Blumenthal Questions Witnesses At Judiciary Hearing On Gun Violence

(Washington, DC) – Today, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) urged Wayne LaPierre, the Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and a witness at the hearing, to make the Sandy Hook Promise, which reads: “I promise to do everything I can to encourage and support common sense solutions that make my community and our country safer from similar acts of violence.” LaPierre agreed to make the promise.

Blumenthal: I’m proud to say Steve Barton has made the Sandy Hook Promise, Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly have made the Sandy Hook Promise, tens of thousands of Americans in Connecticut and across the country have made that promise, as have I. So I want to ask, Mr. LaPierre, will you make the Sandy Hook Promise?

Mr. LaPierre: Senator, our Sandy Hook Promise is always to make this country safer, which is why we have advocated immediately putting police and armed security in schools, fixing the mental health system, computerizing the records of those mentally adjudicated. I would hope we could convince some of these companies that are just, I’m not talking 1st Amendment, I know they have a right to do it, to stop putting out such incredibly violent video games, and finally we need to enforce the reasonable gun laws on the books that the NRA supports, that we do not do. That will make this country safer.

Blumenthal: Can I take that as a yes?

Mr. LaPierre: Yes, that’s a yes. We have 11,000 police…

Blumenthal: Can I invite and urge you to advocate that your members, responsible gun owners, and I thank them for being responsible gun owners, also join in the Sandy Hook Promise?

Mr. LaPierre: Senator, there is not a law abiding firearms owner across this United States that was not torn to pieces by what happened in Sandy Hook, they just don’t believe that their constitutional right to own a firearm, and the fact that they can protect their family with a firearm, resulted in the problem.

Blumenthal concluded his question-and-answer session with the hope that Newtown will be remembered as more than a place. 

“My hope is that Newtown will be remembered not just as a place but as a promise and that we use this tragedy as a means of transforming the debate, the discussion, the action that we need to make America safer,” Blumenthal said. 

A full transcript is below. 

Blumenthal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express my appreciation to you for your sensitivity and your condolences and so many of my colleagues for theirs as well, and the expressions we’ve had this morning and also, obviously, for convening this hearing, which is a beginning, hardly an end, just a first step, in what I hope will be a call to action that Newtown has begun, and action that is really bipartisan. Whatever the impressions that may be left by this morning’s proceedings, I think there is a real potential for bipartisan, common ground on this issue because we certainly have more in common than we have in conflict on this issue. And I speak as a former prosecutor, having served as Attorney General in the State of Connecticut for 20 years, but also as a United States Attorney, a federal prosecutor, for four and a half years. And I want to thank all of the members of the panel for your patience and your staying power today. It has been a very informative and worthwhile hearing. 

But I want to say a particular thanks to Captain Kelly and Gabby Giffords for your courage and strength in being here today. And to all of the victims and their families, Steve Barton who is here from Connecticut who was a victim in Aurora, many of the Sandy Hook families who are not here today I know are here in spirit. Mark and Jackie Barden, who lost their wonderful son Daniel at Sandy Hook, wrote a profoundly moving and inspiring piece in today’s Washington Post, and Mr. Chairman if there’s no objection I’d like to submit it for the record; it’s entitled “Make the Debate Over Guns Worthy of Our Son.” 

Chairman Leahy: Without objection. 

Blumenthal: To Chief Johnson, you are here not only in a personal capacity but, in my view, as representing and reflecting the courage and heroism of the tens of thousands of law enforcement community police and firefighters and first responders across the country who everyday brave the threat of gunfire and are often outmanned or outgunned by criminals. And I want to thank you for your service to our nation, as I do Capt. Kelly for his in our military. 

And just to say, I was in Sandy Hook within hours of the shooting at the firehouse where parents went to find out whether their children were alive. And I will never forget the sights and sounds of that day when the grief and pain was expressed in the voices and faces of those parents. As much evil as there was on that day in Newtown, there was also tremendous heroism and goodness. The heroism and goodness of the educators who perished, literally trying to save those children by putting themselves between the bullets and their children, and the heroism of those first responders and police who ran into that building to stop the shooter not knowing that he was dead when they did. And their being there in fact stopped the tragedy. 

