May 24, 2022

Following Texas Shooting, a Senator Begs His Colleagues: “What Are We Doing? What Are We Doing?”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) took to the Senate floor Tuesday evening to issue a desperate plea, just several hours after 14 children and one teacher were killed in a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

“What are we doing? Just days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands,” he said, referring to the 2012 school massacre in his home state. “Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in a classroom because they think they’re going to be next.”

“What are we doing?” he repeated again, before beseeching his fellow lawmakers to finally act. “Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate? Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job or putting yourself in a position of authority? If your answer is that, as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing, what are we doing?”

“Why are you here?” he said.

The full Mother Jones database of mass shootings since 1982 can be found here. This is the third mass shooting in 2022. Our news team is covering the major developments here. And you can read a deep dive on Murphy’s efforts to push gun control over the past decade here. 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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