By Diana Quirarte
ULVADE, TX –U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Ct) was elected weeks before the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, CT – Tuesday, he pleaded with Republican colleagues to take action against gun violence.
Murphy was referencing another elementary school mass shooting that happened Tuesday at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, leaving 18 children and 1 adult dead,
Murphy said, “This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking that they might be shot that day” referring to the fact that school shootings are uniquely a U.S. problem.
Responding to Republicans arguments that mass shootings are a problem of mental illness, not due to the easy access to guns, Murphy responded, “We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world. You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness, because we don’t — we’re not an outlier on mental illness.”
Texas gun laws are the least restrictive in the U.S. – Texas does not have a waiting period and all qualified applicants are allowed to carry a concealed firearm with a permit.
Murphy also questioned his colleagues as to why they go through all the trouble running for the U.S. Senate and being in a position of authority, if their response is to do nothing in regards to the shootings that consistently keep taking place.
Murphy added, “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, shooting after shooting.”
