An oversight hearing to examine the United States Copyright Office.
Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks
2024-11-13
Source: Congress.gov
Participants
Transcript
Senate Judiciary Committee will come to order. Let me say at the outset that the Republican caucus is having a leadership election as we meet here today and will be unable for the most part to join us. They have given me permission to proceed. We always try to wait until there is bipartisan presence, but today it will be extremely difficult and we certainly want to be cooperative with their own undertaking. I'll make an opening statement, introduce the witnesses, and have them each make an opening statement and then proceed to questions. This is our 14th gun violence prevention hearing in the last four years. Why? Because every Monday morning, I wake up to the news of how many people have been shot and killed over the weekend, not just in Chicago, but around the United States. And those who believe that the gun violence is only a product of blue states and blue cities are just plain wrong. Gun violence is across this nation in every political environment that you can imagine. And we should view it as an American problem, not as any political problem for any particular party. I hope to be able to work with the new incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, He and I have literally been friends for 30 years, and that friendship is going to continue. We proved something that our critics didn't think was possible. We came up with a sentencing reform bill known as the First Step Act that was passed and signed into law by President Trump, a bipartisan measure which has been viewed as one of the singular reform measures when it comes to criminal sentencing. I hope we can follow that same model on a bipartisan basis in the new Congress. And now to the subject of our hearing. We are examining the spread of deadly conversion devices that are increasing the gun lethality of gun violence in America.
On October the 1st, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concert goers in Las Vegas, killing 58, wounding over 400, traumatizing thousands. The extent of the carnage was made possible by a conversion device known as a bump stock. In the aftermath, Republicans and Democrats agreed that we needed to act swiftly to restrict access to bump stocks. just wanted to check we have a video that i want to run and i want let's if we're ready let's do it now okay
such an incredible amount of destruction in a very short amount of time. Investigators say that he used a device called a bump stock on several of his guns. Investigating a mass shooting with multiple casualties. There was crime scene tape everywhere, police vehicles everywhere. Police say more than 100 shots were fired into a crowd of people outside Hush Lounge. Approximately 21 people were shot, four of those are deceased. Glock switches turn a handgun into a machine gun. And it's surprising. It takes about 20 bucks or a 3D printer. You know, the concern is that they're everywhere out there on the streets. It's pushing down on your actual trigger bar, keeping it from resetting, and that's what's causing it to fire automatically. We were able to find these illegal gun modifiers openly for sale for anywhere from $20 to $200. These devices are creating terrifying terrain for police and communities all across America. We see a huge increase. Criminal elements are using them against other criminal elements, but also our law enforcement partners. In 2020, ATF seized more than 4,000 weapons with conversion devices. In just one year, that number increased by nearly 50% to almost 6,000. These modified weapons have killed and injured dozens of people at a time in mere seconds.
After the Las Vegas shooting, Republicans and Democrats agreed that we needed to act swiftly to restrict access to bump stocks. Then President Donald Trump directed the Department of Justice to issue a rule banning bump stocks. And he said, quote, we will ban all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns, end of quote. Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, said, and I quote, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that's keeping that's in keeping with the Constitution and laws passed by Congress. But earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration's regulation in a six to three decision. The Republican appointed justices concluded, wrongly in my view, that the Trump administration could not define bump stocks as machine guns under the National Firearm Act.
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