Analysis: Why Steve Kerr's comments on Uvalde should stop you in your tracks

“Guns flow in this country like water, and that’s why we have mass shooting after mass shooting, and, you know, spare me the bullshit about mental illness,” said Murphy. And at the moment – and unless something major shifts – there aren’t 60 Senate votes for anything that is perceived as curtailing gun rights. The closest the Senate came to addressing the country’s gun violence epidemic was in 2013, when a bipartisan effort led by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey that would have expanded background checks received 54 votes. What’s remarkable about the impasse on guns in the Senate is that – as Kerr noted – massive majorities of the public, regardless of political party, support some new gun restrictions. A 2021 poll from Pew Research Center showed that 87% of Americans supported preventing people with mental illnesses from buying guns, while 81% backed making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.