Amy Klobuchar: “when I was a prosecutor, we had one straightforward goal: Convict the guilty and protect the innocent. To me, that…”

“when I was a prosecutor, we had one straightforward goal: Convict the guilty and protect the innocent. To me, that simple mission still holds true. We must make our world safer by rooting out evil in our midst, while still protecting the rights of people who mean no harm. Those 14 people in San Bernardino, that American aid worker killed in Mali, those innocent families whose plane exploded over Egypt, and those young people killed and maimed in Paris deserve nothing less. That means, of course, taking out evil at its roots, increasing our efforts, and leading an international coalition against ISIS, and it means keeping our homeland safe. Part of that is tightening the Visa Waiver Program, and some of it is the work that must be done on encryption. But there is one commonsense way to get at this terror that I join my colleagues in supporting today--commonsense action to close a dangerous loophole that allows suspected terrorists to illegally buy guns in the United States. Incredibly, current U.S. law does not prevent individuals who are on terror watch lists from purchasing guns. A total of 2,233 people on the watch list tried to buy guns in our country between 2004 and 2014, and more than 2,000--or 91 percent of them--cleared a background check according to the information from the Government Accountability Office. I am a cosponsor--and have been before these tragic events of the last few weeks--of Senator Feinstein's bill to close this loophole.…”