On the recordDecember 8, 2015
Mr. President, I am here to join my colleagues in our call to bring for debate and vote on the Senate floor a measure that is supported, I would argue, by probably 95 to 99 percent of my constituents, and that is the simple idea that if you are on a terrorist watch list, if you are suspected of being involved in terrorist activities, you shouldn't be able to purchase a gun. I will be asking for a unanimous consent agreement in order to move this debate to the floor. Here is why it matters. What we know right now is that over the last 12 months ISIS has lost about 25 percent of their territory in Iraq and Syria. That is not good enough, and hopefully we will be able to join together to put even more pressure on the so-called caliphate, to shrink it down eventually to elimination. But the growth of ISIS is dependent on two narratives. One is a narrative that the so-called caliphate is growing, and second, the narrative that the East is at war with the West, that the Muslim world is at war with the Christian world. As the first narrative becomes less powerful, the second one becomes even more important. So, as shocking as Paris was, as shocking as San Bernardino was, it is not surprising in the respect that these attacks outside of Syria and Iraq are now becoming more important, more necessary to this terror organization in order to perpetuate this second set of mythology around the Islamic world being at war with the Christian world.…
Source
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