John Lewis leads sit-in on House Floor to pass gun control legislation.

[Santander]

Am I the only person who sees the irony in the fact that John Lewis has gone from a civil rights leader to leading a protest against civil liberties?

So owning a dangerous killing machine is now a "civil liberty"?

John Lewis is doing much the same thing 50 years later - protecting people and making sure their lives are better.

As long as the Second Amendment is law, yes, the right to keep and bear arms is a civil liberty.

House Democrats say "we want a vote". Well, the Senate already had more than one vote on this issue, including an amendment proposed by a Republican which would have met almost all of the Democrats' goals. If Senate Democrats passed that bill, it would have gone to the House and it would have been voted on. If there's anyone House Democrats should be demanding a vote from, it's from Senate Democrats.

[Deblano]

Well, that sit-down sure helped the evil Republicans have their heart grow 3 sizes and end up supporting a ban on assault weapons and the overall removal of due process in exchange for secret lists of suspected "terrorists".

Good job Congressman John Lewis, you sure accomplished a buttload last night. I'm DEFINATELY voting Democrat this year /s

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Speaker Ryan response:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?411655-1/house-speaker-paul-ryan-briefs-reporters&live

[Tartarus Sauce]

The art of political grandstanding and playing hardball for partisan point scoring. Part of me does feel a twinge of satisfaction seeing the Republicans served their own medicine, I can tell whose playbook the House Democrats are currently lifting from. This is an extremely negative development overall though, and a likely a sign of even more intensified brinksmanship later on down the road. Congressional procedure has been paralyzed into perpetual gridlock and the machinations of the legislative chambers have withered into desiccated husks. We essentially have an entire branch of government which has stopped functioning properly, and it's only getting worse.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Isn't 72 hours enough time for the government to put forward evidence as to why someone is too dangerous to buy a gun?  A lot of people on the No-Fly List are just unfortunate to share the same name as a terrorist.  Is that enough reason to punish them?

I can think of at least nine people who would tell you that 72 hours is not enuf time for a background check.  Or at least they would if they were still living.  If you don't want people inconvenienced when buying a gun (or flying), then hire more people to do background checks, not place an arbitrary time limit on safety.

That really is one of my biggest beefs with Republicans these days.  Because "government is inefficient" they cut staffing budgets and then use the resulting snafus to prove their point.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Find a time limit everyone can agree should be reasonably long enough and make it that. It shouldn't go through automatically, but if it isn't done within that timeframe the person can file suit and the judge can order an immediate response.  But if the FBI can't respond within 72 hours to someone on their watch list trying to buy a gun, are they really watching them?

[Badger]

Everyone knows my bias on this issue, but i'm finding it really hard to take the Dems seriously on this issue when they weren't willing to vote for the Cornyn bill. Yeah it wasn't the 5 steps forward that they wanted (all no-fly list people banned), but it was at least 1 step forward (all no-fly list people face a brief waiting period during which the Feds can get a court order I.E. minimal due process). The only real justification I've seen for the Dems to vote against it is so they can run ads saying "na na na na GOP luvs terristz". Why wouldn't the "do something anything" vote for the bill that could actually pass other than politics?

My thoughts exactly.  I'd love to see a Democrat actually rebut this.

Because the 72 hour waiting period is totally meaningless. What is the point of putting people on that list in the first place if they're deemed to be potentially dangerous enough to be banned from planes but not buy weapons? Buying a gun and shooting up a place is a hell of a lot easier than hijacking a plane and crashing it or getting past security with a bomb.

Isn't 72 hours enough time for the government to put forward evidence as to why someone is too dangerous to buy a gun?  A lot of people on the No-Fly List are just unfortunate to share the same name as a terrorist.  Is that enough reason to punish them?

And anyways, isn't it a good thing that we are forcing the government to back up their No-Fly list with actual evidence?  Right now, what's the recourse if you get put on the list?  What evidence does the government have to put forward to support it?

I can tell you fiirst hand no, that is not much time at ALL.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If they are on a watchlist, I would think they'd have a file on that person already.  Unless their reason for suspicion is "This guy has a Muslim-sounding name"

[dead0man]

I really don't see what's hard, or why we shouldn't fix the stupid list(s).

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It's typical of the Democratic Party to finally grow some balls ... on an issue that is needlessly divisive and largely peripheral to most of the electorate. Why not sit-in while the GOP strip food stamps or whatever?