After a 14 hour, 50-minute filibuster, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy ended his filibuster on gun control reform.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy ended his filibuster after the Senate promised to take up two gun-control measures. His filibuster ranks the 9th-longest since 1900, when the Senate started keeping records.
“It is our understanding that we have been given a commitment on a path forward to get votes on the floor of the Senate—on a measure to assure that those on the terrorist watch list do not et guns and an amendment…to expand background checks to gun shows and to internet sales,” he said in a statement.
Murphy has reached a victory by earning promises for votes. He began filibustering on Wednesday, holding the Senate floor into early Thursday morning after vowing to stay “for as long as I can” until Congress promised to take action.
Murphy represents the district that includes Newtown as a house member. “I live every single day with the memory of Sandy Hook,” he said. In 2012, 20 children and six adults were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
“I am most of the time around here a team player but I’ve had enough,” Murphy said.
He initiated his filibuster after the shooting at Pulse, a gay club in Orlando, in which Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people and wounded over 50 others. He legally bought the weapons he used in the massacre despite previously having been on an FBI terror watch list.
He received support from others such as Bill DeBlasio, Elizabeth Warren, and Hillary Clinton.
Murphy ended his filbuster by showing a picture of Dylan Hockley, a six-year-old killed in the Sandy Hook shooting.
“What can you do to make Orlando or Sandy Hook never, ever, ever happens again?”
