Joe Manchin Frustrated His Gun Control Bill Can’t Garner Votes for Passage

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) expressed frustration in the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, that his legislation on gun control cannot get the votes necessary for passage.

The Hill reported that Manchin made comments Monday, saying, “We can’t even get Manchin-Toomey, which didn’t violate anyone’s rights. It just said there should not be a commercial transaction unless there’s a background check.”

Manchin said of his gun control bill, “It’s the most, I think it’s the most agreed upon, it’s the most accepted in the country and we can’t even get that done.”

The Manchin-Toomey gun control package was created in the wake of the December 14, 2012, attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School. Numerous gun controls were included in the bill, the chief of which being an expansion of background checks.

The bill failed, however, in part because background checks were not causal in the Sandy Hook attack. The guns carried by the attacker were stolen from his mother earlier in the day, so no amount of point-of-sale checks would have prevented the shooting.

On April 14, 2013, Breitbart News reported Manchin’s Face the Nation appearance, in which he said Newtown families had told him they knew the Manchin-Toomey gun control bill would not have prevented the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary.

Ironically, similar to the Sandy Hook shooting, the Buffalo shooter acquired his gun legally at a gun store. Such a sale requires passage of a background check. Therefore, Manchin’s gun controls would not have prevented the Buffalo attack either.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News 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 and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.