New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker said he was not hopeful that any major gun control legislation would be passed in the wake of recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Booker said he supported whatever changes could be agreed upon at the federal level but was “under no illusion” that substantive changes would be made until a greater national movement emerged and pro-gun politicians were voted out of office.
“Whatever we can get done, if it saves a life it’s worth doing, and so my colleagues who are entering the bipartisan talks, I fully support that,” Booker said. “But I’m under no illusion that we are going to do the things that need to be done, that the majority of Americans overwhelmingly support, Republican and Democrat, that can create significant safety.”
“I return again and again, to how change is made in America,” he continued.
Booker pointed to the example of the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, where four young girls were killed in one of the pivotal moments of the civil rights movement.
“The nation rallied, movement continued until we demanded change, and it was made,” Booker said. “And people who did not make the change…paid at the polls. Until that happens, we are going to see at best incremental change. But as far as a federal level, I’m not that hopeful.”
“This is not a one-move solution,” Booker continued. “There must be many things done…But I am sorry. We are at a point in this nation where we are going to have to mobilize a greater movement… Until the redemptive power of the love for all of our children is greater than the destructive power of the love of our guns, and money, and power, until that redemptive love of our children turns into action, then nothing is gonna change.”