Sen. Pat Toomey urges background checks for all commercial gun sales
Background checks protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens while helping keep firearms out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them, says Senator Pat Toomey.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., claimed that "every" U.S. gun owner understood his legislation that sought to impose background checks on people seeking to purchase firearms.
"I can't even get Mitch McConnell to put the most basic bill that's been vetted for seven years, that everybody in the United States, every gun owner understands," Manchin told MSNBC on Wednesday.
Manchin was referring to legislation he and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., sponsored in 2013 after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary massacre that left 20 children dead in Connecticut. The bill has failed to make it to the president's desk even as Democrats ramped up called for gun control amid a slew of additional mass shootings.
TRUMP PUSHES BACKGROUND CHECKS AS HUGE MAJORITY FAVORS TIGHTER LAW
Although the White House initially signaled support for background checks after mass shootings in August, it eventually backed away from that position.
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Manchin, on Tuesday, told "America's Newsroom" that the president should support his background check legislation, which he claimed, garnered support from the vast majority of Americans gun owners.
"I can assure you the bill ... has over 85 percent approval and that's with gun owners and everyone else saying if you go to a commercial transaction, gun show, or on the Internet, don't you think you ought to know who wants to buy that gun and for what purpose and what their background is?
"That's all we're talking about," he told Fox News host Bill Hemmer.
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In August, a Fox News poll found that 90 percent of registered voters supported background checks on all gun buyers. Only 7 percent opposed the idea while just 27 percent opposed a ban on assault weapons. Solid majorities supported both an assault weapons ban and taking guns from at-risk individuals.
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