Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Today’s Vote On The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act And Senate Action On The Plague Of Gun Violence That Has Taken Over This Country
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor ahead of today’s vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, legislation that would give the government the tools to monitor, find, and arrest evil actors before they act. Senator Schumer also spoke on steps the Senate will take to address on the plague of gun violence in America most recently exemplified by Tuesday’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, TX. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Today the Senate will have a chance to act on a pernicious issue that has recently become an increasingly prevalent component in America’s gun violence epidemic: the evil spread of white supremacy and domestic terrorism.
In the past two weeks, the United States has endured two of the most traumatic mass shootings that we have seen in recent history.
In my home state of New York, in the beloved city of Buffalo, ten Black Americans were gunned down in broad daylight by a white Supremacist, armed with an AR-15, and whose mind was poisoned by online conspiracies, white supremacist conspiracies.
And two days ago, nineteen children, nineteen children—eight-year olds, nine-year olds, ten-year olds, kids on the verge of beginning summer, kids with their entire lives ahead of them, we saw them holding up their trophies and proudly in their t-shirts and a few hours later they were gone—they slaughtered in the predominantly Latino town of Uvalde, Texas. Two teachers, including a mother of four, were killed alongside them. Many more were injured and remain in critical conditions. It was the worst school shooting in America since Sandy Hook.
Last night I looked at the pictures of each of those kids online, and I wept. Taken from us, taken from their families through senseless gun violence. I cannot stop thinking about the parents too who lost their kids. I cannot stop imagining the paralyzing horror of being one of the parents showing up to the school after the shooting, wondering where their kid was, the anxiety that will live with these parents forever. Forced to wait hours before a DNA Test—a DNA Test—confirmed that their son or daughter was gone. I cannot imagine a hell – a hell – worse than that.
Americans, my colleagues, don’t want thoughts and prayers, they want their elected leaders to respond to their suffering.
They don’t want to be lifted up, they don’t want good intentions.
They want something to change. They want results.
Yet the MAGA Republicans don’t to want to get the results. They are ossified in their opposition to any action on gun safety. No matter the cause of violence and no matter the cost on the families, nothing seems to move them.
Yesterday, after Beto O’Rourke confronted Texas Governor Abbott’s press conference, the MAGA Governor gave some empty platitudes about healing and hope. He asked people to put their agendas aside and think about someone other than themselves.
My God! How dare he! What an absolute fraud the Governor of Texas is!
This is the same Governor Abbott who tomorrow – tomorrow – will go speak at the NRA Convention in Houston.
Governor Abbott, will you ask your MAGA buddies and your NRA pals to put aside their agendas and think about someone other than themselves?
Will you ask the gun manufacturing reps, who will swarm over to the NRA convention, to put aside their agendas and think about someone other than themselves?
Of course not. The Governor – Governor Abbott – is more likely to outline some new plan to further loosen gun restrictions. No amount of bloodshed seems to be enough for MAGA Republicans.
This nation is enraged as well as being exhausted. It has been through this over and over and over again in the last two decades.
People are sick of mourning again and again, while listening to the same string of hollow words from the MAGA Republicans that never lead to action.
So in a few moments, the Senate will have a chance to vote on one important cause of gun violence.
The legislation before the Senate today is the Domestic Terrorism Protection Act, which I scheduled for a vote earlier this week, before what happened in Uvalde occurred. It was done to respond to the massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo.
The bill is so important, because the mass shooting in Buffalo was an act of domestic terrorism. We need to call it what it is: Domestic terrorism.
It was terrorism that fed off the poison of conspiracy theories like white replacement theory. Terrorism that left ten people dead, and a community forever torn asunder. This bill will give the government the tools to monitor, find, and arrest these evil actors before they have a chance to inflict violence on their communities, and I thank my colleague, Senator Durbin, for championing this bill.
I’ve been going to bed every night thinking about the families I met in Buffalo in the aftermath of the shooting. I think about this little three year old boy. He lost his dad who went to that Tops the grocery store to buy him a birthday cake—a birthday cake—for his son. That little boy is going to live with that the rest of his life. The rest of his life.
