The President of the United States and fellow proponents of civilian disarmament are leaving no arm un-twisted and no bloody shirt unwaved in their last ditch effort to enact gun control legislation. The latest dispatch from nbc.com has Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey and West Virginia’s NRA A-rated Democratic Senator Joe Manchin burning the midnight oil to devise a bill that would “expand background checks to firearms sales at gun shows and on the Internet.” What of private, person-to-person firearms transfers? And how does the bill would avoid the 500-pound gorilla in the room: record keeping? If the Turncoat Tumey and Machiavellian Manchin’s bill mandates any kind of record keeping for private sales, it’s a gun registry (enabling confiscation). Meanwhile, we hear that Senators Paul, Cruz, Lee and others will “let” the vote come to the floor and then launch a filibuster of the final bill; the American people will get to see who’s for what and hear about firearms freedom as never before. Watch this space.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

47 COMMENTS

  1. At this juncture, any ground surrendered to these gun-grabbing tyrants will result in freedom permanently lost. They’re simply employing an incremental approach to securing their long-term objective of civil disarmament.

    • I’m cheering for the filabusters! If that fails, mass civil disobedience is coming to your free state.

    • Wrote to Toomey back when the AWB and magazine capacity bills were floating. Just received the standard “I support gun rights blah, blah, blah” response by email. Then yesterday I received a letter dated 3/28, before the news of this compromise came out. The letter said he supported “improved background checks”, whatever that means. I find it interesting that his official response to my earlier letter, at least a month ago, was delayed till this week. He obviously knew this would be unpopular. He has been a disappointment and I won’t forget.

      • I support “improved” elections of politicians. I want term limits for all of them. They want to get rid of the 2A, well, I want to add an amendment that will keep those idiots from becoming lifetime politicians, who end up being much more dangerous to us than all the guns combined.

        • Philosophically, I agree with you. But I think limiting terms might also have the effect of politicians passing unpopular legislation with no thought to the electoral consequences.

        • @Ben: if they were limited to, say, 2 terms and could not be exempt from the laws they pass, they’d be much more reasonable and cautious when passing new laws, because they’d have to live with them (like the rest of us).

      • I’d be for “improved” background checks… I’m still waiting for the FBI to peruse my fingerprints and realize they rejected me in error (less than three weeks after the last time I passed a NICS check). They’re currently processing NICS appeals initiated in December, they aren’t giving updates and their “customer service” is rarely available. All this for a case of mistaken identity on their part.

        Improvements are welcome. Expansion is not.

        • I’d like to think it was the case, but I don’t think that is the sort of improvement he was talking about unfortunately.

      • Do not speak for all Pennsylvanians speak for yourself.

        Those who IMO have an issue with improved background checks are not thinking things through and do not understand the concept of give and take.

        • Yes, please elaborate. I understand the concept of give and take, but not the specifics you’re alluding to.
          What’s the give?

        • I’ve a number of ideas for the ‘give’ side of the equation. 1st train a armed teachers and school staff, on voluteer basis of course, to conceal carry on campusses. TX and UT seem to piloting the way. NRA and School Shield are putting together the elements of a model training program. Odd, I haven’t heard of this being considered in the political arena. Seems there was a window of time for the give, but prezBo insists on just the “take” thus his loss of credibility (*Fast and Furious)

        • Gun control comprise is like a rapist telling the victim they need to compromise: In fairness, he will only penetrate partially instead of fully

  3. Don’t let the Republican Senators get away with voting for a bill on a procedural vote and then against it on the final vote. Too often they vote on procedure which allows the final vote to only require a mere majority rather than 60 votes, then they are allowed to vote against the bill for political cover, can run on their record of having opposed the bill, when the important vote was the vote that brought the bill to the floor. They have pulled this on budget bills and Obamacare, trumpeting how they opposed these bills in their campaigns but without their votes on procedure, the bills would have died a quiet death.

    • If they plan to filibuster, then they may never see a vote on the floor even if they do let it come to the floor. Sometimes a filibuster is way more valuable than killing a bill early and this may very well be one of those times. He should stand up and just read Atlas Shrugged. I’m sure that would annoy the hell out of the Democrats, especially the President. I’m not sure how long it would take to read that entire book aloud, but it’s not a short book and it’s flooded with exactly what needs to be heard and understood by America.

      • Many GOP senators are not going to support a filibuster. My Georgia senators have already said the issue “deserves a vote”. Since they are the minority, the filibuster is the only way the GOP can stop gun control in the senate.

        Democrats play to win. Not so much with the GOP.

        GOP senators that vote against the filibuster are voting FOR gun control.

        • Filibuster or not, it’s unlikely that anything other than the UBC will pass the Senate. From there it dies in the house.

      • Or he could read LOTR and remind Obama that Sauron, too, attempted to bind all free peoples to his will.

  6. Eh. I agree with this Wall Street Journal editorial that says

    Now, this column strongly opposes all Obama’s gun-control proposals, but we’re with our colleague Kim Strassel in thinking Senate Republicans are foolish to try to prevent votes on them. Why not put red-state Democrats like Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich and Joe Manchin on the spot by making them vote on each and every antigun proposal? As Strassel notes, the GOP can always filibuster later, if there’s a danger of an actual bill going to the floor–or, if the Senate approves something, they can kill it in the House.

    A filibuster at this point is a huge mistake for us. Force the Donkeyrats to go on the record instead.

    But pro-gun activists are masters at self-deception and, pardon the pun, shooting ourselves in the foot.

    • I actually agree that the Rand Pauls of the senate should allow a preliminary vote to see where these turncoats stand, but beyond that I appreciate every obstacle the GOP can throw up there. That’s really all their good for these days.

      • “I actually agree that the Rand Pauls of the senate should allow a preliminary vote to see where these turncoats stand, but beyond that I appreciate every obstacle the GOP can throw up there. That’s really all their good for these days.”

        I don’t give a shit where they stand, as long as it’s not standing on the floor of the Senate voting for a gun control bill when we could have stopped any bill from coming to the floor. We’re going to screw around and lose this thing playing around with procedure. I say DENY ANY MOTION TO PROCEED ON ANY GUN CONTROL BILL OF ANY KIND! NEVER LET IT GET TO THE FLOOR FOR ANY KIND OF VOTE. Filibuster anything that has the smell of a gun bill. Don’t give them the opportunity wave their bloody shirts and dance on already flattened graves. Again, vote against the motion to proceed!

    • And here’s another Wall Street Journal editorial making the same point:

      So the political wonder is that some Republicans and conservative activists seem determined to convert the gun debate (such as it is) that Mr. Obama is losing into a 2014 Democratic advantage.
      . . .
      In an instant, these GOP wizards have taken the onus off Senate Democrats and made Republicans the media’s gun-control focus. Mr. Reid is now bellowing about Republicans blocking a vote, and Democrats such as Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana) and Mark Begich (Alaska) don’t have to declare themselves on provisions that might be unpopular at home.

      Meanwhile, Mr. Obama can retreat to his favorite pose of portraying Republicans as obstructionists.
      . . .
      The President’s calculation seems to be that even if gun control fails, at least he’ll have a keep-kids-safe political issue to help flip the House back to Democratic control in the next midterm. In that sense his inflammatory rhetoric is meant to bait Republicans, some of whom are biting.

  7. I’m pretty sure that where I live (MO), background checks are already required for purchases at gun shows and over the Internet, unless they’re between private individuals. At least, every purchase I’ve ever made either way required one. I particularly like this quote from McCain about the planned filibuster. “The purpose of the United States Senate is to debate and to vote and to let the people know where we stand,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday. “What are we afraid of?”
    I’d like to point out to Mr. McCain that that is incorrect. The purpose of the Senate is to debate, and then vote where the people TELL them to stand.

    • And as a fellow Missourian, if my Senators do not do as I tell them, then I will do it for them. Fools, the whole lot of them!

      Tom

      • I doubt if the “Bill” has even been written yet. They meet in each others office and horse trade and then some poor word processing clerk has to put it down on paper minutes before it goes to the floor. That is why our Representatives are “surprised” when there is an unintentional consequence found in the bill they supported……and when hasn’t there been an unintentional consequence in the last decade of law making. The only safe way is to keep ANY bill from passing to ensure that there are no hidden gotcha’s or wording open to interpretation by a judicial bloomberg who knows best for us, no matter what the law says.

      • So,
        If I take an ad out in my local newspaper’s classified “AR 15 for sale…need the money for tutition!” I need to do a background check.

        But the same ad, say on sports.backpage.com, where I don’t pay anything to list, doesn’t require a background check?

        Or are we going to restrict it to COMMERCIAL sales, like it is now? Sheesh…..

        Thought: Suppose I take out BOTH ads. Then I can claim that the buyer saw my ad in backpage and therefore no check needed?

        Thought: This would have prevented the shootings over the past year how?

        Thought: Expanding a system that already has been shown to be pretty much useless….yeah, that’s a good idea. Break further what is broken already. Government in action.

        Thought: Criminals are going to do this, right?

        • Yeah, it doesn’t make much sense. I want to see the language.

          Take the gun show thing. The seller didn’t buy the ads, the gun show promoter did. So, instead of the buyer and seller driving from the gun show to the FFL to do the check, can they walk across the street, off the gun show premises, and do it as a no-ad sale?

  10. Toomey was a personal friend of my family back in PA. Not anymore for me or my family. Turncoat Toomey.

    • Amen on that!

      Perfect examples of government scope creep.

      A government that fears an armed citizenry is no longer of, by or for the people.

    • I do not know anyone who actually thinks that commercial background checks will ever be done away with…they are here to stay. But the opposition is to the rules and regs reguarding the transfer of weapons to friends and relatives as gifts or even as a loaner for a short period of time……and to the access of the Feds to 4473’s and paperwork in support of those private transfers.

      Already Missouri has provided information to DHS about CCW permit holders, in direct contravention of the laws….would you like to believe that they were the rare exception?

      If Universal Background Checks require a record of my gift to my nephews, does anyone believe that that information won’t be available to Federal agencies for whatever purpose they choose? So, they exempt my nephews as a relative exception, what about my great nephews? Brother in Law? Best friend? Girlfriend?

      It is indeed the camel’s nose sticking under the tent…the easiest way to avoid waking up with the camel in our laps is to defeat the UBC bill in any form.

    • Manchin was a case of playing up his NRA ties to get elected as Senator, so it hurts even more. But my Senators from Georgia will go along with the other Senators, damn their constituent’s views ….one of them has already announced he won’t run again, not sure when the other’s term is up, but there are a high percentage of Senators in Washington who run conservative in their districts/states but when they have been in Washington D.C. a while become more interested in getting along with their 99 other pals rather than represent their constituents.

  15. Compromise means we are getting something in return… I seriously doubt that.

    How about repealing the Hughes Amendment and NFA as show of good faith on their part?

  17. Any attempt at UBC will fail because nobody knows who owns what.

    This WILL lead to legislation to bring in the registration of ALL firerams.

    Then the bans will begin…..

    ….welcome to firearms ownership – UK style. 🙁

Comments are closed.