PA Bill Number: HB829
Title: In preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Description: An Act amending the act of April 12, 1951 (P.L.90, No.21), known as the Liquor Code, in preliminary provisions, further providing for definitions;
Last Action: Signed in House
Last Action Date: Jul 3, 2024
Pat Toomey seeks to revive background checks legislation; opposes ban on military style firearms :: 08/06/2019
In the wake of the nation's latest mass shooting spate, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, seeks to reincarnate efforts to enact broad background checks legislation.
By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is seeking to revive his defeated proposal to expand background checks for gun buyers even as he holds firmly to the idea that bans on military style weapons and restrictions to magazine size are not solutions for staving off mass shootings.
During a phone press conference on Monday, the Lehigh Valley Republican renewed his pitch for the expanded background checks measure that he and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) introduced six years ago in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre. The so-called Manchin-Toomey bill would expand background checks to all gun sales. The measure was defeated in the Senate in 2013 when only four Republican senators voted in favor of it.
“It’s long overdue,” Toomey said Monday. “This is a common sense and very, very broadly supported measure that fully respects the right of law abiding citizens and respect the rights of the Second Amendment.”
At the same time, though, Toomey reiterated his opposition to any bans on military style semi automatic weapons, which have been widely used in mass shootings in recent years and have left hundreds of people dead.
“The category referred to as assault weapons are overwhelmingly very popular firearms that have no more firepower than ordinary hunting rifles,” Toomey said.
The senator said what distinguishes semi automatic rifles are the color and the fact that they often have special handles. “They are painted black," he said of the assault weapons.
“There is nothing intrinsically different to that gun that warrants them to be banned,” Toomey said. “I don’t think we are going to make progress if go after categories of very very popular and widely owned firearms.”
Members of Congress and President Donald Trump on Monday were fielding questions in the wake of the weekend carnage in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, that left 29 people dead and dozens more wounded. The weekend carnage comes just days after three people - including a 6-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl — were killed when a gunman with a rifle opened fire at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California.
Toomey outlined his support for the so-called red-flag laws and the “lie and try” laws. The latter calls for federal authorities to alert state law enforcement agencies to individuals who had attempted to purchase weapons but had failed to pass the background checks, and in the process have committed felonies. Red-flag laws would expand laws that allow authorities to keep guns from peopled deemed unsuitable to own because of mental illness or other conditions.
“We should be doing all we can to prevent them from getting firearms,” Toomey said.
Toomey said he had had phone conversations on Monday with President Donald Trump, Manchin and Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The senator did not agree with calls to end the August recess early in order to force Congress to address gun violence and mass shootings. He said he would work to convince McConnell to have the upper chamber take up the Manchin-Toomey bill.
“It’s important to me that we get that vote and it’s still more important that we succeed,” Toomey said.
Pennsylvania’s senior and Democratic Senator Bob Casey this weekend tweeted that politicians who refuse to take action to reduce gun violence "are complicit in this carnage."
“Congress’s first priority must be passing universal background checks, limiting the size of magazines and banning military-style assault weapons, among other measures,” Casey tweeted.
Casey urged McConnell to immediately call the Senate back to Washington this week to debate and vote on universal background check legislation that was passed by the House in February.
Enough. We don’t have to live like this. Politicians who refuse to take action to reduce gun violence are complicit in this carnage. If we’re going to truly confront this uniquely American problem, we have to speak uncomfortable truths.
— Senator Bob Casey (@SenBobCasey) August 4, 2019
The Democratic-led House in February approved the first major new firearm restrictions bill to advance in that chamber in years. The Senate has taken no action on the proposed legislation, which would require background checks for all gun sales and most gun transfers.
Toomey said he was encouraged by the president and his remarks on social media and during a Monday morning press conference at the White House where he, for the first time, excoriated white supremacy. In his press conference two days after the latest deadly mass shootings in this country, Trump urged the nation to condemn bigotry and white supremacy, pointing to attention in addressing mental illness - not gun-control measures - to end such carnage.
He said the president struck the right tone in his message in “unambiguously and categorically” ondemning hatred, bigotry, racism and white nationalism. “The president had exactly the right message.”
Referring to the perpetrators in this weekend’s mass shootings in Ohio and El Paso, Texas, as monster criminals, Toomey urged Congressional colleagues to pass laws to keep guns and firearms away from violent criminals, terrorists and people with mental illness.
“It’s long over due,” he said. “This is the moment where we should move ahead.”
The Manchin-Toomey bill failed in the Senate in April 2013, after receiving only four Republican votes; five Democrats from gun-friendly states voted against it. None of those five Democrats are in office.
Besides Toomey and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, then-Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois and John McCain of Arizona voted in favor. McCain died in 2018; Kirk was replaced by Democrat Tammy Duckworth.
Toomey said he believed that given the number of new members of Congress, the time was again right to push for his background checks bill.
“I think there is a new momentum,” he said.
