10 arrested during sit-in for gun control at Sen. Marco Rubio's Orlando office

FLORIDA — Tuesday marks 30 days since the Pulse nightclub terror attack, which left 49 dead and dozens of people injured.

Activists say too much time has passed without any action from Florida’s Republican junior senator Marco Rubio and other elected officials.

Nearly a dozen of those activists were arrested Monday night after they refused to leave a sit-in they were conducting in the lobby of Rubio’s office.

The sit-in began at 10 a.m. Monday. The group of peaceful protesters began to fill the lobby outside Rubio’s downtown office, ready to hunker down for the next 49 hours in honor of the 49 victims.

“There’s definitely a lot of issues that we have and we’re not moving until somebody addresses those issues, and we can get some of them resolved,” said Charlotte Davis.

But the 49-hour sit-in didn’t work out.

%

%

When the building closed at 7 p.m., police said the demonstrators were breaking the law because it’s private property.

Police hauled off 10 demonstrators on trespassing charges.

Activist William Lawson left when police told him to, but said his fight for common sense gun control isn’t over.

“So, at this point, we are left with no choice, but to do sit-ins like these and perform public demonstrations for them to do something,” said Lawson.

Police said there were no signs of unrest, and the arrests went smoothly.

The group’s hashtag #sitinfor49 represents an hour for each life lost in the Pulse tragedy, while pushing platforms addressing gun safety, equality and community violence.

“I feel like we should band together. Black, white, red, brown, purple, yellow, green, it doesn’t matter,” said activist Angelica Brown. “If we band together and unite as one, we can make a change.”

Rubio was not in the office Monday, but sit-in organizers said his deputy chief of staff came down and spoke with them for a few minutes.

A statement from Rubio’s Washington headquarters read, in part, that he will, "keep working to make sure the Orlando community has the resources (it) need(s) in the aftermath" of the attack and "that our domestic law enforcement agencies have all the tools they need."

Activists said they expect more.

“They have a responsibility to the community to answer some questions that they’re definitely not answering and we’re kind of tired of it,” Davis said.

Full Statement from Rubio's Office: "Senator Rubio respects the views of others on these difficult issues, and he welcomes the continued input he is receiving from people across the political spectrum. Senator Rubio and our office continue working around the clock on federal casework to assist victims' families, survivors and their families, and we stand ready to continue assisting, including lending staff to the victim assistance center as we did for the last few weeks. Over the past month, Senator Rubio has supported common sense compromises to make it easier to track individuals who have been on the terror watch list and later try to buy firearms, all while improving due process protections for law abiding Americans.

He will keep working to make sure the Orlando community has the resources they need in the aftermath of this terrorist attack, that our domestic law enforcement agencies have all the tools they need to stop terrorists, and that we have an aggressive counter-terrorism strategy to destroy ISIS and radical Islamic terrorists abroad."

Cox Media Group