The civil rights pioneer led fellow Democrats in a 25-hour protest to press GOP House leaders to hold votes on gun control measures. Are we blind? Can we see?…Give us a vote.
Advertisement
“This was anything but a political stunt”, Loebsack said.
“All we want is a vote”, he said.
US President Barack Obama sent Mr Lewis a note from his personal Twitter account: “Thank you John Lewis for leading on gun violence where we need it most”, he said.
With the advantage of live-streaming from mobile devices this time, the Democrats called their sit-in a victory when they gave up the tactic Thursday.
Hours earlier, Republicans had exited the Capitol, branding the remarkable sit-in a publicity stunt and summarily adjourning the chamber at about 3:15 a.m. EDT until after the Fourth of July. “The act of sitting in in the House chamber was exclusively to draw attention to gun control and a response to the Orlando shootings”.
DeFazio: “We believe strongly, and as it appears in polling so do the American people, that we should have a system of universal background checks before you can buy a firearm”.
“I came to Washington to get commonsense results which is why I’m working with my colleagues in Congress to address the rise of terrorism and gun violence”. “It was the avenue for us to really reach millions of people around the world”, Aguilar said Thursday. “House Democrats on the House floor. Number three, we’re not going to take away a citizen’s due process rights”, Ryan said.
On Thursday morning, before Democrats called off the sit-in, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Republicans of leaving “in the dark of night” and praised her caucus for “taking us to a new place” in the gun debate. “We had a sit-in on the floor of the House”.
“If they were this concerned about gun control, why didn’t they pass gun control when the President, and the House and the Senate were all under Democratic control, they couldn’t”, said Republican Congressman Bill Johnson.
Congress has not passed major gun control legislation since 1994, with gun rights defenders saying such measures infringe the constitutional right to bear arms.
Advertisement
“We will continue to raise the issues in our districts and when we come back on July 5 we will just continue to raise the issues down here”, Watson Coleman said.
