Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wasted no time responding to the shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas, the deadliest such attack in modern U.S. history.
WASHINGTON ― Following yet another mass shooting in America, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who made gun control his cause after the 2012 attack by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his home state in which the victims included 20 children, pilloried his colleagues in Congress for having done nothing to prevent such assaults.
Wasting no time responding to the shooting in Las Vegas last night in which at least 50 people reportedly were killed ― the deadliest such incident in modern U.S. history ― Murphy on Monday morning issued a statement imploring Congress to “get off its ass and do something.”
“My heart goes out to the victims, their families, the first responders, and the entire Las Vegas community. Nowhere but America do horrific large-scale mass shootings happen with this degree of regularity,” he said.
“This must stop. It is positively infuriating that my colleagues in Congress are so afraid of the gun industry that they pretend there aren’t public policy responses to this epidemic,” he said. “There are, and the thoughts and prayers of politicians are cruelly hollow if they are paired with continued legislative indifference. It’s time for Congress to get off its ass and do something.”
Murphy has continually lambasted lawmakers for “giving quiet endorsement to these murders” and for providing “thoughts and prayers” without any action, following numerous mass shootings in recent years.
Six school staff members also were killed by shooter Adam Lanza in the attack at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut. Lanza then killed himself.