Senate Gun Vote Fails As Federal Registry Debate Overshadows Background Checks
As the Senate gun vote fails, Senate Democrats like Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) are already vowing that the “debate is not over.”
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the Senate gun vote has Gabby Giffords furious. President Obama called the Senate gun vote on background checks a “shameful day for Washington.” Meanwhile, Florida and other states are pushing so-called “arm the teachers” bills as a different approach to combating school massacres.
The Senate gun vote ended with 54 Senators voting for the bill, but that was not the 60 required to avoid a promised filibuster. The Senate gun vote would have expanded gun background checks to include online sales and gun shows. There was concern that gun laws could be expanded into a federal gun registry, but the deal worked out by Joe Manchin (D-VA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) explicitly barred that idea. A federal gun registry is also already barred under current law.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) acknowledged that the Senate gun vote wouldn’t have actually created a Federal gun registry, but he was concerned about the future:
“In my opinion, adopting mandatory federal government background checks for purely private transactions between law-abiding citizens, puts us inexorably on the path to a push for a federal registry. … The currently pending legislation does not purport to create a national gun registry, but the Department of Justice has said explicitly that when you require background checks for private firearms transactions, the only way to make that effective is through a national gun registry.”
After the failed Senate gun vote, Harry Reid is pulling the gun control bill from the floor to “hit pause” and plans on returning to the background checks bill at a later date:
“We should make no mistake, this debate is not over. I’ve spoken to the president, he and I agree that the best way to keep working towards passing a background check bill, is to hit pause and freeze the background check bill where it is. We are going to come back this bill.”
Are you concerned that gun control laws like the expanded background checks in the failed Senate gun vote could eventually lead to a Federal gun registry?
