feel so fired up about this issue that they want to come talk to me in the middle of a county fair, were not disagreeing about that simple policy--just make sure that people who shouldn't have guns don't get their hands on them.

Some people will say: Well, it is a hassle. It is an unreasonable barrier.

Well, I just told you that in 90 percent of the cases, they are resolved instantaneously. In the 10 percent of cases where it takes more than 5 minutes, that is normally because there is something on that person's record that we need to find out. What we know is that there have been millions of gun purchases that have been denied because felons or seriously mentally ill individuals did try to buy those guns.

But we also know that 99 percent of Americans live within 10 miles of a gun store. There are 60,000 licensed gun dealers across this country who can perform background checks. That is four times the number of McDonald's restaurants in America. It is just not true that it is an unreasonable restriction of your liberty to just make sure you get a background check before you buy a gun.

Now, what are we talking about? We are talking about guns that are largely sold online and through gun shows, because the law today, the Federal law that I think we still all agree on--I mean, I don't hear a lot of my Republican colleagues proposing legislation to repeal the requirement that you should get a background check if you go into a gun store. All we are talking about is extending that requirement to the place where a lot of guns are now sold in a way they weren't when we passed the national instant criminal background check law in the early 1990s. Today, a lot more guns are sold in gun stores, and a lot more guns are sold online.

The studies that have been done about gun sales online are really troubling. One study showed that there were 1.2 million online ads offering firearms for sale that would not require a background check to be done. That same study showed that one in nine prospective buyers of guns online would not pass a background check. That is a rate seven times higher than the denial rate at gun stores. And the reason is the criminals are going online and going to the gun shows because they know they will fail the background check if they go to a brick-and-mortar store.

That is what Seth Ator did. He failed the background check when he tried to purchase a gun in 2014. But he went to a private seller online, he bought a gun, and then he used it to kill 7 people and wound 25 others in a mass shooting in Odessa.

This is not theoretical. This happens. How do you think all these guns get into our cities? It is because the criminal traffickers who have serious criminal records, who can't buy guns at a brick-and-mortar store, go to a State that doesn't have universal checks. The criminals, the traffickers, buy the guns online or at a gun show, and then they drive them up to Hartford, CT, and they sell them on the black market.

The data just tells us that people believe in background checks; they want us to pass universal background checks. And the data also tells us that it works. The numbers vary, but even the least generous studies tell us that in States that have universal background checks, like Connecticut, 10 percent fewer people are dying from gun homicides.

And, of course, my law can't fully protect the people in my State because those guns get trafficked into Connecticut from States that don't have universal background checks. And so the numbers would be even bigger if we didn't have all these loopholes.

So I agree with Senator Warnock. This just feels like a test of democracy. It really does. How does democracy survive if 90 percent of Americans--90 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats--want something and we can't deliver?

Do you want to know why people are flirting with autocracy and dictatorship? It is because, even when they agree at a 90-percent rate, they can't get what they want from their government.

I have got to tell you, something does seem pretty wrong if democracy can't deliver on a 90-percent consensus, and not a 90-percent consensus about whether your road gets paved--a 90-percent consensus on whether kids live or die, a 90-percent consensus on an existential question of survival.

So, Mr. President, as in legislative session, I am going to ask that we pass a bill that will require universal background checks in this country. I am going to ask my colleagues to respect the wishes of 90 percent of Americans and do something that we know works.

So I am going to ask, as in legislative session, for unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 494 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration. I further ask consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to note, at the outset, that we are not asked to vote in this Chamber on polling questions. We vote on legislation. While people, when responding to a poll, may respond overwhelmingly in response to certain questions, it doesn't mean that, when they come to understand fully what the law at issue would actually do, they wouldn't feel differently.

The truth is that the legislation that we are being asked to pass by unanimous consent today, without additional debate, discussion, opportunity for amendment, opportunity for input by the public--that is the bill S. 494, the Background Check Expansion Act--has some real problems with it, problems that I think make it a bill that stands to transform, in some circumstances, ordinary law-abiding citizens into criminals.

We always have to consider this when evaluating any law, particularly any law with criminal implications, particularly any law with criminal implications that touches on a constitutionally protected right enumerated in a constitutional amendment.

This is not solely about transactions involving guns at gun stores. This is about the father who wishes to pass down a hunting rifle to his son or the friend who wants to lend a shotgun to his neighbor who is in need of protection at the time.

Universal background checks, as this bill conceives them, don't just regulate; they criminalize these quintessential moments of American life and, under this legislation, would render unlawful what in countless circumstances would be lawful and even constitutionally protected behavior.

Now, most would not think twice about lending a firearm to a family member for sporting or personal protection purposes, and yet this bill threatens to do that by narrowing the definition of family to such an extent that passing a gun to a daughter-in-law or to a great-grandson could lead to criminal charges. This bill fails to distinguish between a criminal act and a gesture of trust and safety.

Participating in a hunting trip often involves using firearms. Of course, it is

important to be aware that under this proposal, under this bill, if you hand over your firearm to a partner during such a trip, even for a short period of time, you could potentially be held criminally liable if that individual doesn't hold the proper hunting license. It is an absurd overreach that would penalize the innocent traditions that bind our communities together.

The only conceivable way to enforce such a law is through the creation of an expansive, Orwellian national gun registry--yes, a national gun registry. Now, it is here that we arrive at the true purpose or, at least, the true inevitable outcome of this legislation were it to become law.

Universal background checks only work when you have a national gun registry. This bill would require a registry, even though and notwithstanding the legitimate policy concerns embraced by Congress when Congress prohibited the creation of such a registry in the Firearm Owners' Protection Act.

