floor proceedings and hearings from u.s. congress, white house events, the courts, campaigns and more for the world of politics. all at your fingertips. also stay current latest episode of "washington journal" and find scheduling information for c-span tv network and c-span radio. plus a variety of compelling podcast. c-span now is available at the apple store and google play. download for free today. c-span now your front row seat to washington anytime anywhere. >> senate judiciary committee chair dick durbin spoke on the senate floor about the bipartisan talks on gun legislation in his hearing tomorrow on domestic terrorism. he was followed later by texas senator john cornyn the lead republican in the gun bill negotiations with democrats. >> madam president, 23 years ago after the massacre at columbine

high school left 12l students ad a teacher dead, the gun lobby and its allies insisted that quote now is not the time to talk about gun laws. in shooting after shooting sense america has been stunned and grieving and burying its children the gun lobby has demanded we not politicize the they say we should wait until passions have cooled before taking any action to reduce gun violence in america. well, madam president the current reality is this. it is no longer possible to wait months or weeks or even days after a mass shooting for passions to cool. the shootings just keep happening. so far this year we have seen 246 mass shootings and a 157 days. more than one mass shooting every day.

just this past weekend a string of 11 mass shootings left at least 15 people dead and more than 60 others wounded. an tense tennessee, pennsylvania, south carolina, arizona, texas, georgia, new york, and michigan. madam president, no other developed nation on earth as even a fraction of the mass shootings we have in thes united states. president lincoln once said famously, we cannot escape history. this senate cannot escape its responsibility to do something. we cannot allow ourselves to go numb and resigned to this mass murder. negotiations arens underway on a bipartisan basis to help reduce gun violence in america. i want to thank senators chris murphy of connecticut, joan cornyn of texas and the others democrats and republican who are trying to find a day to reduce

gun violence but it takes 60 senators for that to happen. i hope in good faith we can at least take a step forward from this awful situation. house of representatives already acted last year to close gaps in gun background check system. this week the house will vote on bills to support extreme risk protection orders or red flag laws and other important measures. tomorrow the senate judiciary committee which i chair will hold a hearing on mass shootinge took place in buffalo on may 14, just a few weeks ago. in the domestic terrorism threat it exposes. one of our witnesses is garneau whitfield junior. his mother, ruth was murdered at the top grocery store in lebuffalo. gun violence is now a leading cause of death among america's children and teenagers.

it replaced automobile accidents. nextut week the senate judiciary committee will hold a hearing from experts on the lasting trauma gun violence leaves on children. and next month the judiciary committee will have a hearing of the growing nature of gun violence to police who increasingly find themselves outgunned on the streets. therery is a retired police officer in that grocery store in buffalo. and he had served the community and the police force and he was there to bring security to that grocery store. when the shooter came in with his military style weapon, this policeman did his duty. he could pulled his handgun he was outgunned by this killer and lost his life. let's consider a few basic truths. number won this crisis is not simply about school safety.

it would not be so by turning every school into an armed fortress. it's much bigger than schools alone. last friday went to grade schoo. in chicago. i will not name the name. but i have a granddaughter who is in the fourth grade there. they were 100 kids in the fourth they all came to the assembly hall where i gave a little talk and answer their questions. i couldn't help to think as i my job and what's the hardest part, what is the best part. i looked at the wonderful kids and thought to myself they are exactly the same age as the kids who died in uvalde, texas. i could not imagine for a second the core the families must have felt when they heard the news there is a shooter on theis premises in their school. i cannot imagine that this nation is so cold and callous they would ignore the reality of the human suffering.

but what it meant to these families and still means to them today. if we just make a fortress out of the school and we have one door and we have metal detectors. at the custodians in the cafeteria workers and all the teachers and principals are all carrying guns, then we keep us safe. think about that for a moment. it's at the answer the united states of america to gun violence. we are going to outgun a mad man who comes on the premises securing an assault type weapon? : : : ourselves. as heartbreaking as it is to hear of any violence in a school, schools are not the only places where this happens. grocery stores, walmarts, waffle grocery stores, walmarts, waffle >> in the nightclubs in the hospitals, and the doctors offices churches synagogues,

