Friends -

This weekend, our country witnessed two deadly mass shootings in less than 24 hours. Two communities mourning. 29 lives lost from senseless violence. Not to mention the dozens of other suicides, homicides and acts of domestic violence that won’t make the headlines. And so much of it is preventable.

We have to do more than offer sympathy.

The silence from Congress is complicity.

And for the national leaders who choose to do nothing, the blood soaks deeper and deeper into their hands with each passing day and with each new shooting.

There are laws we could pass today to save lives. We know this.

And I don’t care that it is August recess. We got elected to fix things, and this is fixable. But it’s not going to happen if all we get from our elected leaders are tweets.

I am in Connecticut with my family right now, but I am ready to immediately come back to Washington and debate and vote on legislation that will save lives.

The House passed a universal background checks bill 159 days ago. Let’s start there because we cannot wait a moment longer:

Add your voice to mine and tell Mitch McConnell to call the Senate back into session and hold a vote on our universal background checks bill.

To those who say that we must all stand down from politics in the wake of high profile mass shootings, that idea is a fiction created by the gun lobby to keep our movement from winning.

To those who say it is about a mental health crisis, America has no more mental illness than other nations. 4 out of 5 mass shooters have no mental illness diagnosis, and half showed no signs of a prior, undiagnosed illness. It is just in America that people dealing with complicated inner demons can get a military-style weapon with ease.

By all indications, the El Paso shooter had been radicalized and inspired by racism. Donald Trump indeed deserves a large portion of the blame for the increase in hate crimes since 2016, but we cannot oversimplify this. There is an extensive, well funded extremist network of racism and hate in this country that helps drive young men to commit atrocities like this. Beating Trump matters, but dismantling it takes more than just winning in 2020.

In Dayton, the police were right there when it happened. They stopped the shooter within 30 seconds of the first shot. In those 30 seconds, using a 100-round magazine, he took 9 lives.

These young men contemplating mass murder take note of the inaction of their government, shooting after shooting, and their broken minds infer endorsement by our silence.

It is time for my Republican colleagues to act.

Tell Mitch McConnell: Call the Senate back into session and hold a vote on gun safety legislation immediately. We should be passing universal background checks tomorrow.

These acts of domestic terrorism cannot be met with silence and inaction. The Senate needs to get off our asses and do something.

Every best wish,

Chris Murphy