A Democratic US senator at the forefront of a push to enact new gun control measures has said Republicans \u201cdon\u2019t give a crap\u201d about children or gun violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Connecticut\u2019s Chris Murphy \u2013 who has been a leading force for Democrat gun control efforts since the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting killed 26 people in his state, 20 of them children \u2013 made the comment in a wide-ranging interview with Salon<\/a> that was published on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the interview, Murphy said that it was inexplicable for Republicans to claim they care about the wellbeing of children while thwarting efforts to shield them from gun violence, including by blocking legislation that would restrict sales of assault-style weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is beyond me why Republicans who claim to care about the health of our kids don\u2019t seem to give a crap about our children who are being exposed to these epidemic, cataclysmic rates of gun violence,\u201d Murphy<\/a> said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The senator also said that a surge of gun violence in the US is being fueled by an increasing number of guns that was \u201creally supercharged during the pandemic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t really think people understand how big a problem this is and how quickly it has come to overwhelm us,\u201d Murphy added. About all that the Republican party could agree on, he continued, was \u201csticking up\u201d for those who staged the deadly 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol as well as politically bludgeoning Joe Biden\u2019s son, Hunter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Murphy\u2019s comments were published on the same day that the president is planning to announce he is ordering the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to crack down on gun sellers who break the law as well as to move the country \u201cas close to universal background checks as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n