Sen. Elizabeth Warren's question to Sen. Murphy on Orlando and Gun Violence

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Thank you well let's saturday i .

Was in Boston for our annual Pride Parade and pride is an institution in boston this year marked our 46th annual march i have gone to pride for years and when I go I don't March I dance I dance with people young people and old people black people and white people asian people and Latino people gay people and straight people.

Bisexual people transgender people queer people the parade has everything it has intricate floats marching bands elaborate costumes tons of on lookers one Boston reporter called our parade.

Pure joy and he is right I'll of Boston's pride parade i love it as much as anything I've done as a u.s. senator for me this parade is the tangible demonstration of what happens when we turn away from darkness and division and turn toward our best selves when we turn toward each other.

It shows us what this nation looks like when we are at our best.

Inclusive strong United optimistic proud.

Looks like when we beat back hate and embrace each other early sunday morning at around two a.m. someone tried to take that away from us and it wasn't the first time it was the most recent and it was extreme and horrible and shocking dozens of lives lost dozens more injured all across our country we grieve for those lost and for their families and for their loved ones and this is especially true in massachusetts three years ago the people of Boston came face to face with terror at the finish line of the Boston Marathon the cowardly attack and it's aftermath took lives injured people and forever changed a beloved tradition this week to people with.

Massachusetts roots were killed in orlando and at least two more were wounded.

Thirty-seven-year-old Kimberly KJ Morse who was working the door at pulse have lived in northampton massachusetts for more than a decade.

Performing in nightclubs and working at amherst college and smith college she had recently moved to Florida to help take care of her mother and her grandmother 23 year old Stanley L movin are a pharmacy tech spent his childhood in springfield massachusetts he came out of the bathroom at pulse.

Just as the bullets were flying he pushed people out of harm's way as he was shot three times a third Massachusetts native who survived the massacre was also shot three times.

Angel cologne of framingham massachusetts was shot in the leg the hand in the hip he is alive today according to cologne only because the gunman missed his head as he shot those who were lying on the floor to make sure they were dead thirty-seven-year-old Jeffrey Rodriguez raised in leominster remains in critical condition now Rodriguez was shot three times as of Tuesday he had undergone three surgeries his family is optimistic that he will pull through and all of us from Massachusetts and all across the nation are rooting for him.

You know there are still things we don't know about the shooter we don't know about is planning his motives things we may never know but here's what we do know we know that the shooter called 911 and pledged allegiance to Isis declaring his intention to be known in history as a terrorist.

We know he carried an assault-style weapon that was designed for soldiers to carry in war and we also know that hundreds of people in orlando went to the pulse nightclub to continue their celebration of pride and that the shooter targeted them to die.

I woke up on sending morning still in the glow of the Boston pride parade.

Boy that ended fast but I thought about the history of pride in the nineteen sixties the mirror act of publicly associating with the LGBT community was considered radical that was true even in places where the community came together to sink seek strength and protection like New York's Greenwich Village.

Greenwich villages stonewall inn was one of the most popular gay bars in New York and it was regularly rated by police officers who arrested patrons for any number of bureaucratic violations obviously designed to harass embarrass and abuse people whose only crime was to want a place to be together and one night in late June of nineteen sixty-nine the bars patrons fought back.

The rioting continued intermittently for five nights and it wasn't pretty.

It reflected the demands of a group for equality for the same chances that other Americans have to be themselves a few months after that LGBT activists began planning for the first pride march it was set for the following June to commemorate the Stonewall uprising.

The idea was to use that anniversary is an opportunity for the community to remind us all that they too are citizens they to get to have some fun and they too are entitled to the same dignity and respect as every other American over the years the tradition expanded across this great nation just as tolerance and acceptance expanded across this great nation pride both helped us move forward and showed us how far we have moved together.

I went terrible things like the Orlando shooting happen we face important choices as a country as individuals and as a community when terrible things happen.

