The Manchin-Toomey amendment, one of the most dangerous amendments on the Senate floor involving gun control, went down in defeat. Though there had been lots of emotional arguing, pandering, and political posturing it fell short of getting the 60 votes needed. The votes were 54-46.
Earlier Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) admitted that the amendment will likely “not get the votes.” It didn’t.
Concern over the sweeping amendment was that expansion of background checks would lead to a national gun registry, which would inevitably lead to national gun confiscation.
Currently, an alternative gun bill was put forward by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that would replace Manchin-Toomey. The Cruz-Grassley proposal touted itself that it would “improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, increase resources for prosecutions of gun crime, address mental illness in the criminal justice system, and strengthen criminal law by including straw purchasing and illegal firearm trafficking statutes.”
While the bill actually had a couple of good things in it such as providing protections for veterans, requiring the Department of Justice to explain to Congress why it has or has not been prosecuting gun cases, placing limitations on Fast and Furious type operations by the DOJ, other issues involving mental health and the entire NICS system, along with addressing school security were not anything to write home about as they should not be a part of Federal legislation.
Gun Owners of America Communications Director Erich Pratt said that he expects the Cruz-Grassley bill to go down along with all other gun control legislation. “Basically it’s there so that people have something to ‘be for,’ but we don’t think it’s even going to pass.” The vote was about to begin as we spoke.
Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has jumped on board with Cruz-Grassley as a cosponsor.
According to Pratt, “What it (Cruz-Grassley) did was give people something to support and it drew away votes for Manchin-Toomey amendment which was much more likely to pass… and it eventually ended up defeating that. So now what is going to happen is that most of the Democrats are going to line up against Cruz-Grassley and it’s going to fail and so ultimately what we think is going to happen is that this has been structured so that all gun control is going down to defeat.”
Pratt also said a good thing in the Cruz Grassley bill was that it would require a court order before someone could lose their gun rights. Which would restore the rights back to 150,000 military veterans.
My hope is that Manchin-Toomey will be the start of a domino effect on gun control and we’ll not see any new legislation passed.
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