Toomey, others stand with NRA
WASHINGTON — Among the Senate’s most vulnerable Republicans, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey stood firmly with the powerful National Rifle Association on the latest ill-fated attempts at gun control. So did Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.
Not so Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, who represents Chicago where so far this year more than 1,780 people have been shot, leading to the vast majority of the city’s 294 homicides, according to police.
Just over four months to the election, and facing pressure from their Democratic opponents, most Republican Senate incumbents opted for consistency despite the political frenzy days after the worst mass shooting in modern American history. A lone gunman, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and injured 53 at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., prompting fresh calls for tighter restrictions on weapons. Mateen had been the focus of two terror investigations that were dropped.
Toomey, Portman and Johnson — as they did in December after shootings in San Bernardino, Calif. — supported an NRA-preferred measure to deny a gun sale to a known or suspected terrorist, but only if prosecutors could convince a judge within three days that the would-be buyer was involved in terrorism. The three also helped to defeat a Democratic-sponsored bill to close the gun show loophole and expand background checks.
In the end, four amendments — two Democratic and two Republican — failed in a deeply divided Senate.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, appearing on CNN Tuesday, denounced the votes as “a shameful display of cowardice.”
In turn, Chris Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, called the votes “embarrassing” and said “the safety of the American people is taking a back seat to political theater.”
Kirk, facing a strong challenge from Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth, supported the Democratic background checks bill and another Democratic measure to allow the government to deny gun sales to suspected terrorists.
The lone reversal was Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who is in a tight re-election bid against Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan. Ayotte supported both the Democratic and Republican versions of the amendments to deny gun sales to suspected terrorists and is working with Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican, on compromise legislation.
Florida Democrats have targeted Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who is considering a run for re-election after previously saying he would give up his seat. Rubio defended his votes against the Democratic measures, saying they were “politically motivated and driven by a larger ideological agenda to disarm Americans.”
Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, who is running for Rubio’s seat, shot back at Rubio, saying he “put his political ambition ahead of keeping Floridians safe.”
In Pennsylvania, Katie McGinty, Toomey’s Democratic challenger, immediately criticized the Republican’s votes. She said the senator is “long on rhetoric but short on action.”
Toomey had attempted to craft his own compromise last week to deny gun sales to terrorism suspects.
