WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., has launched another chapter in his continuing diatribe against the National Rifle Association, issuing a report that he said shows “a disconnect” between gun owners and NRA leaders when it comes to gun violence.
In the aftermath of the Dec. 14 mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Murphy and other lawmakers have introduced legislation that would ban military-style assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines.
Murphy also supports universal background checks on would-be gun buyers to weed out individuals with criminal records, restraining orders or those who have been adjudicated mentally ill.
The NRA has taken an absolutist stance against any new restrictions, including the proposed expansion of background checks.
Murphy cited a January 2013 poll by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health that reported 74 percent of NRA members supported requiring a universal background-check system for all gun sales. The poll said 84 percent of all gun-owners supported such a system.
Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the NRA, and Chris Cox, the group’s chief lobbyist, have continued to oppose universal background checks.
“The NRA’s leadership continues to demonstrate just how of step they are with the American public, their own membership and reality in general,’’ Murphy said.
Murphy’s latest attack on the NRA leadership is his third salvo against the nation’s premier gun owners’ organization with more than four million members.
Earlier, he taunted the NRA for financial support of losing political candidates in the 2012 election. Another report documented the support that the group receives from the firearms industry. Both studies relied on research by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns group.
Rep. Elizabeth Esty kicks off her Valentine's Day campaign to lobby Congress to adopt gun-control laws (Charles J. Lewis/Hearst Newspapers)
Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Cheshire, whose congressional district includes Newtown, kicked off a Valentine’s Day lobbying campaign to press her House and Senate colleagues to adopt gun-control legislation.
The Valentine’s Day theme was symbolized by home-made cards and teddy bears that volunteers delivered to all 435 House members and 100 senators. The T-shirts on the stuffed bears carried the message: “Protect children, not guns.’’
Esty was joined by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., created after the Dec. 14 shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown that left 20 children and six school staffers dead.
The lobbying effort on the two-month anniversary of the Newtown tragedy brought 30 volunteers from the Children’s Defense Fund and the One Million Moms for Gun Control to go door-to-door in the halls of Congress.
In remarks as the campaign got under way, Esty challenged opponents of tighter gun laws who claim “the Connecticut effect’’ is a passing phenomenon that explains the surge in public opinion in favor of new laws.
The Newtown shootings were “a call to action for this country,’’ Esty said. The murder of the 20 children will be remembered at “every graduation, every birthday, every December 14th, every Christmas,’’ she said, repeating a refrain that President Obama sounded at his State of the Union speech Tuesday night: The families of the shooting victims deserve a vote in Congress on pending legislation that would ban military-style assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines, and require universal background checks on all gun purchasers.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Greenwich, gave President Obama high marks Tuesday for the president emphasis on jobs, infrastructure and education in his State of the Union speech.
Himes, who made the evening a bipartisan “date night,” sat next to a Republican House member, Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va., whom he said he has gotten to know.
Seating in the House is helter-skelter, with no assigned seats to members, unlike the Senate, where each of the 100 lawmakers has a separate desk.
“People are always talking about job creation, but the president’s remarks dealt with government actions that could actually improve the job picture,’’ Himes said.
Obama’s comments about jobs and infrastructure rebuilding brought bipartisan applause, Himes said. “Education, less so,’’ because of traditional Republican caution about the government’s role in education.
WASHINGTON _ Painful memories of the Newtown, Conn., massacre loomed over President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. A Newtown audience of honored guests sat high in the gallery, looking down on Congress as Obama urged the lawmakers to enact new laws on firearms.
Obama cited the shootings that killed 20 students and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School and pleaded with Congress to bring different pieces of gun legislation to a vote.
“It has been two months since Newtown,’’ Obama said toward the end of his hour-long address. “I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence. But this time is different. Overwhelming majorities of Americans _ Americans who believe in the 2nd Amendment _ have come together around common-sense reform like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun.”
Police chiefs are asking for new laws to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, “because they are tired of being outgunned,’’ he said.
Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress, Obama continued. “If you want to vote ‘no,’ that’s your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote. Because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun,’’ he said, referring to gun violence around the country.
He cited the murder of Hadiya Pendleton, 15, who had marched in the Jan. 21 inauguration parade in Washington. “And a week later, she was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school, just a mile away from my house,’’ Obama said.
