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US: Democrats promise to keep up pressure on gun control after sit-in

Although Republicans refused to agree to a vote on tighter gun laws, Democrats have vowed to continue their campaign. DW spoke with one of the protesting lawmakers about the situation on the Congress floor. Republican majority leaders adjourned the US House of Representatives early Thursday, putting a damper on hopes an all-night sit-in would force a vote on gun legislation. Led by Representatives John Lewis and Katherine Clark, House Democrats had taken charge of the floor on Wednesday afternoon and held it through the night in protest of inaction on firearm violence in the wake of the worst gun massacre in US history. Despite Speaker Paul Ryan officially adjourning the House until the end of its Independence Day recess, a few representatives remained in an effort to drive their point home. Although the Republicans refused to vote on any new laws, calling the unprecedented event a "publicity stunt," Democrats did not see the end of their sit-in as a defeat. "None of us were expecting them to immediately cave to our demands," Congressman Jim Himes told DW. "The point was to galvanize public interest." Beginning with Senator Chris Murphy's 15-hour filibuster for gun control last week, congressional Democrats are just beginning their "steady application of pressure," as Himes put it, so that the all too familiar routine of massacre-outcry-inaction does not continue after a gunman killed 49 people in a gay nightclub in Orlando. "We have an intensity problem," Himes explained. "We have to match the intensity of the people who support… the violent deaths of Americans." According to Himes, the sit-in began as a small group of House Democrats launching a protest in an attempt to force a vote on expanded background checks for gun purchases, but they were soon joined by the "vast majority" of party members. Tweeting pictures of pizza, doughnuts and pillows, the members of Congress refused to be moved when Speaker Ryan first tried to gavel the session to a close...

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