He finished his filibuster by talking at length about one of the young boys who died there.
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Murphy said his body “held up pretty well” during the near-15 hours that he was required to remain standing without leaving the chamber and without eating, “but it was very nice to sit down and rest my legs”.
Murphy launched the talk-a-thon to protest the Senate’s lack of movement on legislation to curb gun violence. “Trying and trying and trying to do the right thing is ultimately just as important as getting the outcome in the end”.
The U.S. Senate inched closer to scheduling votes on limited gun control measures after a Florida nightclub massacre, with Democrats challenging Republicans on Thursday to defy the national gun lobby and vote for new restrictions. “We need common sense gun reforms, including an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, stopping terrorists from being able to buy assault weapons, and banning high capacity magazines”. They have focused on a measure proposed by California senator Dianne Feinstein that would allow the USA attorney-general to ban gun sales to suspected terrorists, including those on watch lists, if there is “reasonable belief” the weapons may be used to carry out an attack. But they seem destined to fail because of partisan politics and a requirement that any proposal muster 60 of the 100 votes in the U.S. Senate. Schumer wants to increase the FBI’s budget and invest in more training.
“We are not asking people to do anything very hard, all you got to do is put your hand up and then put it down”, Casey said.
This comes after a 14-hour Senate filibuster by Connecticut’s Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said.
Chris Murphy, who led the filibuster, told reporters Thursday on Capitol Hill. When asked by another senator how he was feeling just before 7:30 p.m., Murphy said rehabilitation from a back injury in his 20s had helped him build up endurance.
This allowed fellow Democrats, like his CT counterpart, Sen. Chris Murphy, the filibuster included the combined work of dozens of his party colleagues including Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of MA and Richard J. Durbin of IL. Like Murphy, Booker did not sit down for the full 15 hours.
He said it’s about terrorism and making sure that people who are not supposed to get a gun don’t get one.
“The Senate was going to move on”, Booker said in an interview Thursday after he left a news conference featuring relatives of people killed in shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and Charleston, S.C. Under this legislation, people of the government’s watch list, or in the no-fly list, will not be allowed to purchase firearms.
Nationwide debate on gun control has begun in earnest after the Orlando shooting, even leading Senate Democrats to filibuster for almost 15 hours Thursday in hopes of moving new legislation forward.
The shooter was identified as Omar Mateen, who worked for security company G4S.
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Lawmakers are looking at whether to ban guns to prospective buyers who are on a broad terrorist watch list that is run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but not on one of the subset lists such as the “no-fly” list, she said, adding that there could still be an “alert” to law enforcement officials that the purchase was being made.