So I want to thank also the community of Sandy Hook. I’ve spent countless hours there, the better part of three weeks after the shooting, and most recently this past weekend at the dedication of a memorial and then time with one of the families. And their strength and courage has been an inspiration for our country and very, very important to advancing an agenda of making our nation safer. And one way they’ve done it, one way, not the exclusive or only way, has been through a pledge called the Sandy Hook Promise. This promise I would like to read. We have it on a chart here. It is, “I promise to honor the 26 lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I promise to do everything I can to encourage and support commonsense solutions that make my community and country safer from similar acts of violence. I promise this time there will be change.”

I’m proud to say Steve Barton has made the Sandy Hook Promise, Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly have made the Sandy Hook Promise, tens of thousands of Americans in Connecticut and across the country have made that promise, as have I. So I want to ask, Mr. LaPierre, will you make the Sandy Hook Promise?

Mr. LaPierre: Senator, our Sandy Hook Promise is always to make this country safer, which is why we have advocated immediately putting police and armed security in schools, fixing the mental health system, computerizing the records of those mentally adjudicated. I would hope we could convince some of these companies that are just, I’m not talking 1st Amendment, I know they have a right to do it, to stop putting out such incredibly violent video games, and finally we need to enforce the reasonable gun laws on the books that the NRA supports, that we do not do. That will make this country safer.

Blumenthal: Can I take that as a yes?

Mr. LaPierre: Yes, that’s a yes. We have 11,000 police…

Blumenthal: Can I invite and urge you to advocate that your members, responsible gun owners, and I thank them for being responsible gun owners, also join in the Sandy Hook Promise?

Mr. LaPierre: Senator, there is not a law abiding firearms owner across this United States that was not torn to pieces by what happened in Sandy Hook, they just don’t believe that their constitutional right to own a firearm, and the fact that they can protect their family with a firearm, resulted in the problem.

Blumenthal: Let me ask you this, Mr. Lapierre: You and I both agree there should be more prosecutions of illegal gun possession and illegal gun ownership.

Mr. LaPierre: You know the problem, Senator, I’ve been up here on the hill for 20 some years agreeing to that and nobody does it. That’s the problem, every time we say we’re going to do it, and I’d make you this bet now, when President Obama leaves this office 4 years from now, his prosecutions will not be much different than they are now. If each U.S. Attorney did 10 a month, they’d have 12,000, if they did 20 a month they’d have 24,000. Let’s see if we get there.

Blumenthal: Chief Johnson, you’ve testified very persuasively on the need for better background checks, do you believe those background checks ought to be applied to ammunition purchases as well as firearms purchases?

Chief Johnson: Our organization supports background checks on ammunition sales. 

Thank you.

Blumenthal: And Capt. Kelly, you’ve supported better background checks as an advocate of the 2nd Amendment and I join you in believing that Americans have a strong and robust right to possess firearms, it’s the law of the land, do you also believe that better background checks on firearms purchases would help make both Arizona and our nation safer?

Capt. Mark Kelly: Absolutely, Senator, while we were having this hearing, and we certainly don’t know the details, in Phoenix, AZ there is another, what seems to be possibly a shooting with multiple victims and it doesn’t seem like anyone’s been killed, but initial reports are three people injured in Phoenix, AZ with multiple shots fired, and there are 50 or so police cars on the scene. And I certainly agree with you, Sir, that a universal background check, that’s effective, that has the mental health records in it, that has the criminal records in it, will go a long way to saving peoples’ lives.

Blumenthal: And improving the quality of information in those checks would make a difference.

Capt. Mark Kelly: Absolutely.

Blumenthal: Let me once again thank the panel, my hope is that Newtown will be remembered not just as a place but as a promise and that we use this tragedy as a means of transforming the debate, the discussion, the action that we need to make America safer.