U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy returns home to Connecticut for a victory lap Friday after pulling off a seize-the-moment feat in Washington: Crafting a gun-safety bill that passed the Senate with not just Democratic, but 15 Republican votes.
Murphy crafted the compromise bill with Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the wake of Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings that gut-punched the nation.
Their bill, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed the Senate Thursday by a 65 – 33 vote. It strengthens background checks for 18-to-21-year-old gun-buyers, includes juvenile records in gun-permit decisions, incentivizes state “red-flag” laws, buttresses efforts to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, and promises to send a sea of cash to school-base mental-health clinics. The House of Representatives passed the bill Friday afternoon, sending it to President Biden for his expected signature.
The bill’s passage caps a decade-long gun-safety fight Murphy has led in the Senate since the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre. It also cements his position on the list of Democrats considered potential 2024 presidential contenders if Joe Biden does not seek reelection.
Murphy and fellow Connecticut U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal planned to attend a gun-violence survivors and gun control advocates at a celebration of the vote, to be held in Hartford’s Riverside Parl at noon.
Following are Murphy’s remarks on the Senate floor prior to Thursday’s vote:
“Madam President, four weeks ago, I was sitting in that chair, presiding over the Senate on a quiet Tuesday afternoon when news broke that nineteen children – all the same age as my youngest son – had been gunned down in their Texas elementary school.
“And as I scrolled through the early reports of the carnage, all I could think of was these two simple questions. What are we doing? Why are we here?
“I sat up there, obsessing over our willful decision as a body to ignore the slaughter that has become so regular that the news only seems to pay attention now when over a dozen die. Our collective decision year after year to do nothing.
“What is the point of this job we fought so hard to get, if we just decide that saving children’s lives is too hard or involves too inconvenient an amount of political risk.
“Shooting after shooting, murder after murder, suicide after suicide, for thirty years – Congress stood in its political corners and did nothing.
“But not this time. Within two days of the Uvalde massacre, Senator Cornyn, Senator Tillis, Senator Sinema, and I joined by other members of this body had started talking. Not about our disagreements. We have plenty of those. But instead, about what could be possible if we sat together and refused to give up until we figured out the set of things we could agree on – the things that could get 60 votes – to save lives.
“I am so grateful, in the bottom of my soul, to John, to Thom, to Kyrsten, and the other senators who took part in these talks, for what they did over these last four weeks. I’m grateful to Senator Schumer, Senator McConnell for empowering these discussion and allowing us to have this debate this week.
“I’m equally proud of my team. Allison and Samir, Emily and Rebecca, Pete and Elizabeth, who worked 24/7 for the last 30 days straight, to get this bill done.
“But mostly, I’m proud of the regular people, all across this country, many of whom were forced to become advocates after this epidemic took from them a son or a daughter, a mother or a father. Those citizens, many of which are watching this debate right now, who protested or wrote letters or showed up at town halls, year after year, failure after failure, roadblock after roadblock, refusing to give up because the stakes – their children’s safety – were so high they couldn’t afford to give up – that’s who I’m really proud of today. People would not take no for answer, and knew that the righteousness of the cause had to eventually prevail.
“This bill is a compromise. It doesn’t do everything I want. But what we are doing will save thousands of lives – without violating anyone’s Second Amendment rights.
“Through more effective red flag laws. By keeping guns away from domestic abusers. By being more careful about giving weapons to 18 year olds. By getting more people access to treatment for their mental illness. This will become the most significant piece of anti-gun violence legislation Congress has passed in three decades.
“And as a result, this bill also has the chance to prove to a weary American public, that democracy is not so broken that it is unable to rise to the moment, when the need for action like right now in the wake of Uvalde and Buffalo is most acute.
“What are we doing? Why are we here?
“We’re answering those questions today. Not fully. But with enough force that anxious moms and dads and kids all across this nation can wake up tomorrow and be a little bit more confident that the adults who run this country actually care about their safety.
“Because you know what? People still believe in us. People still count on us.
“Two months after his son was gunned down by a 19 year old with an assault rifle in Sandy Hook, one of the dads came to Congress and gave this testimony:
“’Before he died,’ Neil Heslin told Congress, ‘My son Jesse and I used to talk about maybe coming to Washington someday. He wanted to go up the Washington monument. When we talked about it last year, Jesse asked if we could go meet the President. Now I can be a little cynical about politicians. But Jesse, he believed in you. He learned about you in school, and he believed in you. I want to believe in you, too. I know you can’t give me Jesse back. Believe me, if I thought you could I’d be asking you for that. But I want to believe that you will think about what happened to my son and what I’ve seen. I want to believe that you’ll think about it and then you’ll do something about it.’
“What are we doing? What are we here for? If not to do something – something meaningful, something real, something together – to end this carnage.
“Jesse believed in us. And today, more so than at any time since I came to Congress sixteen years ago, I believe in us too.”