Florida and look what has happened since. Of course outrage, sadness, morning for the families that lost these wonderful students, teachers and administrators but beyond that these High School Students 17, 18yearolds old and some even younger have really become a national voice, a powerful voice on the issue of gun safety in schools. I often wonder when this moment might occur or whether it would occur. Litany of mass shootings, massacres. Sad to say theres a mountainous setting in where terrible things occurred in places like las vegas and texas and other states. Youte wonder is killing those innocent children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in connecticut will that be the Tipping Point . Will america finally say enough . It appears on the state 13 days after the tragedy in florida that we are near our Tipping Point when it comes to gun safety. Some of it is very personal. Two weeks ago after this occurred my 6yearold granddaughter said to her mother that she had been warned in her first grade classroom that if a shooter should turn up in School Firing a gun for she should stay away from the windows and second she should lie down on theli flr floor. I cant tell you what a profound impact that had on me as a grandfather to think that my littler, firstgrader, this beautiful little girl was worried about the moment that someone would walk in her classroom and wantonly tried to kill students and teachers who are there. I cannot believe that any sane person believes the 2nd amendment to the constitution, the right to bear arms envisioned that possibility. Im sure it didnt. Im sure our Founding Fathers could debate the rest of the day what their words actually meant never envisioning american citizens right to bear arms could somehow translate into violence against so many innocent people as it has over and over and over again. Last week i was in chicago. I was joined at a press conference by representatives of the Martin LutherKing Community center on the south sideun. We stood together victims of gun violence advocates from ideas promised who have been working for years on the scourge of gun violence in illinois. 10 years ago and the Mass School Shooting at Illinois University in dekalb illinois. A new voice came to joinor us. A graduate of Marjory StonemanDouglas High School in parkland florida come her name is Francine Brown pray she graduated in 2009 to choose currently a student at Chicago College of law. She is one of dozens of Stoneman Douglas graduates in the chicago area to include incidentally the first baseman for the chicago cubs anthony rizzo. Hundreds upon thousands nationwide who have joined together in the aftermath of the february 14 massft shooting that killed 14 Stoneman Douglas students and three staff. These young men and women have come together to speak up and urge their lawmakers to do somethingut about the nations epidemic of gun violence. The message is starting to resonate. When francine was speaking muslims a students at schools across the chicagoland area for walking o out of class in solidarity with stoneman dug a students calling for common sense gun reform. The students dont have time or patience for political games in washington or springfield. They have seen their friends kids just like themselves shot in classrooms and neighborhoods. They have had enough. Its not supposed to matter what side of the nile a politician sits. We are supposed to always protect the future of our children. More. The students and young people across the country areng changig gun violencendor making it clear how absurd it is for lawmakers in this chamber across the rotunda or in state capitols to do nothing when americans get shot every day in their homes or neighborhoods their churches nightclubs concerts in schools. They are fed up with politicians in washington who ignore the overwhelming majority of americans who want common sense gun safety and listen instead to paranoid bullying gun sales lobbyists. Remember the National Rifle association and its allies oppose virtually anything that hurts gun sales. They fight against proposals that might reduce gun sales and try to rollback laws on the books that limit them. That is their agenda but its not americas agenda. Corporate america starting to walk away from the nra. It is no longer a source of pride that they are doing business with the national riflt association, just the opposite. We are seeing company after company in relationships with the nra because of its increasingly unhinged and hysterical rhetoric on the issue of gun safety to corporate america, some of the biggest corporations in our nation realize the nra no longer speaks for responsible gun owners. When will congress realize this . We know we need to keep our children say. In theres no single reform that can stop every shooting. We know there are gaps in our gun laws that make itbu easy for mentally unstable people to get guns and even military style assault weapons with bump stocks and highcapacity magazine eclipse. We need to close these gaps and thatui requires the republicanso stand up to the nra and do something that the nra may not like that for starters the republican colleagues need to take up legislation that President Trump proposed last. Here is one of the president s and thomas tweets. I will be strongly pushing comprehensive background checks with an emphasis on Mental Health, raise the age to 21 and end the sale of bump stocks. The congress is in the mood to finally do something on this issue i hope the president tweeted. I hope as well. They aread proposals that americans broadly support. Lets do something. Of course the nra has opposed most of these. They might have someey negative impact on gun sales but as the gun sales lobby is in charge of bills for the senate and the house deferring to the nra is the reason why we have reached this moment in history. Remember senators have have have held one gunboats since President Trump came into office and voted to put Mental Health records and the Social Security administration from going into the f. The ike gun background check system. Its the only thing we have done done. We rollback a law on the books for Mental Health background checks. The gun lobby claims to support enforcing the laws on the books. They try to roll back those laws that means lifting their sales. Lets show the students has Stoneman Douglas and across the