Dem Sen. Murphy: Not Passing Gun Control Sends Message to Mass Shooters ‘That It’s Okay’

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) stated that not passing gun control legislation unintentionally endorses mass shooters and “these minds that are starting to become unhinged imply that it’s okay.”

Murphy said that the U.S. is a country with a high amount of guns and gun violence, and “we’re also a country that sends an unintended but meaningful message to mass shooters of endorsements. I mean, when Congress doesn’t do anything year after year, decade after decade in the wake of mass shooting after mass shooting, these minds that are starting to become unhinged imply that it’s okay. And so, it’s not a coincidence that over the last 100 years, the two moments where Congress passed the most meaningful anti-gun violence statutes, in the 1930s and the 1990s, there was an immediate, precipitous downturn in the rate of violence. Yes, it’s because the laws changed, but it’s also because the highest level of government sent a signal that we didn’t accept this level of carnage in our country and people took that moral signal and changed their behaviors because of it. My hope is that we’ll be able to send that signal again in 2021.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett