The presiding officer the senator from connecticut. Mr. Murphy are we in a quorum call, mr. President . The presiding officer we are not. Mr. Murphy thank you, mr. President. Mr. President , i thank my colleagues for their indulgence this evening, and for those of us those of you who help us keep this floor open. I will make some longer remarks later this evening, but while we have a short break in the floor waiting for senator brown to arrive, i wanted to say a word of appreciation to all of my colleagues who have decided to join us this evening on the floor. This is my first appearance here, to talk about the imperative of changing the nations gun laws, recognizing that this number, 100 americans killed by guns every single day, is not inevitable. Almost every single one of these murders and suicides and accidental shootings is preventable. If we make different choices here on the floor of the United States senate, and our purpose tonight is to try to bring some consistency of effort to a case that we have been making for a very long time. And so i will be back here later this evening to walk through the case, as far as i see it, for universal background checks in particular, but also a host of other measures that are broadly popular amongst the American Public. You know, the one point i will make right now is that this issue is really unique in american Politics Today. It is not a controversial issue out in america. It is only controversial here inside the political process. In fact, there are very few matters in public life today that are, frankly, less controversial than this issue. When you go out and ask people if they support universal background checks, which is the measure that passed the house of representatives, by a 91 margin, they support universal background checks. There is almost nothing else in american Politics Today. I would endeavor to say there is nothing else in american Politics Today that is as popular as this measure, and yet it has this reputation of being a third rail of political discourse here in washington. And so i would simply encourage my colleagues to get out there and have conversations with your constituents, have conversations with members of your own party, have conversations with gun owners, and you will find that there is a consistency of opinion, at least on a large number of pieces of legislation that are before this body. At the top of that list, universal background checks. I have had conversation over and over again, and then i will leave the floor to senator brown and return later, with supporters of the president , supporters of the Second Amendment, members of the n. R. A. In my state. I, of course, acquired a reputation as being a forceful and vocal advocate for stronger gun laws in this nation. The n. R. A. Often targets me in their advertisements and their emails. So i will often be confronted by my constituents who will see me at a public event and come on a beeline over to me and start confronting me about my agenda to confiscate their weapons or to come and take away their guns. Of course i try to disabuse them of that notion, and as soon as i can, i get the conversation to background checks. I say listen, let me ask you a question. Do you think that everybody who is buying a guillainbarre in this a gun in this country should have to go through a background check. Almost invariably that individual who just moments ago was so confrontational with me about the issue of guns, their defense is dropped. They say well, yeah, of course i support that. Of course everybody should get a background check before they buy a gun. I said you got one, right . I got one. It was three, four minutes long. Thats not what im talking about. I object to all the other things, but background checks, of course i want background checks. Gun owners support background checks by an 80 to 90 margin. N. R. A. Members support it, polls suggest 75 to 80 of n. R. A. Members support universal background checks. So this is just one of the least controversial issues that exists out there in the American Public today. Were going to have a conversation today about the efficacy of these measures, but we should remember that there are many times in which we get deluded into believing something is much more much more of a vexing political conversation than it truly is, and background checks is on that agenda. So, mr. President , i will yield the floor at this point and come back down later for longer remarks, but im glad to be joined this evening by senator brown of ohio. Mr. Brown thank you. Mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from ohio. Mr. Brown thank you, mr. President. I also were joined by senator casey of pennsylvania who has been a leader, as senator murphy has. Senator murphy we look to every day in this body because he saw he saw this tragedy up close in the most vivid, awful ways. We appreciate how he has represented victims and people who might end up victims if we we victims. If we do this right, they wont end up victims. Madam president , first i ask unanimous consent that tonya sukom, the fellow from the minority staff on banking, housing, and urban affairs be granted floor permission until tuesday, december 31, and also to recognize drew martineau and Abigail Duggan and shubare figures. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Brown thank you, mr. President. Six weeks ago, on a sunday morning, connie and i woke up, checked our iphones, and immediately called out to each other and said my gosh, look whats happened in dayton. At 1 00 in the morning on that first saturday night in august, 1 00 sunday morning, a man, local man with an assault weapon walked into the oregon district in dayton as people were out having fun that night and just opened fire. He killed his sister. He killed eight others. He wounded more than 20. He did all of this in the space of 32 seconds, fired 41 bullets, telling you the kind of gun it is. And the police heroically Six Police Officers descended on him, shot him and killed him before he could walk into this nightclub where he would have probably killed 20 other people. I called mayor dan whaley that morning, probably 8 30. It was pretty incredible. This happened at 1 00 in the morning. I called her 8 30, seven and a half hours later. The first thing she said to me was i have gotten emails and texts and calls from several dozen, her words, several dozen mayors around the country who have had either to deal with this, as many had or have had situations where they have had gun violence and they just offered to help her in any way they can. We know what happened. We know every time there is gun violence, every time there is a gun shooting, the first thing they say is my hearts and prayers are with the victims. How can you not say that . We all think that. Then they say now is not the time to talk about it, as if they ever want to talk about it. And then they say we have to do something to fix we have to do something about Mental Health in this country. Ask senator casey about medicaid and my efforts on medicaid. The people that sit on this side of the aisle, where the republicans sit here, they are the ones that stood at these desks, every one of these desks back a year ago all having Health Insurance paid for by the government, paid for by taxpayers and tried to talk away Health Insurance from millions and millions of americans. Senator casey today told me 1. 1 Million People in pennsylvania now have Health Insurance because of the Affordable Care act. In my state where my daughter Elizabeth Brown is the Council Person in columbus, in my state 900,000 people have insurance because of that. On this side of the aisle, every single one except for three, one of whom is passed away, except for three senators voted to take away the insurance to repeal the Affordable Care act. And then they have the gall to say we have to do more on Mental Health. If that had passed, if they had repealed the Affordable Care act, hundreds of thousands of pennsylvanians and ohioans wouldnt have had the Mental Health services that they are getting now. So spare me that whining, spare me that we want to take care of Mental Health issues. No, they dont. They just want to do the bidding of the n. R. A. Mr. President , look down this aisle, look down this hall. Right down this hall is senator mcconnells office. Im not going to say that lobbyists, gun lobbyists walk down that hall and walk into his office and hand him money, i dont think they do that, but i do know that until we break the addiction that donald trump and Mitch Mcconnell and most of the republicans, most of the people in this body, until we break their addiction to gun lobby money, campaign contributions, well never solve this problem. So, mr. President , we heard that. Thats what we heard the first day in dayton. My wife and i drove to dayton that afternoon. Two days later, the president came to dayton. I spent some time i joined President Trump at the bottom of air force one as he got off the plane. I stood with medicare whaley. We both looked President Trump in the eye and said, mr. President , i hope you will call senator mcconnell and ask him to bring the senate back. This was in early august, the senate was out of session for five weeks. I hope you will ask senator mcconnell to bring the senate back into session and pass the house bill, the house bill that sets up something very simple, universal background checks. As senator murphy said, 90 of the American Public supports background checks. You know, the only people that dont support background checks are professional lobbyists for the n. R. A. And people that sit over here. Other than that, its over 90 . A majority of gun owners in ohio support universal background checks. A majority of republicans support universal background checks. A majority of n. R. A. Members in ohio support universal background checks. The only people that dont are members of this body in that tiny group of n. R. A. Professional lobbyists. Its not n. R. A. Members that are stopping background checks from passing. Its that narrow group of millionaire n. R. A. Highly paid professional lobbyists. Thats why we cant pass it here. Thats what we had happen. So mayor whaley and i asked President Trump to pass it. He said im going to do big things, were going to do big things and fix this. Then we saw him later at the hospital. President trump went around the hospital with the first lady. They were kind, generous, and inpathetic, i believe and empathetic, i believe, with the patients that were there, the patients and the people that were injured and the Family Members. And then we met the Police Officers, the six heroic Police Officers. We thanked hem effusively, all of us, for their courage in saving lives. Then we walked out of the room. It was the governor and the other senator from ohio and the local congressman and a handful the mayor and i. I said to the president he said were going to have the biggest awards ever. Were going to give them the biggest president ial medals ever made for these heroes. I said thats really good, mr. President , but you know what they would really like . What they would really like is for us to pass background checks and make their jobs a little easier so when they walk in, theyre not ambushed by people with illegal guns. You know what the president said . He was going to do something then and then he talked to the n. R. A. And then he talked to the gun lobby. The same story. When i look down the hall, i dont expect its late in the day but i dont expect to see gun lobbyists lining up and handing Mitch Mcconnell money. Its illegal. I dont think he does that in this body. Until the voters or the congress or somehow we break the addiction to gun lobby money that Mitch