Floor Statements

I do not.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, after consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 39 and 41; that there be 30 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations in the order listed; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nominations; that any related statements be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 31, S. 622.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 32, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 126 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on May 9, 2013; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate be in a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, and that the time be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the Republicans controlling final half; further, that following morning business the Senate resume consideration of S. 601, the Water Resources Development Act.

Mr. President, we will continue to work through amendments to the bill during tomorrow's session. Senators will be notified when votes are scheduled.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order following the remarks of Senator Hoeven of North Dakota.

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

Mr. President, I am here today with sadness and anger after one of the saddest and most troubling days in my career in public service. Yesterday the Senate turned its back on the families of Newtown--some of them sitting in this very gallery, along with victims of other shootings.

The first words I heard when Vice President Biden banged the gavel to end the vote on the background check bill yesterday were, ``Shame on you.'' ``Shame on you'' were the words of a rightfully angry mother of a Virginia Tech student who was shot in the head twice 6 years ago this week. This heartbroken mother had the courage and the fortitude to say the words that all of us who have been fighting for commonsense laws to reduce gun violence felt at that moment.

Shame on us. Shame on the Senate. It was, in fact, a shameful day for this Nation and for our democracy. The hardest part of that day was to explain to the loved ones who lost children, spouses, family members in Newtown that day how 90 percent of the American people--the majority of gun owners and even NRA members--and 54 Members of the Senate could favor a proposal that failed to become law. How could that be in a democracy?

Part of the answer relates to the filibuster, which is a now proven despicable antidemocratic feature of this body. I have voted several times to, in effect, eliminate it, and yesterday's vote was a nail in the coffin of the filibuster because the American people simply will not stand for a result that so typifies an antidemocratic result but, even more, an antidemocratic process.

The filibuster fight is for another day. The fight today is to continue this effort against gun violence. I will pledge to every Member of this body, every person in Connecticut, and anyone who is engaged in this fight, that I will continue with redoubled determination.

When I tried to explain to one of the family members yesterday how this process could be so broken and reach such an intolerable result, I said: We are not done. And she said to me: We are not even close to done.

So resolute and resilient are these families that they should inspire us and uplift us in their determination to continue this work for the sake of the loved ones they lost and to keep faith with the 3,400 innocent people who have perished as a result of gun violence since December 14 and the thousands who perished before.

It is not just our opportunity in the Senate--one of the great institutions in the history of the world--but our obligation, as public officials and as Members of a body that holds a trust for democracy and for safety, to provide better security for our people and our children.

The mother of that Virginia Tech student was sitting in the same gallery with those members of Newtown, CT, who lost 20 precious, beautiful children and six brave, great educators. They were keeping vigil as the Senate turned its back on them.

Despite their profound and harrowing loss, those parents, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers have kept faith. They have

spent the last 4 months tirelessly and relentlessly advocating for changes and reforms in our gun laws so that the loss they suffered will not have been in vain. Still, the Senate failed in its responsibility in turning its back on them.

I do not want to relive December 14 when I went to Sandy Hook and heard and saw the grief and pain of those parents and loved ones as they emerged from the firehouse. That unspeakable and unimaginable horror I do not want to see again.

Yesterday was demoralizing and discouraging but not defeating because, ultimately, this reform will be delayed but not denied.

The massacre of 20 innocent children and their teachers will bring us, ultimately, to our senses, but so will the violence, carnage, and killing since then. In the words of Mark Barden, whose son Daniel is in this picture: We are not defeated. We are here now. We will always be here because we have no other choice. The ``Connecticut effect'' is not going away. The Bardens are not going away, nor are any of the Newtown families. The advocates of sensible, commonsense gun reform are not going away. We are here to stay.

For Mark and Jackie Barden and all of the other families from Newtown and every other victim of gun violence in this country, there is no going back. There is no turning back the page. We must simply move on to the next issue. As the bicycle team who came from Newtown to Washington, Team 26, said, we must go on pedaling. The only way to keep a bicycle upright is to move forward. That is a simple lesson of life the families of Newtown learned in their horrific tragedy. I will continue to stand with them and all of the other victims of gun violence to work, to fight another day.

