So... from the chaos in Europe
we turn to the chaos in congress,
which, despite the national epidemic of gun violence,
has for years failed to pass any laws
making it harder for bad guys to get guns.
And yesterday, Democratic senator, Chris Murphy,
of Connecticut decided he'd had enough.
He staged a marathon speech, a filibuster.
We've got to show a signal to the American public
that
that we care so deeply about the consequences of inaction
that we are at the very least going to stop this process
from moving forward until we can't stand any longer.
Yes. Yes.
-(applause, whooping) -Yes.
And...
and he meant it.
Murphy and his colleagues filibustered for 15 hours.
15 hours of talking!
Or, as Dr. Ben Carson calls it,
-"ordering lunch." -(laughter)
(like Carson): Tell me again what...
size of...
-sodas you... -(laughter)
maintain...
in this, uh...
-establish... -(laughter)
And now for those of you who don't know,
a filibuster is when a senator talks for as long as he can
in order to prevent anything else from getting done.
It's basically like tantric legislating.
And, uh... You know what it is?
Have you ever watched that show
It's basically when they pull someone over
for stealing a car, and the perp in the car,
he filibusters, that's what he does.
The cop's like, "Did you steal this car?!"
And the guy's like, "Well, you see, what had happened,
"Officer, was, I was... I was at my friend Darnell's house,
"and-and Darnell, well, you know how Darn...
"Let me tell you about Darnell, man.
Darnell, he was saying that he got a friend with a car..."
That's filibustering. That's-that's what it is.
NOAH: But this filibustering was riveting.
I mean, people were actually watching C-SPAN on purpose.
-(laughter) -Yeah, not just because they'd fallen down
and couldn't reach the remote.
And Murphy, he talked and talked and talked,
and people on Twitter were calling him a hero,
and he was.
But you know who the real hero was?
-That stenographer. -(laughter)
-Yeah. -(applause, whooping)
You think...
standing for 15 hours is hard?
Try doing it with a typewriter strapped to your chest!
Can you imagine that poor woman...
who no one warned, she's just standing there
and she's like, "Oh, really? Really? Oh, really?
"You couldn't warn me that this was coming? Really?
"Would have been nice to get a heads-up
"if you were planning to talk for 15... Oh, no, no, no.
"I mean, some of us just have families. Whatever. Whatever.
"Yeah, I'm standing, I'm in my uncomfortable heels.
"At the very least you could have warned me
"to put on my Chef Curry's, at the very least.
You could have told me, yeah, because they are fire."
So, what was all this filibustering about?
Well, Chris Murphy said he would not stop
until senate Republicans agreed to allow a vote
on two popular Democratic gun control measures.
The first one would ban terrorism suspects
from buying a gun.
And the second would close a loophole
that lets people buy weapons from gun shows
or over the Internet without a background check.
And so once Murphy got his speech rolling,
his friends started lining up to keep it going.
He got help from Elizabeth Warren,
who tagged in Bill Nelson, who tagged in Dick Durbin,
who tagged in John Cena,
-(laughter) -who tagged in Bobby Flay...
I'm... like, look, at this point,
I may have been flipping channels,
-(laughter) -but that's not the point.
The point is, watching these people and their passion
was epic!
I want to start, um...
by thanking my friend, Chris Murphy.
I'm proud that he is forcing us to have this conversation.
After all of these mass shootings,
congress must do something, right?
They must respond.
Enough. Enough. Enough.
We can ban Rambo-style assault weapons.
I have said if you need a AK-47,
AR-47 to hunt a deer,
you ought to stick to fishing.
Because that is not the weapon of choice
of real sportsmen in my state.
Oh!
Durbin with the burn.
Durbin's like, a real hunter
doesn't need an assault rifle to kill a deer.
Yeah, because you know when Dick Durbin
goes into the woods to kill a deer,
he doesn't reach for no AR-15. No-- too easy.
He goes in with nothing but a loincloth
and one of those plastic takeout spoons.
Yeah.
He scoops the deer to death.
And sometimes, sometimes, maybe the deer escapes,
but that's cool. Because later, at home,
when the deer is talking to his deer wife
saying, "Honey, we got to get out of here.
"There's a man... a madman running around
"with a plastic spoon. He's trying to kill me.
He's a maniac." And then his deer wife turns to him,
pulls the mask off-- surprise, it's Dick Durbin.
Checkmate, (bleep).
(cheering, applause)
So...
so, after 15 hours,
Democrats forced senate Republicans
to agree to finally bring these bills to the floor.
And you know what that means, people--
they got the vote!
-Yes! -(cheering, applause)
They got the vote!
(imitates peppy marching band)
I-I apologize for that shabby display.
Uh, we didn't actually have a budget allocated
for the senate actually agreeing on something,
so, um, we didn't have time to buy balloons.
Uh, so-so now... so now the Republicans have agreed, right?
Uh, and let's find out the specifics
of, uh, some of what they'll actually be voting only on.
REPORTER:
from buying a gun. The second would require background checks
for guns sold at gun shows and through online retailers.
Okay, okay. I... I understand this,
but I-I still find it weird
that you can buy a gun on the Internet.
I mean, I can't even watch porn without lying about my age.
Uh...
So, you have two bills--
the first is designed to stop anyone on the terror watch list
from owning a gun.
Which sounds like it shouldn't even be up for discussion.
I mean, like, who's sitting around going,
should we let terrorists get guns?
I'm gonna say n-no? Ye...
No, no, no.
Y... No, no, yeah, no. No. No. No.
It seems obvious. But the truth is
the terror watch list should be up for discussion.
Because it's not as formal as it sounds.
The terror watch list-- you realize it's a secret list
that anyone could be put on at any time.
The terror watch list is kind of like the list girls controlled
in high school to determine who was cool or not.
And I-I know a secret terror list that limits your rights
seems acceptable right now,
uh, because it's in this guy's control.
But in five months-- God forbid--
that list could be in the tiny, tiny hands
of bronze Stalin.
So you have to think about it.
Now, Democrats... Democrats aren't alone in proposing a law
to limit access to guns for people on the terror watch list.
The Republicans have their own version.
Except it doesn't ban people on the list from getting a gun.
It gives the FBI 72 hours to see if they can find a reason
to stop the gun sale.
But we've spoken to experts who have told us that 72 hours
is just not enough time to find probable cause.
So, both of these--
the terror watch list, uh, bills are...
they're really problematic, you know.
Both of these terror watch list bills are problematic.
In their own way.
But the other bill that Senator Murphy won a vote on
is more promising, because it would close the loophole
that allows people to buy guns from gun shows
and over the Internet without a background check,
and the senate tried to get universal background checks
after Sandy Hook, but you remember Republicans blocked it.
And now, thanks to Murphy's filibuster
and his bulletproof bladder,
they'll have another chance.
And maybe this time they'll do the right thing.
And the truth is, look, at the end of the day,
we all acknowledge Congress has been blocked up
for a very, very long time
and maybe these bills aren't the greatest, you know?
In fact, one of those experts we talked to used the phrase
"a piece of crap".
But, like anybody with constipation will tell you,
sometimes passing a little (bleep)
is exactly what you need.