Chaos erupts as House sit-in over gun control lasts past midnight
As midnight struck in Washington, D.C., the Democratic-led sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives continued on after House Speaker Paul Ryan refused to bring up several gun control bills for a vote.
Several hours earlier, in a raucous scene, Ryan and Republican lawmakers -- who reentered the House floor more than 10 hours after the sit-in began -- were booed by Democrats.
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Some Republicans reacted angrily, including Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who yelled "Radical Islam" multiple times on the House floor.
Ryan moved for a vote on a bill unrelated to gun control and then at 10:30 p.m. ET, he gaveled the House back out of session. Ryan and his Republican colleagues left the floor without bringing up any gun control bills.
Democrats remained on the House floor, apparently ready for the long haul.
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Earlier that morning, around 30 members of the House initially sat on the floor of the chamber to demand another vote on two separate pieces of gun control legislation -- one that would expand and bolster universal background checks, another that would prevent those on a terrorist watch list from purchasing a gun. The group grew to roughly 170 representatives and 20 senators by Wednesday afternoon.
Those two proposals, along with two other gun control bills, were voted down in the Senate on Monday.
The nation is yet again debating gun control, this time after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12.
The sit-in, which is technically not a filibuster but has served much the same purpose, played out away from cameras.
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C-Span normally broadcasts from the House floor, but they don't actually control the cameras. Those cameras only go on when the House is in session and Republicans called a recess quickly after they realized a protest was afoot.
Reporters are also not allowed to broadcast whenever the House isn't officially in session.
Instead, politicians tweeted pictures of representatives sitting on the House floor. Some started using Periscope to live stream what the cameras were not. The hashtag for the sit-in, #NoBillNoBreak, was the top trending topic on Twitter for most of Wednesday.
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Eventually, even C-Span picked up some of the feeds from Periscope and Facebook Live.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan spent the day mostly ignoring the sit-in after he left the chambers, but finally called it a "publicity stunt" on Wednesday afternoon.
Keith Wagstaff contributed to this story.
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Topics Gun Control
Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
