Free Republic

It has been almost 20 years since Congress has taken up the topic of gun control legislation. As the new debate over gun control heats up, senior Senate aides on both sides of the issue laid out advocates’ plan to get their bill through the Senate. The strategy advocated by gun control supporters in the Senate was described to BuzzFeed by two senior Republican Senate aides working to oppose the effort, and confirmed by a Democratic Senate leadership aide working to get it passed. Prospects for the gun control legislation weren't looking good until the recent Toomey/Manchin proposal. The legislation...

Most people assumed that anything truly problematic in new gun-control legislation that comes out of the Senate would have little chance of getting through the House. Looks like we’ll get a chance to test that hypothesis sooner rather than later. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told Politico today that he and Mike Thompson (D-CA) will introduce the House version of Manchin-Toomey by Tuesday at the latest: "Reps. Peter King and Mike Thompson are planning to introduce a House version of the compromise on background checks for gun buyers on Monday or Tuesday, King told POLITICO exclusively on Friday. “I will be...

Here is the whole, long AWB including Manchin-Toomey amendments, the "compromise", which is on pages 2613-2618, toward the end. thomas.loc.gov has a "search link" which will expire so I posted the whole thing.   TEXT OF AMENDMENTS -- (Senate - April 11, 2013) [Page: S2598] ---        SA 711. Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mr. SCHUMER, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. WHITEHOUSE, Ms. KLOBUCHAR, Mr. FRANKEN, Mr. BLUMENTHAL, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. HARKIN, Mr. ROCKEFELLER, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mrs. BOXER, Mr. REED, Mr. CARPER, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Mr. MENENDEZ, Mr. CARDIN, Mrs. GILLIBRAND, Mr. SCHATZ, Mr. MURPHY, Ms. HIRONO, Ms. WARREN, and Mr. COWAN) submitted an...

Friday, 12 April 2013 00:25 Written by Gun Owners of America But there’s still a very good chance we can win! “Gun Owners of America [has] been pressing lawmakers who may have wavered on this emotional issue of background checks.” - CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, April 10, 2013 We've been fighting these gun control battles for almost 40 years now. And we almost always win. But it's almost always a nail-biter. And so it is on Obama's gun control agenda. We'd hoped that we could stop the gun control bribe-o-thon early (and risk-free) by blocking the motion to proceed to the...

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) joined President Obama for his second closed-door dinner with Senate Republicans on Wednesday. Rubio had been invited but had not committed for most of the day of the dinner. The Florida Republican's office said immigration meetings might get in the way of him going to the dinner, but later said he would attend. Besides Rubio, Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), John Boozman (Ark.), Susan Collins (Maine), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Deb Fisher (Neb.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Johnny Isackson (Ga.), Pat Roberts (Kan.), John Thune (S.D.) Roger Wicker (Miss.) dined with Obama. Obama's first meeting with...

-- IMAGE HERE -- “So what does a traitor look like?” That is a very good question. After all, a traitor is different than an enemy. An enemy declares himself and opposes you openly. But in order to become a traitor, someone first needs to enjoy your trust. Those of us in the gun rights community have plenty of enemies … people who have openly declared war on the Second Amendment and the Constitution. Heck … practically every Democrat in the country seems to have signed up for a frontal assault on gun owners. But to be betrayed by one...

Sen. Mark Kirk says the real driving force behind the gun deal that was hatched by bipartisan work was booze and boat retreats. The Illinois Republican said to reporters that visits to the Black Tie, a yacht owned by Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, played a large role in the Democratic-Republican come-together over background checks and other legislation related to gun control, Roll Call reported. “You guys really ought to go out to National Harbor and see the Black Tie, which has been much of the reason for much of the bipartisan cooperation around here,” he said, as quoted in Roll...

Well, assembled sophisticates, you’d better pull that extended arm back toward you and rescind the offer of the Martini, for I’m about to drop off society’s tightrope and out myself as one of those people naïve enough to advance a “slippery slope” argument in public. And about guns, no less. Arguendo, let’s presume that the much-vaunted Toomey-Manchin “compromise” makes it out of the Senate unalloyed, and then that it then passes the House with nary a squeak from the right. Let’s then postulate that a majority agrees with the president that expanding background checks is a “reasonable” thing to do...

n. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) panned an agreement to expand background checks on gun sales that Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) unveiled on Wednesday. "The Manchin-Toomey proposal is a good faith but unworkable plan," Coburn said in a statement. "The proposal will impose new taxes and unreasonable burdens on law-abiding citizens."

