Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator. The Senator from Illinois, like Senator Blumenthal, has been a leader and a hero on this issue since before I got to the Senate, and he is exactly right. The state of this Nation is not just this repeated story line of mass shooting after mass shooting, it is the fact that even on days when there is not a mass shooting, there is the equivalent of a mass shooting happening in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, or New Orleans every single day. The numbers over Memorial Day weekend over Chicago are absolutely chilling. Think about living in a city in which, over the course of what should be a celebratory weekend, there are 60-some odd incidents of gunfire, and that is just gunfire that hits people. So it is critical we acknowledge that this epidemic that we are often focused on because of these mass shootings is an epidemic that exists every single day in this country. Senator Durbin is right that part of the reason we are asking that expanded background checks be part of this agreement that we come to over the course of today is because while we are on the bill that funds the Justice Department, while we are debating the bill that funds, in part, the background checks system, let's make sure it works. As the Senator knows, the data is clear: In jurisdictions that have near- universal background checks, there are less gun deaths--period, stop.…”