New London Tube: Chris Murphy Town Hall

If I missed you at Senator Chris Murphy's town hall meeting last year, it's because I wasn't there.

Apologies to any readers who were looking out for coverage of that event, but even Patch editors need a day or two off. That said, this week's featured video gives you a look at the start of the meeting and the user has uploaded plenty of footage from the meeting.

Murphy made a stop at the Science and Technology Magnet High School as part of a series of visits to each of Connecticut's five congressional districts. The stated purpose of the town hall meetings was "to discuss federal policy and hear ideas about how he can best represent the people of Connecticut in Washington."

This video shows Mayor Daryl Finizio's introduction of Murphy as well as Murphy's opening remarks. Finizio jokes that he's inviting Murphy to "the quiet, peaceful way we do politics in New London" and thanks Murphy for the visit, saying it is his third one to New London since Murphy took office.

"Being from a small city in the corner of the state, getting this much access and attention from a new member of the United States Senate is a true honor for our community," Finizio says.

Murphy starts by saying he intends to talk about sequestration, immigration, and gun control at the forum before opening it up to questions. Murphy has been a vocal gun control advocate since taking office; the day before the forum he issued a press release about how he was urging NASCAR to reverse the decision to name a "NRA 500" race, saying that following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown the National Rife Association has "taken an unprecedented extreme position in the debate over the proper response to this tragedy, placing themselves at odds with the overwhelming majority of the American people, and even their own members."

The user who uploaded the video isn't exactly sympathetic with this view. The description says he is a videographer with the Tea Party movement ("always ready to capture the image of a politician, a train wreck or a plague, but that's being redundant!"). Many of the other video descriptions take a similar editorial slant, including one from the Middletown town hearing with the title "Sen. Chris Murphy Gets Schooled On Gun Control."

Were you at the town meeting? What did you think of Murphy's statements? Let us know in the comments.

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