Texas Senator Chris Murphy delivers emotional speech after Uvalde shooting

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Chris Murphy, US Senator:

»What are we doing?

Why are you here?"

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is stunned.

More despair, more grief, and more helplessness after a gunman in Texas murdered at least 19 schoolchildren and a teacher:

Chris Murphy, US Senator:

»There were more massacres than days in a year.

Our children live in fear every time they set foot in a classroom.

Because they think they're next.

What do we do?

Why are you spending so much time trying to get into the US Senate?

Why bother getting that job or putting yourself in a position of authority when, while the carnage increases and our children run for their lives, you do nothing.”

Murphy is from Connecticut, where 28 people were killed in a 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre.

Chris Murphy, US Senator:

»It only happens in this country.

And nowhere else. Nowhere else do little children go to school thinking they might be shot that day.

Nowhere else do parents like me have to talk to their kids about why they were locked in a bathroom and told to be quiet for 5 minutes just in case a bad man entered the building.

Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America.

And it's a choice.

It is our decision whether this continues.«

The Democrat has been calling for laws to tighten control of the spread of weapons for years.

Chris Murphy, US Senator:

“I'm here to beg, to literally get on my knees and beg my colleagues: find a way forward.

Work with us to pass laws that make this less likely.

I understand that my fellow Republicans don't agree with everything I advocate, but there is some common ground we can find."