Mr. REED. First, let me commend the Senator for this extraordinary and principled discussion that the Senator has led, along with Senators BLUMENTHAL and BOOKER. I do have a question, and it stems from some of the comments I have received from the Chief of Police in the State of Rhode Island, Colonel Steven O’Donnell, a skilled professional. What Colonel O’Donnell said—and it goes to one of the issues that Senator WHITEHOUSE discussed, the access to high-capacity magazines for these assault weapons. Colonel O’Donnell said: I’ve yet to hear a viable argument for high capacity magazines, what the purpose is. I have friends that are hunters. They use high capacity weapons, but not magazines. They use several rounds to hunt, but they don’t need 15, 30, and 45 round clips to hunt an animal. Is that some of the responses you are getting from some of your law enforcement professionals who deal every day with firearms?

Mr. MURPHY. That is the same response we get. I just reflect on one of my earlier responses to Senator WHITEHOUSE, that I have also heard fear in the wake of Sandy Hook from law enforcement about their ability to combat an individual who has staked out in a school or a workplace who doesn’t engage in a suicide mission but then tries to confront and take on police, that you have 30-round magazines, 100-round drums. That is very difficult to match from law enforcement’s perspective. I yield for additional questions.

Mr. REED. The Senator continually references military-style assault weapons. Frankly, I had the privilege of commanding paratroopers, and we were armed with M–16s, which is an AR–15 military variance. It was clear to us— and this was 30 years ago—these are military weapons. These are weapons that were designed to mass fire, rapid fire, even in semiautomatic mode. These were not designed for hunting. In fact, back in those days, we replaced the M–14—which didn’t have the same capabilities, much more accurate—because what they were looking for was just a sheer volume of fire that can inflict the most casualties possible, particularly in confined spaces, because of woods, because of jungle, because of war, because you are in a building. I think your points about military assault weapons are exactly the right points, and you, like me, have heard this not only from law enforcement professionals but also from military personnel about the nature of this weapon.

Mr. MURPHY. I think it is tragically instructive, I say to Senator REED, to think about what happened inside that school in Sandy Hook. There were 20 kids hit, and 20 kids died. These are powerful weapons with the capacity not only to discharge an enormous amount of ammunition in a short period of time, but the force of it is unprecedented in the firearms world, and there is a reason why not a single child survived. These are powerful killing machines that, as you said, were not designed for hunting. They were designed to kill as many people as possible, and that is why you see this epic rate of slaughter when they are used inside schools, inside nightclubs, inside churches.

Mr. REED. The Senator also commented, and I want to reconfirm it, that one of the characteristics of these weapons is that even in semiautomatic mode, there is a high rate of fire, and the velocity of the rounds are such that they inflict extreme damage. So even if it is in a semiautomatic mode, you have the ability to deliver devastating fire, and coupled with a large magazine, you can keep this fire up. The other point is that changing the magazine on one of these weapons is a matter of seconds. It is not a laborious task where you have to individually load rounds into the weapon. That, too, I think increases the lethality. Again, if the Senator would comment and concur, the adoption by the military had a logical military purpose—to increase the lethality of the weapons that we are giving to the soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen of the United States. That is not, I don’t think, what you and I would like to see in our civilian population—weapons for which the primary purpose is increased lethality. It is not accuracy, necessarily, not for a skill in terms of marksmanship, but simply increased lethality. Is that the sense that you have?

Mr. MURPHY. It is, I say to Senator REED. If you think about what we are doing today, the individuals who are contemplating lone-wolf attacks are not building IEDs in their basements any longer. They are going to the store and buying assault weapons. We essentially are selling weapons to the enemy. We are selling weapons to the enemy—powerful military style weapons. We are advertising them, and individuals who are contemplating these lone-wolf attacks are buying them. In fact, I have read quotes earlier today on the floor from terrorist operatives where they are calling on Americans to purchase these weapons and turn them on civilians because it is so easy to get access to them. This is a very deliberative tactic on behalf of these very dangerous international terrorist organizations, and that is one of the reasons why we think we have to wake up to the new reality of the threat of lone-wolf attacks and change our laws.

Mr. REED. Will the Senator yield again for a question?

Mr. MURPHY. I will.

Mr. REED. Essentially, what our adversaries are doing is exploiting loopholes in our law, and they are doing it very deliberately, very consciously. To date, we are standing by and letting them do that. They know where the weak points are. The weak points are not only that you can get these assault weapons, but another point is that a significant number of weapons were sold without a background check because they can be done through the Internet, through gun show sales, et cetera. We have taken this issue on before, and we failed to address those issues too.

Mr. MURPHY. Had we had in place a ban on individuals who were on the terrorist watch list to buy a weapon, it only would apply to brick-and-mortar stores. Even if Omar Mateen was on one of those lists and even if we passed a law saying that prohibited him from buying a weapon, he would have gone into that store, be told that he couldn’t buy a weapon, and then he could have walked right back to his house and gone online and bought one there or waited for the next weekend’s gun show, of which there are many in Florida, and bought one there. We don’t know how it would have played out, but without an expansion of background checks to people on the no-fly list being prohibited to buy guns, it is a half measure. I reiterate, these are the two things we are asking for—to have consensus on these two issues because they are the right thing to do, as we are discussing, but they also have the support of the American public.

Mr. REED. I have one final question for the Senator. It would seem to me that this would essentially deny our fiercest adversaries, the Islamist jihadists who are using the Internet to radicalize people—not only to radicalize them but, without directly controlling their conduct, suggesting to them the way they can get assault weapons legally in the United States and can arm themselves. If we take these steps, as you would suggest, we can deny our fiercest adversaries the arms they seek to inflict harm on our families, our friends and our neighbors.

Mr. MURPHY. It stands to reason that in the wake of this latest attack, we should wake up to the new tactics of our enemy. This is the new tactic of our enemy—to go buy these weapons and to use them against civilians. The genius of what we are proposing is that it keeps weapons out of the hands of would-be terrorists without affecting the Second Amendment rights of anyone else. We are talking about such a small number of sales. Over the course of the year, we are talking about 200 someodd sales. Think about that, 200-some odd sales that would be affected, that would force someone to be denied a purchase of a weapon because they were on the terrorist watch list. It stands to reason that we should accept the new tactics of these groups and amend our laws