McConnell asks Cornyn to try to work with Democrats to find measure in response to school shooting

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has asked Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn to lead a bipartisan effort on legislation in response to this week's deadly school shooting in the senior senator's home state. 

McConnell, of Kentucky, has also asked other top Senate Republicans to join in negotiations that would include talks with Democrat Sens. Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, according to CNN.

Murphy, in whose state the worst elementary school shooting in U.S. history occurred, at Sandy Hook Elementary, in 2012, in which 20 students and six adults were killed, is a big gun safety advocate.

Sinema, a moderate Democrat representing a traditionally Republican-leaning state, has essentially helped Republicans before by not supporting her conference's efforts to end the Senate filibuster.

Cornyn is Texas' senior senator.

Despite the enormous, election-year pressure to pass some form of legislation after the shooting Tuesday at Ross Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two adults were killed, Senate Democrats and Republicans have expressed little optimism about compromise on a politically charges issue on which the sides have little common ground.