Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) admitted that President Joe Biden has “probably not” secured the needed 60 votes to pass gun control in the lame-duck session of Congress.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Murphy dashed Biden‘s hopes to pass an assault weapons ban. However, Murphy did praise the sweeping gun bill passed earlier this year and claimed that banning assault weapons would lead to fewer mass shootings.
“I’m glad that President Biden is going to be pushing us to take a vote on an assault weapons ban,” Murphy said. “The House has already passed it. It’s sitting in front of the Senate. Does it have 60 votes in the Senate right now? Probably not. But let’s see if we can try to get that number as close to 60 as possible. If we don’t have the votes, then we will talk to Senator Schumer and maybe come back next year with maybe an additional senator and see if we can do better.”
“President Biden is right,” Murphy continued. “If we passed an assault weapons ban, we would see less mass shootings in this country. Yes, there are already tens of thousands of assault weapons on the street. Nobody’s talking about taking those weapons away from individuals. We’re just talking about stopping new sales.”
“But if you look at some of the most high-profile mass shootings in the last couple of years, many of those mass shooters bought the weapon just days before carrying out the crime,” he added. “And so, if those weapons were no longer commercially available, only in possession of those who had bought them previously, I think a lot of mass shootings would have been prevented.”
Biden told reporters Thursday that he planned to push for an assault weapons ban after two recent mass shootings left 11 people dead.
“I’m sick and tired of these shootings,” Biden said. “We should have much stricter gun laws.”
Biden then said he intended to pass a gun control bill during the lame-duck session if he could get the votes.
“I’m going to try,” Biden replied. “I’m going to try to get rid of assault weapons.”
“During the lame duck?” the reporter asked again.
“I’m going to do it whenever I — I got to make that assessment as I get in and start counting the votes.”
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