movie theaters, subways, street corners, they be showers, partid weddings, funerals, and that bil towns in gun violence, can be found in every corner of america and it can happen anywhere, 21 at any time. point number two is horrific as they are, mass shootings are only a small part of america's gun violence crisis, in 2020, the most recent here prices cdc has.c statistics, 45222 emergene hard by gun violence and in 2020, 45222, and a total number of gun deaths was 14 percent higher than the yearhe before. and 25 percent higher than five yearsef before, 43 percent highr than ten years pretty county only homicides, the 2020, the deaths were 34 percent greater

than just one year earlier and 49 percent, over five years earlier and sunny 5 percent, then a decade earlier and how can we look at those numbers and do nothing. in 2020, 79 percent of murders in the residual carried out with guns, have that was something i percent. how about canada, will percent of them weree murderers, and 2020, the result of guns printed, 37 percent, the united states was 79 percent in canada, 37 percent and australia, 13 percent in the united kingdo, 4 percent, 70 on percent in the united states of america. it is horrible and it is getting worse and point number three come the changes the senate is likely to consider, pose no threat to lifestyle of any law abidingng gun owner.

our goal isle to save lives through responsible gun ownership in w their's website d not going to mention his name, sometimes viewed as the most prolific place by gun on the internet. and if you buy a gun on the site coming have to pass a background check and there also the call, private sales. one person selling to another person in the private gun sales on this website, the gun shows and other places, require no background check in the two parties meet, they had of her money and the other guy please with a gun in a recent investigation by gun safetyat organization, found that in 2018, and 1.2 million ads on this website is all done without a background check. that's we can listed and added and listen to this, last week it

listed and out, for private sale in buffalo, new o york, they are 15, the same open that that madman took into a grocery store. the same weapon used against children in the schoolchildren, and uvalde,u texas pretty and on the website you might ar 15, no background check required. under these background checks take, in most cases, less than five minutes pretty and no abiding citizen with need to worry about passing the test and we should close that only private sale we pulled to take guns out of the people who are legally prohibited from owning firearms andin i support red flg laws allow law enforcement to temporarilyfr remove firearms fm the person is determined by the court to be a risk of hurting themselves or others 19 states including illinois have these laws in their an important tool for preventing violence heading

in florida republican-controlled legislature, acted a state read like law after the park led massacre pretty we should support similar evers now because of the story for my state, three years ago, convicted felon was fired from a job at a small manufacturing plt near chicago, he came back a few hours later with a handgun, and a shot and killed five of his c former coworkers wanted fe police officers before killing himself. and i into the memorial service to several of the victims those murders happening in town: aurora, illinois and seven years before that, they gunman and another aurora, this time in colorado, open fired in a movie theater killing 12 people and wounding 70 more and killing 12, wounding 70 more and he said to

a reporter, months from now as people talk about the mass shootings in aurora, someone will ask which one are you talking about. a new nearly other nations in the or the name of the town was a mass shooting a taken place, would be remembered and mourned for years or even decades and in america the gun deaths and mass murderers now have an with such sickening regularity, this up some people in our time keeping the tragedies apart or even remembering them and i might say to the presenting officer this point, i know the terrible shooting in your state of the weekend to come over one of your state judges was gunned down. i'm so sorry it happened in your state this last weekend and this past weekend i met with people across illinois to discuss gunun violence. i met with police officers, youth and chicago who had been affected by gun violence, doctors and different hospitals

and i spoke to so many people this is always the first topic, gun violence. they estimate a basic question, when will congress do something about this sent american people sick and tired of gun violence and their desperate for us to bring change. the senate has that within the power now, to make changes to respect our constitution, have the rights of law-abiding citizens, and will literally save lives in the question is whether we have a conscious the courage to take these steps forward together lives been on it and when i left my grand daughters grade school, last friday, i thought about it all day long, those beautiful kids and kids down in texas, and the kids and sandy hook, and the kids columbine and the kids at

parkland. all of these kids are being butchered by gun violence in many people think that because the constitution and the second amendment, and the rights to bear arms, that we cannot touch this issue, they are wrong and even the supreme court, because a simple decision to still retain the power to regulate the gun sold and how they were going to be used to we gotta take that and sees that opportunity. we have been elected to the united states senate to the top of the list for american crises after what we have been the last several weeks and likely toou go through for the weeks to come and how dare week, say that this is too big and too tough and how can anything be more important in the safety of our children and families across america. i will join in any way that i can to support his