country through them and hope reducing gun violence is a priority. I call on my republican colleagues to join the democrats in a d bipartisan effort to tret the issue of gun safety with the same sense of urgency that the American People believe is necessary. If republicans take a fraction of the effort to gun safety that they have other issues we can get this done and done quickly. They are plenty perform seconds pass that are completely consistent with the 2nd amendment that would save lives. Even President Trump for the time being has said he supports it paid so lets get started. Lets work on closing the loopholes. Oo letsrs have universal backgroud checks. Over 90 of the American People believe we should take guns out of the hands of convicted felons and mentally unstable people. I also believe we should have those who are subject to protective orders for Domestic Violence should be disqualified from buying a gun. I would say those were on the terrorist watch list that we do not allow to fly airplanes for fear they could do harm to others shouldnt be allowed to buy guns in the United States. I want to add a provision that straw purchasers the girlfriends with no criminal record who buy the weapons to give to the boyfriends with a long criminal record ought to have the book thrown at them. I want to thank the victims of advocates who worked for many years. I want them to know that i stand with him but i hope we can all stand with them on a bipartisan basis. Mr. President i yield the floor. Mr. President. The majority whip. Mr. President i heard the remarks of my colleague from illinois and i too hope that we can get past the rhetoric and the talking points of the past and actually do something meaningful when it comes to so safety and address these terrible tragedies like the one that occurred at Stoneman Douglas high school in florida just two weeks ago. We are not going to do it by bringing out our laundry list of requests and say it has to be all of this or nothing because when you say here in washington in particular congress i want everything on my list or i want nothing one thing is for sure you will end up with nothing and that is simy aunacceptab outcome particularly when it comes to the Public Safety crisis manifested here most recently at Stoneman Douglas high school in florida. We know that there were many, many failures you might even call this a systemic failure when it comes to the children at Stoneman Douglas high school. First and foremost why didnt federal and local Law Enforcement followup on threats and warnings . This young man, the shooter who took the lives of 17 people, he telegraphed and clear unmistakablele language what he intended to do. The very people who we trust and interest with Public Safety at the federal and state level did not respond. We know the alleged shooter was expelled from school for disciplinary reasons. We know that deputies in Broward County received at least 18 calls warning them over the course of several years, 18 calls. We know about the disturbing youtube posts where the shooter basically said what he intended to do and did in fact do later. We know the fbi received many disturbing tips from citizens about the imminent danger posed by this shooter. Another question is whether Mental Health officials could have done more. We know that this youngng man hd a long history of violent out verse. In 2016 we are told that he reportedly attempted suicide by drinking gasoline. He had been accused of verbal slurs against racial and religious minorities. Florida has a state law like some of advocated advocate at the federal level but a state law that prevents force hospitalization of people in a psychiatric or Mental Health crisis. It seems in this particular case Mental Health workers concluded that this individual was stable at the time they examined him. Why and how was that determination made in y. Does that stand in such stark contrast to the picture that we have been able to draw as a result of all the information that we have received since this terrible shooting. If Law Enforcement, public Health Workers and School Officials were communicating and coordinating effectively would they have made the same decisions in this case . Could they have made a difference in the outcome . I think we need the answers to those questions. But there are two other questions we need to answer as wellow. One is white and how did she shooter have access to firearms in the first place and why didnt the schools armed resource officer intervened once the shooting began . All of us are angry at the fact that the shooting happened but that shouldnt tempt us to the easy solutions that at the end of the day would not make any difference in the outcome and wouldnt do any good. Thats what we tend to get here in congress when we have hard issues like this, easy solutions and talking points that lead to no effective action and we cant let that happen here. As one columnist put it last week we cant fall victim to the politics of false hope. The most frequent refrain i hear in washington after some tragedy like this occurs is we need to do something. We need to do something this, something that would change the likely outcome. We may not able to protect every citizen against terrible tragedies like this but there are things we can do which make things better and that will be up and changing the outcome and i believe in saving lives. Real solutions requires a look at why local Law Enforcement failed to respond to multiple warnings. I asked one Police Officer about this and he said well in america we cant arrest somebody for a precrime. In other words we cant arrest somebody for an offense that they did not commit yet. It is perhaps a flaw that unfortunately is exposed in our system when we cant anticipate who might commit these terrible offenses and stop them before they commit the act and that is a feature of our Law Enforcement system. But this isnt just another job for Law Enforcement. Theres a lot more people who can contribute to a solution here and prevent these incidents from happening beyond Law Enforcement who are by our very constitution structured to investigate and prosecute crimes of the vardy occurred, not to stop them in the first place. I think its a fair question to ask what is the role of social media in preventing Mass Violence . When you have people basically telling us what they are getting