And I think of all the families impacted by other racially motivated shootings over the years— Buffalo certainly, and unfortunately, wasn't the first. Charleston, El Paso, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and so many others. The shooting of Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Gay Americans, Jewish Americans, as well as Black Americans. All because of this horrible white replacement theory. Today is the day we can begin to debate on how to make these shootings less likely.
And there is an additional benefit to moving forward today: it’s a chance to have a larger debate and consider amendments for gun safety legislation in general, not just for those motivated by racism, as vital as it is to do that.
I know that many members on the other side hold views that are different than the views on this side of the aisle. So, let us move on this bill, let us proceed, and then they can bring them to the floor.
Senator Johnson brought a bill to the floor yesterday about school security practices. I didn’t agree with the bill and I don’t think it’s the answer to mass shootings. We don’t need more guns in the schools – there were security guards at the supermarket in Buffalo, police and security at the school in Uvalde. But we can debate it.
The same with Senator Cruz’s plan to limit schools to only one door. Fire marshals and tactical experts totally and vehemently disagree, but let’s debate it!
And there are other Senators with other proposals. Proposals that come from our side of the aisle - background checks, red flag laws, the Charleston loophole, assault weapons, and other ideas.
Look, I know chances of getting ten votes on this bill are small unfortunately, given the influence of MAGA Republicans. Many Republicans have made their opposition clear.
And, again, there are a lot of MAGA Republicans for whom no amount of gun violence—whether it’s domestic terrorism, a school shooting, a neighborhood shooting, or something else—will ever, ever convince them to take any action.
So if Republicans obstruct debate today, we are prepared to have an honest and realistic discussion, conversation, negotiation for a little more time to see what they can come to the table with.
We are under no illusions that this will be easy. We have been burned in the past when Republicans promised to debate only for them to break their promise. But even with long odds, the issue is so important, so raw to the American people, so personal to countless families who have missing children, that we must pursue that opportunity.
We also know that the American people – as many as eighty or ninety percent – support gun safety legislation.
We have an obligation to pursue every path and explore every realistic option to break the cycle of suffering and inaction. Not trying everything is not acceptable to the families that have lost their loved ones to our nation’s gun epidemic, to those beautiful children we see pictures of in the newspaper, and their families. We have to try everything. We must not leave a single stone unturned.
Senator Murphy, who has been such a strong leader within our caucus on gun safety legislation—and who has seen the suffering first hand of the families at Sandy Hook who he’s become very close to—has asked for space to see what progress can be done with Senate Republicans.
Neither he nor I have illusions that this is easy. But his view, my view, and the overwhelming view of our caucus is that we need to give it a short amount of time to try.
There are others too in our caucus reaching out to our Republican colleagues as we speak: Senator Blumenthal, Senator Coons, Senator Heinrich, Senator Manchin and others.
We have also been in talks with our allies across gun advocacy groups and we all have the strong, burning desire to see something real, something tangible, come together here in the Senate.
Again, none of us are under any illusions that this will be easy. None of us want to let this drag out. We know all too well the vice grip that the NRA and the MAGA wing hold over the GOP. And we have been burned in the past, America has been burned in the past.
After the shootings in El Paso and Dayton three years ago, the Republican leader promised that red flag laws and background checks would be front and center in a Senate debate. He didn’t put them on the floor, and Republicans did nothing.
But that’s not an excuse for Democrats not to try. Too many families have suffered. Too many kids have been lost. Too many communities have been destroyed. This is too important not to explore every option.
I want to be clear: this is not an invite to negotiate indefinitely.
Make no mistake about it, if these negotiations do not bear fruit in a short period of time, the Senate will vote on gun safety legislation.
Let me repeat: if these negotiations do not bear any fruit, the Senate will vote on gun safety legislation when we return.
But our hope, even amidst our deep skepticism, is that during this week, Democrats and Republicans at long last will come to agree on something meaningful that will reduce gun violence in a real way in America.
Senator Murphy and some of our colleagues believe that it's worth a chance, and we will give it that chance.
Unfortunately, though, Republicans haven't come forward in too long a time. There hasn't been this debate in too long a time. But even though it hasn’t happened in too long a time, we feel an obligation to give it a chance.
###
