After taking to the Senate floor to scold his colleagues over their inability to take action amid increasing gun violence in the country, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) slammed Republicans for trying to shift focus to mental health in order to avoid common-sense firearm reform measures.
“Spare me the bullshit about mental illness. We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world,” Murphy told reporters as he walked off the Senate floor, according to NBC News.
Murphy’s furious rant came after Sen. Ted Cruz dismissed the prospect of creating new gun laws, claiming congress should focus on “mental health” instead of gun reform.
“Inevitably when there’s a murderer of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it, you see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” Cruz told reporters. “We know what does prevent crime, which is going after felons and fugitives and those with serious mental illness.”
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The shooting in the small city of Uvalde, Texas, left 18 children dead and one adult dead and dozens injured. As the news circulated throughout Washington, D.C., Murphy delivered a furious speech, condemning Congress’s inaction.
“What are we doing?” asked an angry Murphy, who represents a state where the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.
“Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate, why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority, if your answer is that as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing?” Murphy said. “What are we doing?”
The shooting in Uvalde, Texas, is the worst elementary school shooting since the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and the worst overall school shooting since Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
RELATED: Sen. Chris Murphy Furious On Senate Floor Over Elementary School Shooting.
The incident comes days after the Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store shooting in a predominantly Black neighborhood that killed 10 people and injured three others.