I say to every one of my colleagues, my friends who sided with the proponents of fear, do not underestimate the power of the Newtown families and the other victims of gun violence. They are not going away. They will help to hold accountable and answerable to the people of America the actions that were taken here, the votes that were cast. Votes have consequences, just as elections do. The people of America will remember. Our job now is to raise awareness, spread the rage that we feel, raise that rage, and organize and enable and empower citizens to be heard and heeded by this body, whether in the next election or before then. My hope is that it will be before then because we must act before the next election. That action is an opportunity, a historic moment we must seize.

Not everyone in this body turned their back on the victims of Newtown or on this cause yesterday. There were genuine profiles in courage on this floor, in this body: first and foremost, Senator Manchin, who led the fight on background checks and forged a compromise that should have won the day, and Republicans who chose to buck their own leadership and follow their hearts and consciences--Senators McCain, Collins, Kirk, and Toomey. The American people will thank you.

There are Democrats who took some tough votes--tough votes particularly for their States. I thank Senators Hagan, Casey, Landrieu, Heinrich, Mark and Tom Udall, Jon Tester, and Senator Shaheen. These Senators put saving lives above the politics of the moment. They showed true leadership in the face of lies and fearmongering. They deserve our thanks and praise.

I wish to pay tribute to the Senators who have led this effort over many years: Senators Feinstein, Lautenberg, Schumer, and Durbin. I thank my colleague Chris Murphy for his leadership and his courage. Senators Feinstein, Lautenberg, Schumer, and Durbin have been a tireless foursome on behalf of this fight. They have been dogged and determined. No amount of NRA deception or dishonesty has deterred them or stopped them.

I thank the majority leader, Harry Reid, for his courage. He has persevered in seeking a path forward on this legislation in the face of some of the most difficult political and procedural obstacles. He has been as passionate and persevering in this cause as any one of the advocates in these last weeks.

If you want to know the definition of ``resilient,'' look up ``Frank Lautenberg'' in the dictionary because there he was, right here yesterday, after weeks of debilitating illness, with his wife Bonnie in the gallery. She cheered him on, and so did we. Nothing was going to keep him from voting on the gun control bills he had championed for a lifetime.

In moving forward, let's take heart and inspiration from the families of Newtown, who have been resolute and resilient at every turn, from the continued strength of the advocates, from the courage of our colleagues who stood strong yesterday, and from the American people.

I have said, along with others, that at the end of the day the American people would be the ones to make a difference. Their rage and disbelief is palpable. They will be there for Daniel Barden. He is only one among thousands. We have seen their pictures. They have been on display on this floor. Their names have been recited and their memories revived.

Yesterday the Senate said no to America, but the people of America will not take no for an answer. As Martin Luther King said, ``The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.'' We are on the right side of history, which will eventually vindicate this cause. I look forward to being here, if not within days, at least in the very near future when we take another vote and we stand 60 or more strong to make sure that Daniel Barden's memory is not in vain and that his brave parents are also vindicated in their trust in us.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 18, 2013, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 18, 2013, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of Federal Housing Finance Agency: Evaluating FHFA as Regulator and Conservator.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 18, 2013, at 9:45 a.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 18, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 18, 2013.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 18, 2013, at 9:30 a.m., to hold a hearing entitled, ``National Security and Foreign Policy Priorities in the FY 2014 International Affairs Budget.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Hearing for Secretary of Labor-Designate Thomas E. Perez'' on April 18, 2013, at 10 a.m., in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on April 18, 2013, at 10 a.m., in SC-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct executive business meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on April 18, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, April 18, 2013, at 2:30 p.m.

Madam President, as we close this debate on this historic bill, I urge my colleagues to again heed and hear the families of Newtown. They are here talking about not only the horror and unspeakable and unimaginable tragedy that befell them on December 14, just 4 months ago, but to speak also for the 3,400 or more who have perished since as a result of gun violence, the thousands more who will die needlessly if we fail to take action, and the many others who have died tragically as a result of gun violence.

Newtown shook America. It shocked and changed our country. We owe it to the families and we owe it to ourselves to heed and hear their message. We need to do something about the guns. That is what they told me again and again in Newtown and Connecticut and across the country. And those families have come here, mustering their courage and strength, showing us what is great about America--the grit and greatness of our Nation.

Somewhere in that time period, there were many bracelets, and I was handed one I have worn since. It says, ``We choose love.'' ``We are Newtown. We choose love.'' And that is what we should do today.

Those 20 beautiful children and 6 great educators whose pictures have been before us day after day, whose images have been before America week after week during these 4 months, for them, we are all Newtown. Let's choose love.

