Sen. Toomey: ‘I don’t consider criminal background checks to be gun control’

WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey on Wednesday called for an expansion of required background checks for those who want to buy guns by arguing that the proposal does not actually constitute “gun control.”

“I don’t consider criminal background checks to be gun control,” Toomey said during a press conference at the Capitol. “I think it’s commonsense. If you pass a criminal background check, you get to buy a gun. No problem. It’s the people who fail a criminal or mental health background that we don’t want to have a gun.”

Toomey joined Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on Wednesday in offering compromise legislation as Congress takes up gun bills. It requires background checks for all commercial transactions, including for those who buy firearms at gun shows and online.

Certain private sales would be exempt from the requirement, as would the transfer of guns between family members.

The National Rifle Association blasted the proposal.

“Expanding background checks at gun shows will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe in schools,” the organization said in a statement.

The proposal comes as President Obama and Democrats have highlighted December’s massacre in Newtown, Conn., in their push for new gun control laws.

“It changed our country, our communities, our towns,” Manchin said Wednesday of the shooting. “And it changed our hearts and minds.”

According to a fact sheet distributed to reporters, Toomey and Manchin’s “Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act” would require states and the federal government to send records on criminals and the violently mentally ill to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Toomey said the legislation is the work of Republicans and Democrats looking to find common ground.

“The common ground rests on a simple proposition,’ he said. “And that is criminals and the dangerously mentally ill shouldn’t have guns. I don’t know anyone who disagrees with that premise.”

The proposed legislation also includes measures supported by the pro-gun community, including fixing interstate travel laws to allow sportsmen to transport firearms across state lines.

It also bans the federal government from creating a national firearms registry, something strongly opposed by gun owners.

But observers have doubted whether any gun bill can get through Congress. In the Senate, several conservative senators led by Kentucky’s Rand Paul have threatened to filibuster any gun legislation. The Republican-controlled House is also not thought to have an appetite for new gun laws.

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Manchin, Toomey optimistic their bill will pass

Republican Newspeak at its best.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told reporters on a conference call moments ago that his compromise bill with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on gun background checks “doesn’t change in any way” his “conservative record or views.”


"This isn't the conservative record that you are looking for!" /JediMindTrick

Eh... I have no problem with background checks.

Quote: Justme wrote in post #4

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This is bad. The next step is do you live with, reside near or are related to anyone with mental health issues. Re-defining violent behavior. Etc, etc, etc.

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Quote: Weird Tolkienish Figure wrote in post #5

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Eh... I have no problem with background checks.

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Quote: FP123 wrote in post #7

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Quote: Weird Tolkienish Figure wrote in post #5

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Eh... I have no problem with background checks.

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It is the proverbial camel's nose under the tent.

"Background checks" is the back door path directly to registration. When you provide all of that data on yourself and the firearm being purchased you've effectively "registered" that firearm. I'm sure that you've seen in your lifetime how every "small step, for the common good" leads to ever increasing erosion of our rights. The next step on this path is a national firearms registration database, do you really trust fedgov not to use that information in notorious ways (up to confiscation when "it is necessary for public safety").

Do you understand what is now happening to our veterans? The "wellness check" letters that they are receiving with instructions to come in for their "examination." This has already led to confiscations based on their (supposedly "confidential") answers to vague and leading questions.

If this "background check" bill is ever signed into law, your head will spin as you watch how fast the details get hashed out in the bureaucracy that will codify the restrictions for virtually all possession, sales, and use of firearms in the country.

And aside from all that, our Constitutionally protected rights are simply NOT subject to infringement or revocation by the legislative process (even though you may have observed past evidence of this treachery in the past).

(We all have to pay close attention to what is really going on here, and not be swayed by ginned up "public opinion" surveys or emotional appeals.)

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Yo! Pat! I don't consider gun control Constitutional. When you asshats do something about the thousands of unborn murdered every month in the name of a Constitutional right created out of gossamer, penumbras and emanations, and which is NEVER challenged by you cowards, come and see me. Until then, F*CK OFF!

MOLON LABE!

Quote: FP123 wrote in post #3

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Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told reporters on a conference call moments ago that his compromise bill with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on gun background checks “doesn’t change in any way” his “conservative record or views.”


"This isn't the conservative record that you are looking for!" /JediMindTrick

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Well Bye! Toomey your career in politcs is over.

Quote: Cedric wrote in post #12

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Quote: nerd wrote in post #10

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some rat will take your seat next time out....

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...a dream come true, right, Nerd?

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Payback: In Exchange For Toomey’s Part In Gun Control Bill, Bloomberg Pulls Attack Ads In Pennsylvania – Update: Bloomy Now Running Ads Praising Toomey…

Update: Digital shakedown.

VIa Daily Caller:

Mayors Against Illegal Guns had been hammering Toomey, a junior senator with an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, with negative ads in Keystone State. But his latest proposal, which he is co-sponsoring with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, has Bloomberg and company singing a different tune.

The coalition’s initial negative ad featured an urgent-voiced narrator who said, “Tell Senator Toomey, don’t protect criminals…Demand action now,” and displayed Toomey’s office phone number. Now the coalition is running a positive ad praising Toomey.

“Senator Toomey understands background checks,” says the ad’s upbeat-sounding narrator.

“They continued their ad buy but switched it from negative to laudatory,” Pennsylvania-based Republican consultant Christopher Nicholas told the Daily Caller.

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/04/10/payba...n-pennsylvania/

Quote: Eglman wrote in post #14

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Payback: In Exchange For Toomey’s Part In Gun Control Bill, Bloomberg Pulls Attack Ads In Pennsylvania – Update: Bloomy Now Running Ads Praising Toomey…

Update: Digital shakedown.

VIa Daily Caller:

Mayors Against Illegal Guns had been hammering Toomey, a junior senator with an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, with negative ads in Keystone State. But his latest proposal, which he is co-sponsoring with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, has Bloomberg and company singing a different tune.

The coalition’s initial negative ad featured an urgent-voiced narrator who said, “Tell Senator Toomey, don’t protect criminals…Demand action now,” and displayed Toomey’s office phone number. Now the coalition is running a positive ad praising Toomey.

“Senator Toomey understands background checks,” says the ad’s upbeat-sounding narrator.

“They continued their ad buy but switched it from negative to laudatory,” Pennsylvania-based Republican consultant Christopher Nicholas told the Daily Caller.

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/04/10/payba...n-pennsylvania/

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