Tomorrow is going to be a really important day for the anti-gun violence movement. One year after Congress passed the first piece of comprehensive gun safety legislation in three decades, I’m bringing President Biden, state and local leaders, and hundreds of gun violence survivors and advocates together for the National Safer Communities Summit. It’s a one-day event in Connecticut where we’ll celebrate how far our movement has come and strategize how we keep building on the success of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
For this week’s Substack, I’m sharing a piece I wrote for a local Connecticut paper about why I’m hosting this first-of-its-kind summit. I hope you’ll check it out below.
Tomorrow’s summit has been months in the making, and I’m really excited about the impressive roster of keynote speakers and panelists who are joining us. You can tune in tomorrow at 9 AM ET at thesafersummit.com.
Hearst Connecticut Media: Opinion: Biden coming to CT shows strength of gun safety movement
By U.S. Senator Chris Murphy
When news broke that 19 children were gunned down in a Texas elementary school last May, I went straight to my desk on the Senate floor. I sought recognition to speak, and I proceeded to put my palms together and beg my Republican colleagues to come to the table and find a bipartisan path forward to stop these cataclysmic school shootings. I had done this before. In fact, after most of the most high-profile mass shootings, I would head to the Senate floor and give similar speeches, to little practical effect. But this time, something different happened.
This Friday, President Joe Biden, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, and elected officials and gun violence prevention advocates from all over the country will gather in Hartford to mark one year since the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the groundbreaking legislation that passed just weeks after I gave those remarks in the shadow of the Uvalde shooting. Just as I worked 24/7 for those four weeks to pass the first significant gun safety legislation in 30 years, I have also worked tirelessly with members of our movement to create and build this Friday’s National Safer Communities Summit at the University of Hartford. It will be a moment to mourn those we have lost, celebrate all we have accomplished, and plan for our next victories.
The story of how we passed the law that will be the central point of discussion at Friday’s summit started 10 years ago in Connecticut. I had just been elected Connecticut’s junior senator when 20 innocent children and six dedicated educators were senselessly killed inside Sandy Hook Elementary School. Many people were stunned when Congress chose to do nothing in the wake of our state’s soul-crushing tragedy. But I knew that our failure was simply due to a deficit of political power. In 2013, the gun lobby had tons of power; they were at their political peak. The gun safety movement basically did not exist. So, instead of believing the cynics who lamented that if Newtown couldn’t force Congress to act, nothing would, I got to work helping to build a new great American political movement — the gun violence prevention movement.
For 10 years, we built our political and electoral power. We elected more leaders to Congress. We convinced Republicans it was better for them to join rather than fight our cause. And finally, last summer, the moment arrived when we had accumulated enough influence that we were able to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The law strengthened our gun laws and made historic investments in mental health and keeping our schools and communities safe. It closed the boyfriend loophole to keep guns away from domestic abusers, enhanced background checks for under-21 buyers, cracked down on illegal gun traffickers, and created a new pot of federal funding to help states implement red flag laws. It also invested $15 billion in mental health and school safety and dedicated $250 million to community violence intervention programs.
These improvements to our gun laws and historic investments are already making a real difference. Since passage, the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System, or NICS, has denied more than 205 firearm purchases by dangerous individuals thanks to the enhanced background check. The Justice Department reports that the new criminal penalties have been charged in at least 100 cases of straw purchasing or gun trafficking, including one individual who purchased over 230 handguns in just six months. After investing $150 million in the 9-8-8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, calls answered increased by 48 percent, chats answered increased by 263 percent, and texts answered increased by 1,445 percent. More than $188 million has been delivered to ensure schools have the resources they need to identify students in crisis and connect them to the right services. Our very own Hartford received $2 million to support the city’s community violence intervention programs, and those dollars are already being put to good use.
Let’s be clear: the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was a major victory, but there’s more work to be done. This year, there have been 290 mass shootings and more than 19,000 people killed by guns. We need to make sure the law we passed last summer is saving as many lives as possible. We also need to pass universal background checks, enact a ban on assault weapons, and elect more gun-sense candidates up and down the ballot. At the Safer Communities Summit, we’ll strategize how to make it happen.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was only possible because people in Connecticut and all across this country refused to accept that the uniquely American problem of gun violence is one we can’t solve. Roadblock after roadblock, the anti-gun-violence movement didn’t give up. Instead, we wrote letters, marched in protests, called representatives, and most importantly, changed minds. I’m confident that last summer was the beginning of a new decade for this movement — a decade of notching win after win at the local, state, and federal levels.
This Friday, Connecticut will welcome President Joe Biden and hundreds of other movement leaders to our state as we seek to lift up that progress at the National Safer Communities Summit. But we also plan for the future: a future that will include the passage of much more lifesaving legislation like the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
We’re just getting started, so I hope you’ll join me on June 16 as we celebrate our progress and get ready for more victories. Tune in at thesafersummit.com tomorrow at 9 AM ET.
Don’t replace the second amendment limitrophe with Orwellian CTDMAS mind control police who storm homes at the witch hunt civil purport of future crime and drag citizens into thirty year sublimation nightmares.