Chris Murphy fights to make gun control a winning issue for Democrats.
On Wednesday, February 14, as the US Senate entered a third day of deadlocked immigration talks, Sen. Chris Murphy arrived at the Capitol to call for protections for undocumented migrants brought to the country as children. “Immigrants have always fueled America’s economy,” he tweeted. “Dropping a history lesson on the Senate floor at 3pm.”
But moments before he approached the lectern, Murphy learned that a gunman had opened fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The history lesson would have to wait. “As we speak, there is a horrific scene playing out at a high school in South Florida,” he said gravely as he addressed his colleagues in the Senate chamber. “Turn on your television right now. You’re gonna see scenes of children running for their lives.”
Murphy’s jaw jutted out in anger. “We are responsible for a level of mass atrocity that happens in this country with zero parallel anywhere else,” he said, his voice rising. “As a parent, it scares me to death”—he jabbed his finger into the air with each word for emphasis—“that this body doesn’t take seriously the safety of my children.”
In the six years since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre shook his district and left 26 dead, the Connecticut Democrat has become the most outspoken gun control advocate in Congress. He’s made dozens of floor speeches on the subject, most memorably a 15-hour filibuster after the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting that killed 49 people.
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