Michael Bennet: “last weekend a man camped out on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. He stockpiled 23 weapons and…”

“last weekend a man camped out on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. He stockpiled 23 weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He set up bipods and scopes. He brought a hammer to knock out the window. Then, on Sunday, he opened fire. He kept firing for 15 minutes, stopping only to reload and switch weapons. Over 15 minutes, he murdered 58 Americans and injured more than 500. The day after the shooting, I was in Washington. I had seven or eight meetings, and not a single person in those meetings brought up the worst shooting in modern American history--not one. I am not sure if it was two mass shootings ago or three when we started to accept this as a normal condition of American life, when we lost our belief that it was within our power to protect our fellow Americans at a country music concert or at a nightclub or at a movie theater or at a school. I know there are strong beliefs about guns in America--principled beliefs--but there are also steps that the overwhelming majority of Americans want us to take. There are 90 percent of Americans who think we need background checks for every gun sale, including 74 percent of NRA members. There are 89 percent of Americans who think we should prevent the mentally ill from purchasing guns. There are 82 percent of Republicans who want us to bar gun purchases for people on the no-fly or terrorist watch list. Yet Congress has done nothing to respond to the American people.…”