I take this latest development to being one of the ultimate cynical moves by a politician. Joe Manchin has announced that he is all for raising the age from 18 to 21 years old for buying an AR-15. What Merlin? Shouldn’t this be good news? I’ll explain in a moment why I believe that the bipartisan senate group “negotiations” on a gun control bill is really quite dead. Or was still born.
First, here is what the Abominable No Man from WV had to say:
CNN—Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voiced his support Monday for raising the age to 21 for purchasing semi-automatic weapons and questioned why individuals need to own high-powered AR-15-style weapons, putting him at odds with Republicans who are resisting imposing any restrictions on access to firearms.
“I never thought I had a need for that type of a high-capacity automatic weapon,” Manchin told CNN on Monday. “I like to shoot, I like to go out and hunt. I like to go out sports shooting. I do all of that. But I’ve never felt I needed something of that magnitude.”
If you took Manchin at his word, this would be a great development for gun control. Before now, Manchin didn’t want to regulate assault rifles. Period.
But there is absolutely no mention of Manchin allowing a carve out from the Senate filibuster in the CNN article. Zip. Nada. None.
In fact, CNN goes out its way to remind its readers that the Senate filibuster is why we cannot have a real gun control bill to vote on and pass the dysfunctional U.S. Senate.
While Democrats can pass gun bills through the House on the strength of a party-line vote, as they plan to do this week, the vote count math is far more difficult in the Senate. Democrats control the narrowest possible majority in the chamber with only 50 seats and would need at least 10 Republicans to break a filibuster and advance any potential gun package.
Manchin and Sinema have it within their power to allow a carve out on this issue to the Senate filibuster. But as with voting rights, and codifying Roe, and police reform, neither egomaniac will give up the power invested in them by Republican obstructionism. But Manchin lays it all on thick about how he has seen the light on gun control, adn we must do something about it.
Manchin is calling for raising the age limit for buying AR-15, and red laws, and he wants his expanded background checks back in any new bill on gun control. Sounds wonderful to me. But those Senate Republicans think all those items are deal breakers.
Republicans have pushed back on raising the age to 21, with some pointing to a 2-1 ruling in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals finding that a ban on 18- to 20-year-olds buying the guns is unconsitutional, though a full panel of the court has not ruled of the matter.
The two leading GOP senators involved in gun talks on Capitol Hill – Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas – signaled Monday evening that it’s unlikely Congress will raise the age requirement for purchasing semi-automatic firearms, instead saying they are looking at changing the criminal background check system to access juvenile records before a sale is complete.
“I would say that will be controversial,” Cornyn told CNN of raising the age to 21. “But that’s being discussed.”
Yeah, right. Being discussed. Uh huh.
Manchin knows all this. He is well aware that Republicans are negotiating in bad faith. And he is using the filibuster in a way that all politicians who NEVER want to see some piece of legislation passed.
Many a senator has said, “I’m all for policy X!” And they talk about policy X, and maybe they craft a bill to address policy X. But these same senators can count, and they fully expect the Senate filibuster to kill the bill before it gets a chance to be voted on. Once policy X goes down to defeat before it is even debated, senators who voted “Yes” will say, “We tried but the filibuster stopped us!”
And here is where I know that Manchin is that kind of cynical politician:
As Democrats try to see if a deal can be reached this week, Manchin said talks should continue into next week if the senators are close to a deal.
“I think if we’re close to getting an agreement, yeah, I’m not gonna push something that’s gonna blow the thing up,” Manchin said.
Emphasis is mine.
Go for another week. If we are close to a deal, I will drop all my demands for a tougher bill. I don’t want to stand in the way of doing a deal, unless it is something that will benefit President Biden, my fellow Democrats, or the American people. Then, I will go on Fox and say, “NO!”
Even knowing that this will go no where, it still infuriates me that we have to see this same sorry ass show time and time again from Manchin and the Senate Republicans.