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Not to mention the biggest issue here is that Democrats want to put anyone the executive suspects on a secret "terrorist watchlist," for which there's little to no redress and they won't even tell if you're off of it or not, so you could continue to be harassed by the government and you may not even know why that's happening.

Fix the terrorist/no-fly watchlist first, and then we'll talk. Other than that, I am in the camp of favoring much stronger gun control. But secret lists and a further weakening of due process in the U.S. is not the answer.

Hmm. If it passed, though, that creates the possibility of this lovely hack: You don't know if you're on the terrorist watch list. Want to find out? Try to buy a gun.

But in this case exactly what they are protesting is that the leadership of the Republican party will not bring the measure up for debate and vote.

I realize this may sound like an ignorant question but I really don't know the rules in Congress.

Can you just refuse to discuss a topic at all ? I mean... is that legal ?

Like the original comment said, the purpose of a body like the congress is to "...debate an issue, vote on it, and then to enact the result of the vote..." At least, I thought that was how things worked. Is it the case that congress doesn't even consider debating certain issues ?

> Can you just refuse to discuss a topic at all ? I mean... is that legal ?

It is legal yes. Each house of Congress gets to decide their own rules (by law), in the House of Representatives that is done by and through the Rules Committee.

Initially it would just propose general rules at the start of the session then dissolve, but in the late 19th some realised it could propose bill-specific "special rules" (requiring a simple majority vote) giving it significantly more power and control over House proceeedings, and that's basically what it has been since.

As a result, by controlling the Rules Committee the majority can decide which bills get to the floor (and when) regardless of their order on the Calendar of the House, can decide whether the bills can or can not be amended and can decide how much debate time will be available and who gets to talk.

The issue is they wanted a vote. The Speaker will not give them one because it is pretty clear it would fail. The process of bringing something to a vote against the decision of the speaker is you have to get 218 member's signatures on a petition (in the case of getting a bill out of committee it is called a discharge petition.Not sure if that is what it is called in this case though).

Hardly an expert myself but as I understand it the Speaker (the leader of the majority party) schedules what comes up for a vote. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule.

If the Republican party prevented that vote inside the constraints of laws, procedures and whatnot, there is nothing to protest about.

In fact I agree with OP : politicians should never have to protest for anything. There are procedures to follow, and in politics who is right is not supposed to be whoever whines the most spectacularly.

If for one reason or an other the Democrats think the Republicans have used unlawful methods to prevent this vote, then they should file a complaint and be done with it. Not make some kind of a circus.

Are you really saying that the law cannot be protested?

Politicians should never have to protest the Law since they make it.

I mostly agree with you.

But I see no problem with a little civil disobedience. And I don't see why politicians can't engage in some of it occasionally.

I'm astounded at how adamant many Americans are when it comes to even discussing gun control.

That's because the US homocide rate is at a 51 year low according to the FBI while gun ownership is dramatically higher.

We've had 2 terrorism incidents and we need to be addressing what could have prevented them. Every time an incident happens that gets on the news we see this song and dance about implementing gun control policies that wouldn't have stopped the incident being used to push them.

That means that Democrats aren't trying to solve a problem. They are simply waiting to use national tragedies to push an agenda.

Solving a problem looks like "here is how this happened and here is a policy that will make sure it doesn't again."

Democrats have not proposed anything along those lines in the last 8 years.

Agree with this 100%. No gun control law would have prevented this from happening in America solely because we have quite a few guns here. If not procured legally, he easily could buy a gun illegally. Constitution aside, if there was a way to magically disappear every gun in America and then enact complete gun bans I might be willing to entertain to the notion. Otherwise it's just a bunch of posturing to me.

the problem then would be that only the 'important' people would have guns. I don't see any politicians giving up their security details. I don't see Diane Feinstein or Chuck Schumer giving up their 'concealed carry' licenses. Its a classic "Do as I say, not as I do."

If they can carry in their overly restrictive states, why can't the electorate? don't they have the same rights? No? because political elitism.

Even in that bastion of fascism, NJ: http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/lawmaker_let_nj...

Let's add to that the song and dance focused specifically around "assault rifles", which kill less people per year than knives, blunt objects, or bare hands. (The vast majority of gun deaths are by handgun, and are either suicides or gang violence.)

The Orlando shooting was not a terrorist attack in the commonly used sense, as I assume you're referring to that.

The fact that the homicide rate is lower than it was doesn't mean it's at an acceptable level. Now I don't know whether or not gun control is the solution, but the issue needs to be discussed and not dismissed because with "because history".

>The fact that the homicide rate is lower than it was doesn't mean it's at an acceptable level. Now I don't know whether or not gun control is the solution, but the issue needs to be discussed and not dismissed because with "because history".

