Usually I prefer not to get into political in this blog. However, since both of these emails came across the transom in reference to the defeat of a gun registration bill that would have given owners many perks along with requiring sales registrations (although returning flight controllers to work after sequestration sent some of them packing sailed on through before legislators needed to fly home so I see where priorities lie), I wanted to pass them along and preserve them for my own scrapbook here. So bear with me or just pass this post on by.
For those for whom time is short, here's a quote from each that I feel sums up their positions
President Barack Obama:
And I'm assuming that the emotions that we've all felt since Newtown, the emotions that we've all felt since Tucson and Aurora and Chicago -- the pain we share with these families and families all across the country who've lost a loved one to gun violence -- I'm assuming that's not a temporary thing. I'm assuming our expressions of grief and our commitment to do something different to prevent these things from happening are not empty words. I believe we're going to be able to get this done. Sooner or later, we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it. And so do the American people.
Senator Pat Toomey:
It's not the outcome I hoped for, but the Senate has spoken on the subject, and it's time to move on.
There's some perspective for you. To see whether I'm cherry picking for my own purposes, see the full remarks below.
Before we get to the full remarks, however, to find out more about how we got into this culture of violence mess in the U.S. in the first place, see the following post:
http://jsbrookspresents.blogspot.com/2013/01/our-violent-heritage-makes-itself-known.html
-- The President's
Remarks --
A few months ago, in response to too many tragedies -- including
the shootings of a United States Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords, who's here
today, and the murder of 20 innocent schoolchildren and their teachers -- this
country took up the cause of protecting more of our people from gun violence.
Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to
petition their elected leaders -- not just to honor the memory of their
children, but to protect the lives of all our children. And a few minutes ago,
a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn't worth it. They blocked
common-sense gun reforms even while these families looked on from the Senate
gallery.
By now, it's well known that 90 percent of the American people
support universal background checks that make it harder for a dangerous person
to buy a gun. We're talking about convicted felons, people convicted of
domestic violence, people with a severe mental illness. Ninety percent of
Americans support that idea. Most Americans think that's already the law.
And a few minutes ago, 90 percent of Democrats in the Senate
just voted for that idea. But it's not going to happen because 90 percent of
Republicans in the Senate just voted against that idea.
A majority of senators voted "yes" to protecting more
of our citizens with smarter background checks. But by this continuing
distortion of Senate rules, a minority was able to block it from moving
forward.
I'm going to speak plainly and honestly about what's happened
here because the American people are trying to figure out how can something
have 90 percent support and yet not happen. We had a Democrat and a Republican
-– both gun owners, both fierce defenders of our Second Amendment, with
"A" grades from the NRA -- come together and worked together to write
a common-sense compromise on background checks. And I want to thank Joe Manchin
and Pat Toomey for their courage in doing that. That was not easy given their
traditional strong support for Second Amendment rights.
As they said, nobody could honestly claim that the package they
put together infringed on our Second Amendment rights. All it did was extend
the same background check rules that already apply to guns purchased from a
dealer to guns purchased at gun shows or over the Internet. So 60 percent of
guns are already purchased through a background check system; this would have
covered a lot of the guns that are currently outside that system.
Their legislation showed respect for gun owners, and it showed
respect for the victims of gun violence. And Gabby Giffords, by the way, is
both -- she's a gun owner and a victim of gun violence. She is a Westerner and
a moderate. And she supports these background checks.
In fact, even the NRA used to support expanded background
checks. The current leader of the NRA used to support these background checks.
So while this compromise didn't contain everything I wanted or everything that
these families wanted, it did represent progress. It represented moderation and
common sense. That's why 90 percent of the American people supported it.
But instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its
allies willfully lied about the bill. They claimed that it would create some
sort of "big brother" gun registry, even though the bill did the
opposite. This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple,
right there in the text. But that didn't matter.
And unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this
legislation served a purpose, because those lies upset an intense minority of
gun owners, and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators. And I talked to
several of these senators over the past few weeks, and they're all good people.
I know all of them were shocked by tragedies like Newtown. And I also
understand that they come from states that are strongly pro-gun. And I have
consistently said that there are regional differences when it comes to guns,
and that both sides have to listen to each other.
But the fact is most of these senators could not offer any good
reason why we wouldn't want to make it harder for criminals and those with
severe mental illnesses to buy a gun. There were no coherent arguments as to
why we wouldn't do this. It came down to politics -- the worry that that vocal
minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections. They worried
that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second
Amendment.
