WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Wednesday, joined by his colleagues U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), delivered remarks on the U.S. Senate floor calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring the Bipartisan Background Checks Act (H.R.8) up for a vote in the Senate. It’s been over 100 days since this legislation passed the House and approximately 11,000 people have been killed by guns since. During his remarks, Murphy discussed the popularity of universal background checks and called out Republican leadership for not trying to find a consensus on measures to end gun violence. June is also National Gun Violence Prevention Month.

In January 2019, Murphy led 40 Senators in introducing the Senate counterpart bill. 97% of Americans support comprehensive background checks and research indicates that as many as a quarter of all gun sales in the United States may occur without a background check.

“I get it, that the bill that passed the House of Representatives may not be the bill that could get 60 votes here in the Senate. But what's so offensive to many of us who have lived with this epidemic … is that we're not even trying. We're not even attempting to find common ground,” said Murphy.

Murphy added, “[The Senate] has become a complete, total, legislative graveyard. There is really nothing more important to families out there than their physical safety, their ability to protect their loved ones from harm. And the fact that we're not trying to find consensus on the issue of gun violence, that there's no interest in putting H.R.8 before this body so that we can attempt to debate it and amend it and come to some consensus in the Senate, is unconscionable to many of us.”

 

The full text of Murphy’s remarks is below:

“Thank you, Mr. President. I'm here on the floor to join my colleagues, Senator Blumenthal and those who will speak afterwards.

“It has been 113 days since the House of Representatives passed H.R. 8, the bipartisan background checks bill. We have a proposal before the Senate as well and we are here to ask a simple request. Bring this bill up for a debate. Let us do our work as the United States Senate on an issue that dominates the headlines, that dominates kitchen table conversation, and steals from this country 36,000 lives a year, 3,000 a month, and 100 a day. Those are the number of people who are killed by gunshot wounds. And each one of their stories is different, these are mostly suicides, many of them are homicides, accidental shootings, some are mass shootings that make the headlines. But no one can escape this horror today. In my son's school, he has to go through an active shooter drill every year and think about the trauma we put kids through preparing for a stranger to walk into their classroom with a weapon. 

“But just this past weekend, 32 people were shot and six were killed in one city alone, the city of Philadelphia. 24-year-old Isiaka Meite died this weekend. He was at a cookout to celebrate a graduation, also to celebrate Father's Day and he, along with four teenagers, were shot out celebrating. That's the reality of what happened in just one single city.

“And so I get it, that the bill that passed the House of Representatives may not be the bill that could get 60 votes here in the Senate. But what's so offensive to many of us who have lived with this epidemic, it's personal to everyone here because I don't think there's an individual in the Senate who hasn't had a one-on-one experience with a victim of gun violence or the mother or father of someone who was killed. What's so offensive is that we're not even trying. We're not even attempting to find common ground. The Senate used to do this. The Senate used to take big, important issues, put them on the floor and then spend at least a week's time trying to figure out whether you could get 50 or 60 votes. We're not doing that on anything in the United States Senate today. This place has become a complete, total, legislative graveyard. But there is really nothing more important to families out there than their physical safety, their ability to protect their loved ones from harm. And the fact that we're not trying to find consensus on the issue of gun violence, that there's no interest in putting H.R.8 before this body so that we can attempt to debate it and amend it and come to some consensus in the Senate, is unconscionable to many of us. 

“I want to narrow my remarks today on how exceptional this issue is from a public opinion standpoint. I've been on the floor so many times before talking about the evidence that points us to why background checks are the most impactful intervention we can make. In Missouri, where they got rid of their universal background checks requirement, and guns started to flow into the community through gun shows and internet sales without a background check, homicide rates went up by 30 to 40 percent and reports of Missouri-bought illegal guns found in other neighboring states skyrocketed. The exact opposite effect in Connecticut. Years ago, Connecticut put in place a universal background checks requirement tied to a local permit. Research shows that that reduced our gun homicide rate by around 40 percent. So the evidence is there.

