U.S. Senator Joe Manchin said he and his colleagues are working hard to carefully tackle the details of criminal background checks.
“What we are looking at is all the rights of people that have guns, of people that really come from a gun culture and people that don’t come from a gun culture,” said Manchin. “I think we got a good working group that is moving favorably forward.”
That group includes U.S. Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and U.S. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Manchin was a guest Wednesday on the The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on CNN and made it clear that the bill he is working on with colleagues in no way threatens Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
“No one’s going to take anyone’s guns away and no one is going to take your Second Amendment rights away. That’s not happening at all,” said Manchin on the show. “We are not asking on any of those infringements.”
Instead, he added, it specifically focuses on expanding background checks.
“What we are saying is if you buy a gun or transfer a gun, there should be a criminal and a mental background check,” said Manchin. “With that being said, that means at gun shows, that means online sales and individual transfers.”
Manchin mentioned that there are a few situations that would be exempt from background checks. One of those is the transfer of guns between family members and the other is when going to someones farm to hunt.
The bill would also involve the creation of a commission on mass violence which would find out exactly what the problems are and ways to correct them.
Manchin said the bill he is working on addresses the mass violence problem in today’s culture. He said it comes down to how somebody can use a gun properly.
Senator Schumer presented a background check proposal Wednesday at the Capitol in Washington D.C., however both Senators Manchin and Kirk voiced their disapproval for it in a joint statement.
“We are committed to continuing to work in a bipartisan effort with Senators Schumer, Coburn and others in order to find a commonsense solution for enhanced background checks, however, Senator Schumer’s current proposal is one we cannot support as it stands today,” said the Senators in the statement.