After 26 hours, Democrats in the House of Representatives ended their sit-in for gun control.
Since there is no House activity planned until after the 4th of July weekend, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, the party’s second-in-command, said members would return to their districts during that time to build support for gun control legislation.
A tactic usually associated with protesting workers or students, the sit-in flummoxed Republicans, who rushed out of the House after quickly voting to pass an $80 billion spending bill over the objections of the sitting Democrats at 3 a.m.
Speaker Paul Ryan dismissed the Democrats’ actions as a “publicity stunt” and a political fundraising ploy that threatened to undermine the functioning of government.
“No matter how bad things get in this country, we have a basic structure that ensures a functioning democracy,” he said. “We can disagree on policy but we do so within the bounds of order and respect for the system, otherwise it all falls apart.”
But Democrats emerged from the sit-in emboldened, walking down the steps of the Capitol in a large group.
“The American people are with us and people around the world are with us,” said Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia. An icon of the Civil Rights movement, Lewis was one of the leaders of the sit-in strategy.
|What the lawmakers want
In the wake of the shooting in Orlando that claimed 49 lives — the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history — Democrats are ratcheting up the pressure on Republicans to accept what they say are modest changes to gun laws.
Among the changes they have floated are barring those who are on the FBI’s terrorism watch list or no-fly list from purchasing firearms, requiring those selling guns at gun shows to perform background checks on customers and barring the sale of high-capacity assault rifles.
In addition, Democrats have proposed changing a 20-year-old policy that prohibits the Centers for Disease Control from using federal funds on any research that promotes gun control. Gun control advocates argue that the CDC has stopped conducting any research on gun violence because of the law, passed with the backing of the National Rifle Association two decades ago.
Democrats are supported in many of their gun control efforts by prominent medical associations, including the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatricians.
On Wednesday, the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world’s best-respected medical journals, said that doctors need to raise their voices in support of gun control measures.
"The devastation wrought by firearms is not inevitable, and to consider this scale of death the price of freedom is a perversion of the notion of liberty," said an editorial by the journal.
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