PA Bill Number: HR541
Title: Recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Description: A Resolution recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Last Action:
Last Action Date: Sep 27, 2024
Toomey walks a fine line on gun rights :: 12/11/2015
In the debate over gun rights, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey finds himself in the unusual position of taking fire from both sides. Widely viewed as one of the Senate’s most conservative members — he has a 94 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union — he is being blasted by gun rights activists for his willingness to expand background checks for gun purchases. Democrats, meanwhile, snipe at him for not doing more.
On Thursday, Mr. Toomey was only one of four Republicans to vote in favor a bill he originally cosponsored in 2013 with West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin. The measure would have expanded background checks to apply to firearms sales at gun shows and on the Internet.
Although the measure failed, Mr. Toomey’s support for expanding background checks “has made gun owners furious, and it’s going to cost him,” said Kim Stolfer of Firearm Owners Against Crime. “All I’ve done for the past three days is field phone calls and emails from angry people.”
But the senator voted Mr. Stolfer’s way on another bill the same day, by opposing California Sen. Diane Feinstein’s proposal to prevent anyone on a federal “no-fly” terrorism watch list from purchasing a firearm. That drew fire from the three Democrats hoping to challenge Mr. Toomey next year.
“Can’t we all agree that if you’re on a no-fly list, your consolation prize shouldn’t be an AR-15?” said Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.
Toomey campaign spokesman Steve Kelly called it “a shame, but not a surprise” that Mr. Toomey’s rivals “refuse to put aside their personal ambitions and join the widespread bipartisan praise of Pat Toomey’s courageous leadership.”
And indeed, gun control advocacy group CeaseFirePA urged its members “to thank Senator Toomey for standing firm in his support” of it. Executive director Shira Goodman said Mr. Toomey and her group were at odds over a number of gun issues, but he “was one of four Republicans to vote with us last week, and that means something.”
What it means for Mr. Toomey’s re-election chances remains to be seen.
The controversy is only the latest ricochet for Mr. Toomey, who once joked that his idea of gun control was “a steady aim.” But he joined with Mr. Manchin to expand the background check requirement, which currently applies only to sales at firearm dealers, after 20 children and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in late 2012.
It seemed a popular proposal. An April 2013 Quinnipiac University survey said that 54 percent of voters viewed Mr. Toomey more favorably because of it; only 12 percent saw him less favorably. But gun rights groups are a force to be reckoned with, and in 2013 the measure ultimately got 54 votes, not enough to clear Senate procedural hurdles. Saying “the Senate has spoken,” Mr. Toomey said he’d focus on fiscal issues.
Still, he didn’t abandon the proposal, and voiced support for it after a June church shooting in Charleston, S.C. But even before last week’s vote, he downplayed expectations for it.
“I still support the policy,” he told reporters last week, but “I doubt the vote totals have changed very much.” The measure was defeated 50-48.
Mr. Toomey did not speak on the bill’s behalf from the Senate floor: Instead, the political journal Politico reported, he “quietly marched from the cloakroom to silently cast his vote.”
Democratic rivals fault Mr. Toomey for not having been more outspoken.
“In the military and in public life, you want the warrior who is beside you every day,” said Joe Sestak, a retired admiral who contrasted Mr. Toomey’s approach to guns with his zeal for abolishing Obamacare. Like other Republicans, Mr. Sestak noted, “He has tried to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in vote after vote after vote. Does he just do [gun control] when a shooting is so outrageous?”
Democrat Katie McGinty’s campaign similarly accused Mr. Toomey of “playing political games,” noting he “voted against a bill that would have prevented individuals who are on terror watch lists from being allowed to purchase firearms.”
In a statement, Mr. Toomey said the Feinstein proposal “provided no meaningful opportunity for innocent U.S. citizens to challenge being erroneously placed on a terrorist list.” And the American Civil Liberties Union, rarely a Republican ally, is “opposed to the use of terror watch lists, as presently constituted, to screen gun purchases” because “the lists are deeply flawed,” said Michael Macleod-Ball of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.
Mr. Toomey instead backed a Republican counter-proposal that made it easier for would-be gun purchasers to challenge their listing.
Both no-fly measures failed, but Ms. Goodman said she worried the Republican measure “had so many hurdles that it wouldn’t have been effective keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists.”
Still, she said, “there should be a way to get some middle ground,” on such questions. “Keeping guns away from terrorists shouldn’t be a hard push.”
Chris Potter: cpotter@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2533.
