Recently, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) openly admitted that President Joe Biden has “probably not” managed to secure the necessary 60 votes to push through gun control measures in the current lame-duck Congressional session taking place.
While speaking during the Sunday edition of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Murphy openly bashed the hopes of Biden as he seeks to force through a ban on what he calls assault weapons. However, Murphy did issue his praise for the sweeping gun bill pushed out at a point earlier this year and made the claim that any ban on assault weaponry would only lead to fewer mass shootings.
“I’m glad that President Biden is going to be pushing us to take a vote on an assault weapons ban,” stated Murphy. “The House has already passed it. It’s sitting in front of the Senate. Does it have 60 votes in the Senate right now? Probably not. But let’s see if we can try to get that number as close to 60 as possible. If we don’t have the votes, then we will talk to Senator Schumer and maybe come back next year with maybe an additional senator and see if we can do better.”
“President Biden is right,” Murphy went on. “If we passed an assault weapons ban, we would see less mass shootings in this country. Yes, there are already tens of thousands of assault weapons on the street. Nobody’s talking about taking those weapons away from individuals. We’re just talking about stopping new sales.”
“But if you look at some of the most high-profile mass shootings in the last couple of years, many of those mass shooters bought the weapon just days before carrying out the crime,” he claimed. “And so, if those weapons were no longer commercially available, only in possession of those who had bought them previously, I think a lot of mass shootings would have been prevented.”
This past Thursday, Biden stated to the media that he was planning to throw support behind a large assault weapons ban after a pair of recent mass shootings resulted in the deaths of 11 people.
“I’m sick and tired of these shootings,” exclaimed Biden. “We should have much stricter gun laws.”
Biden went on to state that his intention was to push through a gun control bill while taking part in the lame-duck session if he could manage to scrounge up the votes.
“I’m going to try,” stated Biden. “I’m going to try to get rid of assault weapons.”
“During the lame duck?” pressed the reporters.
“I’m going to do it whenever I — I got to make that assessment as I get in and start counting the votes.”