Toomey willing to work with Biden
Sen. Pat Toomey, one of the few Republicans in Congress who has supported gun control efforts, signaled Thursday his willingness to work with President Joe Biden on his efforts to limit gun trafficking and the growing presence of ghost guns.
Support from Toomey, Pennsylvania’s most powerful elected Republican, may prove critical. With the Senate divided evenly between Republican and Democrats, a single vote could mean the difference between a bill passing or failing.
In an address from the White House Rose Garden, Biden announced his administration will explore ways to curb gun violence in America. While the nation has been hobbled by the coronavirus pandemic, Biden called the rash of mass shootings an epidemic and an international embarrassment.
“The idea that we have so many people dying every single day from gun violence in America is a blemish on our character as a nation,” he said.
While the Republican Party has been a strong advocate for gun owner rights, Toomey has broken from his peers at times. Following the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in 2012, Toomey sponsored bipartisan legislation that would have expanded background checks to nearly all private gun sales. The bill received 54 votes but failed to reach the necessary 60 votes to pass. Toomey has taken heat from conserva
tives for supporting the legislation but has quietly stuck to his guns on universal background checks.
“I appreciate President Biden’s expressed willingness to work with both Republicans and Democrats to achieve this goal,” he said in a statement Thursday. “If done in a manner that respects the rights of law-abiding citizens, I believe there is an opportunity to strengthen our background check system so that we are better able to keep guns away from those who have no legal right to them.”
Biden’s efforts
Biden took special aim at “ghost guns,” kits that allow anyone to assemble an untraceable firearm. Because the kits aren’t considered a firearm, they can be sold without a background check. Because they’re not assembled by a manufacturer or retailer, they don’t require a serial number, making them difficult for law enforcement to track. Biden has ordered the Justice Department to propose a rule in the next 30 days to stop the proliferation of these kits.
State governments have been working to limit the sales of ghost guns as well. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro has sounded the alarm on the kits since 2019. The weapons have plagued Philadelphia as people who cannot legally own a firearm have had little problem acquiring them. Shapiro publicly commended an Upper Macungie Township gun show promoter last month for voluntarily ending sales of the kits, a first in the nation for a gun show promotor.
“I want to do the right thing. It’s the right thing. If we can keep them out of the bad guys’ hands, fantastic,” Joel Koeler of Eagle Arms Productions told the Patriot News of Harrisburg.
In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice will issue guidelines for states looking to make their own “red flag” legislation and urged Congress to consider similar legislation. These laws allow families and law enforcement to petition courts to remove guns from the possession of people in crisis. The Justice Department is expected to release the guidance in the next two months.
Similar red flag bills, sometimes called extreme risk protective orders, have been proposed in Pennsylvania with the intent to prevent suicides. Supporters view it as a better alternative than trying to have someone involuntarily committed, which rips them from their homes for at least five days and strips them of their weapons for life. However, the bipartisan proposals have never come up for a vote and haven’t been proposed since 2019.
Biden also announced David Chipman as his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The former ATF special agent has worked in recent years for Giffords, the gun control advocacy group founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords. Gabby Giffords survived an assassination attempt by a gunman in a mental health crisis in 2011 that killed six others.