Sen. Chris Murphy said President Donald Trump has wavered since they talked about new gun legislation, but he still has hope for a background check bill.
NICS
Posted inJustice, Politics
CT lawmakers, NRA back gun buyer background check bill
WASHINGTON – Rep. Elizabeth Esty, usually at odds with gun rights groups over firearm legislation, is promoting a bill that the National Rifle Association likes, too. Esty, D-5th District, is a co-sponsor of the U.S. House version of the “Fix NICS Act of 2017,” legislation that aims to prevent individuals like the shooter in Sutherland, Texas, from slipping through the cracks of the federal gun buyer background check system.
Posted inJustice, Politics
Texas shooting leads to move to reform gun buyer background checks
WASHINGTON – Texas shooter Devin Kelly is a prime example of a failure of the the existing gun background check system, and his killing spree on Sunday may bring small reforms. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., says he has a commitment from a key GOP leader to work toward a bipartisan fix to the law that should have prevented Kelly from buying the guns he may have used in his attack.
Posted inPolitics
Murphy introduces background-check gun bill as ‘long-haul strategy’
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy on Wednesday reintroduced a background-check gun bill he’s been trying to make law since a gunman killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown at the end of 2012. The political climate for the bill is no better now, however, than when the Senate rejected it in 2013 and 2016.
Posted inPolitics
Senate abolishes Obama gun rule prompted by Sandy Hook
Updated at 12:20 p.m. Wednesday
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate approved legislation Wednesday that will roll back an Obama administration rule requiring the Social Security Administration to submit information about mentally impaired recipients so they can be added to a list of people barred from purchasing a gun.
Posted inHealth
House passes mental health bill, Murphy presses Senate to follow
WASHINGTON — As the U.S. House of Representatives passed an overhaul of federal mental health policy on Wednesday, Sen. Chris Murphy pressed for a Senate vote on a similar bipartisan bill he has sponsored with Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
Posted inPolitics
With talkathon, Murphy gambled – and won
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy gambled that he was up to the physical and intellectual rigors of an open-ended filibuster aimed at pressuring Senate GOP leaders to hold votes on gun safety issues – and he won. But there was always a risk of failure.
Posted inPolitics
CT lawmakers seek more funds for gun background check system
WASHINGTON — All five members of Connecticut’s U.S. House delegation joined dozens of other lawmakers – many of them but not all fellow Democrats – to ask for more money for the federal gun purchaser background check system.
Posted inPolitics
Newtown father lonely voice as Senate panel blasts Obama gun moves
WASHINGTON – Mark Barden ,who lost his 7-year-old son Daniel in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, was outnumbered but undaunted Wednesday at a Senate hearing on President Obama’s recent moves to tighten gun laws. “I am before you today as an informed, proud American. These modest proposals will go a long way toward not only saving lives, but also improving quality of life,” he said. “And I am before you today as a grieving father who knows firsthand the cost of inaction.”
Posted inPolitics
U.S. asks CT, other states, for help enforcing gun rules
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration coupled its move to tighten gun laws with a plea to Connecticut and other states for help to strengthen a flawed system used to screen gun buyers.
Posted inPolitics
CT senators urge boycott of stores that don’t wait for gun checks
WASHINGTON – Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy want some of the nation’s largest sporting goods stores to wait for the FBI to complete background checks on gun purchasers in all cases – and hope customers boycott those stores if they don’t.
Posted inPartner Content, Politics
The NICS failing to keep guns from dangerous people
While the National Instant Criminal Background Check System remains the only square inch of compromise between the nation’s divided gun camps, the costly federal program is failing to keep guns away from the dangerously mentally ill.