As fifth anniversary of the mass shooting looms, outspoken gun critic Chris Murphy says Congress’s lack of results makes it difficult to face victims’ families

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

US senator Chris Murphy said he regrets that the Sandy Hook massacre, one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, has been followed by five years of political inaction, and that he finds it difficult to face victim’s families.

“I’m always a little embarrassed when I go back to Newtown,” the Connecticut senator said in an interview, just ahead of the mass shooting’s anniversary. “I still feel awful that we haven’t enacted bigger national change.”



The school shooting on 14 December 2012, in which 20 children and six educators were murdered, proved to be a defining moment for Murphy. He had been elected senator a month earlier with no intention of leading an anti-gun violence movement. Few, if any, lawmakers would go on to devote as much time, energy and political capital toward the vexing issue of gun laws.

“I view this as a long-term political and social movement that started in 2012 and needs time to build,” Murphy said.

On Thursday, Murphy will reunite with some of the Newtown families while attending a mass of remembrance at a local church. It was one of several events Murphy participates in annually to mark the day when gunman Adam Lanza walked into the Sandy Hook elementary school and opened fire before claiming his own life.



The aftermath remains seared in Murphy’s memory.

He was poised to take his own young children to New York City that day to view the Christmas decorations when the call came in. Although he had not yet been sworn into the Senate, Murphy was closing out his term as a congressman whose district included Newtown. He was among the few who bore witness at a nearby firehouse when the victims’ families were told the unthinkable – that their children, all aged five and six, would not be returning home.

Reuniting with some of those families on Thursday, Murphy said, will be “a very emotional night”.

“Obviously, five years is a milestone, and I think it’s important that there’s some event in the community to remember what happened and to celebrate the lives we lost, but also the lives that have continued,” he said.

The frustration in Murphy’s voice is nonetheless palpable when the conversation turns to gun control. There have been at least 1,552 mass shootings in the US since Sandy Hook, according to the Gun Violence Archive, with nearly 1,800 people killed and more than 6,000 wounded.

I still feel awful that we haven’t enacted bigger national change Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut

“I do worry that everyone in this country is becoming desensitized to violence,” Murphy said. “The shooting now has to have double-digit casualties in order to make the news for more than an hour.”

Even on Capitol Hill, the outcry with each shooting appears increasingly muted as a familiar pattern takes hold: Republicans offer “thoughts and prayers”, insisting it is too soon to politicize the tragedy by discussing gun control, while Democrats issue statements calling for action.

Murphy, for his part, does not want to wait until the next massacre to weigh in.



The senator routinely appears on the Senate floor to shine on a light on everyday gun violence and has delivered more than 50 speeches since taking office dubbed as “Voices of Victims”.

Murphy’s activism has made him a frequent target of the NRA, but also positioned him as the Senate’s go-to lawmaker for gun violence survivors and the families of victims.

Q&A Why is the National Rifle Association so powerful? Show Hide It’s not (just) about the money. In 2017, the NRA spent at least $4.1m on lobbying – more than the $3.1m it spent in all of 2016. But for comparison, the dairy industry has spent $4.4m in the same period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The National Association of Realtors, one of the biggest spenders, has paid out $32.2m lobbying on housing issues. The NRA has plenty of cash to spend. It bet big on the 2016 US elections, pouring $14.4m into supporting 44 candidates who won and $34.4m opposing 19 candidates who lost, according to CRP. But “the real source of its power, I believe, comes from voters,” said Adam Winkler, a UCLA professor of constitutional law. The 145-year-old organization claims 5 million active members, that number is disputed, but whatever its actual size, membership is a powerful tool, said Robert Spitzer, a professor at the State University of New York at Cortland. “They have a very powerful ability to mobilize a grassroots support and to engage in politics when most Americans can barely be bothered to vote,” he said. “And because so few Americans do those things, if you get a bunch of people in a locality who are all prepared to go out to a meeting they can have a big effect." Read more Photograph: Mark Humphrey/AP

Last week, a group of advocates sat around a large rectangular table in Murphy’s Capitol Hill office to share concerns over a concealed carry bill, passed by House Republicans, that would require states with stricter gun laws to honor permits from states with far looser requirements.

Attendees ranged from a North Carolina woman whose sister was found dead due to a gunshot wound, to a mother who lost her young son in Hartford, Connecticut, to the regular gun violence that plagues urban cities across America.



“Right now, as we sit here, people are dying,” said Samuel Saylor, a pastor from Hartford, whose own son was shot and killed in October of 2012.

“I’ve buried a lot of kids since then.”

Murphy has chosen to no longer mince his own words, often decrying Congress as “cowardly” and “complicit” in the face of America’s gun violence epidemic.

On 15 June 2016, after a mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Murphy mounted a 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor demanding stricter gun laws. Last month, the senator’s response to the massacre of 26 churchgoers at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, went viral for its scathing candor.

“The paralysis you feel right now – the impotent helplessness that washes over you as news of another mass slaughter scrolls across the television screen – isn’t real,” Murphy said in a statement at the time. “It’s a fiction created and methodically cultivated by the gun lobby.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A memorial to the Sandy Hook elementary school victims during the six-month anniversary of the massacre, in New York. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

“None of this is inevitable,” he added. “It is uniquely and tragically American.”

Murphy sounded a more optimistic tone when speaking with the Guardian. The Texas shooting may have provided the impetus for a breakthrough, he said, pointing to a compromise he subsequently struck with John Cornyn, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, on background checks.

Cornyn, who represents Texas, teamed up with Murphy on legislation that would add new accountability measures to ensure that states and federal agencies are entering the proper records into the federal background checks system.

“Republicans have always talked about enforcing existing laws, but they’ve never been willing to introduce legislation to do that until now,” Murphy said.

“It’s significant that so many Republicans have been wiling to sign onto the bill,” he added.

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In 2013, only four Republicans crossed the aisle to support a measure expanding background checks in response to Sandy Hook. Four Democrats joined the remaining Republicans in the Senate to kill the compromise, which would have required background checks on all gun sales.

Murphy’s bill with Cornyn is more modest in its scope, but he views it as a start.

“The modern anti-gun violence movement didn’t begin until after Sandy Hook,” he said. “The gun lobby had a two-decade head-start on us.”

Few issues have drawn as much cynicism as gun violence. The prevailing sentiment in Washington often remains that if the loss of 20 children wasn’t enough to spur meaningful action, it’s hard to fathom would will change.

But Murphy unequivocally rejects that notion and pointed to the emergence of nonprofits, political action committees and a grassroots anti-gun violence movement to rival the NRA.

“There’s a lot of miraculous things that have happened in the last five years in the wake of the slaughter,” Murphy said.

“Every great social movement is defined by the hard times.”