They are not the first to have perished in a mass killing. Well known to America, the names are now engraved in our memories, so that we merely need to say them to evoke the grief and tears--Aurora, Tucson, Virginia Tech. All of those names and others are likely not to be the last, and nothing we are doing here will end entirely the plague of gun violence. We will not solve the whole problem because there is no single solution or even necessarily a set of solutions we are debating today that will end all the tragic bloodshed. But we can save lives. We can make a start. We can literally stop a major part of it with commonsense measures that evoke common ground.

With a background check system, we can stop criminals, felons, the dangerously mentally ill, domestic abusers, and others who should not have guns from buying firearms and using them as weapons of war.

With a ban on illegal trafficking, we can stop felons and other criminals from trading and transporting guns across State lines, making a mockery of strong State laws, such as Connecticut's, which protect its people, and stop them from making straw purchases.

With measures on school safety, we can secure those educational institutions that have proven vulnerable again and again. The Campus Safety Enhancements Act will help us do that, and we can make our children less vulnerable.

With an assault weapons ban, we can begin to reduce and eventually end the flow of these military-style assault weapons designed to kill and maim human beings.

With a ban on high-capacity magazines, which I will offer through amendment No. 714, we can make killers less lethal, stop them from killing their victims as rapidly and numerously. We can gain time in those situations of mass killings where a few seconds can actually save lives.

With these measures and others that will be offered here today on mental health, for example, we can choose love. We can choose to make something positive of that unspeakable and horrific tragedy which befell Newtown and which has befallen many others before and since. We can do something. We can take action.

On the universal background check, which my colleague Senator Manchin spoke about a short time ago and which he has authored with Senator Toomey, we can choose a bipartisan commonsense measure. It is not everything I would hope would be in a background check measure, but it is a genuinely important improvement on current law.

We know background checks have worked on the 60 percent of sales where they have been applied because they have stopped about 2 million felons and other dangerous people who are prohibited by law from buying weapons from actually going into stores and purchasing them.

I understand the argument that we need more prosecutions and that existing laws need to be enforced more vigorously. As a prosecutor, I am very sympathetic toward that argument, and I will support zealously more resources and even better management to result in more prosecutions. We need to enforce existing laws more effectively, but that goal should not stop us from improving those laws, especially when law enforcement itself--our police and prosecutors at every level: State, Federal, and local--urges us to improve those laws to enable them to prosecute more of the dangerous people who use guns for evil purposes.

We ought to listen to those law enforcement officers, as I did for decades as a U.S. attorney and the State attorney general for 20 years. I am listening to them now when they say to me that we need a universal background check system, we need to make our laws more effective against assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as on school security and illegal trafficking.

Ninety percent of the public, 90 percent of everyone in this Nation supports this commonsense measure and 74 percent of the members of the NRA. This issue is not about the NRA or any special interests--although they have maintained a stranglehold over this type of legislation for over a decade, maybe a generation--it is about a bipartisan compromise forged out of a clear need for rational, sensible action that we now have an obligation to adopt.

Nobody wants to take away guns. Nobody wants to take away rights. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to possess firearms. But some firearms should not be possessed, and some people should not possess any firearms. That is what brings us to this point, this historic point in a debate that should evoke bipartisan support, and I hope Members on the other side of the aisle who are still in doubt will come to support this measure. We need only a few votes. We have the vast majority of Democrats.

I salute Senators McCain, Kirk, Collins, and others on both sides of the aisle who have made difficult decisions. But if this decision has seemed difficult to them and to many others, think of how difficult it has been for the Newtown families to come here and share their grief and pain with us, and they support the ban on high-capacity magazines because they know from their experience how lethal high-capacity magazines make any firearm--even more lethal than they would be otherwise.

I salute my colleague Frank Lautenberg, who has been a champion of this cause for some time, as well as Senator Feinstein, who included a high-capacity magazine measure in her bill--it is in her amendment now--and my colleague Senator Murphy, who has been a partner in this effort. He and I have listened to the families of Newtown when they have told us why they support a ban on high-capacity magazines, which is supported by 65 percent of all Americans and 55 percent of gun owners. It is supported by groups across the board, from law enforcement to health care, gun safety, education, child welfare, and religious groups.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of those groups supporting a ban on high-capacity magazines.

Madam President, we have listened to the families of Newtown talk about high-capacity magazines.

