Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy delivered a passionate speech just hours after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in southwest Texas.
The shooting at the school has claimed the lives of 18 children and two adults, including a teacher and the gunman, while injuring others.
Murphy came to Congress representing the district that included the city of Connecticut and is now a senator.
The shooting at the Texas school has claimed the lives of 18 children and two adults. (AP: William Luther / The San Antonio Express-News)
The Democrat previously represented the town of Sandy Hook, where the mass shooting of Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 took place, killing 26 people, including 20 children between the ages of five and 10.
Echoing the bloodshed of the Sandy Hook Massacre, Mr Murphy made an emotional plea to the Senate on Tuesday, urging his colleagues to finally find a compromise: pass legislation to address the issue of armed violence. in the nation.
Full speech by Senator Chris Murphy
(Note: At the time of Senator Murphy’s speech, 14 deaths were reported. Since then, the death toll has risen to 19).
Mr. President, 14 children have died in a Texas elementary school right now.
What are we doing? What are we doing?
A few days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to kill African American customers, we have another Sandy Hook in our hands.
What are we doing?
There were more mass shootings than days a year.
Our children live in fear. Every time they step on a classroom, they think it will be the following.
What are we doing?
Why are you spending all this time running for the United States Senate? Why bother to get this job, to put yourself in a position of authority?
As the massacre increases, as our children run to save their lives, we do nothing.
What are we doing?
Why are you here?
If not, to solve a problem as existential as this.
This is not inevitable. These kids weren’t “unlucky”. This only happens in this country, and nowhere else.
Nowhere else do children go to school thinking they would be shot that day.
Nowhere else should parents talk to their children like I should, about why they locked themselves in a bathroom and told them to shut up for five minutes in case a bad man came in. in that building.
This is not the case here except in the United States of America. And it is a choice. It is our choice to let it go.
What are we doing ?!
At Sandy Hook Elementary School, after these children returned to these classrooms, they had to adopt a practice in which there would be a sure word that children would say if they began to have thoughts in their brains about what they saw that day.
If they started having nightmares during the day, reliving the step over the bodies of their classmates as they tried to run away from school.
In a classroom, that word was “monkey.”
And over and over again, all day long, the kids would get up and shout, “Monkey!” And a teacher or a paraprofessional should approach that child, take him out of the classroom, talk to him about what he had seen, work with them through their problems.
Sandy Hook will never be the same.
This Texas community will never, ever be the same.
Because? Why are we here ?!
If not to try to make sure fewer schools and fewer communities go through what Sandy Hook has gone through, what Uvalde is going through.
Our hearts are broken for these families.
Every gram of love, thoughts and prayers we can send, we are sending.
But I’m here on this floor to beg, literally to get on my knees and knees and beg my classmates.
Find a way forward here. Work with us to find a way, to pass laws to make it less likely.
I understand that my fellow Republicans will not agree with everything I can support.
But there is one common denominator we can find.
There is a place where we can come to an agreement. This may not guarantee that the United States will never see a mass shooting again.
This may not, by the day, halve the number of murders that occur in America.
It will not solve the problem of American violence alone.
But by doing something, at least let’s stop sending this silent message of endorsement to these brainless killers, who see that the highest levels of government are doing nothing.
Shooting after shooting.
What are we doing?
Why are we here?
What are we doing? “
Senator Murphy previously represented Sandy Hook, where the mass shooting of Sandy Hook Elementary School took place in 2012. (AP: Alex Brandon)
Speaking to reporters later, Senator Murphy pointed to the Republican view that mass shootings are a mental illness problem, access to guns is not easy.
“Avoid shit about mental illness,” he said.
“We have no more mental illness than any other country in the world.
“This cannot be explained through a mental illness prism because we are not an atypical value of mental illness.
“We’re atypical about access to firearms and the ability of criminals and very sick people to carry guns to firearms. That’s what makes America different.”
Reuters / ABC News
Posted 1 hour 1 hour ago Wed, May 25, 2022 at 2:36 AM, updated 33m ago, 33 minutes ago Wed, May 25, 2022 at 3:19 AM