Cory Booker: “I thank the Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, and the senior Senator from Connecticut as well. I do want to echo…”

“I thank the Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, and the senior Senator from Connecticut as well. I do want to echo his spirit and the deference he gave to Senator Barbara Mikulski and Senator Shelby. Both of these two Senators are people I respect a tremendous amount. In fact, I would go beyond that for Senator Shelby and Senator Mikulski because I have deep affection for them. They are great, strong legislators, and they have produced legislation that is important to this country. I have a reverence for their work, the attention to detail, and the focus they have provided preparing legislation to move forward. I asked for indulgence from them to understand why I stand on the floor today preparing to ask a question to Senator Murphy. Last night, Senator Murphy and I talked about the tragedy of what happened in Florida. It was painful to both of us because we knew this was not in any way an anomaly. This was something happening with terrible, savage routine. In this Nation we are seeing mass killing after mass killing after mass killing after mass killing. We both understood, with other colleagues, that right now our Nation stands at a point of vulnerability to those who seek to do us harm, those who seek to inflict terror, those who seek to inflict grievous bodily harm, those who seek to kill Americans, and they have the ability to exploit loopholes in order to have access to weapons.…”