Bipartisan effort for common-sense gun control bill

“Petrified.”

The word is probably still ringing in the ears of Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey.

Last week Toomey joined other elected officials in a White House session with President Trump in the aftermath of the nation’s latest school mass shooting. This time it was Parkland, Fla., and the death toll was 17, most of them students.

The president was looking to exchange ideas on what to do to make students safer and beef up gun laws.

Suddenly, Trump was zinging Republicans and spouting Democratic talking points on gun control. He said he wanted to boost the age to buy a s

The president engaged Toomey on the senator’s previous effort at gun control, after the Sandy Hook tragedy in which 20 elementary school kids and six adults were gunned down in their classrooms.

Trump wanted to know why the bill did not attempt to boost the minimum age to buy a semi-automatic weapon.

Toomey was trying to explain his belief that most of those young people in Pennsylvania between the ages of 18 and 21 were law-abiding citizens when he was promptly cut off by the president.

“You’re petrified of the NRA (National Rifle Association),” the president declared.

“They have great power over you; they have less over me.”

Toomey must have been listening. Less than a week later he once again is reaching across the aisle in an attempt to get some common-sense gun control legislation passed.

Back in 2013, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, Toomey teamed with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on a bill to expand background checks. It failed in the Senate under intense Republican opposition.

This time he once again is pushing a bipartisan measure. Earlier this week he held a press conference with another neighboring senator, Chris Coons, D-Del., and unveiled a measure that would again close loopholes in existing gun legislation and put roadblocks in place to ensure that people — including felons and domestic abusers — who are not supposed to possess guns do not get them.

Specifically, the bill would require federal authorities to alert state officials when someone who is legally prohibited from buying a firearm attempts to do so. It would target convicted felons, suspected terrorists and others deemed ineligible.

Sounds like common sense to us.

The bill would require the FBI to notify state law enforcement within 24 hours when the background check system hits on an individual trying to buy a weapon who is prohibited from doing so.

Toomey stressed that this is not an attack on anyone’s legal Second Amendment rights, vowing the measure’s goal is “respecting the Second Amendment but making it more difficult for people who shouldn’t have firearms to obtain them.”

To that end, the bill is an effort to go after what law enforcement often refers to as “lie and try” buyers.

“People who are willing to commit that crime of lying on their form in an attempt to buy a firearm who have a criminal conviction in their past – it’s not rocket science to think that maybe we ought to be a little concerned about this person,” Toomey said.

Coons concurred.

“It’s a terrific predictor of likely, imminent, illegal activity, if you’re willing to go into a federally licensed firearm dealer and fill out a form that says, ‘I’m not a person prohibited,’ when you know you’re a convicted felon.”

It should be noted that similar bills have been introduced in Congress the past two years. Neither ever made it to a vote.

We laud Toomey for once again reaching across the aisle in an attempt to strengthen gun laws in this country.

“We are working together to demonstrate that you actually can make progress, can find common ground, and do something to enhance the safety and security of the people we represent,” the Pennsylvania senator said.

“We have to find ways to work across the aisle to reduce gun violence,” Coons added.

“By ensuring that state and federal law enforcement are working together to prevent those who shouldn’t be able to guy a gun from getting one, we can make our communities safer.”

So long as their colleagues on both sides of the aisle in Washington are not too “petrified” of the NRA to take a muchneeded stand to keep guns out of the hands of those who cannot legally buy one.