Chris murphy slams fellow senators after texas shooting why are

Senator Chris Murphy was a young United States Representative from Connecticut when he stood in a firehouse with families in his district in 2012 as he learned that his children, all first graders, were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. was given.

On Tuesday, nearly 10 years later, he stood on the Senate floor in agony as another US city learned that children had been shot in an elementary school.

“What are we doing? What are we doing?” Mr. Murphy called on his colleagues to take action on gun control.

“Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate—why do you go through all the trouble of getting this job, putting yourself in a position of authority—if your answer is that as it’s the slaughter.” Grows, our children run for their lives, we do nothing?”

At times his voice strains to anger as he confronts his fellow senators with the grief and desperation of a nation that has seen mass shooting after mass shooting With little action from Congress: “What are we doing?” He asked. “Why are you here if you’re not there to solve this kind of existential problem?”

Mr Murphy’s address on the Senate floor has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social mediaIn the hours after 19 children, a teacher and another adult were killed in Uvalde, Texas. It is the deadliest school shooting in the United States since Sandy Hook, which changed the course of Mr. Murphy’s career.

He took office in the Senate less than a month after seeing those parents in Newtown, Conn., learning that their children weren’t coming home, and failed to enact gun safety bills over the next decade.

“I have this very deep feeling,” he said, “that I will view my time in public service as a failure if I don’t meet the expectations of those parents in Sandy Hook, and Hartford and Bridgeport.”

Mr. Murphy, who holds an “F” rating with the NRA, told the New York Times Last week he dismissed the notion that his crusade is hopeless — that if 20 elementary school kids are being murdered in Newtown, nothing will change US gun laws.

“It’s a fundamentally wrong way of looking at how Washington works,” he said. “Here are a few episodes. It’s all about political power and political power, and we’re in the process of creating our own.”

Still, some of his speeches on the Senate floor on Tuesday prompted a change of heart in his colleagues.

Children returning to school in Sandy Hook after the shooting had to be taught a safe word when they were relived from moments of attack, such as stepping on the bodies of their classmates, Murphy said.

“In one class, that word was ‘monkey,'” he explained, describing how teachers would talk children through their flashbacks. “And throughout the day, the children stood up and shouted, ‘Monkeys!'”

“why?” Mr. Murphy said. “Why are we here if we’re not trying to make sure we’re through Sandy Hook with fewer schools and fewer communities? What is Uvalde going through?”

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