From: NewNowNext
You could have put money on it: The Senate failed to pass any one of four new gun-control bills put forward on Monday, barely a week after the massacre at a gay club in Orlando killed 49 innocent people.
The measures, added to the annual spending bill that funds federal law-enforcement agencies, were aimed at expanding background checks and putting limits on buyers on no-fly lists
“This body was going to ignore what happened in Orlando last week,” said Senator Chris Murphy, who launched a 14-hour filibuster last week to force the issue to the Senate floor.
“We were going to pretend like it didn’t happen,” he said, playing up the significance of his coalition’s holding of the Senate floor last week to force a vote on the gun control issue.”
Since January 1, there have been 145 mass shootings in the U.S.,but Murphy admitted getting anything approved by Republicans was a long shot. “We are at least going to get to see where people stand,” he added.
Murphy authored a bill mandating background checks at gun shows, which failed by 60 votes.
A Republican-backed initiative, expand funding for the federal background check system and defining what it meant to be found “mentally incompetent,” failed by a vote of 53 to 47.
The same went for another GOP bill giving the Justice Department 72 hours get a court order delaying the sale of a gun to someone on the no-fly list.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who witnessed the brutal murder of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by a gunman in 1978, authored a bill calling for a block on gun sales to people on the “no-fly list” suspected of being engaged in or planning a terrorist act.
“To me, this isn’t a gun-control issue, this is a national security issue,” Feinstein said. “Terrorist groups… know that our gun laws are weak and can be exploited.”
It also failed, by a measure of 47 to 53.
Unsurprisingly, the NRA applauded the failure of these common-sense measures.
“Today, the American people witnessed an embarrassing display in the United States Senate,” declared the NRA in a statement. “President Obama and his allies proved they are more interested in playing politics than addressing their failure to keep Americans safe from the threat of radical Islamic terrorism,”
In a tweet, Senator Elizabeth Warren said she was “ashamed & disgusted that the Senate works for the NRA & not the majority of Americans who support basic solutions to stop gun violence.”
“What am I going to tell 49 grieving families? What am I going to tell those who are still in the hospital fighting for their lives?” said Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL.). “What I’m going to have to tell them is the NRA won again.”
Below, a look at who voted “yea” and “nay.”
No comments:
Post a Comment