And obviously, a lot of Republicans had that fear, but Democrats
had that fear, too. And so they caved to the pressure, and they started looking
for an excuse -- any excuse -- to vote "no."
One common argument I heard was that this legislation wouldn't
prevent all future massacres. And that's true. As I said from the start, no
single piece of legislation can stop every act of violence and evil. We learned
that tragically just two days ago. But if action by Congress could have saved
one person, one child, a few hundred, a few thousand -- if it could have
prevented those people from losing their lives to gun violence in the future
while preserving our Second Amendment rights, we had an obligation to
try.
And this legislation met that test. And too many senators failed
theirs.
I've heard some say that blocking this step would be a victory.
And my question is, a victory for who? A victory for what? All that happened
today was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy
guns without a background check. That didn't make our kids safer. Victory for
not doing something that 90 percent of Americans, 80 percent of Republicans,
the vast majority of your constituents wanted to get done? It begs the
question, who are we here to represent?
I've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby
for this legislation was somehow misplaced. "A prop," somebody called
them. "Emotional blackmail," some outlet said. Are they serious? Do
we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by
gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their
emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?
So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for
Washington.
But this effort is not over. I want to make it clear to the
American people we can still bring about meaningful changes that reduce gun
violence, so long as the American people don't give up on it. Even without
Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more
of our communities. We're going to address the barriers that prevent states
from participating in the existing background check system. We're going to give
law enforcement more information about lost and stolen guns so it can do its
job. We're going to help to put in place emergency plans to protect our
children in their schools.
But we can do more if Congress gets its act together. And if
this Congress refuses to listen to the American people and pass common-sense
gun legislation, then the real impact is going to have to come from the
voters.
To all the people who supported this legislation -- law
enforcement and responsible gun owners, Democrats and Republicans, urban moms,
rural hunters, whoever you are -- you need to let your representatives in
Congress know that you are disappointed, and that if they don't act this time,
you will remember come election time.
To the wide majority of NRA households who supported this
legislation, you need to let your leadership and lobbyists in Washington know
they didn't represent your views on this one.
The point is those who care deeply about preventing more and
more gun violence will have to be as passionate, and as organized, and as vocal
as those who blocked these common-sense steps to help keep our kids safe.
Ultimately, you outnumber those who argued the other way. But they're better
organized. They're better financed. They've been at it longer. And they make
sure to stay focused on this one issue during election time. And that's the
reason why you can have something that 90 percent of Americans support and you
can't get it through the Senate or the House of Representatives.
So to change Washington, you, the American people, are going to
have to sustain some passion about this. And when necessary, you've got to send
the right people to Washington. And that requires strength, and it requires
persistence.
And that's the one thing that these families should have
inspired in all of us. I still don't know how they have been able to muster up
the strength to do what they've doing over the last several weeks, last several
months.
And I see this as just round one. When Newtown happened, I met
with these families and I spoke to the community, and I said, something must be
different right now. We're going to have to change. That's what the whole
country said. Everybody talked about how we were going to change something to
make sure this didn't happen again, just like everybody talked about how we
needed to do something after Aurora. Everybody talked about we needed change
something after Tucson.
And I'm
assuming that the emotions that we've all felt since Newtown, the emotions that
we've all felt since Tucson and Aurora and Chicago -- the pain we share with
these families and families all across the country who've lost a loved one to
gun violence -- I'm assuming that's not a temporary thing. I'm assuming our
expressions of grief and our commitment to do something different to prevent these
things from happening are not empty words.
I
believe we're going to be able to get this done. Sooner or later, we are going
to get this right. The memories of these children demand it. And so do the
American people.
Thank you very much, everybody.
~ Senator
Pat Toomey’s Remarks (Republican Sponsor of the gun registration legislation)
This week, I worked with Sen. Joe
Manchin (D-W.Va.) on legislation that would have made it harder for criminals
and the dangerously mentally ill to obtain guns while preserving the rights of
law-abiding people to do so. The bill did not move forward in the Senate.
This amendment would have helped
enhance public safety while still protecting the Second Amendment. I understand
the passions on both sides of this issue. I did what I thought was the
right thing for our country. I sought out a compromise position that I thought
could move the ball forward on an important matter of public safety.
My only regret is that our amendment
did not pass. It's not the outcome I hoped for, but the Senate has spoken on the
subject, and it's time to move on. We have a lot of other very
important issues to deal with such as getting the economy back on track,
dealing with the debt ceiling and creating more jobs for Pennsylvanians.
