Guns have once again moved to the forefront of the 2016 Senate race.
In the wake of the shooting in Roseburg, Oregon Democratic candidate Katie McGinty is calling on Sen. Pat Toomey to take legislative action.
After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, Toomey co-sponsored legislation to expand background checks. The bill failed to make it out of the Senate. Last month, the McGinty campaign accused the Senator of backing away from this legislation because of pressure from a pro-gun group.
“Two years ago, following the devastating tragedy at Sandy Hook, you did the right thing when you co-sponsored and introduced the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act of 2013,” McGinty writes in an open letter to the incumbent.
“The press recently reported that you will not be reintroducing your legislation,” she continued. “I hope that you will reconsider and I urge you to reintroduce the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act.”
PoliticsPA reached out to the Toomey campaign but did not receive a response.
The full text of McGinty’s letter to the Senator is included below:
Dear Senator Toomey:
Two years ago, following the devastating tragedy at Sandy Hook, you did the right thing when you co-sponsored and introduced the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act of 2013. That legislation would have made it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to purchase firearms by expanding background checks to include firearms purchased at gun shows and other private sales.
In Oregon last week we once again witnessed another tragedy due to senseless gun violence, but it is not an isolated incident. Sadly, there have been 142 school shootings since that tragic day in Connecticut in 2012.
As someone who served in the White House, I know that passing meaningful legislation takes time and repeated, persistent effort. It can be a frustrating and disappointing exercise. But I also know that if you are truly committed to doing the right thing – and you truly believe in your efforts – you do not let failure deter you. You keep on trying until you secure the votes needed to pass the legislation.
Last week’s event in Oregon serves as a tragic reminder that we cannot give up when it comes to making our communities safer from the scourge of gun violence. We cannot walk away from passing important legislation that will save lives simply because there is well funded opposition.
As someone who grew up in a household with avid hunters, I believe that commonsense gun safety legislation is not incongruent with the 2nd Amendment. Responsible hunters and sportsmen know that some safeguards are needed to prevent tragedy.
The press recently reported that you will not be reintroducing your legislation. I hope that you will reconsider and I urge you to reintroduce the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act.
This goes beyond politics. Now more than ever, we need leadership on this critical issue. Lives depend on it. I hope that you will act.
Sincerely,
Katie McGinty
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20 Responses
Yo Nick,
“Guns have once again move”? You mean “moved”. Little things like this bring your argument into question. Spell check will destroy society.
EB
I really hope the TEA drinking Repervlicans retain their righteous indignation They are a dying political party … kept alive now by “Citizens United” … greedy corporate slobs … and religious loons.
Just look at their slate for POTUS. Sad … So sad ….
aaron is a TEA-sipping tool
Mcginty is an empty pant suit
The first step is to disarm ALL politicians and the Media…..
Gun control is a perennial LOSER.
And you know why? BECAUSE THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DON’T WANT IT.
Note to McGinty:
Get hip, button your lip, and take a trip.
The more I read McGinty’s letter, the more appalling I find it.
“As someone who served in the White House, I know that passing meaningful legislation takes time ”
Really Katie?? Name dropping on the bodies of dead people? So gross yet so typical.
Shame on you Katie McGinty and Mike Mikus.
In neither the roseburg or sandy hook shooting were background checks relevant. The shooter in sandy hook stole the firearms which were legally purchased, the roseburg shooter obtained them legally through background checks.
Wow, this is really disgusting for Katie and Mike Mikus to try to score political points off of murdered people. Truly ghoulish behavior.
Katie has never made gun control an issue in her life and now she’s suddenly so passionate about it she writes an open letter. Truly shameful politics showing a complete lack of character. I can’t say I’m surprised considering she has literally put hundreds of thousands of dollars from special interests including coal and gas into her own pocket.
If Katie truly cared about this issue rather than scoring political points, she could have sent the letter directly to Toomey, or she would have tried to do something about it before. This is more shameful that fasttracking that dirty coal plant for a Rendell supporter.
Seems like someone should be questioning McGinty why she won’t speak to the press directly, yet she’ll release an open letter to them. Democrats don’t like hypocrisy, Katie and Mike.
Diano – you let the cat out of the bag – McGinty is running to FIX us NOT to represent us! WOW!
Diano, no, those are a minority of conservatives and you know it. And it’s not like you’ve accomplished anything in your life that would justify a condescending attitude.
“No one needs…”. For what other constitutional rights do you ask why the person needs to exercise it? The question you should be asking is whether a limitation on magazine (not clip, since you clearly don’t know anything about guns) capacity would make any difference in gun violence. Common sense indicates that a shooter would just bring more magazines and switch them out in the two seconds it takes to do that. But since you demonstrate daily that you have no common sense, here is reporting on a study showing that magazine capacity is irrelevant: http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/27/the-high-capacity-magazine-myth/
“Armor piercing” ammunition is just a scary lib term for hollow points, which save the lives of innocent bystanders in a defensive shooting by not sailing straight through the target and killing anyone in the way for the next mile. It’s frangible ammunition, and it has never been a factor in gun violence. If the guys killing each other in Chicago (Yay, gun control!) used more expensive hollow points, there would be fewer innocent children getting hit by the gunfire.
Finally, waiting a month to buy a gun? Sure, but what does that accomplish? Every “mass shooting” has been done with legally purchased guns that we’re not recently purchased. These mentally ill people planned their attacks. It only takes one gun, and many domestic violence killings only take one bullet. This has to be one of the dumber suggestions from the “party of science.”
Now that you’ve had your ass handed to you on every point, your M.O. Is misdirection and snark. Rather than make a very tenuous comparison to abortions, you should be looking at the always- inconsistent Left, arguing that the war on drugs failed but waging an identical war to ban guns.
“educated conservatives”?
Do you mean the ones who want to teach creationism and the earth being 10,000 years old? The ones who deny climate change and pollution effects? The ones who think women secrete a special hormone during rape to prevent pregnancy?
No one needs guns that have 30 rounds in a clip. No one needs a gun so badly they can’t wait a few days or a week. No one needs armor piercing bullets.
Getting a gun should be more difficult than getting an abortion in Kansas.
New Liberal Lion, condescension has never gotten libs anywhere. Millennials will include educated conservatives; they like data and facts and can see that gun control laws have never made any sense. You don’t even try to make an argument for any gun control measure, because you can’t.
Mcginty is a lunatic. Hope to God she wins the primary.
@ Multi Tasker General
Wrong. Millennials will be in control in the future when in the voting booth. You Pennsyltucky hillbillies better take note. 🙂
More gun control will not save lives just because Democrats like McGinty say it will. As usual, the left isn’t letting a tragedy go to waste and is looking to score some cheap political points by passing bad legislation based on emotion instead of reason. If stricter gun laws reduced gun violence, Chicago would be the safest place in America, but they had over 400 shootings last year.
Diano, good luck proposing a gun control measure that would have stopped any of the well publicized shootings to date. None has been proposed so far. Not one. The left will always lose on this issue because they keep proposing ideas that would never stop the violence that they are targeting.
aaron-
Being a prominent pro-gun state is the problem that needs to be fixed.
In one of the most prominent pro-gun states in the USA lol. Guns don’t kill campaigns. Mcginty kills campaigns.
I hope Toomey takes this request seriously, as it is a bit more important than making a bet about the Bucs.