We have to choose how we responded and all of us will decide whether we are going to come together or splinter apart we can become a country a country that is defined by fear and hate fear of each other hatred for anyone who is different from ourselves in the america of fear and hate we will alienate and isolate entire communities creating even more fear and hate and threatening further violence we will fracture as a people splintering off in two separate groups each fearing others each seeking to serve only themselves or we can make the choice to come together we can choose that no community.

No community of immigrants no community of Muslims no community of young men is isolated in this country we can do this knowing that when we embrace each other and build one people out of many we become a stronger country stronger because of the bonds of of community prevent alienation stronger because the bonds of community make it harder to turn against each other and break us apart.

Community mean people can get help before it's too late we cannot ignore the fact that this Massacre targeted an LGBT club and we should learn from that and from the message of pride in orlando and act of terrorism was also an act of hate visited upon people who came together in friendship and celebration but the Patriots that stone will show us the way they gave birth to a movement that changed a nation they beat back hate they showed us that change is possible change for the better as possible.

They showed everyone that love pan triumph over fear and hate that we can all come together but boy they showed us you've got to work for it.

This is not an abstract idea when it comes to our response to the tragedy in orlando we are already beginning to see the splintering of America one side shout it was a gun that killed all those people.

The other side shouts it wasn't gunned it was a terrorist that killed all those people and through all the shouting we miss what should be obvious it was a terrorist with a gun that killed a terrorist with hate in his heart and a gun in his hand and that killed all those people it is time for us to acknowledge all of these truth and to come together to address them first we must take the threat of terrorism seriously.

We must continue to stop the flow of money to terrorist groups in to work with our allies to stop the movement of terrorists and disrupt hubs of radicalization abroad and here at home we need to make sure that our law enforcement agencies have the resources they need funding training equipment but we also need to make sure we have the resources to analyze and counter radical propaganda the war on terror is now fought online and we need to put our best forces online to fight back we need to work with people in our local communities not isolate or demonize them to stop radicalization before it starts and to prevent tragedies before they occur and to show that nobody is kept out of the American family because of how they look or talk or pray second we must take the threat from guns.

Seriously our nation is awash in the weapons of murder and there are many things we can do to address that we can ban Rambo style assault weapons we can take these weapons of war off our streets.

We can also close the terror gap the FBI should have the authority to block gun sales to anyone they believe is a if someone cannot get on an airplane because the FBI is concerned they might be plotting to do harm against Americans then they shouldn't be able to walk into a store and buy a Rambo style assault weapon we believe we can close the background checks loophole anyone who cannot buy a gun because of a felony conviction or mental illness should not be able to go to a gun show or go online and buy that same gun we can act to make the next shooting less likely we can act to reduce the likelihood that is a disturbed individual middle or a terrorist is again able to kill dozens with a gun and if we fail to act the next time someone uses a gun to kill one of us a gun that we could have kept out of the hands of a terrorist that members of this Congress will have blood on our hands.

But the truth is this is not just about Congress it is about all of us.

We all have choices we have choices about how we're going to treat our neighbors and our fellow citizens choices about what we do when someone is targeting the coffee shop because of their background or their looks or their race choices about how we react when a friend or a co-worker son or a daughter tells us the truth about who they love.

Choices about how we treat our neighbors and fellow citizens who don't look or talk or pray like we do it is a scary world out there.

We all know that terrorism mutates into new and more dangerous forms.

Terrorists have easy assault easy access to assault weapons that put us all at risk and hate plain old-fashioned naked ugly hate still lurks in dark corners it is a scary world but America is strongest when we work together and all of us will decide whether we come together or splitter apart we can keep weapons out of those who would do us harm.

We can make it harder for terrorism to take root in this country we can drive the forces of hate out of our nation we can build a stronger more United America and we can begin right here in the United States Senate we can begin right now and with that my question for the senator from Connecticut is this.

Do you believe it is time for the Senate to act in the interests of the American people and finally.

Past these common-sense widely supported proposals to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.





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