On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) floated the idea of reviving a measure that he and his colleague Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) raised in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting that would have strengthened the provision requiring a background check when purchasing a gun.
Toomey said he wasn’t optimistic, but insisted that his effort was not a controversial one.
“The only thing that our legislation would have done is it would have said if you purchase a gun through a commercial vendor, whether it’s at a gun show or at a dealership or online, you have to go through an instantaneous background check to determine if you have been adjudicated as mentally unfit because of a mental incapacity that makes you dangerous or if you’re a convicted criminal,” Toomey said. “And we all agree that people in those two categories shouldn’t have guns, and that’s not a controversial idea. Unfortunately, it became controversial to establish a procedure to broaden the background checks. I’m very disappointed. I think some people mischaracterized the legislation, and that led others to oppose it.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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