A last opportunity for a congressional vote on gun reform failed in the House of Representatives Wednesday, suspending the gun debate until Congress meets again in seven weeks. House Republicans didn’t budge on the no-fly no-buy measure despite mounting pressure from Democrats and the public, who are demanding a response to this summer’s ongoing violence. The sit-in lasted 24 hours, at which point representatives packed up and went home. In an interview with Boston Public Radio on Thursday, host Jim Braude asked Congressman Bill Keating why he and his colleagues walked away at a pivotal moment.
“This was not a strategic top-down strategy,” he said. “This came almost spontaneously from rank and file members, and then they were joined by John Lewis, who you know is an icon on civil-rights issues and probably the most revered member of Congress by everyone that’s here, and his involvement in that was so important and it just changed the whole shape of what we did.”
Ultimately, representatives abandoned the sit-in before any concessions were met. So why did the Democrats stand up and leave?
“What John Lewis and others suggested we do, coming back, was to try different avenues as well. That’s always there as an option, but to try different avenues to be more effective, and I followed his leadership,” Keating said. “We had 91 family members of slain victims of gun violence on the steps and we had a lengthy conference; we held up the pictures repeatedly during the times we could get floor time, of slain members.”
According to Keating, Democrats are no longer sitting still in more ways than one. “We’ve been doing things continuously. There’s going to be another march that’s planned in the next day to bring attention to this,” he said. “We had great Massachusetts participation in this...so we should be proud in Massachusetts that we were so involved.”
To hear the full interview with Congressman Bill Keating, click on the audio link above.
