U.S. Senator Murphy implores lawmakers to act on guns after Texas school massacre
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy on Tuesday implored his colleagues to behave to fight gun violence hours after a mass shooter killed 14 Texas college kids, dismissing a typical Republican argument by saying, “Spare me the bullshit about psychological sickness.”
Murphy, who earlier than his election to the Senate represented the Connecticut congressional district the place a gunman killed 26 younger kids and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary Faculty in 2012, urged his colleagues to craft laws to limit the proliferation of weapons.
Senator Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT): “The 14 children lifeless in an elementary college in Texas proper now. What are we doing? What are we doing? Simply days after a shooter walked right into a grocery retailer to gun down African American patrons we now have one other Sandy Hook on our arms.” pic.twitter.com/IALrVON2mV
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 24, 2022
“I simply do not perceive why individuals right here assume we’re powerless,” Murphy informed reporters after a fiery ground speech. “There’s simply not a coincidence that we are the high-income-world’s deadliest nation and we now have the loosest gun legal guidelines. You understand, weapons stream on this nation like water. And that is why we now have mass capturing after mass capturing.”
Earlier efforts to cross new federal restrictions on weapons failed following the Sandy Hook capturing, a 2017 assault on Republican members of Congress working towards baseball, and an assault simply 10 days in the past at a Buffalo, New York, grocery retailer.
Many Republican lawmakers, who usually oppose new restrictions on gun possession, following previous assaults have argued that america must do extra to finish psychological sickness, which might drive some shooters.
“Spare me the bullshit about psychological sickness,” Murphy stated, anticipating that response to Tuesday’s bloodbath, which killed a instructor in addition to 14 college students. “We have no extra psychological sickness than every other nation on the earth. You can not clarify this by a prism of psychological sickness as a result of we’re not an outlier on psychological sickness. … We’re an outlier on the subject of entry to firearms and the power of criminals and really sick individuals to get their arms on firearms. That is what makes America totally different.”
The U.S. Supreme Courtroom within the coming weeks is predicted to rule on a case that might significantly develop the appropriate to hold hid handguns, in a problem to a New York state legislation that opponents say violates the U.S. Structure’s Second Modification proper to maintain and bear arms.
Murphy stated he could be comfortable to work on a bipartisan answer, saying a invoice wanted to “present progress” and never essentially be an ideal legislative repair.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis stated lawmakers wanted to check out “affordable measures” to curtail threats to communities.
“I am comfortable to have a look at something so long as it does not deny anyone rights for law-abiding residents,” he informed reporters.
(Reporting by Makini Brice; further reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Jane Ross; Enhancing by Scott Malone and Leslie Adler)
