WASHINGTON -- Advocates praised a group of House Democrats for staging a sit-in to demand a vote on gun control Thursday. Some representatives gave moving accounts of how they nearly died because of gun violence. Yet House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) dismissed their desperate attempt to prevent more deaths from gun violence as a “publicity stunt.”
Several news articles have pointed out that Republicans staged their own sit-in in 2008. But there's a key difference between the 2016 sit-in and the 2008 edition: Republicans were demanding a vote on offshore oil drilling. Democrats are protesting what they see as a lack of action in the wake of the Orlando nightclub shootings, which left 49 people dead.
The 2008 sit-in came as gas prices hit historic highs and a long-standing congressional moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf was about to expire. Republicans were turning up the pressure to open up new areas to drilling. Former Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) declared he was "not leaving until we call this Congress back into session and vote for energy independence." Others compared the sit-in to the Boston Tea Party. They concluded their protest by singing "God Bless America."
In some of ways, the two sit-ins are similar. The party in power cut the lights and microphones and adjourned. They dismissed it as political theater. Both protests are timed just months before a contentious presidential election. Each sought to capitalize on public sentiment.
But the difference is, in the 2008 case, that sentiment was that gas prices were too high.
Today, the sentiment is that it should be much harder for certain people to access guns in order to prevent more massacres. The measures would do this via background checks and keeping people who are on the no-fly list from buying guns -- something that even many gun control sympathizers have concerns about, given that the list is discriminatory and violates the constitutional protection of due process.
Most people will likely view the two protests very differently, even if they both ultimately fail to produce a vote on the demanded legislation.
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