Source.

“I never thought I had a need for that type of hyper-high-capacity automatic weapon. I like to shoot, I like to go out and hunt. I like to go out sport shooting. I do all that. But I’ve never felt I needed something of that magnitude,” he said.

[ … ]

Manchin said that red flag laws “do work as long as there is due process.”

That’s the whole point, Joe.

Red flag laws are themselves a violation of due process.  You can’t pick up the broken glass and make it okay.

The Morning Call:

Coopersburg resident Mary Ann Nord was looking for reassurance when one of her senators, Republican Pat Toomey, headed to the microphone Wednesday during a gun-safety advocacy event in downtown Washington.

Nord, a member of the Philadelphia chapter of Moms Demand Action, a nonpartisan group created after the elementary school shooting in Sandy Hook, Conn., is quick to praise Toomey’s work on his 2013 background check bill that stalled in the Senate.

Crafting and pushing that legislation took courage, Nord said. She recalled being in Toomey’s office and hearing the phones ringing with angry callers. But more recently, she’s been underwhelmed by his actions on the issue.

“Since then, it’s not been as clear if he was going to continue to be that kind of an advocate for the cause,” said Nord, who spent Wednesday lobbying Pennsylvania legislators and their staffs. “We have been a little bit discouraged that he hasn’t been more vocal.”

The Lehigh Valley senator told her and others gathered at the Grand Hyatt that he and West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin — his cosponsor on the measure to extend background checks to gun show sales and online purchases — still support the bill and finding a path through Congress.

“We have not been successful yet, but my determination has not diminished and one day we’re going to succeed on this bill,” Toomey told the reception crowd, drawing applause.

The event was part of a two-day summit organized by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was severely injured in a 2011 shooting.

Giffords’ group endorsed Toomey during his tightly contested re-election fight due to his efforts on the 2013 gun background check bill. A gun-control advocacy group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg aired pro-Toomey ads, highlighting an issue the senator emphasized as he sought to win over moderate, suburban voters.

He took criticism from gun-rights advocates as a result of the background check bill, and his A rating from the National Rifle Association dropped to a C last year.

His rating should have dropped to F.  He should have never had the A rating to begin with, and that was a function of bad judgment by the NRA, something we see time and again.

This goes a long way back with Toomey and Manchin, as it did with Eric Cantor and as it also does with Paul Ryan.  The fact that Ryan is House speaker tells us all we need to know about the judgment of other members of the House who supported Ryan’s candidacy for said position.

The gun controllers will never give up, and neither can we.  I’m not saying that it’s impossible to truly change, because God can save fallen men.  But the reliance on the state for safety and security is a demonstrable indicia of statism and thus fallen and pagan thinking.  Men live like the die, and they die like they live.  The thief on the cross was a stark exception, but he was just that – an exception.

Toomey and Manchin apparently are the standard, not the exception.  Fight them with all your breath, with every ounce of energy, with every cell of your body, and with every prayer in your soul.

Huffington Post:

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is a self-described “law-abiding gun owner, hunter, card-carrying life member of the National Rifle Association and Second Amendment advocate.”

But on Thursday, he said he “strongly” opposes an NRA-backed bill in West Virginia that would nix permit and training requirements for people carrying concealed guns.

“I have always supported a West Virginian’s right to bear arms,” Manchin said in a statement. “Senate Bill 347 would allow a person to carry a concealed gun without a permit or requirement of safety training and that is irresponsible and dangerous to the people of West Virginia.”

The bill passed the state House earlier Thursday, and the state Senate on Wednesday. Still, Manchin said it was a bad idea.

“There is not one West Virginian whose Second Amendment rights will be infringed without this bill,” Manchin said. “In West Virginia, we believe in gun sense, which is common sense, and it only makes common sense for concealed carry applicants to receive proper training. I commend the brave legislators who voted no and represented their constituents who know that this is irresponsible.

West Virginia is a tradition open carry state (with some limited preemption).  So Joe believes that covering the gun with a shirt means that people needed training and certification by the state that they don’t if they open carry.  Well, Manchin voted for Obamacare, so his voting record is about as lousy at it gets.

When a politician (or anyone else) begins a conversation with “I support the right of the people to own and bear arms, but … ,” or “I believe in the second amendment, but … ,” ignore the balance of their remarks.  They are liars.

Joe doesn’t get a vote in the West Virginia legislature, so his constituency can tell him to butt out.  It’s none of his damn business.

Reno-Gazzete-Journal:

If we have learned anything in the year that has passed since 20 young children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. (also dead were the shooter, Adam Lanza, and his mother, Nancy), it’s that Americans are incapable of having a rational discussion of the role of guns in our lives no matter how many tragedies they have endured.On the first anniversary of the shooting, President Barack Obama called for new gun-control measures, but there will be none. There won’t even be a serious discussion of the possibility of trying to stanch the flood of guns in this nation. Congress and most states gave short shrift to gun-control measures in the past year, and, in Colorado, one state that approved minor changes in the law, lawmakers found themselves the target of a well-financed recall campaign. Already, two have lost their posts.

Oh, we’re quite able to talk about guns.  We have non-stop for more than one year now, and before then always when the collectivists are in office.  It’s just that the country has listened and replied a resounding no.  The collectivists don’t like the answer, and thus the charge that “we can’t talk about it,” or in other words, we can’t talk you into our plans for national disarmament and reservation of the use of force to government forces of occupation no matter what falsehood we purvey.

Joe Manchin knows the same to be true.

Sen. Joe Manchin says rounding up the votes to pass a bill creating background checks for gun purchases next year is going to be “difficult.”

While saying he’s “hopeful” that some would change their minds, the West Virginia Democrat acknowledged there are Democrats who opposed the bill creating background checks for gun purchases.

“Hopefully, they would maybe reconsider,” Manchin said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s going to be difficult to get the extra votes that we need. I’m going to be honest with you.”

Manchin, a gun owner who had a top rating from the National Rifle Association, negotiated a background check bill with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut. But the measure stalled in the Senate in April when it failed to get the needed 60 votes to advance.

Manchin said gun owners didn’t oppose background checks in theory but were concerned that government wouldn’t stop with checks.

Note that Joe still has hopes of disarmament of the American people, he just thinks it won’t work.  He hasn’t lost his progressive, collectivist credentials.  Once a totalitarian, always a totalitarian – a lesson we hope that America has learned well when it comes time to cast a vote for gun grabber Chris Christie.

And as for universal background checks, we all know that it wouldn’t stop there.  But that doesn’t mean that we don’t oppose universal background checks on principle.  I oppose it whether it leads anywhere else or not.  It has nothing to do with crime.  That’s just a lie told by the hive.