Chris Murphy, the senator from Connecticut, is one of the few people who have seen the photographs of the horrific, grisly, and unthinkable scenes where children who entered the classrooms as their first responders, lost their parents. He says that the public has been spared from viewing these shocking images.
“Murphy pondered on Wednesday morning whether individuals would be motivated to take action if they witnessed the physical appearance of a child following the passage of approximately 12 or 15 bullets through their body. “I occasionally contemplate the potential outcomes if the images captured within these settings were to be disclosed to the public,” Murphy expressed.
On Tuesday afternoon, a minimum of 19 kids and two educators were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where Murphy doesn’t claim to know what happened. Nor will he dare to envision the situation at the close by community center, where family members were either reunited with their kids or devastated by the news they would never receive.
On Tuesday evening, he posted on Twitter, sharing a news article from the New York Times, “Just imagine being 9 years old and witnessing your friend being shot in the nose and tragically dying right in front of you.” While Murphy reports from the location, he is not avoiding sharing what is being discovered in Uvalde and is not shying away from the heart-wrenching specifics. Similar to the shooter in Sandy Hook, the Uvalde assailant utilized a rifle of the AR-15 type. He had consoled the families who also experienced the horror of finding out that their children were among the 20 victims at the Newtown fire station on December 14, 2012.
Murphy’s efforts to control gun violence have resulted in the tragic death of Heyne’s mother, who had been killed by a gun. Christian Heyne, the vice president of Brady, a gun control policy group, states that such acts can retraumatize survivors, especially since the senseless death by gun accompanies painful and gruesome moments. Therefore, advocates for gun control believe that anyone, whether settled or not, should publicize these moments.
“I am concerned that there is decay festering within the heart of this nation as we deliberately desensitize ourselves to these killings,” expresses Murphy. “I do not wish for individuals to neatly categorize this issue or to sanitize the true nature of what is happening. I desire for people to confront the truth head-on — and the truth is dreadful and horrifying.”
I asked Murphy to put himself into the context of his own experience. “A massacre is a crime scene,” he says. “The kids often lie on the floors for a very long time. We don’t often immediately move the bodies. You don’t know the kids because we don’t have IDs on them. It’s difficult for parents to identify their kids without proper identification. These AR-15s explode when they hit the kids, making them unrecognizable sometimes. The only way to identify these kids might be through the way they were. The only way to identify these kids might be through the way they were. The only way to identify these kids might be through the way they were. If an AR-15 shot goes through your nose, there’s nothing left of your face. Last night, the parents were doing DNA swabs.”
Action on gun control demand to filibuster its first-of-its-kind 15-hour staged in the nightclub Pulse Orlando’s in April 2016, when a gunman killed nearly 50 people. Following the failed Senate bill to pass background checks, Murphy lost his patience with the political deference and decided to take action. Instead of immediately politicizing the deaths, he offered prayers and thoughts on this solemn occasion, with the custom of not keeping it as a mere formality. Murphy then forged into one of the fiercest gun control advocates in his party, using the tragedy of a member’s House district as a catalyst. Consider this the next evolution in Murphy’s calls for action, since the Newtown massacre in 2012.
Over the course of ten years, Republican colleagues, including Tuesday night, have harshly criticized the lack of action taken since the Sandy Hook tragedy. They delivered a passionate rejection on the Senate floor, highlighting the rushed response to this senseless tragedy. Every Democrat in the party now fully supports the position. There is no further evidence needed to prove that Ruben Gallego, a representative from Arizona, is not the “baby killer” that Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) claimed him to be in a tweet.
Over the weekend, Cruz, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), and former President Donald Trump will be speaking at the annual conference of the National Rifle Association in Houston. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) Has refused to eliminate the filibuster, which will likely result in the failure of “common sense” gun laws. However, he has promised to do everything in his power to pass them. Last March, the House Democrats passed two gun control bills and are now urging the Senate to do the same. Despite the speeches and insults, partisan divisions in Congress remain deeply entrenched as they settle into their usual routine after a mass shooting.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Admitted to reporters today that there’s an “all too slim” chance of finding some compromise legislation through negotiations with his GOP colleagues. Murphy, ever the optimist, will spend the next ten days working with his fellow lawmakers to make Uvalde’s aftermath a reality, if a deal is to be made.
“According to Murphy, individuals may desire to contemplate the idea of incorporating action into their lives because it is possible that this is what people want. After being shot, he has spent approximately seven or six hours in his fourth-grade classroom, and he wishes to be able to identify your child’s face and walk into that school. If even for just a moment, I would like my colleagues to consider putting themselves in the position of those parents in Uvalde.”