Amy Klobuchar: “I rise today to join my colleagues in calling for commonsense action to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people…”

“I rise today to join my colleagues in calling for commonsense action to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people who should not have guns, including domestic abusers, and to close loopholes in existing laws that are now being exploited by criminals who are prohibited by law from possessing guns. Like the Presiding Officer's State, my State is a big hunting State. We are proud of that tradition, so whenever I look at any of these proposals, I think: Would this somehow hurt my Uncle Dick in his deer stand? Would it do anything to take away the rights of those who hunt, the rights of legal gun owners? That is how I look at each proposal, and the proposals we are talking about today would not do that. I wouldn't be supporting them if I thought they did. We know that no single policy can prevent every tragedy that has been caused by gun violence, but there is one area--what I call the silent victims--the women and the children who are killed in their homes every single day due to acts of domestic violence. According to domestic violence experts, more than three women per day lose their lives to their partners. More than half of those are killed--are shot--with a gun. This means that thousands of women-- thousands and thousands of women in the United States--were murdered by an intimate partner using a gun between 2001 and 2012 alone. These crimes don't discriminate. They impact people across all backgrounds, ethnicities, and income levels.…”