Bill Sherlach, for example, who was the husband of Mary Sherlach--we have seen her picture here--had this to say about high-capacity magazines:

It's just simple arithmetic. If you have to change

magazines 15 times instead of five times, you have three

times as many incidents as where something could jam.

Something could be bobbled. You just increase the

time for intervention. You increase the timeframe where kids

can get out. And there's 11 kids out there today that are

still running around on the playground pretty much now at

lunchtime.

And those 11 kids he talks about are alive because the shooter needed to change magazines.

Another Sandy Hook family member, Nicole Hockley, the mother of Dylan Hockley, said the following:

We looked at the search warrants . . . and know that [the

shooter] left the smaller capacity magazines at home, that

was a choice the shooter made. He knew that the larger

capacity magazine clips were more lethal.

David Wheeler, the father of Benjamin Andrew Wheeler, said the following:

The more bullets you can get out the end of that gun in the

least amount of time, that is the single area that I believe

affects lethality. And the size of the magazine placed in

that weapon is a direct contributor to that--a direct

contributor to that factor. There is a place for 30-round

magazines, in the military, on the battlefield.

The families of Newtown have spoken clearly and powerfully, but the facts of other shootings support the ban on high-capacity magazines again and again. In Tucson, AZ, for example, Jared Loughner emptied a 33-round magazine in 19 seconds, killing 6 and injuring 13 before stopping to replace his magazine. When he went to reload, a bystander tackled him. Others joined in, subduing and disarming him. Loughner was stopped because he had to pause to reload. His 13th round killed 9- year-old Christina-Taylor Green. If Loughner had been limited to a magazine with 10 rounds, that little girl very likely would still be alive today. If Lanza had been limited to a 10-round magazine, beautiful girls and boys might well be alive today.

Newtown and Tucson are only two instances in which a shooter was stopped when he had to reload or when his firearm ran out of ammunition.

In Queens, NY, in 1993, Colin Ferguson boarded the Long Island Railroad with a 9mm pistol with a 15-round magazine. He opened fire, killing 6 and injuring 19 others in 3 minutes. When he went to load another magazine, he was tackled and disarmed.

In Chapel Hill, NC, in 1995, Wendell Williamson walked the streets of Chapel Hill with an M-1 rifle. He opened fire, killing two. When he paused to reload, a bartender tackled him and disarmed him.

In Springfield, OR, in 1998, Kip Kinkel went to his high school with several firearms and 1,127 rounds of ammunition. He opened fire, shooting 50 rounds, killing 2 students and injuring 24 more.

As his firearm ran out of ammunition and he began to reload, several students tackled him and restrained him until the police arrived.

There are many others. In fact, half of the mass killings since 1982 involved high-capacity magazines. Half of all those mass slaughters were enabled by high-capacity magazines.

Facts are stubborn things, as Ronald Reagan used to say. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts, as Daniel Moynihan reminded this Chamber many times.

The most tragic stories for me involve law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. In Connecticut they include Officer Robert Fumiatti of the New Haven Police Department; Master Police Officer Peter J. Lavery of the Newington Police Department; Patrolman Brian A. Aselton of the East Hartford Police Department; Officer James V. Spignesi, Jr. of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection; Officer Walter T. Williams, III of the Waterbury Police Department; Officer Daniel Scott Wasson of the Milford Police Department; Patrolman Kenneth Bateman, Jr., of the Darien Police Department; Patrolman Gerald T. DiJoseph of the Bridgeport Police Department; and the first, whom I came to know, at least through his family--although I never knew him personally Trooper Russell Bagshaw. I have known many of these families and had the privilege of coming to know their children in many instances as well. I want to talk about Russell Bagshaw in closing for just a moment.

Russell Bagshaw of the Connecticut State Police was in his patrol car, driving the streets of northeastern Connecticut in North Windham on a summer night in 1991. He was 28 years old and a 4\1/2\-year veteran of the Connecticut State Police.

Each of these men I have mentioned died as a result of gunfire from criminals. Some of these shooters got a stolen weapon, perhaps illegally trafficked. None of them should have had access to any firearm. Russell Bagshaw surprised two robbers coming out of a local sporting goods store. One of the robbers shot him with a semiautomatic 9mm pistol that had a second handgrip under the barrel, and a 30-round magazine filled with hollow point bullets.

