Chris Murphy once again pleads with the Senate to act on gun violence after deadly Texas Elementary School shooting, nearly a decade after Sandy Hook

• Sen. Chris Murphy lamented that yet another city is going through a mass shooting.
• Murphy pleaded with his colleagues to do something about gun violence in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas shooting.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy on Tuesday pleaded with his Senate colleagues to do something about gun violence, growing emotional as he discussed the similarities between the deadly elementary school shooting in Texas and Sandy Hook.

"What are we doing? What are doing?," Murphy, who is from Connecticut, said during a speech on the Senate floor. "Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African-American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands."

At least 18 students and one teacher are dead after a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott told reporters Tuesday evening. Abbott said that officers killed the suspected 18-year-old shooter. Murphy was also speaking about the May 14 shooting in Buffalo that is being investigated as a hate crime after a white shooter killed 10 Black people.

Murphy has poured his energy into gun violence legislation since joining the Senate. A three-term congressman, Murphy was sworn into the Senate just under a month after the Newtown shooting that left 26 people, including 20 children, dead. In the wake of Parkland and so many other mass shootings, the Connecticut Democrat has grown increasingly frustrated over Congress' ability to do anything.

"Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate?" Murphy said. "Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job of putting yourself in this position of authority, if your answer is that the slaughter increases as our kids run for their lives is that we do nothing? What are we doing?"

Murphy said school shootings are "not inevitable" and then proceeded to literally beg his colleagues to do anything to improve the situation.

"Why are we here? If not to try to make sure that fewer schools and fewer communities go through what Sandy Hook has gone through, what Uvalde is going through," Murphy said. "I'm here on this floor to beg to literally get down on my hands and knees to find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass a law to make this less likely."

The Senate came the closest in April 2013 when a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks on the commercial sale of guns failed by six votes. President Barack Obama said it was "a pretty shameful day for Washington" as he was flanked by then-Vice President Joe Biden who Obama had tapped as his point person on gun legislation.

Like most other legislation, gun violence bills have run up against the Senate's filibuster. The procedural hurdle essentially requires 60 votes for proposals that would expand background checks or renew a ban on assault weapons. Few Republicans support such a ban and it appears there are still not enough to support a deal on background checks.

If anything, Congress appears to be moving further away from passing anything. Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, who help craft the 2013 deal with Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia, is retiring at the end of this term.