ready to do and posting it on social media and nothing seems to happen as a consequence strikes me that something is terribly wrong there. What is the responsibility of these platforms . We know congress has said for example you have a responsibility to police your platform for things like child pornography. In other o words they cant be totally oblivious to the things that areth being posted on the social media platforms. They have a responsibility to intervene. Maybe it ought to be in more cases. What options currently exist to report a disturbing content on line . I believe the Youtube Video case it was somebody who actually saw it and was disturbed by it and then reported it to the fbi. It was not even youtube itself that identified it. Of course they p would be in the best position to identified immediately. It was some third party who happened to see i it and was disturbed by it and contacted the fbi and tragically it was never followed up on. How often are these popular platforms reporting to the police or federal authorities when people threaten to commit acts of violence . If there are holes in the reporting protocol we should close them. Thats why i think this is a systemic failure when you look at Mental Health providers and you look at Law Enforcement officials, but you look at the schools, when you look at the social media platforms, when you look at all of this together. I think it begins to give us some ideas about things we can do that may end up saving lives and we should do them. Members are discussing many ideas which always happens after a tragedy like this and im open to a conversation with anyone who shares my desire to take effective action to prevent another one of these tragedies. But there is one proposal that has already been introduced and has won bipartisan support in this brought together advocates from all sides. Its really a unique piece of legislation because there are not many times i can think of where people who are strong 2nd amendment advocates and people who believe they are out to be more controls imposed on guns can come together and find consensus, to find Common Ground that we have on a bill that i introduced to strengthen the background check system call to fix next act. It may take a long time to enter all the questionsim raised by te tragedy in parkland but one step we can take right now is to pass the bill. This has the unique quality of causing our colleague the junior senator from connecticut in me too Company Introduces bill. We couldnt be more ideologically different. He is a democrat and im a republican but we have come together on a bill that does enjoy broad bipartisan support that i believe will save lives. This of course was introduced in the wake of the shooting last fall in a Small Community near san antonio called Sutherland Springs texas. As we will recall a deranged gunman with a v criminal recordn and a history of violence and Mental Illness opened fire during a sunday Morning Church service killing 26 people and wounding 20 more. Tragically to add to the tragedy that already occurred this murderers criminal conviction records were never uploaded in the Fbis National Instant Criminal Background Check system so when he went to purchase firearms he lied about his record and there was nothing in the criminal background check system to show that he lied and dust denied him the opportunity to purchase thes. Weapons. This failure to enforce our background check allows a person to illegally purchase a firearm. This Bipartisan Legislation to tighten the instant criminal background check system. Supported by people all across the political spectrum and its even cosponsored by the democratic leader senator schumer and supported by every town for gun safety. Brought together all sides of the gun debate. Leaders on the republican side and democrats alike. Under current law mentally ill individuals and persons convicted of Violent Crimes are prohibited by law, by current law purchasing or possessingre firearms. This would make sure these laws are enforced and criminal history information is uploaded into the database by state and federal authorities. For years our colleagues across the aisle have said they want reforms that will help stem the tide of violence perpetrated by dangerous criminals. This is their chance. This is our chance. Its our chance to show the nation that we refuse to accept shootings in schools and churches as the new normal. And we can do that, we can start doing that by passing fix nics this week. Senator schumer the minority leader said yesterday he wants to wait even though he is as cosponsor of the fix nics bill. Hes a cosponsor the bill and he said he wants to wait. He wants to wait and debate other ideas he knows her controversial and cannot pass. Of course that is his right as United States senator but as i said earlier i want everything on my list or nothing we are going to end up with nothing. I for one and not willing to go home and look my constituents in the face and said we had an opportunity to pass legislation the fix nics bill that will save lives in the future and make sure existing laws are enforced. I wont go home and tell them that in good faith was done everything we can in our power to help save lives by passing Bipartisan Legislation that could pass today if it put on the floor and voted on by a supermajority of the United States senate. I would implore our democratic colleagues to change course. Letss do the art of the possible. Lets put the art of the possible. Lets do we can immediately to passs fix nics and build from there. Im willing to work and the president is willing to work on things that bump stocks and try to make sure schools are safer, make sure the social media plaque forms are important. Threats of violence to Law Enforcement officials so they can be followed up on. There are a lot of other things we can do. The one thing we can do this week before we go home is to pass the fix nics bill and send it to the house and to the president to sign into law. It will save lives. Mr. President i yield the floor. Mr. President this morning i had the opportunity to meet with some extraordinary young people. These arepl students from parkld florida who attended the school where the mass shooting took place two weeks ago. And what was amazingly impressive about these young peopleve is that in the midst of their grief, in the midst