Before Trooper Bagshaw had even a chance to use his radio or exit his vehicle, the shooter unloaded 17 hollow point bullets at the cruiser that took 6.6 seconds from that 30-round, high-capacity clip. The shooter fired haphazardly, but he had enough to pierce the bulletproof vest Bagshaw was wearing above the left armhole and to kill him instantly.

I attended his funeral, with lines and lines of his fellow troopers and others from all around the country. I had the privilege of meeting these families--and most especially his family--brave and strong, just as the Newtown families are.

Neither Russell Bagshaw's training nor any of the other preparations could stop or protect from this carnage. In fact, the troopers I met after the horrific tragedy of December 14 in Newtown and Sandy Hook told me that their bulletproof armor could not have defended them against the assault weapons with the number of rounds that Adam Lanza had at that time.

There is no preparation, no bulletproof vest, no armor that can protect against these kinds of weapons shot at the range that many of them are. That is why we should listen to law enforcement--listen to the police and public officials and prosecutors who have told me since I began working on this cause in the early 1990s, when we passed the first assault weapon ban in Connecticut and I defended it in court, tried the case, and then went to State supreme court successfully defending our law against exactly the same constitutional arguments made now. They are equally without weight at this point.

So I urge my colleagues, whether they are wearing this wristband or not, to choose love. I know it will be difficult. It was difficult for many Connecticut legislators, and I carry with me the pen that our Connecticut Governor used to sign our law that significantly strengthened Connecticut's protection against these weapons, against criminals bearing them, against illegal sales, and against gun violence.

This cause is not going away whatever the outcome today. The vote will be close on many of these amendments. The Newtown families are not going away, the Connecticut effect is not going away, and we are not going away. Unfortunately, gun violence is not going away, and we need to redouble and reinvigorate our efforts. Whatever the outcome here today, we are not going away.

The world has watched Newtown exhibit the kind of strength and courage that we regard as uniquely American. Now the world is watching the Senate, and we will be held accountable for what happens here. History is watching. Let's be on the right side of history.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on behalf of myself, my friend, and a great champion, Senator Frank Lautenberg with us today, and others, including my colleague Senator Christopher Murphy, I call up amendment No. 714.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

This amendment, very simply, would ban high-capacity magazines of more than 10 rounds which are used to kill more people more quickly and, in fact, have been used in more than half the mass shootings since 1982.

I ask my colleagues to listen to law enforcement, their police, prosecutors who are outgunned by criminals who use these high-capacity magazines. I ask that my colleagues also listen to the families, to Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan Hockley, was killed by a man who used a high-capacity magazine. She said of the man who killed her son, he left the smaller capacity magazines at home. He knew the larger capacity magazines were more lethal.

I ask my colleagues to listen to Bill Sherlach whose wife Mary Sherlach was killed on December 14.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield the floor.

PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I wish to begin by saying my thoughts and prayers, similar to those of so many Americans, are with Boston today, with the families and loved ones of those who have lost lives or been injured. I offer my deepest condolences to the families of those victims and my sincere gratitude to the courageous first responders, including many of the runners who courageously went to the aid of people who were grievously injured and some maimed by this horrific act of terror. Whether we call it a terrorist act or an act of terror or simply a criminal murder, it is certainly to be condemned and investigated as thoroughly and promptly as possible. I know the full resources of the Federal Government have been devoted to this purpose.

We are an open society. We appear soft-hearted to people who want to do harm to a democracy. We are vulnerable because we are a democracy and we are open. We have resolved that we will not become totalitarian or antidemocratic; that we will remain a free and open society. That is the wonder and strength and uniqueness of America, the greatest Nation in the history of the world.

Horror has brought us to this debate, the horror of gun violence, the horror of what has happened in our schools, our streets, our neighborhoods, in places where the public is admitted, indeed welcomed, whether it is movie theaters or places of worship or schools, places where the public has access and where, therefore, all our citizens, most especially our children, are vulnerable.

Last week when we opened this debate we spent a lot of time talking about victims. Senator Murphy and I spent a lot of time on the Senate floor discussing Newtown and the victims of that unspeakable and unimaginable tragedy. Today we remember another similar tragedy, facilitated by the same extraordinarily dangerous weapons in the hands of people who should not be permitted to have firearms or guns. Six years ago today, Seung-Hui Cho used two semiautomatic handguns and nine 10- and 15-round magazines to kill 32 innocent victims and injure 23 at Virginia Tech University. Many of those weapons he used were purchased online. Others were purchased at local stores without a background check.

