The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Gun Violence (Executive Calendar)” mentioning John Thune was published in the Senate section on pages S1884-S1885 on April 13.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Senators' salaries are historically higher than the median US income.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Gun Violence
Madam President, today, in Chicago, at the Lurie Children's Hospital--one of our best--little 1-year-old Kayden Swann is in critical condition, clinging to life in the pediatric intensive care unit.
Last week, at 11 a.m., on a Tuesday morning on Lake Shore Drive--one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city--1-year-old Kayden was shot in the head while riding in the backseat of a car. He was an innocent victim hit in a road rage shooting
As we pray for Kayden's recovery, as we express gratitude for the medical workers who are working around the clock to keep him alive, we have to ask ourselves a basic question: When it comes to this sickening gun violence that happens every day in our country, what are we going to do? Give up or stand up?
On March 23, I held a hearing on gun violence in our Judiciary Committee. There was a mass shooting spree that killed eight people in Atlanta, GA, on the day I announced the hearing. Then there was a mass shooting in Boulder, CO, that killed 10 people the night before the hearing. Others have followed.
Since that hearing on March 23, according to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 38 mass shootings in less than a month in America, where a ``mass shooting'' is defined as an incident where at least four people were shot. This past weekend--and I am sorry to say this is not an exception--25 people were shot in the city of Chicago alone. Every day, we lose 109 American lives to gun violence. Hundreds more are shot and wounded, carrying physical and emotional scars for a lifetime. These victims are our neighbors, our friends, our families, and even a 1-year-old baby like Kayden Swann.
I am glad President Biden is stepping up to this issue and taking action. Last week, the President stood in the White House Rose Garden and called gun violence exactly what it is. It is a public health crisis. He is right. We need to take a public health approach to reduce the violence that is killing so many of our fellow Americans.
There is a playbook that works. We need to gather data and study the problem, identify causes and risk factors, and develop targeted prevention and intervention strategies that will help to bring the number of shootings down. We have stopped epidemics before--we are in the midst of one now--and we can do it again if we are willing to stand up and act. It works.
President Biden took action last week and announced a set of commonsense steps that are consistent with the Second Amendment and that actually will help reduce violence. He wants to reduce the proliferation of homemade ``ghost guns,'' which are untraceable and often undetectable; regulate the use of stabilizing braces that can effectively convert pistols into short-barreled rifles, like the weapon that was used by the gunman in Boulder; put forth a model State extreme risk protection order law that would help States that want to use these interventions; restart an annual firearms trafficking report that tracks patterns of illicit gun trafficking; nominate a gun safety expert David Chipman to give the ATF its first confirmed leader since 2015. I am going to pay special attention to this nominee because it will come through the Senate Judiciary Committee.
How many times have you heard it said that we don't need new laws; we just need to enforce the laws that are on the books? One of the Agencies that enforces these laws is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF. What the gun lobby has done over the years is to make sure the ATF hasn't had the money or hasn't had any leaders. We haven't had anyone in the post for 6 years at the ATF with Senate confirmation. I want to change that if we can.
Last, but certainly not least, the President announced billions of dollars for evidence-based community violence intervention programs through the American Jobs Plan and other grant program efforts. These are smart, targeted, and important proposals that are well within the bounds of the Constitution and the President's authority. I commend him for that action.
Yet we shouldn't leave it to the President alone. We have a responsibility, too. We have to make sure we close the loopholes in the gun background check system that make it too easy for criminals and those with mental instability to get guns. We have known it for years, but we haven't closed these gaps. The House has passed universal background check legislation. Now the ball is in the Senate's court. We need at least 10 Republicans if all Democrats will support it. I hope my Republican colleagues are willing to stand and vote to close these gaps.
There are other commonsense changes we can make that deal with gun violence and community prevention. At a hearing I held on March 23, Dr. Selwyn Rogers of University of Chicago Medicine pointed out that the NIH has nearly $43 billion for medical research, yet only $12.5 million dedicated to funding for research into reducing gun violence. We need to invest more into this research and into the CDC research, too. We also need to support evidence-based community programs that show they are effective in reducing violence.
Saving lives from the horrors of gun violence should not be a partisan issue. It is absolutely heartbreaking to think about little Kayden Swann's sitting in the backseat of a car on Lake Shore Drive--
which I look out from my place in Chicago and see every day--and realize that he was shot in the head at the age of 1 and is now fighting to survive.
The question is, What are we going to do with this challenge of 40,000 gun violence deaths every year and more than 100 every day--give up or stand up?
I will tell you that I am not going to give up. I am going to do all I can to push commonsense, constitutional reforms to bring gun violence to an end in America.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Murphy). Without objection, it is so ordered.
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