U.S. Senator Joe Manchin says “the fight’s not over” when it comes to his proposal to expand federal background check requirements to gun sales at shows and online.
The compromise amendment the Democrat crafted with Republican Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey did not get the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday.
Sen. Manchin, a member of the National Rifle Association, talked about the 54-46 vote on Thursday’s MetroNews Talkline. “If the NRA did not score and would not score, I predict we would have had 70 votes for this bill,” he said.
Four Democrats who are facing tough reelections next year in rural states voted against the Manchin-Toomey Amendment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cast a “no” vote for procedural reasons, allowing the proposal to be taken up again.
Including Senator Toomey, three other Republicans voted for the proposal on Wednesday. They were Maine Senator Susan Collins, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk and Arizona Senator John McCain.
Sen. Manchin says it was not a last minute plan. “We didn’t just throw it together because we thought we had to have something on the floor. We’ve been working it for the last three months or more. We’ve had everyone’s input.”
The Manchin-Toomey Amendment to the gun control legislation was one of more than half a dozen proposed amendments the U.S. Senate rejected on Wednesday.
The proposal was introduced after 26 people, most of them kids, were shot to death in December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.