UNITED STATES SENATE

Dear Stjepan, Just like other Mainers, I was shocked and saddened when I heard about the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando early in the morning on June 12th. My heart is still filled with grief from this heinous act of terror and violence and my thoughts and prayers remain with the victims, their loved ones, and the LGBT community. However, thoughts and prayers without actions are not enough and if we want to honor those that have lost their lives due to gun violence, then an appropriate response needs to be taken by Congress to prevent guns from getting into the hands of terrorists, criminals, or the seriously mentally ill; I believe that we can do that without creating a national gun registry or infringing on people’s Second Amendment rights. On Wednesday, June 15th, Senator Murphy spoke on the Senate floor for close to 15 hours in support of expanding criminal background checks on gun sales and preventing individuals on the terror watch list from buying guns. I, along with many of my colleagues, joined Senator Murphy to speak about the importance of these simple measures and urged Senate leadership to hold a vote. On June 20th the Senate voted on four separate amendments related to gun violence. While I remain disappointed that the amendments I supported failed to reach 60 votes, I want to explain my thinking on them. Senator Grassley’s amendment (S.A. 4751), which I opposed, would have authorized $125 million from 2016 through 2020 to improve nationwide system for instant criminal background checks. However, the amendment also contained language that would have automatically invalidated thousands of mental health records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) without any review. While I share concerns about the Veterans Administration (VA) and Social Security Administration (SSA) expanding NICS data to include individuals who have been declared financially incompetent and have been assigned a fiduciary, I felt that Sen. Grassley’s amendment was too broad. In fact, in 2013, I supported a similar amendment that was offered by Senator Burr which would have required judicial authority to determine whether or not a beneficiary is a danger to themselves or others. Improving and expanding the background check system makes sense to me and I supported Senator Murphy’s amendment (S.A. 4750), which would have expanded criminal background check to all gun sales. Let me be clear—I do not consider keeping guns out of hands of convicted felons or the dangerously mentally ill to be in any way inconsistent with the provisions of the Second Amendment, and I know that no system will ever be perfect. A person with mental illness, who has not shown previous evidence of violence, may still be able to purchase a gun and become a shooter, but this is not a good reason to abandon safety efforts altogether, especially since the burden of the background check on the law-abiding citizens is relatively light. Certainly such a system is nowhere close to trying to keep everyone from buying a gun, as opponents often argue.  I believe that preventing people who are on the No Fly List or the Selectee List from purchasing firearms is an important step in addressing an egregious loophole in federal law that might allow suspected terrorists to purchase firearms and explosives in the United States—it is no way a means of secretly blacklisting people from otherwise legally owning firearms. As you may be aware, I was a co-sponsor on legislation on this issue, sponsored by Senator Collins. This proposal included a ”look-back provision” that ensured prompt notification to the FBI if a person who had been on the broader Terrorism Screening Database (TSDB) within the past five years purchases a firearm. This provision would have raised flags when the Florida gunman—who was not on any watch list at the time—purchased his weapons. It is also important to know that this proposal addressed the issue of due process protection for someone who may be inadvertently on the list and established a clear and timely redress process to remove their name and protect their constitutional rights. American citizens and green card holders would have been able to appeal an improper designation in the Court of Appeals, with the burden of proof on the Attorney General. Senator Collins’ legislation also ensured that there is additional oversight and transparency, by requiring the Attorney General to report to the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate on the number of persons denied a firearm, the number of appeals filed, and number of persons who prevailed in their appeals. On June 23rd, I spoke on the Senate floor in support of Senator Collins’ bill. The full speech, which you may be interested to view, can be watched via the following link: https://youtu.be/T1SFIj2jk8w.  After a great deal of thought and analysis of data, I continue to believe that attempts to ban assault weapons would not be effective. It is important to understand that so-called assault weapons are nothing more than a conventional (and entirely legal) semi-automatic hunting rifle dressed up with a different style of stock and grip. I do not think these bans, based solely on the appearance of the weapon, rather than its functionality, are an effective or enforceable way to limit gun violence. Banning certain guns, simply because they have an extra grip or a barrel shroud, as proposed assault weapons bans would do, could waste the limited resources of law enforcement without meaningfully reducing gun violence. All that an innovative evader of the law would need to do is to change the appearance of a weapon to escape the ban. Without getting into a long discussion about Constitutional interpretation, the view that the Second Amendment is absolute and unlimited and prevents the passage of any kind of restrictions on the sale of firearms is not supported by Supreme Court opinion or the general history of the Constitutional provision.   The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the Second Amendment to allow the regulation of certain kinds of guns and gun commerce; for example, fully automatic (Tommy) guns and sawed-off shotguns have been heavily regulated for 80 years. This governmental power was reconfirmed as recently as 2008 in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller which declared the District’s heavy restrictions on handguns unconstitutional. Following the heart of the opinion which struck down the District’s law, the late Justice Antonin Scalia—arguably the most conservative member of the court—made this point very clearly in the following opinion: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose...Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” I believe that a reasonable system of background checks falls squarely within this principle and that it offers some protection of public safety without in any way compromising the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. Best Regards, ANGUS S. KING, JR. United States Senator

Every week, my staff members hold outreach events around Maine, the schedule for which can be found here. The contact page on my website is a great way to get back in touch with me; I also welcome you to call or visit one of my four offices, anytime, with ideas or concerns. If you will be visiting Washington, I’d love to see you, please come to my weekly coffee or sign up for a tour.