WASHINGTON— After this week’s tragic shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan and amid the ongoing gun violence epidemic killing 100 people daily, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Thursday took to the U.S. Senate floor to ask for unanimous consent to pass H.R. 8, legislation that would expand background checks, a measure that is supported by the vast majority of Americans. Murphy was joined by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in his call to pass life-saving, common sense gun legislation. Senate Republicans refused to take up the vote.

On the uniquely American gun violence epidemic, Murphy said: “This happens every single day in this country at a rate ten times higher than any other country in the high-income world. It only happens in the United States of America. And we let it happen as a body. We let it happen as a body, because it is not that we are unlucky in the United States. This is a policy choice that we make.”

On Republicans refusal to pass widely popular background checks legislation, Murphy said: “[T]he reason that we can't get anything done in the Senate is not because there is a disagreement amongst our constituents about what to do. Our constituents, Republicans and Democrats, support measures like universal background checks. In fact, there's almost nothing in the political world that enjoys such high support as universal background checks,” Murphy said. “But we can't get it done because it seems as if many of my colleagues here care more about the health of the gun industry and their profits than they do about the health of our kids. Gun industry profits are being put ahead of the safety of my children, of our children. Shooting after shooting, Republicans in this body have refused to do anything meaningful that would reduce this pace of carnage both in our schools, but on the streets of America.”

Following the shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan, Murphy called out Republicans’ hypocrisy in speaking about the “sanctity of human life” while refusing to take action to stem the gun violence that claims thousands of lives each year.

Click here to watch his floor speech in full.

A full transcript of his remarks can be found below:

“I'm on the floor today to ask for unanimous consent from my colleagues to proceed to H.R. 8, the House-passed bipartisan comprehensive background checks bill, and I want to tell you why I'm making this request. I understand the low likelihood of success. But I hope many of my colleagues took a minute to watch the cell phone video from the school shooting in Michigan yesterday -- on Tuesday, excuse me. 

“Absolutely terrifying to watch, in real time, children fleeing their classroom in fear that their lives were about to be ended. 100 9-1-1 calls came in to the police during the shooting. Surveillance footage reportedly shows the gunman entering a bathroom with a backpack, then exiting a minute later without the backpack but with a handgun. He then started firing at students and when they started they started to run he “methodically and deliberately” walked down the hallway and aimed his gun into classrooms and at students who were unable to escape. 

“We think about the damage done and the number of lives lost—four so far—and those that were injured, but really the damage is so much broader because all of those kids who fled that violence, all of those kids who now don't think of school as a safe place, they are going through trauma and will go through trauma that may take a lifetime to address. 

“And multiply that times millions, because that's what is happening to kids all across this country who don't feel school is a safe place any longer, who don't think their neighborhoods are a safe place any longer, who grow up in parts of this country in which everyday gun violence is routine. They don't believe they'll live past the age of 25.
“The damage happening across this country is acute, it is real, it is pervasive. This is an epidemic of gun violence that exists in the United States and nowhere else. The risk, though, is that this country thinks about gun violence only when there is a mass shooting or only when there is a shooting at a school. 

“On Tuesday, the same day that the country was captivated by these terrifying images out of Oxford High School, in Taylor, Texas, four bodies were found at a home in that town after an apparent murder-suicide. Police said that Anthony Davis, 57-years-old, shot and killed his wife, his wife's stepchild, and the stepchild's romantic acquaintance. Four people dead in Taylor, Texas. Nobody knows about that nationally. Nobody knows about the other 50 to 100 people who died of gun violence on Tuesday.
“This happens every single day in this country at a rate ten times higher than any other country in the high-income world. It only happens in the United States of America. And we let it happen as a body. We let it happen as a body, because it is not that we are unlucky in the United States. This is a policy choice that we make. 

“And let's be honest, the reason that we can't get anything done in the Senate is not because there is a disagreement amongst our constituents about what to do. Our constituents, Republicans and Democrats, support measures like universal background checks. In fact, there's almost nothing in the political world that enjoys such high support as universal background checks. 80%, 90% of Americans, the majority of Republicans, Democrats, gun owners, non gun owners support universal background checks.

“But we can't get it done because it seems as if many of my colleagues here care more about the health of the gun industry and their profits than they do about the health of our kids. Gun industry profits are being put ahead of the safety of my children, of our children. Shooting after shooting, Republicans in this body have refused to do anything meaningful that would reduce this pace of carnage both in our schools, but on the streets of America. 

“And as I said, it's not as if we don't know what the answer is. Let me give you a remarkable statistic. So in 2020, we saw a pretty substantial increase in violent crime all across the country. That increase was about 5%, and a lot of that was gun crime. Gun crime went up by 25% during 2020. 

“But let's break down that number between the states that have universal background checks and the states that don't have universal background checks. 5% overall increase in violent crime in the United States, but in 2020 in states that did not have and don't have universal background checks, meaning a criminal can get a gun at a gun show or online without any background check, in those states violent crime went up 8%--higher than the national average. 

“What about the states like Connecticut that have universal background checks, where we make sure everybody gets a background check before they buy a gun? In those states, violent crime went up in 2020 by less than 1%. That's pretty stunning. On a percentage basis, violent crime goes up by eight times the level in states without universal background checks as in states with universal background checks. 

“And I can just run through the litany of studies that show the difference in murder rates, in gun crime between states that have universal background checks and those that don't. One of the most recent studies from  2019, a Harvard study shows a 15% difference. 

“Now that's surprising because no matter how strong Connecticut’s  background checks law is, states that don't have background checks end up allowing people to buy guns there, and they come Connecticut. Until we have a national requirement that everybody go through a background check before, at the very least, they buy a gun at a commercial sale, then there is nothing that Connecticut can do to make itself completely immune to the epidemic of illegal guns.

“So that's why we're on the floor today, myself, Senator Blumenthal, and Senator Durbin, to ask our colleagues to pass into law a bipartisan piece of legislation that has already passed the House of Representatives. This is a bill that would expand background checks to all sales in this country, with certain exceptions for transfers between immediate family members. This is a bill, as I mentioned, that is supported by the vast majority of Americans, one of the most popular policy proposals that exists in this country today, and it will save lives.

“I mentioned the shooting in Texas because one of the critiques of this proposal often is, well, it wouldn't have stopped the last mass shooting. I don't claim that this proposal nor any other proposal to change the nation's gun laws will have an effect on every single shooting, but the data is the data. The statistics are the statistics. And this proposal is the most impactful when a state takes it. Universal background checks save lives, decrease[s] gun violence, decrease[s] violent crime. The loss of life when it's a shooting on the streets of New Haven, one person being shot, that is just as shattering to the lives of the people who love that victim as is a mass shooting. 

“And so I am hopeful that the Senate will make the decision today to pass this bill into law. I understand the chances are slim to none that this unanimous consent request will be adopted, but I am at my wit's end. I'm at my wit's end. And so I'm prepared to use whatever means I have as an individual senator to come down here and try to press this case forward. 

“So I will ask at this point, knowing the Senator from Iowa is on the floor, as if in legislative session, I would request unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, which was received from the House. Further that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.”

###