Heinrich Holds Virtual Press Conference On Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) held a virtual press conference on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that passed the Senate on Thursday by a vote of 65 to 33.

A video recording of Senator Heinrich’s remarks can be found here.

Senator Heinrich is a member of the bipartisan group of senators of 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans that announced the legislation earlier this week. He played a key role in including language to stop illegal gun trafficking and define and increase penalties for straw purchasing. 

A one pager on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is available here. The full bill text can be found here. 

Senator Heinrich’s full remarks as prepared for delivery are below.

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining me for this historic moment in the United States Senate.

Last night, for the first time in almost three decades, we just proved that it is possible to set aside the vicious politics that have held us back for too long on this particular issue.

When we work together, across party lines, we can actually create laws and policies that save lives.

The level of gun violence that our communities in New Mexico and across the country are experiencing is appalling and frankly unacceptable.

And New Mexico continues to struggle with one of the highest rates of gun deaths in the country.

Far too many New Mexicans have lost friends and family members to this epidemic of violence.

I am so proud that we have now taken some concrete action in the Senate to make this situation better.

Like a lot of New Mexicans, I am a gun owner myself.

I have a sincerely held respect of law abiding gun ownership.

In fact, many of my most cherished memories involve responsible use of a firearm - to feed my family and to forge memories with my kids and my closest friends.

But those same sons of mine grew up doing active shooter drills in their classrooms.

Something that would have been completely unimaginable when I was their age.

And just this spring, my son’s high school was on lockdown when I arrived to pick him up due to a nearby shooting that involved students.

We can’t allow these all too common scenes to keep playing out over and over again.

Last night, we took actions to reduce this violence.

I have been honored to join my friend, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and a number of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle, to chart this meaningful path forward.  

Our bipartisan group found areas of agreement that will boost public safety, fight crime, invest in mental health care.

And we will keep more firearms out of the hands of those who would use them against themselves and their communities.

I worked particularly closely with my Republican colleague, Senator Susan Collins, on provisions that will crack down on dangerous straw purchases and illegal trafficking of firearms.

I spoke on the Senate floor yesterday about how these types of fraudulent purchases and trafficking operations have fueled deadly violence in New Mexico as well as internationally.

Our provisions will finally give law enforcement the tools they need to stop this activity.

And let me take a moment to explain how.

Under current law, it’s a minor, basically a paperwork offense to buy a gun for someone else – and even then, that only applies if you buy the gun from a federal firearm licensee.  

Under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, we are making it a serious crime to buy a gun for someone else when you know that person will use the gun to commit a felony or when that person is not allowed to buy a gun themselves. 

That applies whether you buy the gun from a federal firearm licensee or not.

The consequences of this simple change will be real.

This legislation will also stop the type of organized straw purchasing and trafficking we have often seen in New Mexico.

Right now, law enforcement has to watch as an organized chain of straw purchases happens, one after another, intended to protect the person most at fault – the ringleader of the operation – by keeping them far removed from the purchase that happens at an FFL—a federal firearm licensee.

Our law enforcement can really only go after the person who walked into the federal firearm licensee and made the very first of the straw purchases.

That’s usually the person least involved in the overall scheme.

But that’s about to change.

Soon, these ringleaders won’t be able to distance themselves from the law.

With our new straw purchase provision, law enforcement will be able to go after every single link in the illegal chain of purchases – to take down the entire ring, not just the vulnerable individuals that these rings sometimes rely on to make the very first purchase. 

And there’s more.  

While trafficking firearms into the U.S. is a major federal crime under existing laws, trafficking firearms out of the U.S. has not been.

For years, this has meant that firearms trafficked out of the United States are the primary supply of guns used to commit violent crimes in Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.  

It has also invited dangerous firearm trafficking into communities on both sides of our nation’s southern and northern borders.

Not anymore. 

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act takes this violence on with the severity that it deserves.  

It gives law enforcement the tools they need to stop this activity, and the violence it creates in our communities.

Put another way, this is one of the biggest border security laws we have passed in years.

I fully recognize that our bill, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, is a compromise.

Many of the parents and students who have raised their voices in New Mexico and across the country to demand action on gun violence would like us to go even further.

But progress has to start somewhere.

The hardest part of every negotiation is letting go of the perfect for the possible.

I am confident that the legislation that we passed today will make a real difference in reducing gun violence.

It’s a difference that will be measured in lives saved.

I want to acknowledge all of the survivors of gun violence, the moms who have demanded action, and the young people who have marched for their lives.

Their dedication and their advocacy is what made our action possible last night.

The painful truth is that we can never heal the grieving families all across our country who have lost their sons and daughters, their brothers and sisters, and their fathers and mothers to gun violence.

But what we can do—what we just did last night by passing this legislation—is to honor their memory with real actions.

Each life that we save by passing this legislation will mean literally everything to that person’s loved ones.

That is what this effort was all about.