Will Congress act on guns after Sandy Hook, Buffalo, Uvalde?

But no votes are being scheduled.“Please, please, please damnit - put yourselves in the shoes of these parents just for once,” Schumer said as he opened the Senate.He essentially threw up his hands at the idea of what might seem an inevitable outcome: “If the slaughter of schoolchildren can’t convince Republicans to buck the NRA, what can we do?” The killing of at least 19 children plus a teacher at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, has laid bare the political reality that the U.S. Congress has proven unwilling or unable to pass substantial federal legislation to curb gun violence in America.In many ways, the end of any gun violence legislation in Congress was signaled a decade ago when the Senate failed to approve a firearms background check bill after 20 children, mostly 6- and 7-year-olds, were killed when a gunman opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School.Despite the outpouring of grief Wednesday after the starkly similar Texas massacre, it’s not at all clear there will be any different outcome.“It’s our choice,” lamented Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on “CBS Mornings.”While President Joe Biden said “we have to act,” substantial gun violence legislation has been blocked routinely by Republicans, often with a handful of conservative Democrats.“Where’s the backbone, where’s the courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby?“ Biden said Wednesday, speaking at the White House before signing an executive order on policing. But it fell to a filibuster — blocked by most Republicans and a handful of Democrats, unable to to overcome the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.The same bill flamed out again in 2016, after a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida.Toomey told reporters Wednesday, “My interest in doing something to improve and expand our background check system remains.” He said he had been in contact with Murphy.But Toomey was a GOP outlier.