Murphy delivers emotional speech on Senate floor after Texas shooting

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday ripped his Senate colleagues who refuse to take meaningful action on gun violence following a deadly mass shooting at a Texas elementary school. 

“Fourteen kids dead in an elementary school in Texas right now. What are we doing? What are we doing? … We have another Sandy Hook on our hands. What are we doing?” Murphy said in his opening statement, mentioning the recent shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets location in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Newtown massacre in his home state in 2012, when he was a House member.

“Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store and gunned down African American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands,” Murphy said. 

“What are we doing? There have been more mass shootings [than] days in the year. Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in the classroom because they think they’re going to be next. What are we doing?” he asked. 

Murphy, pointing out that mass shootings regularly occurring “only happens in this country,” ripped his fellow senators for failing to pass gun reforms 

“Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate, why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job of putting yourself in a position of authority if your answer is that, as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing?” he said on the Senate floor. 

“What are we doing? Why are you here if not to solve a problem as existential as this. … This isn’t inevitable. The kids weren’t unlucky. It only happens in this country.” 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced on Tuesday that 14 children and one teacher were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. 

Local authorities identified the suspect as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, with Abbott noting that Ramos was shot and killed by authorities responding to the incident. 

Murphy then called on his fellow GOP colleagues to help work on legislation to address this issue, adding that former Sandy Hook students still haven’t fully recovered from the trauma they experienced after the massacre. 

“To beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely,” Murphy said. “I understand my Republican colleagues will not agree to everything that I may support, but there is a common denominator that we can find.” 

“But by doing something, we at least stop sending this quiet message of endorsement to these killers whose brains are breaking, who see the highest levels of government doing nothing,” Murphy concluded. “Shooting after shooting. What are we doing? Why are we here? What are we doing?”