Shortly after hearing news of the tragedy at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy spoke on the Senate floor, urgently pleading for lawmakers to come together on a compromise for gun control legislation.

“What are we doing?” asked Murphy, who previously represented Newtown, Connecticut, in the House, the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting nearly a decade ago.

"I am here on this floor to beg — to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues — find a path forward here,” Murphy implored. "Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely. I understand my Republican colleagues may not agree to everything I support, but there is a common denominator we can find.”

President Joe Biden made a similar plea Tuesday night, addressing the country just days after he traveled to Buffalo, New York, to meet with the families of victims of a grocery store shooting that saw 10 killed.

“Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone, or the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbies?” he asked. “It's time to turn this pain into action for every parent, for every citizen in this country. 

We have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: it's time to act,” he added.

But what’s not yet clear is what that action looks like — or if there are enough votes to get it passed.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took quick action on Tuesday night after the deadly shooting to fast-track two House-approved background check bills to the Senate’s calendar. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate who chairs the Judiciary Committee, told reporters that a vote would come after lawmakers return from the Memorial Day recess in June.

Rather than hold a symbolic vote to put lawmakers on the record, similar to a vote to codify Roe v. Wade into law earlier this month, Schumer opted to give lawmakers — both Democrats and Republicans — time to negotiate on a compromise. 

But, he acknowledged, bipartisan support for gun legislation is “unlikely” and Democrats have “been burned so many times before.”

“I believe that accountability votes are important,” Schumer said. “But sadly, this isn’t a case of the American people not knowing where their senators stand. They know. They know because my Republican colleagues are perfectly clear on this issue. Crystal clear. Republicans don't pretend that they support sensible gun safety legislation."

“Americans can cast their vote in November for senators or members of Congress that reflect how he or she stands with guns with this issue, this issue, at the top of the voters’ lists,” he said of his Republican colleagues.

"There is a plague, a plague upon this nation,” Schumer said as he opened the chamber’s session on Wednesday. “A plague of gun violence that has taken over this country. America's gun epidemic is unmatched from any of our peer nations in the world.” 

“The U.S. is not an outlier on mental illness,” Schumer said, calling the U.S. an “outlier” in terms of number of guns. "If mental illness was the cause, you'd be seeing mass shootings all across the developed world."

Schumer also condemned what he called “a big problem in the United States Senate,” calling out his Republican colleagues for previous inaction on gun reform.

“Too many senators on the other side of the aisle are disconnected from the suffering of the American people,” he alleged. “Too many members on that side care more about the NRA.”

“Please, please, please, dammit, put yourself in the shoes of these parents for once,” Schumer urged his Republican colleagues. “Please, damnit, please, think if it was your child or grandchild.”

The two bills passed by the House last year — H.R. 8, The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, and H.R. 1446, The Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021 — received votes from both Democrats and Republicans, but have languished in the Senate amid GOP opposition. H.R. 8 would expand background checks for all firearm sales or transfers, including private transactions, online and at gun shows. The other would have extended the waiting period for background check reviews, known as the "Charleston Loophole," a reference to the 2015 shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

It’s unclear whether those bills will be the basis for any bipartisan Senate agreement, or whether lawmakers would consider a different approach – such as the compromise bill written by West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting.

The bill, which would have expanded background checks for gun shows and internet sales, but would not have required them for transactions between family and friends, failed at the time, but the two lawmakers have tried to bring it up numerous times since, including after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016.

"My interest in doing something to improve and expand our background check system remains,” Toomey said Wednesday.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican, suggested that Congress explore federal legislation that mirrors her state's "Yellow Flag" law. 

“Congress should look at enacting a yellow flag law based on the one we have in Maine, which has due process rights and also involves a medical professional in the decision,” Collins said. 

Maine's law, which took effect in 2020, was the result of a bipartisan compromise in 2019 to pass gun reform in the state. The law creates a process for police to temporarily take guns away from people who are in danger of hurting themselves or others. However, Maine’s yellow flag law has a provision which requires a medical practitioner to sign off on the request. 

Since the legislation passed, some law enforcement officials in Maine have had problems trying to utilize the yellow flag law because they couldn’t locate a medical practitioner willing to do the evaluation.

Interest in a "Red Flag" law proposal from Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who proposed similar legislation in 2019 after the Dayton, Ohio, shooting with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, picked up after the Texas shooting. Such legislation would allow authorities to temporarily remove firearms from those considered to be a threat to themselves or others.

