The package under discussion is far short of the sweeping measures for an assault weapons ban or universal background checks that are popular with Americans and advocated by gun safety groups but rejected by Republicans. No major legislation has made it into law since the 1994 assault weapons ban, which has since expired. Since the failed vote, senators have regrouped and began to meet privately in a small bipartisan group headed by Murphy and Republican Senator John Cornyn, trying to hash out a compromise that could actually become law.īut lawmakers have been here before - unable to pass any substantial gun safety laws in decades in the face of steep objections from Republicans in Congress, some conservative Democrats and the fierce lobby of gun owners and the National Rifle Association. Even at Tuesday's hearing, Republican senators took the time to focus on the racial injustice protests that took place in the summer of 2020, citing those incidents as acts of domestic extremism. Shortly after the Buffalo massacre, a bill that would have bolstered federal resources to prevent domestic terrorism failed in the Senate at the hands of Republican opposition. "Your actions here will tell us if and how much it mattered to you." "My mother's life mattered," Whitfield said. The shooting left 10 people dead and several others wounded. The Senate hearing Tuesday focused directly on the white supremacist ideology that authorities say led an 18-year-old gunman dressed in military gear to drive hours to a predominately Black neighborhood in Buffalo and live stream his violent rampage. On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee is expected to hear from more victims' families and from fourth-grader Miah Cerrillo, who captured Americans' attention after she described covering herself in her dead classmate's blood and playing dead to survive the shooting rampage in Uvalde. Murphy said his goal is to try to get an agreement this week, but he added that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has been clear that "we need some extra time to dot the i's and cross the t's that will get it." "Obviously, we've still got work to do in the Senate," he said.
#Get it done son update#
Murphy told reporters after the meeting that he was grateful to have an opportunity to update the president on the talks in the Senate. Pressing for a deal, President Joe Biden met Tuesday with Senator Chris Murphy, a key Democratic negotiator, who has worked most of his career trying to curb the nation's mass-shooting scourge after the heartbreaking slaughter of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary in his home state of Connecticut a decade ago. The hearing is the first of two this week as families of the victims and survivors of the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde appear at public hearings and events on Capitol Hill to show the human toll of America's gun violence and urge Congress to act. "If there is nothing, then respectfully, senators … you should yield your positions of authority and influence to others that are willing to lead on this issue." "Is there nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy and the domestic terrorism it inspires?" he asked. "What are you doing? You were elected to protect us," Whitfield told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ten days after the shooting death of his mother and nine others in New York by an 18-year-old gunman, another 18-year-old with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 school children and two teachers.
Garnell Whitfield Jr.'s emotional testimony comes as lawmakers are working furiously to strike a bipartisan agreement on gun safety measures in the aftermath of back-to-back mass shootings. The son of Ruth Whitfield, an 86-year-old woman killed when a gunman opened fire in a racist attack on Black shoppers in Buffalo, New York, challenged Congress on Tuesday to act against the "cancer of white supremacy" and the nation's epidemic of gun violence.
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