Kaine expresses frustration with Senate inaction following mass shootings

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WDBJ) - Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) reacted to Tuesday’s mass shooting in Texas, expressing frustration with Senate inaction following the Virginia Tech tragedy and other mass shootings across the country.

Kaine discussed the Texas shooting at length during a regular conversation with reporters Wednesday afternoon.

“The shootings are bad enough, but what really makes it sting is the realization that Congress has done nothing,” Kaine said. “I mean the Virginia Tech shooting was 15 years ago. At that time that was the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States. It isn’t any more. "

Kaine elaborated during a speech on the floor of the Senate.

“We didn’t do anything at the federal level after Virginia Tech, and we didn’t do anything after Pulse, and we didn’t do anything after Las Vegas, and we didn’t do anything after Sandy Hook, and we didn’t do anything after one tragedy after the next,” Kaine said. “And that compounds, and in some ways, that is the thing that makes the emotional reaction a reaction that is as fresh today as it was in April of 2007. It’s a wound that can’t heal until we do something to heal the injury, to heal the problem.”

Kaine said he and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) have introduced what they call ‘The Virginia Plan,’ which includes gun measures that are now the law in the Commonwealth.

“If we can do it in Virginia” Kaine told reporters, “we can do it in the Senate.”

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