Senate Democrats Are Filibustering for a Gun Control Amendment

By Joanna Rothkopf  |  June 15, 2016 | 7:45pm
Politics

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) took the Senate floor a little after 11 a.m. on Wednesday and is refusing to give it up.

The Senate is set to vote on a spending bill, but Murphy, along with other Democrats, are attempting to force the Senate to vote on an amendment that would prohibit people on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms and require universal background checks, in response to Sunday’s shooting at Pulse, a LGBT nightclub in Orlando that left 49 dead.

If Republicans don’t agree on the amendment, the idea is that the spending bill won’t get voted on.

Politico reports:

Murphy, a top gun-control advocate whose home state saw the massacre of 20 school children at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, launched the filibuster, and was immediately backed up by colleagues Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). More Senate Democrats are expected to join the talk-a-thon throughout the day and night on Wednesday—the same day presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with the National Rifle Association. (Ed. note: He did.)

“I’m going to remain on this floor until we get some signal, some sign that we can come together on these two measures, that we can get a path forward on addressing this epidemic in a meaningful, bipartisan way,” said Murphy.

Watch a live stream of the filibuster below.

Image via Getty.

 
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