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Chris Murphy

American lawyer and politician (born 1973)

Christopher Scott "Chris" Murphy (born August 3, 1973) is an American lawyer, author, and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Connecticut since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Connecticut's 5th congressional district from 2007 to 2013. Before being elected to Congress, Murphy was a member of both chambers of the Connecticut General Assembly, serving two terms each in the Connecticut House of Representatives (1999–2003) and the Connecticut Senate (2003–2007).

Chris Murphy in 2013

Quotes

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  • There is not something fundamentally different about the American DNA that causes us to have a level of gun violence that is 20 times that of other first-world nations....It happens here because we choose to allow it to happen. We have a celebratory culture of guns, and the loosest firearms laws in the world.
  • I've listened to Republicans say over and over again that we should focus on enforcing the laws that we have. The great hypocrisy of that statement is that they are deliberately handcuffing the enforcement agency that oversees current law.
  • There are Republicans, friends of mine, that I talk to that are very concerned about what’s going on. It is not easy for a Republican to take on a president of their own party in the first thirty days. Don’t assume their silence today means they will be forever silent.
    They haven’t moved to the place where I think is sufficient. But you are seeing some early signs here. I don’t want to predict that we’re all going to be kumbaya, Republicans and Democrats fighting the Trump administration on a daily basis but I think this is a very uncomfortable moment for a lot of Republicans.
  • Don't be disheartened. Your voices are being heard and we will keep fighting.
    • Tweet at twitter.com/chrismurphyCT, 17 Feb. 2017, 9:57 AM.
  • I wanted to show some of the faces of Washington’s inaction — to share a small sliver of the lives we’ve lost because our nation is overflowing with guns. This issue is only controversial in the halls of Congress. Outside Washington, people understand the horror of gun violence and are increasingly unwilling to tolerate a Congress that is owned and operated by the gun lobby.
  • The paralysis you feel right now – the impotent helplessness that washes over you as news of another mass slaughter scrolls across the television screen – isn’t real. It's a fiction created and methodically cultivated by the gun lobby, designed to assure that no laws are passed to make America safer, because those laws would cut into their profits...As my colleagues go to sleep tonight, they need to think about whether the political support of the gun industry is worth the blood that flows endlessly onto the floors of American churches, elementary schools, movie theaters, and city streets. Ask yourself – how can you claim that you respect human life while choosing fealty to weapons-makers over support for measures favored by the vast majority of your constituents?
  • What are we doing? Why are you here? If not to solve a problem as existential as this? This isn't inevitable. These kids weren't unlucky. This only happens in this country. Nowhere else do kids go to school and think they might be shot that day. It's a choice and it's our choice to let it continue. I'm here to beg my colleagues. Find a way to pass laws to make this less likely.

"Do Liberals Have an Answer to Trump on Foreign Policy?" (March 2017)

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"Do Liberals Have an Answer to Trump on Foreign Policy?", The Atlantic, 15 March 2017.

  • American values don’t begin and end with destroyers and aircraft carriers. American values come by helping countries fight corruption to build stability. American values flow through tackling climate change and building energy independence. American values come through humanitarian assistance whereby we try to stop catastrophes from happening.
  • We bomb your country, creating a humanitarian nightmare, then lock you inside. That’s a horror movie, not a foreign policy.
  • The world is more chaotic today in part because the United States doesn’t help you when it comes to promoting stability.
  • When the U.S. is an active participant in a foreign war, what comes with that is an increased responsibility to try to rescue civilians from the harm done in part by U.S. munitions and U.S. targeting.
  • A progressive foreign policy isn’t just looking at the back-end of terrorism, but is also looking at the front-end of terrorism.
  • The world is more chaotic today in part because the United States doesn’t help you when it comes to promoting stability.
  • There is a big open space in the Democratic Party right now.
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