Guns are the least worry America has. You have an unknown sitting in office who has the power to launch missiles, kill not only our friends but the American people itself. He has threaten America with drones, He has over-road the authority of Congress with going to war with Lybia. He has giving American tanks to Egypt so the Muslim Brotherhood could win. He has displayed to the world he is Muslim but then denies it, Tell me Obama Who are you? and why do you hate Jews?
Senate aides: Bipartisan deal reached on gun background checks
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP - Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is followed by reporters as he walks from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) office on Capitol Hill on Tuesday
A bipartisan group of senators has struck a deal to expand gun background checks to all commercial sales — whether at gun shows, via the Internet or in any circumstance involving paid advertising, according to Senate aides familiar with the talks.
The law would not cover private transactions between individuals, unless there was advertising or an online service involved
The agreement forged by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) would not cover private, unadvertised transactions between individuals, aides said. It would be more stringent than current law, which requires checks only when purchases are made through a licensed dealer, but less strict than the requirements originally sought by President Obama and congressional Democrats, who were seeking to expand background checks to nearly every kind of sale.
The agreement should secure enough bipartisan support to allow the Senate to launch debate on an overarching bill that would expand background checks, make gun trafficking a federal crime for the first time and bolster federal funding for school security plans. Senate Democratic leaders have said they will permit senators of both parties to introduce amendments to the measure.
The deal between Manchin and Toomey follows weeks of negotiations as Senate Democrats, along with Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, made an effort to win the support of enough Republicans to blunt a filibuster threat. The agreement was already being celebrated Wednesday morning, even before a news conference at which it was supposed to be announced.
“This compromise, as we understand it this morning, is a huge step forward,”said Arkadi Guerney, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which has been advocating for tighter background checks. He hailed the deal, saying it “will make it harder for criminals to get guns without any questions being asked.”
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a long time advocate of gun control, negotiated throughout much of March with Sen. Tom Coburn (R- Okla.), who has a top rating from the NRA. But the pair could not find agreement on how to keep records of background checks on potential gun buyers.
Coburn and top officials at the NRA worried that such records would lead to a kind of national registry of gun owners. Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, recently said that such information could be used by the Obama administration to confiscate guns — a claim that supporters of the record-keeping vehemently deny.
Under the Manchin-Toomey deal, records of the newly covered transactions would be kept by federally licensed arms dealers, according to a person familiar with the agreement. Currently, licensed arms dealers keep records of gun sales that take place in gun stores.
Schumer was calling key players in the gun debate Wednesday morning, including New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), to inform them of the details ahead of a formal announcement, aides said.
The Senate has scheduled a vote for Thursday on a “motion to proceed,” which would officially start the debate over the most wide-ranging and ambitious gun control legislation in 20 years. Democrats seem to have assembled the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
“I am not going to join in a filibuster against bringing the bill to the floor as long as there is ample opportunity for amendments,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). She was one of at least eight Republicans who seemed likely to join with most of the 55 Democrats in voting to proceed.
The start of the debate in itself will be a victory for the Obama administration, which has lobbied hard for increased background checks on potential gun buyers and for new limits on assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines. All will face heavy opposition from the National Rifle Association and its Capitol Hill allies in both parties.
The Democratic-led Senate is expected to reject President Obama’s proposals to ban military-style assault rifles and to limit the size of high-capacity magazines.And the NRA is working on alternatives to the background check proposals that could be introduced during a Senate debate. In an ominous sign for the president, at least two Democratic senators — Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Max Baucus (Mont.) — have said they are unsure whether they can support his legislative goals.
On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the emotion of the gun-control issue was palpable. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) spoke on the Senate floor about his father’s suicide in 1972, after a battle with depression. In the hallways of the Capitol and Senate office buildings, relatives of those killed in December’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., solemnly made their way to senators’ offices to lobby for stricter gun control measures.
“We’re not political. We’re just moms and dads and husbands and wives,” said Bill Sherlach, whose wife, Mary Sherlach, a psychologist at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, was killed along with five other women and 20 children on Dec. 14. “We see the obvious, and we’re not caught up in the political trappings.”
Toomey, who in the past has been strongly backed by the NRA, has been under pressure to make progress on firearms-related issues. Pennsylvania’s other senator, Robert P. Casey Jr. (D), broke with the NRA after the Newtown shootings, and political organizing around gun control has increased lately in Pennsylvania, in part the result of funding from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization funded by Bloomberg.
But there is also strong pressure from the other side. In Toomey’s office on Tuesday, a receptionist assured one unhappy caller that the senator is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment.
There was a pause on her end. The caller was asking about the one area in which Toomey’s position is unclear.
“The senator himself has not released a statement on background checks yet,” she said.