I just talked to someone familiar with the Toomey-Manchin proposal who raises a serious concern based on his understanding of the legislation. Everyone on all sides agrees that we need better help for those with mental health problems who need treatment. Unfortunately, the person I talked with is concerned that the Toomey-Manchin proposal could discourage people from getting help. The proposal will allow a doctor to add a patient to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) without ever telling the patient he or she has been added. There would be no due process requirement. Not all doctors will...

The National Rifle Association will oppose the background check bill introduced by Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) Wednesday, the pro-Second Amendment group told the Free Beacon. Manchin and Toomey held a press conference Wednesday morning announcing a bipartisan bill that would expand background checks for all commercial firearm sales, including gun shows and Internet sales. The bill is the latest effort by the Senate to introduce background check legislation, after negotiations between Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) and Democrats broke down earlier this year. Manchin’s office told BuzzFeed Wednesday that the senators had been...

Two key senators have reached a deal to expand background checks to firearms sales at gun shows and on the Internet, sources close to the negotiations said early Wednesday. Sen. Pat Toomey, a conservative Pennsylvania Republican, plan to announce the deal Wednesday with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who holds an A rating from the National Rifle Association. The two have been working on a compromise proposal that could draw Republican support for expanding background checks. On Tuesday evening, the two had an agreement in principle, and spent the night hammering out the final details.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey is close to a deal with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on background checks for gun show and Internet gun sales, his office said Tuesday night. The two are planning a joint press conference for Wednesday morning. A Toomey spokesperson on Tuesday told NBC News that the two senators have agreed on all but the final details of a compromise. Manchin told reporters Tuesday that the compromise would close the gun show loophole by mandating background checks for those transactions and also require background checks for all Internet gun sales.

(WASHINGTON) — Talks between two influential senators have emerged as the most promising route for a bipartisan breakthrough on expanding federal background checks for gun buyers, a pivotal part of President Barack Obama‘s plan for combating gun violence. One possibility being discussed by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., would involve expanding background checks to gun show sales and firearms transactions online, Senate aides said. Sales between close relatives and temporary transfers between hunters may be excluded, but an agreement along those lines could give Obama’s guns agenda a significant boost and would be a major expansion...

Full title - "There’s Always One: Will Pat Toomey Help Democrats Save Gun Control? Why All Modern Politics Is National." Somewhere, Arlen Specter is smiling. Two influential senators, one from each party, are working on an agreement that could expand background checks on firearms sales to include gun shows and online transactions, Senate aides said Sunday. If completed, the effort could represent a major breakthrough in the effort by President Barack Obama and his allies to restrict guns following last December's massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., could nail down an accord...

Reports out of Capitol Hill reveal that just-reelected turncoat West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is about to stick a big knife in the back of American gun owners. And to make matters worse, he's lying about what he’s doing. Both Manchin and House anti-gun crazy Carolyn McCarthy are claiming to be “working with NRA” to enact gun bans and national gun registries. NRA says flatly that Manchin is lying, and we believe he is. (The Hill, 1/24/13) Ironically, Manchin was the “gun owner's best friend” on November 5 -- the day before his reelection to a six-year term let him...

Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- Reports out of Capitol Hill reveal that just-reelected turncoat West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is about to stick a big knife in the back of American gun owners. And to make matters worse, he’s lying about what he’s doing. Both Manchin and House anti-gun crazy Carolyn McCarthy are claiming to be “working with NRA” to enact gun bans and national gun registries. NRA says flatly that Manchin is lying, and we believe he is. (The Hill, 1/24/13) Ironically, Manchin was the “gun owner’s best friend” on November 5 2012 — the day before his reelection to a...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Thursday that he was working on a bill with Senate colleagues and the National Rifle Association (NRA) that would implement universal background checks, a major component of President Obama's proposed gun-control reforms. Manchin, a member of the NRA, had not previously endorsed any specific measures to address gun violence. "I’m working on a bill right now with other senators — Democrats and Republicans — we’re trying to get it, and looking at a background check that basically says that if you’re going to be a gun owner, you should be able to pass a background...

Remember the summer of 2009? Members of Congress came home to hold town-hall meetings as usual in August, part of their annual listening-tour strategy to keep incumbents in favor back in home states and districts. When voters started showing up in droves to berate these Senators and Representatives over ObamaCare, however, the town-hall meetings started getting canceled, and those that did continue made for great moments on YouTube --- especially the declaration from former US Representative Baron Hill (D-IN), who declared that no one could tape the meeting because he didn't want it to end up on YouTube [update: video...