Joe Manchin: Trump Has the ‘Fortitude’ to Make Senate Pass Gun Control

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) claims President Trump has the “fortitude” to make the U.S. Senate pass gun control.

Manchin pushed gun control in the wake of the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary, only to see it rejected by Republicans–along with some Democrats–in April 2013. He has tried to revive the gun control push more than once in the years since and believes it can be secured with Trump in office.

According to CNN, Manchin was asked about gun control and said, “Donald Trump’s the only person that can do that right now.” He suggested Trump could add “gun sense” to the failed Senate bill, thereby convincing some gun control opponents to support it.

Manchin went full-blown gun control and explained the rejection of his gun control bill by saying:

There’s a reason that certain people shouldn’t be able to have access to guns. Every law-abiding gun owner understands that. They read our bill and saw we had a good piece of legislation, but no one had the fortitude to do it. And [Trump] could do it.

He did not mention that the Sandy Hook gunman stole the guns he used in the attack; therefore his actions would not have been curtailed in the slightest by Manchin’s proposed gun laws.

Ironically, Manchin admitted this in the days leading up the Senate’s rejection of his gun control bill. During the April 14, 2013, airing of CBS News Face the Nation, Manchin noted that his bill would have done nothing to prevent the Sandy Hook attack, had it been implemented before the attack occurred. And empirical evidence supports Manchin’s admission.

As a matter of fact, evidence abounds showing universal background checks–the core of Manchin’s gun control–pose no hindrance to mass public attackers.

For example, Colorado has universal background checks, yet the state witnessed a firearm-based attack on Halloween 2015 in Colorado Springs and another on a Planned Parenthood on November 27, 2015. California has universal background checks yet witnessed three killed in a May 23, 2014, firearm-based attack in Santa Barbara; 14 killed in a December 2, 2015, firearm-based attack in San Bernardino; a murder-suicide on UCLA’s gun-free campus on June 1, 2016; two Palm Springs officers killed in an ambush attack on October 8 2016, and three people killed in a murder-suicide at a San Bernardino elementary school last week.

Washington state has universal background checks, yet five innocents were killed in a mass shooting at a Burlington mall on September 23, 2016. And if we look at Europe, France has universal background checks, yet at least 142 innocents were shot and killed by armed attackers during 2015 alone.

Perhaps West Virginians need to have the fortitude to show up to the polls on November 2018 and replace gun-control Senator Manchin with someone who will protect the Second Amendment.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com