Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a leading voice for commonsense approaches to gun safety, issued the following statement about the four gun-related votes today in the Senate.
"Today's votes were nothing more than a partisan charade. They are symbolic of why most Americans have so little faith in Washington, and why Washington too often does so little to address the serious problems our country faces.
"Today's votes were designed to fail. They were designed to maximize partisan differences, and minimize our ability to find the common ground needed to actually make progress and save lives. That is an outrage.
"On background checks, had there been a real search for common ground, there would have been a vote on the bipartisan legislation that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and I authored in 2013 and that I still support. In fact, Sen. Manchin and I filed our proposal again as an amendment last week in the hopes of getting it acted upon today. Instead, the Senate considered a different extreme background check amendment that had even less bipartisan support.
"On the issue of keeping guns away from terrorists, rather than considering compromise legislation that I have introduced or that is being worked on by Sen. Collins (R-Maine) and others, we once again voted on previously defeated proposals that had no meaningful level of bipartisan support.
"There should be a sensible middle ground on issues such as expanded background checks and keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists, but today's votes mark another missed opportunity to find it. When I first dove into the gun safety effort after the Sandy Hook shootings, I worked across party lines, since that was the only way to get something done. Today, bipartisanship is needed more than ever on this issue that cries out for action. Today, we did not get that. But I will not give up, and in the days and weeks to come, I remain determined to achieve real results for the American people, whose safety depends on it."
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