As somebody who has seen my own State grapple with this tragedy, I extend my condolences to the families of Virginia Tech victims--some of their families were here earlier today--and all who have felt the impact of this absolutely senseless slaughter, as senseless and unspeakable as what happened in Newtown just 4 months ago.

I wish to recognize the leadership of our two Senators from Virginia and their efforts to prevent another Virginia Tech. As he discussed earlier, Senator Warner has been actively engaged in efforts to bring research and resources together to make our schools and campuses safer. His leadership has been extremely important. Colleges and universities play an extraordinarily important role in my own State of Connecticut. I know they are constantly working to keep their campuses safe. The School and Campus Safety Enhancements Act included in the gun violence legislation currently before this body would be an important step toward giving these very institutions of higher learning what they need to protect our students and support the kind of research that is necessary to develop new means and possibly new technology, new tools that our institutions of higher learning but also institutions of learning across-the-board, beginning with our elementary schools, need to do better.

I am proud to be cosponsor of this legislation. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure its passage. Senator Kaine spoke so powerfully and eloquently on the floor earlier today, showed such grace under pressure--which is one of the definitions of courage--in responding to the Virginia Tech tragedy. He has worked to deal with the wounds. He has resolved to learn from Virginia Tech and indeed he worked as a Governor to seek safer campuses across Virginia and across the country. He fought to put in place commonsense laws that would prevent shooters such as Seung-Hui Cho from having access to the arsenal

he used 6 years ago. I thank Senator Kaine for helping to lead the effort for a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines such as the ones used at Virginia Tech and used at Newtown and used in so many other shootings across the country over the years. With his support, I plan to offer a high-capacity magazine ban, on behalf of Senator Lautenberg, in an amendment to the gun violence legislation currently before the Senate.

I am proud to be working with others, such as Senator Feinstein, Senator Schumer, and my colleague Senator Murphy, in that effort. I encourage my colleagues to work with me and Senator Kaine to pass commonsense legislation as we mark the tragedy at Virginia Tech and we remember the victims of Newtown.

I thank the families of the victims of these shootings from all across the country who have come to Washington over these past days, and indeed weeks, working so hard and so diligently, working through their grief and pain, doing something that is so difficult for them so others can be spared this pain and grief.

Many will face difficult votes, perhaps as early as tomorrow. We have approached the cusp of these vital and historic votes. Many of these votes will be difficult for my colleagues. But as difficult as they are for them--and for many whose difficulty I respect--let's remember how difficult it has been for those families of the victims to come here to look you in the eye as they have done and say: Let's now do something about gun violence. That is what I heard in the wake of Newtown, as early as the evening that horrific tragedy occurred. Let's do something about the guns.

We have the opportunity to do something about the guns. As Gabby Giffords said to the Judiciary Committee just weeks ago: Be bold. Be courageous. America is counting on you.

That is her urging to us. That is our obligation and our historic opportunity.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, first, I commend and thank my colleague from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, for her leadership on an issue that is among the paramount questions for our time: whether we will meet our obligation to regard mental illness on a par with physical illness, a cause that has occupied me for a long time. So I want to thank the Senator from Michigan for spearheading this initiative, which is a vital part of the effort to stop gun violence in our country and, in fact, make our country healthy in so many ways. I am proud to join her as a cosponsor and a supporter of these efforts.

I come to the floor today to continue the debate on the gun violence initiatives which are central to making America safer and making our country stronger. This bill is a comprehensive set of provisions that will hopefully be further strengthened by an amendment to be offered this week. We are on the cusp of voting on that amendment, the work done by Senators Toomey and Manchin, our colleagues, to reach a reasonable compromise. It is indeed a sensible, commonsense compromise that I am proud to support that will guarantee a criminal background check system to keep firearms and weapons of war out of the hands of people who are dangerous, people who should not have guns, criminals, mentally ill, seriously mentally problem-stricken, and of course others, such as domestic abusers.

For too long, criminal individuals and organizations have prospered from illegally distributing weapons and firearms. So the bill in its second title takes a great step toward barring illegal trafficking and to also ban straw purchases.

Too often given short shrift or little attention is the third title which speaks to school safety, and that is the measure that brings me here today.

