U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who voted “yes” on the Democratic amendments, says he’s going to have to tell the grieving families in Orlando that “the NRA won again”.
Advertisement
“If a person is on a terrorist watch list, they shouldn’t be able to buy a gun”.
The legislation comes a day after four partisan proposals failed to pass Monday. That proposal prohibited sales to more people than the Collins bill does.
Collins said the two lists affect approximately 109,000 people, most of whom are foreigners.
Senator Collins said the new proposal provided a solution, where “Americans and green card holders can appeal a denial to the courts and recover attorney’s fees if they prevail”.
Moreover, US law enforcement would be notified of firearms purchased by those individuals placed on the US terror watch list for a period of five years.
Murphy, who led the filibuster last week, said Thursday’s vote “represented the largest defection of Republicans from the gun lobby in the modern history of the anti-gun violence movement”.
The No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, said Collins’ amendment wouldn’t have prevented the massacre.
The bill would block some gun sales for people on the FBI’s No Fly List and Selectee lists. “If tomorrow Sen. Toomey decides to vote for the Collins bill it will be just like his previous head fakes toward gun safety – he acts when the political heat from refusing to do something gets too hot for him, and then runs as fast as he can from the issue”.
On the Senate floor, Feinstein argued Collins’ proposal was “not enough to close the loophole that creates this terror gap and allows terrorists to buy guns”. “As I said, they were giving impassioned speeches about how essential it was that we do something”, he said. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Angus King (I-Maine), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
Republicans supporting her included Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsay Graham of SC.
Hoping to convince fellow Republicans and gun rights advocates, Graham, who noted that he owns an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, said he wasn’t bothered by the inconvenience of “retroactive due process” for people mistakenly on the list due to the far greater interest of national security. Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid said.
Advertisement
Sanders, who was giving a speech in NY on Thursday, is expected to back Collins’ measure.
