Senator Patty Murray on Bipartisan Gun Safety Framework

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(Seattle, WA) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, released the following statement on the newly announced bipartisan framework for a gun safety legislation package in the Senate.

“This framework represents progress—and contains real measures that can help save lives. It’s not everything we need to end gun violence, so I will continue to fight and press for commonsense gun safety reforms like universal background checks and an assault weapons ban. But I have said I would work with anyone to pass anything that may keep our families safe from gun violence, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get this framework passed and then I’ll keep fighting to do more.”

As Chair of the HELP Committee and a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Murray has repeatedly fought to invest federal resources in gun violence prevention research—notably, in 2020 Murray helped usher in the first federal funding for gun violence prevention research in decades and has successfully fought to sustain that funding every year since. Murray has been a strong supporter of common-sense gun safety reforms. For years, Senator Murray has pushed for popular reforms such as universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, extreme risk protection orders, and more. 

While Washington state already has many of these measures in place at the state level, Senator Murray has made clear that the epidemic of gun violence in America cannot be fully addressed without federal action. Senator Murray has cosponsored important firearm legislation proposals in this Congress. Murray is a cosponsor of the Background Check Expansion Act, the Assault Weapons Ban Act, and the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act (ERPO is another term used for red flag laws). Senator Murray also applauded President Biden’s decision to treat ghost guns as the deadly weapons they are and is a cosponsor of the 3D Printed Gun Safety Act. Following the Uvalde school shooting, Senator Murray delivered a speech on the Senate floor, calling on Republicans to answer the call of the American people and come to the table to make progress on gun violence prevention.

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