WASHINGTON (AP) A Democratic senator who mourned the loss of 20 children in his home state of CT four years ago waged a almost 15-hour filibuster into the early hours of Thursday morning, demanding votes on gun control measures just days after a mass shooting at a Florida nightclub.
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“We both believe that terrorists shouldn’t get guns”.
The state passed tough gun control laws after the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. “I can’t tell you how hard it is to look into the eyes of the families of those little boys and girls who were killed in Sandy Hook and tell them that, nearly four years later, we’ve done nothing, nothing at all”, he said.
“What would’ve been unacceptable is to spend this entire week on legislative business that was irrelevant to the epidemic of gun violence that has been more real than ever”, the senator said, shortly before he concluded his filibuster “We did not have that commitment when we started today”, he added. Indeed, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) will offer an amendment that would bar suspected terrorists from buying guns, allowing the Justice Department to arbitrate disputes when people mistakenly end up on the terrorist watch list.
VIDEO: A group of Democratic senators was joined at a press conference Thurdsay by relatives of victims of the San Bernardino, California and Charleston, S.C., mass shootings.
In 2013, she was one of only four Democrats to vote against expanding background checks for commercial gun sales.
Murphy began speaking at 11:21 a.m. Wednesday and ended the filibuster at 2:11 a.m. Thursday after Republican leaders agreed to allow votes on the two measures, according to Capitol news reports.
“They are making it easy to not be against it”, says Ray Appen, who was visiting D.C.
The second amendment Senator Murphy and his progressive colleagues want to pass seeks to expand background check requirements, which has never gone through in the past.
The shooting at an Orlando nightclub Sunday that killed 49 people has focused attention on lax gun laws and the lawmakers who refuse to change them. But next week, Republican members of the Senate will have to face votes that could open them up to that charge. Democrats claimed victory yesterday after persuading the US Senate to hold a vote next week on legislation that would bar terror suspects from buying firearms.
“Do you know what the Republican proposal – Cornyn’s proposal – says?” asked Chuck Schumer of NY at a press conference Thursday.
“Common sense dictates that we as a Congress listen to the pleas across America to stop this gun violence”, Durbin said.
The first-term senator is a long-time advocate of gun control.
Feinstein’s bill would also give the USA attorney general the ability to block known or suspected terrorists, even if the individual is not on any watch lists, if there were “reasonable belief” that the person could use the weapon for terrorism.
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Sessions said he has not spoken with Trump, who is the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, about Trump’s remarks suggesting that he would lobby the National Rifle Association to drop their opposition to any program that suspends an American’s gun rights without due process, such as is the case with the No-Fly List, which is a purely administrative action based on a federal employee’s own judgment. But he was pulled from that database when that investigation was closed 10 months later. The amendment gives the Justice Department an important additional tool to prevent the sale of guns to suspected terrorists by licensed firearms dealers while ensuring protection of the department’s operational and investigative sensitivities.
