Everyone’s favorite A-rated Senate Democrat, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin has arrived at a compromise background check deal with Pennsy Republican Pat Toomey. Think of it as a modified semi almost partially universal background check system. As the two lawmakers announced this morning, under their plan all transactions through gun stores, on line or at gun shows would be required to pass through the NICS system. Sales between individuals, though, would remain off the books . . .
“Candidly, I don’t consider criminal background checks to be gun control. I think it’s just common sense,” Toomey said.
Though the deal’s specific language hasn’t been revealed, the two compromise-minded lawmakers tried to assure the nation’s gun owners that sales cleared by the FBI’s instant background check system would not lead to national registration. As Toomey intoned:
“The worries that we hear sometimes about background checks leading to an erosion of our second amendment rights – that simply hasn’t happened. And we’ve got to make sure that it doesn’t.”
It remains an open question as to whether the deal will be incorporated into whatever artfully crafted gun control bill Harry Reid manages to bring to the floor (assuming it’s not filibustered), or voted on separately as an amendment to the bill some time next week. Does that work for you?