“But let's just talk about the public opinion on this matter, because there's really nothing like background checks today in the public consciousness. Today, polls will tell you that 97 percent of Americans believe that everybody should go through a background check before they purchase a weapon. There's nothing else in America today that gets 97 percent support. I mean nothing else that gets 97 percent support. These are actual numbers. Apple pie is supported by 81 percent of Americans. Kittens -- kittens only get 76 percent support from the American public today. And baseball, the American pastime, only two-thirds of Americans that support baseball. But 97 percent of Americans think that you should fill out a form proving that you're not a criminal or someone who is seriously mentally ill before buying a gun. Universal background checks while here in Congress seemingly a very controversial politically charged issue, they’re more popular than apple pie, kittens, or baseball when you ask Americans. These are actual numbers. 

“I don't mean to make light of this. I just mean to drive home the point that no matter whether you represent a Republican-leaning state or a Democratic-leaning state, a state that voted for Donald Trump or a state that voted for Hillary Clinton, your constituents want you to vote for universal background checks. Let me just kind of give you the full panoply of public opinion on this. 97 percent is the number today. That includes 90 percent of gun owners, and I can back that up with plenty of anecdotal experience from my state. When I talk to gun owners, many of whom assume that I have a hidden agenda, who believe that I want to confiscate their guns. When I sit and talk to them about background checks, well they say, of course, it took me five minutes. I don't want people who are criminals to get their hands on guns, everybody should go through a background check. 90 percent of gun owners think this is a good idea. 

“And this isn't new data, back in 2012, prior to the shooting in Sandy Hook, 74 percent of N.R.A. members who were polled said that they supported requiring criminal background checks. A year later, in April of 2013, a Washington Post poll showed that 91 percent of Americans supported background checks. In July of 2014, a Quinnipiac poll found that 92 percent of Americans supported background checks including, in that poll, 86 percent of Republicans, 92 percent of Independents, 90 percent of men, 94 percent of women, 92 percent of gun-owning households. I mean, you don't get below 90 in any constituency. September of 2015, another poll shows that 93 percent of Americans support it, 90 percent of Republicans. A CBS poll from 2016 showed that 89 percent of Americans supported it, 92 percent of Republicans. A March 2017 Pew Research Center poll found that 77 percent of gun owners and 87 percent of non-gun owners supported background checks. And then the February 2018 poll where 97% of Americans support them. 

“And these are stunning numbers. They are stunning numbers, and again they don't require everybody in this chamber to support the bill that passed the House of Representatives, but it has been 113 days since H.R. 8, which is broadly supported by 90 percent of Americans, passed, and we still have not had that bill or any version of this measure brought up before this body for debate, for an attempt to find consensus, and this is the running theme. We are talking a lot about the Senate becoming a graveyard for legislation. Because in my lifetime, I read stories about the Senate working through big issues, having serious debates. Sometimes not coming to a completed product, sometimes ending up stymied, but more often than not, figuring out a way where 50 or 60 votes could be achieved. And the House is passing legislation, health care legislation, anti-violence legislation, clean elections legislation, and all of it is coming here to die. Not because we can't find consensus, but because we don't even try to find consensus. 

“In those 113 days, approximately 11,000 people have been killed by gun violence. That is a number that finds no equal in any other high-income nation, and I can talk to you about the variety of reasons for it, some of them can be solved by us, some of them can't. America is a unique nation with a unique history. We are, indeed, a melting pot of races and ethnicities and backgrounds and by virtue of that, we were likely going to be a more violent nation from the start. I admit that. But we have poured kerosene on this fire by having the loosest gun laws in the nation, a set of laws that are not supported by 90 percent of Americans who are asking us to do something different. So we are on the floor today asking, begging, pleading, Senator McConnell and Republican leadership to at least bring H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, or some version of it before the Senate so we can have a debate on the most important, most vital issue to Americans today: their physical safety. I yield the floor.”

 

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