Her parents, Nate and Cleo, sat in the gallery as guests of Michelle Obama.
“They deserve a vote,’’ he said. “Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence _ they deserve a simple vote.’’
His “deserve a vote’’ chant brought a standing ovation from the audience, as Giffords, a former House member from Arizona who was seriously wounded by a gunman in 2011, looked on from the gallery.
No laws will “prevent every senseless act of violence in this country,’’ the president said. “But we were never sent here to be perfect. We were sent here to make what difference we can, to secure this nation, expand opportunity, and uphold our ideals through the hard, often frustrating, but absolutely necessary work of self-government.’’
The Newtown backdrop was carefully assembled by supporters of new gun laws, who also invited other guests linked to gun violence around the nation.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who hosted Patricia Llodra _ the first selectman of Newtown _ said that when Obama looks up at the gallery, “He will see Pat Llodra and the families of gun victims and first responders who have been such an inspiration to the nation. It will send a message more powerful than any words spoken by the president. ‘The picture will be worth more than a thousand words,”’ he said.
Other gallery guests were:
_ Kaitlin Roig, 29, a Sandy Hook teacher credited with helping save 15 of her first-grade students by hiding them in a bathroom during the Dec. 14 shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, the guest of First Lady Michelle Obama.
_Natalie Hammond, a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School who was wounded in the Dec. 14 massacre that claimed the lives of 20 children and six staff members, the guest of Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Cheshire.
_Carlos Soto, the 15-year-old brother of Vicki Soto, a teacher murdered at Sandy Hook, the guest of Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven.
_ Newtown police detectives Jason Frank and Dan MacAnaspie, guests of Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
_Lynn McDonnell and Christopher McDonnell, parents of shooting victim Grace McDonnell, a 7-year-old killed at Sandy Hook, guests of Rep. Lois Frankel, D-Fla.
Each of the 100 senators and 435 House members can invite a guest to sit in the gallery above the floor of the House chamber for the 9 p.m. ET address. No weapons are allowed in the Capitol building.
A recent Gallup poll showed majority approval for new gun laws, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, steps recommended by the Obama administration and now part of pending legislation. The poll managers said more people supported those steps when they were not identified as Obama administration proposals.
Even as Obama repeated his support of new gun laws, a fresh controversy erupted over the role of the National Rifle Association, the leading political and legislative opponent of gun laws.
A lobbyist for the Wisconsin chapter of the NRA was quoted over the weekend as dismissing the surge of public support for gun legislation as “the Connecticut effect,” suggesting that it was a temporary phenomenon arising from the Dec. 14 Newtown shootings.
Blumenthal took issue with any contention that public sentiment “will somehow subside or dissipate.” “It won’t happen,” he told reporters.
Llodra agreed, commenting that “we can’t let this moment go away.” The Newtown tragedy “has galvanized us to action.”
Earlier, Ms. McDonnell told a gun-control rally in the U.S. Capitol that she had promised her murdered daughter that she would be her voice. “I want Grace to be celebrated, to be heard, and to be remembered, remembered as a beautiful artistic soul, who wanted to live on the beach and be a painter,’’ she said, with her husband Christopher at her side. “I would ask our representatives to look into their hearts and choose action over inaction. We owe that to our children. And we owe it to our daughter Grace.’’
Blumenthal, Murphy, Esty and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven, grimly listened as Ms. McDonnell, carefully read her remarks.
DeLauro told the rally about how her guest, Carlos Soto, had asked her after the tragedy: “’What are you going to do?’ That is the question that the American people want answered, “DeLauro said. “We owe it to the Soto family and countless others to prevent guns from falling into the hands of violent criminals.’’
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Greenwich, said invited as his guest Curtrina Murphy of Bridgeport, Conn., mother of a 3-year-old girl who was hit in the crossfire of a gunfight in Bridgeport as they walked down the street in the middle of the afternoon. Himes said the youngster has recovered from her gunshot wounds.
Blumenthal said Llodra has inspired the nation by her courage and hands-on leadership. She has “seen grief and tragedy that very few public officials see during their time in office,” he said, adding that he has invited Llodra and other Newtown residents to testify later this year before Congress.