Banning guns has had next-to-zero influence on the overall homicide rate of the U.K or Australia post-handgun bans/buybacks. [0] [1] [2] People continue to kill other people using other methods. Homicides with firearms goes down, homicides in general remains more or less the same, with the same downward trend that has been happening in all developed nations since the early 2000's/late 1990's.

IMO, America has a mental health problem. Nobody seeks help because help likely means loss of job/income which is disastrous for most everyone. I think there are other contributing factors (income inequality, mainstream/mass media fanning the flames for racial tensions, increasing distrust of the police) but none as large as mental health.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/HZ15hNX.png - Australia

[1] http://i.imgur.com/VxQ0fUN.png - England/Wales

[2] http://i.imgur.com/yabFAFf.png - U.K

> Orlando Police Dispatcher: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.

> Omar Mateen: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficent [said in Arabic]

> OD: What?

> OM: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [said in Arabic]. I wanna let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.

> OD: What’s your name?

> OM: My name is I pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.

How is the above "not a terrorist attack in the commonly used sense"? He's using violence against civilians as a means of demanding political action.

He pledged allegiance to Al Nusra, Hezbollah, and IS; these three groups have been in constant conflict for the past several years. Sounds to me like he was doing it for the attention. I also heard that IS never actually acknowledged that he was one of their recruits.

I know it's hard to swallow, but Muslims can commit heinous acts for completely personal reasons - a jealous closet gay in this case.

Assuming all the background on him is factual, it absolutely was a terrorist attack on the gay community. Don't know how you can spin that one.

I assume he was using the word "terrorist" as it has been used by the media over the years, not in the correct sense. Going with the latter, yes it was clearly a terrorist attack.

Going by the former, it was not - the attack was basically homophobic in nature, perpetrated by a closet homosexual who frequented that same gay bar and had no contact whatsoever with the Muslim community.

You have to be muslim to be a terrorist?

Of course not, but I'm talking about the Orlando shooting which was initially thought to be perpetrated in the name of Islam.

I'm a Muslim myself btw.

An easy way to start a discussion is with the words, "How could this have been prevented?"

That has not happened.

That's OK.

I will say that the GOP blocking these proposals is one of the very few times I've felt like anyone in the legislature is actually representing my beliefs.

I didn't realise that. I thought that there had already been some discussion. My more general point about how government works, and what representatives should and should not be able to do to subvert it, still stands though.

You are asking exactly the right question. When something happens that's unusual where you agree with the cause, but question the actions, ask yourself: what if I didn't agree with the cause? (This is Kant's Categorical Imperative - Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.)

Otherwise we're just out in the streets beating each other with clubs.

In this case, however, it's political theater during an election year. The right folks cheer, the right folks get angry, and the two-party system keeps humming along. The House has the ability to direct the Sergeant at Arms to bring order to the chamber. That's their job. Been done before.

So this goes on for a bit, the ruling party brings down the hammer, and everybody gets to be angry. I disagree with this cause, but even if I agreed I don't see much utility coming out of this aside from energizing the base in an election year where one party desperately needs an energized base. (The other party has gone off the playbook and is not appealing to its base at all. It'll be interesting what happens to their base.)

I thought the reason for the protest was that the republican speaker is refusing to bring the issue to a vote, even though they would clearly win the vote anyway.

The point of this protest is that the GOP won't allow a vote via procedural rules & haven't allowed a vote on lots of proposed gun control laws.

The GOP used the same tactic on expanded oil & gas drilling http://heavy.com/news/2016/06/when-was-last-sit-in-longest-c...

I'm very conflicted on the bill the Dems want voted on but gun control needs open debate & voting.

It's not a "GOP only" thing, even on this topic. Harry Reid prevented all kinds of gun control bills from being discussed for years.

Sure, but this particular protest is against GOP based procedural decisions in recent years.

The Democrats did the same thing when they were in power.

> Direct action like a sit-down protest undermines and subverts the process of democracy by saying "Do what we want or we'll make life intolerably difficult for you." That is not how government should work. Government shouldn't be held to ransom.

This is pretty blatantly wrong in regards to how the US senate works and has worked for a long time. Filibustering is a normal thing for the senate and has an important, valuable role historically. Today, unfortunately, it's mostly a cosmetic thing senators will do for good press. What the House members are doing is essentially the House equivalent of filibustering, which doesn't exist in an official capacity. Regardless, it's not really interrupting much and it's definitely not doing anything other than generating press.

Also, it's funny see a British person asking for rational behavior from foreign lawmakers considering the wigs, heckling, and jeering of UK parliament.

The whole point as far as I understand it is they don't want to vote because they'd have to vote against such a measure and this may prove to be very un-popular and with the elections coming up it will cost them (potentially) a lot of votes.

I don't see how that's any worse than any other form of lobbying that happens.

Quite frankly I'm increasingly of the opinion that the whole political process is broken and only favours those with the deepest pockets and loudest voices rather than the needs of the majority.