Manchin: Gun Control Bill Wouldn't Have Stopped Newtown

Appearing on CBS News’ Face the Nation on April 14, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) said Newtown families have told him they know the bill he and Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) have crafted would not have prevented the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary.

In other words, Manchin’s expanded background check “compromise” bill, being pushed in response to Newtown, does not do anything that would have stopped the Newtown tragedy from happening.

Manchin said the families to whom he’s spoken just keep urging him to do something in hopes that somewhere down the road new gun control legislation will “prevent one family from…going through what [Newtown] families went through.”

Senator Toomey was also on Face the Nation. And he said: “I acknowledge, there’s no single bill that is a panacea for [gun crime], nothing guarantees that a committed criminal isn’t going to find a way to get a gun.”

Connecticut had the 5th most stringent gun control laws in the nation when Adam Lanza committed his crime. These included background checks and an “assault weapons” ban.