Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) led a nearly 15-hour filibuster on the Senate floor on Wednesday and Thursday to demand a vote on gun control legislation that would ban people on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms and require universal background checks. He ended his hold of the floor shortly after 2 am, when Republican leaders agreed to hold a vote on the legislation.
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I am proud to announce that after 14+ hours on the floor, we will have a vote on closing the terror gap & universal background checks
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) June 16, 2016
Murphy was joined on the floor with more than 40 of his colleagues including Republicans Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). Members of the House from Connecticut, including Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) who walked out of the House’s moment of silence Monday, were also present in the gallery to show their support.
Here are the seven best moments from the filibuster:
When Murphy ended the filibuster by telling the story of a Sandy Hook victim.
https://twitter.com/j_berlingerCNN/status/743345193026387968
Toward 2 am, when many of his colleagues had already gone to sleep, Murphy ended his hold of the Senate floor by telling the story of Dylan Hockley and his caregiver, Anne Marie Murphy, who were both killed in the shooting in Newtown in 2012. Murphy displayed a photo of Hockley, grinning wide and wearing a Superman t-shirt.
“This has been a day of questions, and so I ask you all this question: If Anne Marie Murphy could do that, then ask yourself, what can you do to make sure that Orlando or Sandy Hook never ever happens again?”
When Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) read a statement from an Orlando trauma doctor.
After displaying photos of the weapons used in the Orlando attack, Nelson then displayed a large poster-sized photo of bloody shoes. “Do you know who those shoes belong to?” he asked, before identifying them as those of Orlando trauma surgeon Joshua Corsa.
Corsa shared the photo on Facebook on Monday with a statement that Nelson read aloud on the Senate floor:
These are my work shoes from Saturday night. They are brand new, not even a week old. On these shoes, soaked between its fibers, is the blood of 54 innocent human beings. I don’t know which were gay, which were straight, which were black, or which were Hispanic. What I do know is that they came to us in wave upon wave of suffering, screaming, and death.
When Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said that the shooting in Newtown was “just a preview of coming attractions.”
Markey took time Wednesday afternoon to address how Congress has appropriated exactly zero dollars for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to study “the out of control gun epidemic in our country.”
He then turned to Murphy and discussed how he can anticipate more gun violence like the carnage at Sandy Hook Elementary School if legislation isn’t passed. “This is just a preview of coming attractions,” he said.
When Sen. Murphy compared Republican’s opposition to gun control to their denial of climate change.
“We’re not scientists,” Murphy declared when talking about the ban on the CDC studying gun violence, using the common line that Republican lawmakers like to use when they deny the existence of climate change.
“When we get into the routine of deciding what’s worthy of research, bad things happen, whether it’s climate change or gun violence,” he continued.
When Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said that “if you use an AK-47 to hunt a deer, you should stick to fishing.”
While holding the floor, Durbin, like many of his colleagues, discussed the lethal nature of the type of assault weapon used in Orlando, San Bernardino, and Newtown.
“If you use an AK-47 to hunt a deer, you should stick to fishing,” he said.
He also discussed the high rate of gun violence in Chicago, the largest city in his home state. He pointed to the gun show loophole which allows roughly 40 percent of gun purchasers to buy a firearm without a background check online or through private sellers at gun shows.
This past weekend, while 49 people were being shot and killed in Orlando, 8 people were killed and 36 injured by guns in Chicago. Among those shot was a 5-year-old girl, a Chicago Police Department spokesperson said.
When Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) talked about his cousin killed in a mass shooting last year.
On Wednesday afternoon, Merkley said he was going to get “personal” for a moment before he told the floor that his 18-year-old cousin, Rebecka Ann Carnes, was one of nine people killed at Umpqua Community College last year. Merkeley has never identified his cousin in public before, though he’s said in the past that he lost a relative in the shooting. During the filibuster, he spoke briefly about Carnes’ life:
She had just graduated from South Umpqua High School the previous June. She was an avid hunter. She was a lover of four wheeling. And in the picture she posted online for graduation, she had a picture of her graduation cap and she was holding it, and it said on it: ‘And so the adventure begins.’ She was ready for the adventure of adulthood. She was ready for the adventure of going off to college. She was ready to explore the world. She was excited. She was a beautiful spirit, but her adventure ended so shortly after graduating from high school before she could really get started on the journey of life.
When Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) discussed how a reporter in Vermont bought an assault weapon in a parking garage.
The senator from Vermont discussed how a reporter in his state was able to buy an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, the weapon originally thought to have been used in Orlando, without ID, license, or a background check. Leahy discussed how the reporter met a private seller in a parking lot, and when the seller asked the reporter if he had identification, the reporter responded that he preferred not to share it.
“Oh ok, you look old enough,” Leahy said about the interaction. For $500, the reporter was able to purchase the powerful weapon.
According to the reporter who bought the weapon, Paul Heintz, Vermont is “home to the nation’s most permissive gun laws.” All he had to do to purchase the gun was email a seller and arrange the interaction in a parking lot.