Mcconnell and donald trump and the Majority Party has, we cant solve this. This is just too important. As for every mass shooting that makes a headline, there are so many other americans whose lives are taken by gun violence. But dont get the same attention. This has to end. No more stagmatizing people with Mental Illness. We should stop stagmatizing people with Mental Illness. Congress should stop taking orders from the n. R. A. And start acting to keep people safe. Im close with this before senator casey speaks. The night of the shoot the next night, so the shooting was at 1 00 in the morning on a sunday. Sunday night people gathered in the district, heart broken people, relatives, friends, community people, people who were shellshocked and felt awful about what happened to their city and those victims, gathered in the oregon district in dayton. The governor was there and the mayor was up front. One or two people started yelling do something, do something. Then more and more people joined in. They started chanting do something, do something. They were chanting it to local officials. They were chanting it so the governor heard it and maybe even some state legislators in ohio heard it. They were shouting loud enough in this body, mr. President , we should hear that shout, to do something. It starts by taking the bill that passed the house down the hall, bringing it to the senate floor, debating it, voting on it, passing reasonably passing strong, reasonable background checks. Thats the step we need to take. Theres simply no excuse for not doing it. Mr. President , i yield the floor. Mr. Casey mr. President . The presiding officer the senator from pennsylvania. Mr. Casey thank you, mr. President. I rise tonight to speak about the issue thats been consuming a lot of our time and appropriately so, not only tonight but for many weeks since some of the tragedies of this summer starting in early august and continuing. But also an issue thats occupied the time of the American People over the course of not just weeks or months but years and even decades now. I want to thank our colleague from connecticut, senator murphy, for organizing this time to bring members of the senate together. I want to thank my colleague from ohio, senator brown, the senior senator, for his words tonight, his passion about this issue. And his commitment to change. That should be a commitment that is shared by everyone here. But well be talking about what has not happened here as much as what has happened. When i think about this issue, the issue of gun violence which is its an epidemic, its also uniquely an american problem. No other country has this problem. In fact, america didnt have this problem for all of its history. Its depending on where you start the clock, its years old if not a lot longer than that. But when i think about the issue and think about the debates were having, sometimes we start with the names of communities and we unfortunately have them memorized. So many communities are known for so much, so much thats positive about their culture, about their history, and about their future and the some of the great communities. But there are some communities that have all that but also have attached to their history i hope not for i hope not forever but certainly for a period of time that that city, that community was a place where an act of gun violence occurred that was of such a scale that the American People focused on that one community no a sustained period of time because of a mass shooting. Of course, we should be remembering all of the examples on a night like tonight where it doesnt reach the level of a mass shooting by way of victims or carnage but also is a place that we should remember when one person dies on a dark street in the middle of the night or a child is injured or in fact killed but it may not be counted as a mass shooting. But you know all the names now. Just this summer weve added several more as everyone knows. I wont go through all the events, these horrific tragic events, but we its important to remember the names of the communities and then of course i want to talk about some of the people. But whether its el paso or dayton or odessamidland, many years ago it was columbine, it was new town, connecticut, virginia tech, las vegas, parkland, aurora, colorado, orlando, two more recent gilroy, california and virginia beach. And ive left a lot off. Thats just a handful in the last number of years. So we think about this issue in terms of those who were lost or those whose lives have been irreparably damaged. Sometimes irreparably damaged, permanently damaged because of the injury, an injury that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. But of course you dont have to be physically injured to sustain an injury by way of the impact on your psyche. I cant even imagine, cant even begin to imagine nor can most people imagine the horror of being anywhere near a mass shooting. So tonight we remember those victims and their families in chose communities. We also remember the individual people who were lost, the individual families who were affected. Mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, children in so many of these instances, children are directly affected or indirectly but that indirect effect means that they lost a parent or they lost a sibling or they lost something in that moment that they will be permanently scared by for the rest of their lives. I guess i want to focus on two groups of people tonight. We could spend hours talking about so Many Americans. One will be parochial in the sense that its about my home state of pennsylvania and the other will be at the other end of the age scale about children who are lost in december of 2012. Ill start with the most the most recent for pennsylvania. Weve had obviously example after example, too many to count, hundreds and hundreds over the last cou