Source: Politics<\/p>\n
In the first minutes following a Texas gunman’s slaughter of at least 18 children and a teacher, many Democrats said they were resigned to continued inaction on guns. Not Chris Murphy.<\/p>\n
The Connecticut senator, whose gun safety advocacy was kindled by an elementary school shooting in his state 10 years ago, asked his colleagues pointedly in an impassioned floor speech just after the killings: \u201cWe have another Sandy Hook on our hands. What are we doing?\u201d As he left the floor, Murphy said he wasn\u2019t there to needle his GOP colleagues or force them to reject legislation to make a political point.<\/p>\n
Instead, he was begging them to come to the table for a deal: \u201cI know I have Republican partners. I know there\u2019s 10 Republicans that will vote for something under the right circumstances, with the right leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand why people here think we are powerless,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cI am so willing to bend over backwards to find compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murphy reached out to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to extend his condolences on Tuesday afternoon; the duo have worked in the past on gun legislation. And Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he wants to reopen talks about gun safety legislation. Yet Murphy stands out in his caucus with his enduring interest in finding a path to a new gun bill, however small-scale it may seem.<\/p>\n
He joined the Senate shortly after a man shot and killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in his home state, a tragedy that sparked Congress’ last truly serious effort to pass gun safety legislation. Roughly nine years ago, most Republicans and a handful of Democrats blocked that bipartisan bid to expand background checks.<\/p>\n
In the years since, there\u2019s been on-and-off discussions about gun safety as more and more mass shooters kill people in the United States. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said\u00a0<\/a>in 2019 that background checks and red flag laws would be \u201cfront and center\u201d for Congress after a pair of deadly shootings that year, but the chamber took no action.<\/p>\n Now Democrats control the House and Senate, and although the House passed a bill strengthening background checks for gun buyers, nothing has come to the Senate floor for a vote. That\u2019s because Democrats see no path to getting the 10 Republican votes they need to break a filibuster, and they know there\u2019s also no path to weakening the 60-vote threshold needed to pass most bills.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t budge the Republicans an inch on this issue of gun safety,\u201d said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who also chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was hopeful that his party could at least unify around Steve Dettelbach, President Joe Biden\u2019s nominee to lead the nation’s chief gun safety regulatory agency, who has a confirmation hearing on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) put it more starkly about Republicans: \u201cI don\u2019t know when their morality says to them, ‘maybe we should actually do something instead of doing the bidding of the gun lobby’.\u201d<\/p>\n