Washington—Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) today released the following statement following the Senate vote to table the Collins terror gap amendment:

“The Senate filibuster and House sit-in show that Democrats in Congress—and the American people—have had enough. We’ll not sit idly by and let another mass shooting go unanswered. We refuse to treat the slaughter of 49 Americans as an unavoidable tragedy.

“Senator Collins’ amendment would have been a step forward, but unfortunately it would not have closed the loophole that allows known or suspected terrorists to legally buy guns. That’s because it doesn’t cover people on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. Just half of 1 percent of people on this list are Americans—99.5 percent are foreign nationals.

“The effect of using the much smaller No-Fly and Selectee lists is that nearly 1 million foreign nationals on the terrorist watch list—who may be affiliated with terrorist groups like al Qaeda, ISIL and Al Nusra—would not be covered, and may be able to legally buy guns in this country. This defies logic and poses a national security risk. 

“I’ll never stop working to improve our laws and reduce gun violence in this country, and I’m hopeful that the worst mass shooting in our history, and the response we’ve seen the past week, will mark the beginning of a sea change on this issue.”

• The Terrorist Screening Database has approximately 1 million people, with fewer than 5,000 U.S. persons.
• The no-fly list has approximately 81,000 persons, with fewer than 1,000 U.S. persons.
• The selectee list has approximately 28,000 persons, with fewer than 1,700 U.S. persons.