The Senator from West Virginia notes:
“If people want to blame, I guess you blame me,†Manchin told reporters at a Wall Street Journal breakfast. “I just never knew how hard it was to get the facts out. I think there is a lot more I can do to get the facts out.â€
Getting the facts out isn’t the part that’s hard. It’s writing a bill that actually does what you say it does that’s hard. Every I must be dotted and every T must be crossed. Gun owners have zero faith in “just trust us,” or how certain statutory language is going to be interpreted by those who enforce the laws, or how it’s going to be interpreted by the Courts. Manchin-Toomey was a sloppy bill, no matter how you look at it. The unfortunate thing for us is that Manchin-Toomey will be the basis of the next attack as soon as they have a pretext.
“His universal base bill is gone. That bill’s gone,†Manchin said. He said that if Manchin-Toomey had appeared shortly after the Newtown shooting, it would have passed easily.
The President and his allies completely poisoned the well on this issue, by coming at us with everything and the kitchen sink. They insulted us, dismissed our concerns, and tried to screw us in every way their warped minds could dream up. Gun owners woke up like I haven’t seen since I’ve been involved in this issue. I think he’s right. If they had been politically saavy and understood where the center of this issue had really moved to, I’m not sure we could have beat a Toomey-Manchin like bill out of the gate. What we have to be cognizant of is that they will not make that mistake again.
It was for that very reason (the warning in your last sentence) that I wrote to thank my two Senators profusely for standing firm on the REAL meaning of the Second Amendment, “shall not be infringed!” I wanted them to know that it is NEVER “common sense” to infringe in even the least manner upon a fundamental right of the people.
Thanks for keeping is posted, sir!
Some will learn from it certainly but then you have complete and utter morons like Feinstein who will put her AWB any opportunity she gets. Then the ‘learners’ get to either dismiss one of their senior members or embrace it and kill the whole thing again.
People who seemed to have more time than the gentlemen from Pennsylvania and West Virginia to read the bill carefully found several snare-traps in the bill’s language.
Of interest to me personally, for example, was the sly little rewrite of FOPA–transport of firearms. The new writing put a limit on the law’s protection. Specifically, one loses the protection of the law if one intends to or does in fact commit a gun crime in that state punishable by a year or more in jail.
Notice that it does not say “crime of violence” or “crime against property”. It says “gun crime”.
Ah ha! Within the confines of NYS, possession of a handgun without a NYS permit is a felony. A “gun crime”. In NYS, the unloaded, case locked, trunk locked, ammo separate provisions of the law still constitute possession. If the ammo is near the firearm, the firearm is deemed loaded. Forget about mowing your lawn for several years, if you still have your house after paying your defense attorney.
It’s especially hard to get the facts out when you and your lib/prog/comm friends are lying through your collective teeth every time you open your mouth.
Not to mention the media arm of the dnc no longer has a monopoly on the narrative..
Manchin’s bill didn’t lose because he failed to get the facts out. It failed because the facts did get out. The fact he needs to face is that his bill wasn’t necessary or helpful to the achievement of any legitimate goal of government. His bill failed because for once the right thing happened.
What we need to do is to move the center more.