U.S. Senator Chris Murphy was at home when he heard about the shooting in Alexandria, Virginia at the Republican Congressional baseball team’s practice early Wednesday morning and he said his heart just sank.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, two Capitol Police officers, and an aide to Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, were wounded during the shooting.
Murphy, the only member of the Connecticut delegation on a Congressional baseball team, is on the Democratic team, which is slated to play in the charity baseball game against the Republican team tomorrow.
“My thoughts are with Steve, with the Capitol police with all of those that were on the scene this morning. It sounds absolutely awful,” said Murphy, who was not at practice because the two teams practice at different facilities.
Witnesses, including as many as 22 members of Congress who were at the field for the early morning practice, described a terrifying scene, with the gunman reloading while standing on the field and the wounded congressman "screaming for help."
Murphy said it’s hard to imagine that you would be in danger while going to baseball practice at 7 a.m.
The gunman was identified as James Hodgkinson, from Illinois. Local and Capitol Police shot at him and he died at a local hospital in the Washington, DC area.
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“Clearly the Capitol police are there for a reason and we don't have all the details as to what happened this morning. It seems as if the Capitol police did their job and everyone is thankful they were there,” Murphy said.
Congressmen at the center of the terrifying ordeal said U.S. Capitol Police and Scalise’s security detail prevented the shooting at the baseball field from becoming a "massacre."
In the wake of the shooting, some members of Congress, including Murphy, said they would not be interested in a security detail.
“I know this job brings with it danger. This is the second colleague of mine that's been shot since I've been in Congress, but our job is to go out and talk to our constituents. Our job is to be out there in the public,” Murphy said.
“We get protection if we have specific threats made against us, but I think a lot of us have really had mixed feelings about having security details. I don't have one and that allows me to just be in more easy contact with my constituents without a barrier between me and the people that I serve,” Murphy added.
Murphy has been a vocal proponent for stricter gun control laws.
“My thoughts on gun policy in this country don't change with each individual incident. There are 80 people every day who are shot by guns. There are very high-profile incidents like this but every single day there are dozens of people who are shot. My belief in the way that the laws in the country should change on guns aren't informed by one incident or another it's about the data, it's about the broad range of experiences that this country has had with gun violence,” Murphy said.