Sen. Collins told reporters that she and Sen. Murphy have discussed such legislation; Sen. Toomey has also spoken to Murphy. 

Some Republicans have suggested instead considering bills to bolster school safety or one that addresses the country's mental hearlth crisis.

As with much stalled federal legislation – abortion and voting rights, to name a couple – the shooting in Texas has renewed calls to abolish or make an exception to the filibuster, the 60-vote legislative threshold needed to pass major legislation in the Senate.

"The Senate must consider an exception to the filibuster to curb gun violence," former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wrote on Twitter. "They did it to raise the debt ceiling and confirm Supreme Court justices. They can do it to stop another 19 families from getting the unimaginable news that their child has been murdered at school."

"Enough is enough," wrote Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. "We must abolish the filibuster and pass gun safety legislation NOW. No one in America needs an AR-15. How many more children, mothers and fathers need to be murdered in cold blood before the Senate has the guts to ban assault weapons and take on the NRA?"

"I’m heartbroken that yet another school has been torn apart by gun violence. And I’m sickened that we haven’t been able to pass commonsense gun safety laws," Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter. "We can’t let the NRA or the filibuster stop us from protecting our children."

Sen. Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, two of the Senate's most staunch defenders of the filibuster, said they would not support an exception to pass a gun rights bill.

Manchin, who has previously sponsored gun legislation before, called the shooting "horrific" and said that he will do "anything" to pass "commonsense" gun reform – but said that bypassing the filibuster was out of the question.

"The filibuster is the only thing that prevents us from total insanity," he said Tuesday. "Total insanity."

“Everyone wants to go, ‘Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, get rid of that.’ That’s the easy way out," Manchin said Wednesday, adding that if the filibuster is removed, "What makes you think they won’t reverse it immediately if they don’t like what we do?”

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Sinema said that she is "going to start having conversations again, with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to determine whether or not there's something we can actually do to help increase safety," but also signaled she would not support a filibuster change.

Such a stance has continued to spill over into intra-party conflicts within the Democratic caucus.

"Please just stop," Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, a progressive who has been urged to challenge the Senator in a 2024 primary, wrote on Twitter in response to a post from Sinema Tuesday. "Unless you are willing to break the filibuster to actually pass sensible gun control measures you might as well just say 'thoughts and prayers.'"

But despite the extolling of grief over the Uvalde shooting from members of both parties, and a whole host of solutions in Congress, it's unclear what the path forward on gun rights legislation would be – or if they can even get it done.

Despite control of the House, Senate and the White House, Democrats don't have the votes to overcome the filibuster, thanks to slim majorities in both chambers and near-universal Republican opposition to gun rights legislation, leaving their options limited.

"We just don't have enough Republican partners right now," Connecticut Sen. Murphy acknowledged in an interview with CNN on Wednesday. " I spent all of last year bending over backwards trying to find a compromise with Republicans. I sat down with one Republican, then I sat down with another Republican, I could not get a compromise that could get more than two or three Republicans."

In an interview with Spectrum News, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that Congress is "blocked from doing anything" by the near-universal Republican opposition to gun legislation.

"I get it, that we can't protect all of our babies all the time," Warren said. "But we can sure do a lot better than we are. And right now, the Republicans in Congress are lined up to say nothing."

"We're willing to do just about anything," she said. "Can we just do background checks? Answer from the Republicans is no. Okay. Can we just do assault weapons? Answer from the Republicans is no. This is not a case of can we do the full package of everything that's possible. This is a case of right now, the Republicans are blocking us from doing anything."

Murphy expressed some hope that things might change after this week's shooting, but after inaction during similar massacres – including the deaths of 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 – reaching that goal is hard to picture.

"Maybe that will change after yesterday," he said. "And I've been talking all morning all last night to my Republican colleagues in the Senate about some ideas that maybe can get 60 votes. But this is a problem that has been endemic in the Senate. We just can't get enough Republicans to join with us, on things that have 90% support amongst the American public. Maybe that changes this week."

But, Murphy added, Congress must act, even in the face of critics who say that no one gun law could stop all tragedies such as this.

"Just because a ban on murder in this country doesn't prevent murderers from happening, that doesn't mean we legalize murder," he said. "Because we know by making it illegal, we reduce the likelihood that it happens. So by making it illegal for people to have 30-round magazines, that doesn't mean that no one will come in possession of a 30 round magazine, but less people will and there will be less mass shootings."

"So the idea that you can't prevent evil with a law doesn't mean we give up as a civilization." he added. "It means we we keep on trying knowing that will never be perfect, but we can still save lives."