Chris Murphy

So we need to ultimately have a debate and a vote, right? So what Senator Schumer has said and I agree with him, is that let's give some space for these bipartisan talks but let's put a time limit on that.

Democrats need to campaign on this in 2022, because voters, you know, often don’t know the difference between the two candidates on guns because Democrats don’t run ads on it.

I think, there are twin obligations here. One obligation is on leaders to do the right thing. But the other obligation is on voters to, you know, kick out of office, folks who over and over again, vote against what 80%, 90% of Americans…

I think the question that Republicans will ask themselves over the course of the next few days is, will I pay a price this November? If I sit on my hands again?

I'm here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues. Find a path forward here. By doing something, we at least stop sending this quiet message of endorsement to these killers, whose brains are…

We are not going to allow this to become the new normal. We are not prepared to allow our schools to continue as killing fields. We are not prepared to allow the gun lobby and the gun industry to continue to run this town and this place.

I always like to begin where we agree, and we agree-- Republicans and Democrats on this committee--that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon and we should have a policy that makes that prospect the least likely.

But we might be able to do a piece of Manchin-Toomey. And so despite my frustration with the Republican Party, I'm willing to work with them to get a piece of that bill done.

We only have a handful of Republicans. And so, it is probably impossible to pass that proposal despite the fact that if you ask the American public if they support, expanded background checks to cover all commercial sales, 90% of Americans…

The Manchin-Toomey proposal says that every commercial gun sale in this country should have a background check attached to it.

So this is a pretty simple bill that's supported by 90% of the American public.

I'm going to work with my Republican colleagues, as you heard me pleading on the Senate floor last night for their help.

What could we do, we could probably incentivize these red flag laws that take guns away from people who are exhibiting signs of dangerous behavior, maybe we can do some small expansions of background checks.

So all day, I've been in conversations with Republicans and Democrats, we are going to spend next week trying to come up with a bipartisan compromise, it will be incremental, I'm going to be honest with you.

There's literally something rotting in our core right now because we are becoming so anesthetized to this. We're becoming numb to it.

By doing nothing, again, by reelecting all the same people who do nothing, year after year, you are inviting another set of families and another set of families to go through that horror scene that happened last night in Texas that I…

What are we doing? 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 or putting yourself in a position of authority if your answer is that as this slaughter…

There are 14 kids dead in an elementary school in Texas right now. What are we doing? Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African-American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands. What are we doing?

Chris Murphy is one of my heroes.

Yes, the only way that we can make change in this democracy is for people to stand up, to speak out, to vote. But there have been instances where the power of lobbyists here, the gun lobby is very, very difficult to overcome, even when the…

Our kids are living in fear, every single time they set foot in a classroom because they think they`re going to be next. What are we doing?

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.

The industry a few years ago, sort of was facing a crisis because fewer and fewer Americans were owning guns.

Yes, and this is a product in part of how the industry has changed, right?

Yes, there’s a celebration of violence in this nation which has gotten demonstrably worse over the last decade. And it has become a country that is just awash in guns. Ownership of a weapon is a way to sort of translate a set of broader…