Sen. Chris Murphy rips into gun-rights movement

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy. U.S. Senator Chris Murphy. Photo: Carol Kaliff / Hearst Connecticut Media Buy photo Photo: Carol Kaliff / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Sen. Chris Murphy rips into gun-rights movement 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy on Thursday took a deep dive into the interwoven worlds of the gun-rights movement and gunmakers, saying anti-government “neo-anarchist’’ Republicans are aligned with a firearms industry desperate to sell more guns to a shrinking customer base.

In a speech at the National Press Club before an audience including Mark Barden, founder and managing director of Sandy Hook Promise, Murphy said hostility to government has become a right-wing standard, especially since the election of the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008.

Economic uncertainty, the need for scapegoats, government bashing in the media, and the belief that gun rights are “God given’’ — all of it merged into what Murphy termed “the coin of the realm” for conservative Republicans in general and gun-rights supporters in particular.

“In an era where anti-government positioning is a hallmark of the modern right, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that increasingly Republicans are absolutist in their views on the right of citizens to own guns,” Murphy said. “They want to preserve the right of revolution as a means of showing how much they truly hate the current government, administered by President Barack Obama.”

The gun industry, which already markets guns based on the need for self-defense at home, was only too happy to oblige, Murphy said.

“Only one-third of Americans today are buying guns, as opposed to half of Americans 30 years ago, meaning that the industry is reliant on a smaller number of gun owners buying large caches of expensive weapons like the AR-15,” he said. “The number of buyers has shrunk, so the simple solution, the industry realized, is to just sell more weapons to this smaller-sized market.”

Gun-advocate response

Another aspect of the anti-government marketing strategy, Murphy said, is convincing gun owners law enforcement cannot protect them against terrorist attacks.

“The gun industry’s hope is if Americans lose faith in the law’s ability to provide for the public’s safety, then the natural turn will be to massive private firearms ownership,” Murphy said.

A spokesman for the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gun manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, importers and others in the industry, disputed Murphy’s data on gun ownership.

Michael Bazinet pointed to a Pew Research poll last month that found 44 percent of respondents had a gun at home, up from 39 percent in July 2015.

NSSF research shows 25 percent of customers at retail are first-time buyers, he added.

“Senator Murphy’s statements are demeaning and condescending,’’ Bazinet said.

“The right to self-defense is everyone’s God-given right,’’ said National Rifle Association spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen. “Senator Murphy and gun-control advocates seems to think it is a right reserved only for political elites such as Hillary Clinton.’’

During the speech, Murphy said gun issues were not his top priority on Dec. 14, 2012, when as senator-elect, his phone started ringing as he stood at the Bridgeport train station taking his young sons to New York to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

On that day, when mass shooter Adam Lanza took the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, “my political career, already 14 years old, changed course,’’ he said.

“Sometimes in this business, you pick the issues on which you work,” he said. “Other times, the issues pick you.”

Moving toward dialogue

After years of fruitless Senate advocacy in the wake of one mass shooting after another, Murphy in June took the virtually unprecedented step of mounting a filibuster. Its aim was not to block legislation, but rather to force Senate votes on expanded background checks and preventing gun purchases by those on the government “no-fly” terrorism watch list.

The nearly 15-hour talkathon did not result in approval of either measure. A comparable overnight sit-in in the House, led U.S. Reps. Elizabeth Esty and Jim Himes — both Connecticut Democrats — among others, did not yield votes.

Defeats notwithstanding, Murphy told the audience he is convinced the ground has shifted on guns. Democrats who once viewed gun control as a toxic, no-win issue are now rallying behind the anti-gun-violence and gun-safety banner.

Exhibit A: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who has made opposition to the gun lobby a centerpiece of her campaign.

Conversely, Murphy said, Republican senators in tight re-election races such as U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, of Pennsylvania, and U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, of New Hampshire, are touting their bona fides as fair-minded legislators who do not rule out some restraints on gun purchasing.

“Times, and voters, have changed,” Murphy said. “Momentum is heading in one direction, and one direction only.”

Absent some sea change on Election Day, Congress is likely to remain stymied by both sides having fundamentally different takes on the Second Amendment and whether there are any limits to it at all.

“If we start on different planets, then it’s kind of hard to find a room to all sit down together in,” Murphy said.

Nevertheless, the filibuster has resulted in more soul searching by both parties.

“It did cause Republicans and Democrats to talk past each other a little less,” Murphy said.

dan@hearstdc.com