FuzzyLumpkins
06-20-2016, 06:21 PM
When nearly 40 Senate Democrats engaged in a 15-hour talk-a-thon to force a vote on gun control last week, only two Republicans got a word in edgewise. One of them was Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania.
“This is not rocket science,” he said.
Everyone ought to agree, he said, that terrorists should not be able to walk into a gun store and purchase guns. And everyone ought to agree that innocent, law-abiding citizens should not be denied their Second Amendment rights because they are wrongly on a terrorist watch list, he added.
Recommended:INFOGRAPHIC Guns in America: Facts, myths, trivia
In the wake of the Orlando, Fla., mass shooting, “there’s an obvious opportunity here, guys, to work together and find a solution,” he said.
On Monday, the Senate will most likely not take that opportunity. It will vote on four competing gun measures – two from Democrats and two from Republicans – that deal with terrorists and gun purchases as well as expanded background checks. None is expected to pass.
In a Congress largely sorted into two partisan camps on gun control, Senator Toomey is unusual. After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., he teamed up with Sen. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia on a bill that expanded background checks to gun shows and online sales. It failed. Twice.
Then last week, he introduced what he describes as a compromise bill to prevent terrorists from buying guns. Democrats blasted it as cumbersome and politically self-serving as Toomey faces a tough reelection battle. Republicans did little more than sniff at it. It’s not scheduled among the competing gun measures up for a vote Monday.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0620/One-senator-s-lonely-path-to-middle-ground-on-gun-control
It's an election year and I guess its more important to keep gun sales up and the opposition without anything to use for campaigning. Nobody did shit after the 2008 crash so I guess I shouldn't be surprised but this is what it feels like to be disenfranchised.
“This is not rocket science,” he said.
Everyone ought to agree, he said, that terrorists should not be able to walk into a gun store and purchase guns. And everyone ought to agree that innocent, law-abiding citizens should not be denied their Second Amendment rights because they are wrongly on a terrorist watch list, he added.
Recommended:INFOGRAPHIC Guns in America: Facts, myths, trivia
In the wake of the Orlando, Fla., mass shooting, “there’s an obvious opportunity here, guys, to work together and find a solution,” he said.
On Monday, the Senate will most likely not take that opportunity. It will vote on four competing gun measures – two from Democrats and two from Republicans – that deal with terrorists and gun purchases as well as expanded background checks. None is expected to pass.
In a Congress largely sorted into two partisan camps on gun control, Senator Toomey is unusual. After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., he teamed up with Sen. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia on a bill that expanded background checks to gun shows and online sales. It failed. Twice.
Then last week, he introduced what he describes as a compromise bill to prevent terrorists from buying guns. Democrats blasted it as cumbersome and politically self-serving as Toomey faces a tough reelection battle. Republicans did little more than sniff at it. It’s not scheduled among the competing gun measures up for a vote Monday.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/0620/One-senator-s-lonely-path-to-middle-ground-on-gun-control
It's an election year and I guess its more important to keep gun sales up and the opposition without anything to use for campaigning. Nobody did shit after the 2008 crash so I guess I shouldn't be surprised but this is what it feels like to be disenfranchised.