In remarks on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ripped into the Supreme Court's decision to overturn a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, and urged Senate Republicans to not stand in the way of a bill to restore the ban.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. President, Majority Leader, it should never take a tragedy of a mass shooting
00:06for the Senate to pass common-sense gun safety legislation. Thankfully today we
00:12have a chance to make our community safer if Republicans don't stand in the
00:16way. This afternoon my colleague Senator Heinrich will come to the floor and seek
00:22passage of a federal ban on bump stocks. I applaud this effort. I applaud his bill.
00:28I'm proud to support and speak on behalf of it. We must act because a few days ago
00:34the MAGA Supreme Court struck once again saying the federal government has no
00:40power to ban the sale of bump stocks. The MAGA Court's decision is an utter
00:45disgrace. It will endanger our communities, endanger law enforcement, and
00:51make it easier for mass shooting shooters to unleash carnage. Last week's
00:56decision is another warning sign that this MAGA Court is going off the deep
01:00end, aligning with the most extreme elements of the hard right. Bump stocks
01:06are truly dangerous devices. They allow people to use rifles essentially as
01:10machine guns, which the National Firearms Act banned in the 1930s. Even Donald
01:17Trump banned bump stocks shortly after the deadliest shooting in U.S. history
01:21when a shooter in Vegas used bump stocks to fire over a thousand rounds in ten
01:26minutes, and we know the tragic results of 60 people dead and hundreds and
01:31hundreds injured. Donald Trump is no friend of gun safety, but there was such
01:36huge pressure after we saw the carnage that bump stocks created that even he
01:40introduced legislation, sorry, introduced a resolution to ban them. What today's
01:48bill does is return things to the status quo set by Donald Trump, saying bump
01:53stocks are dangerous and should be prohibited. Senate Republicans by and
01:57large supported Trump's ban on bump stocks back then, so they should support
02:02this bill today. But sadly, some of our colleagues on the other side are making
02:06it clear they will ignore the immense worry most Americans have about gun
02:10violence, and they will block today's bill. Some on the other side say this
02:15bill's political theater, that it does nothing, that's a stunt. Go tell the
02:21families of those who lost loved ones that this is a stunt. Go tell the many
02:25who have recovered from injuries that this is a stunt. Are my Republican
02:30colleagues serious? Do they really think banning bump stocks is some kind of
02:34stunt? Again, they should tell that to the people of Nevada who have dead
02:39relatives because of bump stocks. Whenever Republicans use the cliche
02:44show vote argument, that's their way of saying they don't want to engage on the
02:48issue on the merits. Remember what happened two years ago on the Senate
02:52floor. Democrats and Republicans worked together to pass bipartisan gun safety
02:57legislation, something almost nobody thought possible. I'm very proud that
03:03both sides persevered because we passed that bill and it's done a lot of good
03:08for this country already. Today we have a chance to add to the success of two years
03:13ago by passing a simple measure that restores the Trump era prohibition on
03:17bump stocks. I implore, I implore my Republican colleagues not to stand in
03:23the way of today's bill because if we can pass it today, we'll be one step
03:27closer to ensuring that a tragedy like what happened in Las Vegas never happens
03:32again. But if Republicans get in the way today, if they decide to side with the
03:38gun lobby instead of parents and teachers and law enforcement, they're
03:42asking for another tragedy to strike sooner or later.