Joe Manchin's Bait and Switch: Says His Gun Control Is 'Gun Sense'

During the March 4 airing of Face the Nation Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) pushed gun control for gun shows and law-abiding Americans.

Manchin tripped over himself while describing the bill, inasmuch as he said the “law-abiding gun owner” will not “sell their gun to strangers or criminals or terrorists.” Yet he wants more gun control over sales from law-abiding gun owners anyway.

The bill being pushed by Manchin is the same gun control bill he and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) unsuccessfully pushed in 2013. The bill outlaws private gun sales, puts new regulations on gun shows, and would require background checks for gun sales resulting from classified ads.

Manchin tried to shift attention away from the gun control aspects of his bill by telling Face the Nation viewers that his bill is “gun sense” not gun control.

The irony of Manchin’s gun control push is that his bill would not have prevented the Florida school shooting, just as it would not have stopped the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack. Yet he is pushing it as necessary to close loopholes in the Second Amendment.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.