Sen. Chris Murphy Attacks Congress 'Inaction,' But Current Gun Laws Should Have Stopped Shooter
In the wake of a national tragedy involving guns, it’s a pitiful synonym of where we are as a nation that one can almost set their watch by how quickly a Democrat makes a grotesquely misinformed statement about guns that somehow doesn’t get called out by the mainstream media.
Most of these statements call for stricter gun laws — not any specific type of gun law, mind you, but just a general call for gun laws. There is a list of usual suspects in these sorts of things: Andrew Cuomo, Dianne Feinstein, Kirsten Gillibrand.
However, the biscuit-taker in the race to the bottom after the Santa Fe shooting was somewhat of a surprise: Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy.
I’m not surprised that he said something cretinously liberal and blatantly unconstitutional, mind you; he comes from a state bluer than Violet Beauregarde after she decided to disregard some sage advice regarding experimental chewing gum and hasn’t evinced a history of bucking the wishes of his voters.
I’m surprised because a) not a whole lot of people knew who this perpetual backbencher was before Friday and b) what he said was so jaw-droppingly unconstitutional and erroneous that someone in his office should have informed him of the pain he was about to reap before he pushed the send button.
Here’s Murphy’s tweet:
Let’s call it like it is: the horrifying inaction of Congress, slaughter after slaughter, has become a green light to would-be shooters, who pervert silence into endorsement.
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 18, 2018
“Let’s call it like it is: the horrifying inaction of Congress, slaughter after slaughter, has become a green light to would-be shooters, who pervert silence into endorsement,” he wrote.
Now, a few things here. First, as National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke pointed out, Murphy has said that he has no intention of trying to ban shotguns or .38 revolvers in the gun legislation he is pushing in Congress. (In fact, the right to own those weapons has been affirmed by District of Columbia v. Heller, the most pertinent recent Supreme Court case regarding gun control.) Is Congress showing inaction by refusing to pass laws that are unconstitutional on their face — not to mention one that Murphy says he wouldn’t support?
Or perhaps they’re showing inaction on the national background check system, which Murphy has (very ostentatiously) said needs to be strengthened. His website says that he favors “universal background checks, cracking down on straw purchasers and illegal weapon sales, and limiting access to high-capacity magazines and military-style assault weapons.”
He also wants “legislation to close loopholes in our background check system; to make it illegal for those on the FBI terror watch list to buy a gun; to end the ban on gun violence research at the Center for Disease Control; to encourage licensing requirements for handgun purchases; and to help keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.”
First, let me just remind everyone that Murphy has been in the Senate since 2013 but has never seemed particularly concerned about straw purchasers and illegal weapons sales when they were approved by the Obama administration as part of Operation Fast and Furious. Second, none of the weapons used had “high-capacity magazines” or were “military-style assault weapons.”
And, while Attorney General Jeff Sessions is leading a thorough review of the background check system, changes to it are unlikely to have accomplished anything in this instance. Neither the shooter nor his father had any contact with law enforcement or public health officials that would have disqualified them from gun ownership.
So, where’s the “horrifying inaction?” How is the “pervert(ed) silence” of the GOP giving a “green light to would-be shooters?”
There are two potential reasons Cooke gives for Murphy’s 280-character rage-a-thon. The first is that he’s simply another soapbox hustler who screams at the top of his lungs to do something whenever a tragedy like this occurs so that he has a good quote or video clip to send out in the next fundraising email. The second option — which is scarier and (I think) much more likely — is that Murphy actually wants pistols and shotguns banned, along with pretty much every other firearm.
Even though gun violence has gone down as gun ownership has gone up, the Democrats have become far more brazen in their belief that the only solution to a barely existent problem is to take away all of America’s guns. Never mind the fact that targeted, hyper-narrow regulations and changing the way the mainstream media covers mass shootings like these would likely yield greater results.
We’ve come to the point where Democrat representatives are openly talking about seizing all modern sporting rifles — or “assault weapons,” in the parlance of the left — and “buy(ing) back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law, and we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons.”
By his language in the Friday tweet, Murphy has made it clear that hsi agenda doesn’t stop with rifles. It’s going to extend to shotguns, pistols — really, anything covered by the Second Amendment. The only thing being perverted here is the Constitution, and Chris Murphy knows it.
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