Sen. Chris Murphy (D., Ct.) acknowledged opposition to the Manchin/Toomey bill is not rooted solely in political pressure from the NRA Monday on MSNBC.
Instead, the junior senator from Connecticut revealed he has come to realize gun rights activists are motivated by their philosophical convictions:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Right, exactly. It doesn't mean we shut down, would the senator suggests we shut down all screening at airports tomorrow because criminals are still going to smuggle things through there?
CHRIS MURPHY: I think what has happened here is you can't explain the opposition of background checks because the NRA is powerful. Essentially what you have here today is a bunch of gun control darwinists, right who just believe natural selection is going to take care of this problem, that if you put guns in the hands good guys and bad guys, then let's just hope the good guys shoot the bad guys. And they sort of say this, they say "the only way to stop a bad guy is a good guy with a gun." You can't explain opposition to background checks any longer by saying the NRA is powerful. I think a lot of folks who will vote against this on the senate floor really believe the best way to solve this is throw a mess of guns out and there let the folks shoot it out. It took me a while to figure out there is a philosophy underlying this that allow people to justify being against background checks. It's not just that the NRA are telling these guys to vote the wrong way but they believe the streets will be safer if criminals have guns and it's ridiculous.
Full interview: