WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), on Tuesday delivered remarks on the Senate floor following the tragic shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan, which left three students dead and eight others injured. Murphy slammed Republicans for their loyalty to the gun lobby and refusal to pass popular, commonsense gun legislation. He also called out Republicans for their 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.

On Republicans’ pro-life hypocrisy on the Senate floor ahead of Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Murphy said: “[I] listened to my Republican colleagues come down here one after another today and talk about the sanctity of life at the very moment that moms and dads in Michigan were being told that their kids weren't coming home because they were shot at school due to a country that has accepted gun violence due to the Republicans’ fealty to the gun lobby.”

“Do not lecture us about the sanctity, the importance of life when one hundred people every single day are losing their lives to guns, when kids go to school fearful that they won't return home because a classmate will turn a gun on them, when it is in our control whether this happens,” Murphy continued. “You care about life? Then get these dangerous military-style weapons off the streets, out of our schools. You care about life? Make sure that criminals don't get guns by making sure that everybody goes through a background check in this country.”

“This only happens in the United States of America. There's no other nation in the high-income world in which kids worry about being shot when they go to school. It happens here in America because we choose to let it happen. We're not unlucky. This is purposeful. This is a choice made by the United States Senate to sit on our hands and do nothing while kids die. It doesn't even involve any political risk. The changes we're talking about in order to make our schools safe places, they're supported by the vast majority of Americans, Republicans and Democrats,” Murphy continued. 

Murphy said: “I think about [gun violence] first and foremost as a parent of a 7th grader and a 4th grader who are part of a generation that accepts as part of their childhood the risk of not leaving school at the end of the day because of a violent attack. That's the reality of being a kid in school today. I'm angry about it as an American, but I'm angry about it as a parent that my children have to go through active shooter drills because this has become a regular facet of being a child in America, exposure to gun violence. 

Murphy called on his Republican colleagues to step up and pass life-saving, common sense gun legislation: “I'm beyond my tipping point. But I needed to come to the floor today because having sat in that chair listening to my colleagues tell me about how much they care about human life, well, you have an opportunity to do something about it. You have an opportunity to save lives right now, kids that are walking into schools tomorrow need you, need you to step up and pass laws that are going to make sure that only responsible people own guns.”

Click here to watch his floor speech in full.

###