Senators from both parties are likely to introduce numerous amendments. One might establish an online portal for background checks and provide more federal funding for mental health programs assisting veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There also probably will be amendments backed by the NRA, designed to make the bill less onerous for gun owners and buyers.
Any bill would need only a majority of votes to pass. After that, it would go to the GOP-led House, where another long deliberative process could begin.
David Fahrenthold, Aaron Blake and Scott Wilson contributed to this report.
The law would not cover private transactions between individuals, unless there was advertising or an online service involved
The agreement forged by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) would not cover private, unadvertised transactions between individuals, aides said. It would be more stringent than current law, which requires checks only when purchases are made through a licensed dealer, but less strict than the requirements originally sought by President Obama and congressional Democrats, who were seeking to expand background checks to nearly every kind of sale.
The agreement should secure enough bipartisan support to allow the Senate to launch debate on an overarching bill that would expand background checks, make gun trafficking a federal crime for the first time and bolster federal funding for school security plans. Senate Democratic leaders have said they will permit senators of both parties to introduce amendments to the measure.
The deal between Manchin and Toomey follows weeks of negotiations as Senate Democrats, along with Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, made an effort to win the support of enough Republicans to blunt a filibuster threat. The agreement was already being celebrated Wednesday morning, even before a news conference at which it was supposed to be announced.
“This compromise, as we understand it this morning, is a huge step forward,”said Arkadi Guerney, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which has been advocating for tighter background checks. He hailed the deal, saying it “will make it harder for criminals to get guns without any questions being asked.”
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a long time advocate of gun control, negotiated throughout much of March with Sen. Tom Coburn (R- Okla.), who has a top rating from the NRA. But the pair could not find agreement on how to keep records of background checks on potential gun buyers.
Coburn and top officials at the NRA worried that such records would lead to a kind of national registry of gun owners. Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, recently said that such information could be used by the Obama administration to confiscate guns — a claim that supporters of the record-keeping vehemently deny.
Under the Manchin-Toomey deal, records of the newly covered transactions would be kept by federally licensed arms dealers, according to a person familiar with the agreement. Currently, licensed arms dealers keep records of gun sales that take place in gun stores.
Schumer was calling key players in the gun debate Wednesday morning, including New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), to inform them of the details ahead of a formal announcement, aides said.
The Senate has scheduled a vote for Thursday on a “motion to proceed,” which would officially start the debate over the most wide-ranging and ambitious gun control legislation in 20 years. Democrats seem to have assembled the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
“I am not going to join in a filibuster against bringing the bill to the floor as long as there is ample opportunity for amendments,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). She was one of at least eight Republicans who seemed likely to join with most of the 55 Democrats in voting to proceed.
The start of the debate in itself will be a victory for the Obama administration, which has lobbied hard for increased background checks on potential gun buyers and for new limits on assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines. All will face heavy opposition from the National Rifle Association and its Capitol Hill allies in both parties.
The Democratic-led Senate is expected to reject President Obama’s proposals to ban military-style assault rifles and to limit the size of high-capacity magazines.And the NRA is working on alternatives to the background check proposals that could be introduced during a Senate debate. In an ominous sign for the president, at least two Democratic senators — Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Max Baucus (Mont.) — have said they are unsure whether they can support his legislative goals.
On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the emotion of the gun-control issue was palpable. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) spoke on the Senate floor about his father’s suicide in 1972, after a battle with depression. In the hallways of the Capitol and Senate office buildings, relatives of those killed in December’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., solemnly made their way to senators’ offices to lobby for stricter gun control measures.
“We’re not political. We’re just moms and dads and husbands and wives,” said Bill Sherlach, whose wife, Mary Sherlach, a psychologist at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, was killed along with five other women and 20 children on Dec. 14. “We see the obvious, and we’re not caught up in the political trappings.”
Toomey, who in the past has been strongly backed by the NRA, has been under pressure to make progress on firearms-related issues. Pennsylvania’s other senator, Robert P. Casey Jr. (D), broke with the NRA after the Newtown shootings, and political organizing around gun control has increased lately in Pennsylvania, in part the result of funding from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization funded by Bloomberg.
But there is also strong pressure from the other side. In Toomey’s office on Tuesday, a receptionist assured one unhappy caller that the senator is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment.
There was a pause on her end. The caller was asking about the one area in which Toomey’s position is unclear.
“The senator himself has not released a statement on background checks yet,” she said.
Senators from both parties are likely to introduce numerous amendments. One might establish an online portal for background checks and provide more federal funding for mental health programs assisting veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There also probably will be amendments backed by the NRA, designed to make the bill less onerous for gun owners and buyers.
Any bill would need only a majority of votes to pass. After that, it would go to the GOP-led House, where another long deliberative process could begin.
David Fahrenthold, Aaron Blake and Scott Wilson contributed to this report.
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