School safety is not an afterthought. It is central to stopping gun violence. The tragic lessons we have learned from Sandy Hook include not only the courage of the educators, those brave teachers and administrators and school psychologists, who literally threw themselves at bullets and cradled the loved ones of families who lost their lives, cradled children in their care as they were met by a hail of gunfire-- that teaching moment should not only inspire us but obligate us to do more about school safety.

That is why I have gone to the schools of Connecticut, most recently on a tour that I conducted to ten schools around the State, to learn from our educators what they think those lessons are from Sandy Hook and where they think the priorities should be in terms of school safety. That experience provided me with some pillars of a program that I believe is important and is embodied in the act that is before us: the School and Campus Safety Enhancement Act. I want to thank Senator Boxer for her leadership on it which reauthorizes in effect the Secure Our Schools Program, which has been very productive and unfortunately was not reauthorized when it expired.

These measures and the pillars of this program can be summarized very simply:

First, decisions should be made locally about what best fits the community. Those decisions ought to be made by school districts and their boards, parents, teachers, administrators--all who are involved and have the knowledge and expertise and commitment locally, and Washington should not impose its judgment on those communities with a one-size-fits-all set of policies.

Second, school safety ideally should involve a partnership between educators and law enforcement. In many of the schools I visited, I saw the value of school resource officers. More importantly, educators pointed out to me the value of their partnership with local law enforcement through school resource officers who acted not only as security personnel but also as mentors, counselors, and role models, preventing crime, not just stopping it in progress or apprehending criminals afterwards.

Third, schools must be open, supportive, nurturing environments. They cannot be prisons. They cannot be transformed into permanent lockdown. We must commit ourselves to the freedoms and liberties that are embodied in our schools and the educative atmosphere that is so priceless and essential to real education. We cannot solve this problem by simply having more guns in schools, or arming teachers or administrators. Trained school resource officers or others provided with law enforcement support have to be part of a nurturing and open environment.

The act that is before us today embodied in title III is important to move forward school safety, and to embolden, encourage, enable, and empower local decisionmaking.

Today, I want to provide a very short report to my colleagues on what I have learned in my tour; and I encourage my colleagues to do the same around their States because it is genuinely a learning experience. The teaching moment of this tour changed my perspective on school safety, and certainly reinvigorated my appreciation for what happens in the classrooms and schools of our country with the leadership of our teachers and administrators. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.

The issue of safe and secure schools certainly raised its head last week in the town of Greenwich, CT, when reports of a gunman put Greenwich High School in a lockdown. Thankfully, the suspect was apprehended, unarmed, with no casualties. The fact that a lockdown was even necessary underscores that we have made great strides; but our young people will not be safe in schools unless we know all of the best practices and implement them. This threat proved empty, but it offered a learning experience in terms of the training, the locking and unlocking procedures for school doors, the types of issues that can be addressed through better and more regular coordination with local police and others who can provide that kind of guidance.

Over the past 3 weeks, the schools I visited were large and small, in widely varying parts of our State: Manchester High School, Kelly Middle School in Norwich, Middletown's Snow Elementary School, New Britain High School, West Bristol K-8 School, the Gilbert School in Winsted's High School, Northwestern Region 7 High School, Waterbury's West Side Middle School, Ross Woodward Magnet School, and Shelton Intermediate School. In every one of them, I saw different ways of dealing with school safety, and also aspiration for even better procedures and equipment--locks, lighting, alarms, cameras--but also training for teachers, and more school resource officers. I believe one of the most important pillars of this program has to be Federal resources that meet those local needs without imposing a one-size-fits-all policy. These schools are in widely different areas in terms of geography and demographics, the size of the communities they serve, the size of the schools, the qualifications of their staff and their training. That is why this program has to be individualized in terms of how it meets these needs and, again, empower and enable local decisionmaking.

The Secure Our Schools grant program has impacted Connecticut very positively. The program has a direct and tangible impact on schools in Stamford, for example, where the problem of gang violence was addressed, and in other schools around the State such as Hartford, where the grant was used for the purchase of an outdoor intercom station, as well as locks and card readers to control access to school.

The Secure Our Schools Program was a success story, and this act now will not only reauthorize but strengthen the Secure Our Schools Program.

To give some examples: In Manchester, the swipe card entry program not only provides for better security

but better attendance tracking. The Illing Middle School in Manchester is considering that system, but the installation costs run about $50,000--a small price to pay for greater security that the card system provides. In general, I found security was not only cost effective, it was minimal in its cost compared to many other programs we are potentially taking to improve school safety.

