Thoughts and prayers are "important, and I know they're important to San Bernardino," Sen. Chris Murphy said Friday, but they have to be followed up with action.
"What is so offensive is that in the wake of another mass shooting, we have a gigantic menu of policy options at our disposal to try to cut down on this carnage, and we are not pursuing any of them," the Connecticut Democrat told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "We are absolutely frozen."
On Wednesday, Murphy caused some outcry when he tweeted that "Your 'thoughts' should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your 'prayers' should be for forgiveness if you do nothing — again."
Murphy is one of the most outspoken gun control advocates in the Senate after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn., and has been working on a bipartisan bill with Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy for increasing funding to states meeting treatment goals,
reports Roll Call.
On Friday, he told the MSNBC show that maybe he "shouldn't tweet in anger, but I'm angry that we're not doing anything to stop this."
Murphy said next year the issue of mental health reform can be taken up, and Republicans and Democrats can come together and fight on gun laws another day.
No laws will stop all mass shootings, said Murphy, and he thinks "we should be a little wary of reacting to every single shooting with a different policy prescription."
But still, the suspects in the San Bernardino shootings used "assault-style weapons" and he thinks there would have been less carnage if the weapons were less deadly.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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