However, the ATF has already compiled a database with over 920 million records, a direct challenge to both the letter and the spirit of the Firearm Owners' Protection Act and Public Law 112-55. Let's not compound the problem created by the ATF's illegal and constitutionally problematic registry by enacting a law that cannot be enforced without the creation of a national gun registry.

Registries lead, inevitably, to gun confiscation. If you don't believe me, if you don't want to take my word for it on that, just look to the public statements made by some of my colleagues in the Senate and our counterparts in the House. They told us confiscation is the goal.

As our friends at Gun Owners of America have reminded us, without this invasive registry, enforcement of S. 494 is unfeasible. We are staring down the barrel of a system that would monitor the most personal and responsible uses of firearms among citizens.

Now, the Senator asked us to pass this major legislation without any debate, without any meaningful opportunity for amendment or further discussion. This isn't how Congress works. This certainly isn't how the U.S. Senate should work, certainly not on a matter so significant and so directly tied to an enumerated constitutional right as this one.

This bill should, of course, go through the Senate Judiciary Committee, a body on which I serve and a body where Members routinely can and do debate, offer amendments, and raise these and other policy and constitutional concerns.

I also want to speak for a moment to what was referenced as the gun show loophole. It is not, in fact, a loophole. There is no such loophole. The effect of the law is that, if you are a federally licensed firearms dealer, you have to perform these functions before you sell it, with or without you being in the presence of a gun show. If an FFL shows up at a gun show and sells guns, the FFL has to conduct the background check. It isn't a loophole.

Moreover, we are talking about a tiny, minuscule percentage of people who even do these things. We are looking at the overwhelming percentage. According to the Department of Justice bureau that collects crime statistics, a tiny percentage of people who even buy them at gun shows go on to commit crimes with them--like less than 1 percent. Very few of them even buy them in any retail establishment, opting instead to buy them on a clandestine market in an illegal way.

So, at the end of the day, we have to evaluate this law just like we would any law--but this law in particular, given that it touches on a constitutionally protected, enumerated right. We have to look at both the law's impact on criminal behavior, which is negligible, and on the law's tendency to punish the law-abiding.

It is not the law-abiding who typically will go to illegal sources to buy a gun. It is not the law-abiding who refuse to dot the i's and cross the t's. It is typically the law-abiding who are willing to go through that process. We shouldn't be adding more redtape that is going to affect mostly the law-abiding, touching on very few of those actually bent on violent criminal activity.

This bill would do precisely that. It would punish the law-abiding citizens for the actions of criminals. It is time to accept this fact, and it is time for us, really, to choose between the various tensions that we feel pulling on us. I am confident that, at the end of the day, we should choose common sense over fear. We should choose liberty over control. We should choose the rights of the law-abiding many over the criminally minded few.

On this basis, Mr. President, and for these reasons, I object.

Mr. President, I rise today because we are living in a nation besieged by gun violence.

So far this year, our Nation has experienced 630 mass shootings. This is day No. 340 in the year 2023, so 340 days, 630 mass shootings. That is nearly twice as many mass shootings as we have seen days. Our precious children are afraid to go to school. They are worried that their classroom may be the next Robb Elementary, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, or Sandy Hook, as we remember that somber anniversary.

I heard one of my colleagues, the Senator from Wyoming, earlier today say: They are trying to take our freedoms away. We have heard that a lot from folks on the other side: They are trying to take our freedoms away. It is a strange freedom that regularly sends our children into lockdown. What kind of freedom is that?

According to the Gun Violence Archive, we have lost over 1,500 children to gun violence this year. I think that there is a kind of unspoken assumption, as we have been pushing for commonsense gun safety and have gotten very little movement in Congress--I think the unspoken assumption is that this will not visit me; it will not happen to my family. But when you consider that there have been 630 mass shootings already this year, sadly, the chances are quite good that this could visit any one of us.

We ought to do our work here in the Congress as if we are protecting our own families because when we look out for other people's families, when we look out for other people's children, we look out for our own, and it could visit any one of us.

We act as if this is normal, business as usual. What legislative action has the Senate passed to address this epidemic of gun violence? The Senate actually voted to give less information--less information-- to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Keep in mind that according to a 2023 FOX News poll, 87 percent of Americans believe that we ought to have universal background checks. Listen. Let me say that again. According to a FOX News poll, 87 percent of Americans believe that we ought to have universal background checks. So they present this as if it is an argument between Democrats and Republicans. Really, it is an argument between Washington and craven politicians and ordinary people every day who are just trying to live their lives in safety.

There is a broadening gap between what Americans want and what they can get from their government. So, at root, this is a democracy problem. The question is, Who owns our democracy and at what cost to our children and to our families? So we have a moral obligation not to turn away.

Across the country, outside of Washington, there is widespread agreement that Congress needs to enact commonsense--commonsense--gun safety solutions. Eighty-seven percent of Americans believe that we ought to have universal background checks.

Every day, I hear from Georgians who are sick and tired of losing people they love to gun violence. As a pastor, I presided over the funerals. And it begs me to ask, how is it that we can't keep our own people alive? What kind of Nation tells its children that the only thing we can do in the wake of this crisis is to teach you how to hide?

Last year, for the first time in 30 years, we were able to pass modest but meaningful gun safety legislation, but it is not nearly enough, and it took 30 years just to do that.

We are all set to go home later this month to spend a few weeks-- safely, I hope--with our loved ones. I encourage all of my colleagues to reflect on this question: Are we going to let other people's loved ones continue to die by the tens of thousands and let our babies get killed in their classrooms for another 30 years before we choose to act?

The time is always right to do what is right, Dr. King taught us, and that time is now.

I yield the floor.