After the humiliating defeat of their first “universal background check” bill, you’d think Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey would have had enough of trying to impinge on Americans’ constitutional, natural, civil right to keep and bear arms. But in the wake of the Charleston church shooting the dynamic duo rides again. “In separate interviews Tuesday night, at a reception before a ceremony hosted by Sandy Hook families to honor Toomey’s effort to close background check loopholes, the senators discussed their desire to find a new way forward” . . .
“We want to make sure we have the votes. Pat’s going to have to, and I’ll work with him, to get some of our colleagues on the Republican side,” Manchin said, adding he hasn’t talked directly to Toomey about a revival.
Manchin specifically mentioned an effort aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of people diagnosed with mental illness.
The gluttons for punishment apparently have calculated that they’re still far enough out from their next reelection efforts that a second push for a gun control bill won’t be a factor when they again have to face their home state electorates.
“What I’m trying to figure out is there something that could get the support of the 60 votes that we would need in the Senate,” Toomey said. “Joe Manchin was and is a great partner and someone I will continue to work with and I’m open to exploring what is possible.”
He added that nothing was imminent “but if we stay at it I think we’ll find a way to make progress.”
Apparently Joe and Pat see the tragic deaths of nine blacks at the hand of an avowed racist white male as just the excuse they need to give it another go. Maybe it’s the racism angle that’s spurring them on, because the shooting deaths of nine blacks is otherwise known as “Saturday night” in places like Chicago.
Then again, no one in D.C. ever forgets that old maxim: never let a crisis go to waste.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Tuesday that something must be done to expand background checks.
“Is that asking too much? Couldn’t we at least do this little thing to stop people who are mentally ill, people who are criminals from purchasing guns?” Reid said on the Senate floor.