Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, democracy doesn't work like this. Democracy doesn't work such that 90 percent of the American public can support the pretty simple concept that you should not get a gun if you are a criminal and have Congress ignore its will. Democracy doesn't work like that.

As Senator Schumer said, this is really about making sure the American public are engaged at the highest level and are making it absolutely clear that silence in the face of these mass murders, silence in the face of young men and women--predominantly young men getting gunned down in the streets of our cities every day--isn't acceptable.

We are hopeful that over the course of the next several weeks and months Congress is going to hear loud and clear that our silence has effectively become an endorsement for these murders. I know that is hard to hear. But the reality is that when the Nation's most esteemed deliberative body does absolutely nothing in the face of this slaughter--we don't even hold one single public hearing--those whose minds are becoming unhinged start to think that those in charge have quietly endorsed it, because if they didn't, they would be doing something about it.

The outline that we have laid before our colleagues today is reasonable, commonsense, and exists side by side along with the protection of the Second Amendment, and we should adopt it as quickly as possible. But at the very least, we should get started on a conversation about how we can end our silence on this issue.

I live every day with the memory of standing before the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary School on that morning on which 20 first graders were gunned down. I live every day with the thought of a young man, disturbed in his mind, walking in with a military-style assault weapon, and in less than 5 minutes, killing every single little boy and girl that he shot. Twenty little boys and girls were shot in under 5 minutes. Every single one of them was dead because of the power of that gun, because it was being loaded by cartridges of 30 bullets at a time. It is something no hunter needs in order to enjoy his sport or his pastime.

I talked to my first grader this morning as he was heading off to school. I told him that I was coming to talk about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. He looked at me with this vision of puzzlement.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 3 minutes.

Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I ask for 1 additional minute.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. MURPHY. He didn't understand why it was already the law of the land. A 7-year-old had enough common sense to know that criminals should not be able to own guns. As he went off to his first grade classroom--not unlike the first grade classroom that those little boys and girls walked into in December of 2012--I was reminded of the fact that if little boys and girls in a quiet town in Connecticut or young men and women in a quiet town in Oregon are not safe, then my son is not safe either. In the face of political opposition, which is real, that is why we are coming together to say: Enough is enough. It is time for us to understand that without a change in the law, the reality on the ground for those who are being affected by this plague, this epidemic of gun violence, will not end either.

I yield the floor.

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