ABC Reporter Grills Democrat Senator on Gun Control Push After Orlando Attack: ‘Your Proposal Would Have Done Nothing’

ABC’s Jon Karl grilled Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) during an interview on “This Week” Sunday over the lawmaker's filibuster for gun control.

In the wake of a terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead and 53 injured, Murphy took to the Senate floor to launch a 15-hour filibuster to demand a vote on gun control legislation. Murphy’s proposal included barring those on the government's terror watch list from being able to purchase a gun and closing what some call the “gun show loophole.”

Image source: ABC News

Karl asked Murphy if his proposal would have “done anything to stop the massacre in Orlando.”

“So, it may have in the sense that if you partner with a bill that stops terrorists from getting guns—,” Murphy began.

“But wait a minute,” Karl interjected. “He didn't buy those guns at a gun show. And he would have passed the background check. He did pass a background check.”

Murphy acknowledged that Mateen “did pass a background check.”

Karl responded, “Every time there’s one of these terrible tragedies there are proposals,” adding, “Your proposal would have done nothing in the case of Orlando, it would have done nothing to stop the killing in San Bernardino. And in fact, it was unrelated to the killing in Newtown. So why, why are we focusing on things that have nothing to do with the massacres we're responding to?”

Murphy called Karl’s point a “trap.”

I disagree, I think if this proposal had been into effect it may have stopped the shooting.

But we can’t get into the trap in which we are forced to defend our proposal simply because it didn’t stop the last tragedy. We should be making our gun laws less full of Swiss cheese holes, so that future killings don’t happen. That trap in an impossible one. The Sandy Hook families lobby for background checks. You know why? Because they are just as concerned with the young men and women who are dying in our cities because of the flow of illegal guns, as they are about a ban of assault weapons, or high magazines clips that might have prevented the Newtown killings.

Murphy added that the reaction to the attack in Orlando has to be “broader” than “just responding to the tragedy that happened.”

Watch a segment of the interview below:

(H/T: Newsbusters)

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