When I went to see Kelly Middle School in Norwich, I had to buzz in on an intercom and announce myself. That was true of many other schools as well. A Senate pin may allow us access to the floor of the Senate without passing through security, but it doesn't get you into Kelly Middle School, nor should it. They have a simple, practical system. If you are visiting during school hours, you buzz in and announce yourself, and then they decide whether that individual can enter through another set of locked doors. The double locks are a system that some schools are considering implementing. It is a sensible policy that is enabled by an intercom system and a camera--again, minimal in cost compared to many other infrastructure programs we may be considering this year.

In Middletown, I visited Snow Elementary School. Principal James Gaudreau demonstrated how their doors are locked. When a person is buzzed in, video cameras record and archive who is entering. Some schools have archiving systems, others do not. Law enforcement knows that archiving is important. As Chief William McKenna and Mayor Dan Drew told me, these systems are planning that was undertaken even before Sandy Hook. School systems, boards, administrators, and teachers were aware of security before Sandy Hook, but their awareness has been enhanced and they are planning to devote additional resources to this issue. Both Mayor Drew and Chief McKenna extolled the virtues of the three school resource officers, and they are looking for additional resources to create afterschool programs and other measures to enhance that partnership and cooperation between police and students, and teachers, educators, and law enforcement can collaborate.

Visiting New Britain was very important on this tour.

When I went to New Britain High School with Mayor Tim O'Brien and school superintendent Kelt Cooper, I saw there the requirement that any visitor is automatically run through a database check--the sex offender database check. Using the driver's license they were able to run that kind of check virtually instantaneously. They also have, in that single high school, 150 cameras to know what is going on in that school minute to minute and with direct links to the police headquarters so that any kind of emergency is immediately apparent to law enforcement. The school is going to install discrete panic buttons, allowing for rapid alerts to be sent to law enforcement, a belt-and-suspenders approach that many schools are implementing.

At Sandy Hook we know that Adam Lanza ended his massacre and took his own life when law enforcement arrived. So the presence of law enforcement can often have a powerful deterrent effect. The knowledge that apprehension will be swift, that killing will be stopped, is a huge deterrent.

At West Bristol K-8 School, Tim Callahan, who is the school project manager there, pointed out to me how a parent dropoff was configured with visual straight lines. Again, design and architecture is important to security so that out in the parking areas there are virtually no blind spots. They have integrated security features into this building while it was constructed. West Bristol also requires visitors to buzz in through the main office when they go through the main building. With grant funds made available under this legislation, this school could install locks on a second set of doors, slowing down potential intruders. We know in these dangerous emergency situations that time is critical. Slowing down a killer, stopping an invader at a second locked door, can gain time for law enforcement to respond and save lives.

Adam Lanza killed 26 people, 20 beautiful children and 6 great educators, in 5 minutes with 154 bullets. If he had been stopped earlier, if a second set of doors had alerted police, if a buzzer had been available of the most immediate kind available elsewhere, the consequences might have been different. There were alerts to the police. They responded virtually immediately. Their response was heroic and profoundly significant to saving even more lives. But we know that time is of the essence in these situations and that is why double locks, buzzer systems, identification, additional checks--all can be important.

The chief operating officer in New Haven Public Schools, Will Clark, told me about that kind of buzzer system there and in Winsted. School officials, including the regional school district school superintendent, Judith Palmer, and the high school principal, Candy Perez, are working hard to improve its security system. But infrastructure there, as they told me, is a continuing challenge. Winsted Board of Education member, Mimi Valyo, told me, ``We do not even have wifi.''

In 2013 we are in a wireless age, and the next generation of security systems may rely on Wi-Fi or smartphones. We need to make sure schools like Winsted have the resources they need to address the security needs of the 21st century with the technology of the 21st century. School security is too important to be allowed to lag.

I thank all of the educators who educated me, who shared with me their stories of progress, their goals for the future, their hopes that we can improve our schools and make them safer. If we make our schools safe, we make our children safer, and we make America safer. I am hopeful--more optimistic than ever in light of the vote we took last week--that we are making progress and that we will have positive votes in the days ahead, votes that fully fulfill our obligation to stop the plague of gun violence.

Again, I thank my colleagues for their courageous votes last week and urge them to move forward this week in the same way.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.