Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA): Assault weapons are extremely popular, so I'm not going to support a ban

[Miles Archer]

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) said on Tuesday that he would not support a ban on assault-style rifles because they are “very popular.”

Toomey made the remarks after Fox News host Sandra Smith asked him if Republicans would do anything to prevent mass shooters from getting magazines that hold up to 100 rounds of ammunition.

“My focus is on keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have guns, people who have no legal right to a firearm,” Toomey insisted. “Guns that are described as assault weapons are almost invariably no more powerful than regular hunting rifles.”

“They are no more lethal,” he continued. “They are extremely popular, so to ban an extremely popular firearm, I’m not going to support that, that would be an infringement on the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/gop-sen-pat-toomey-opposes-ban-on-assault-rifles-because-they-are-extremely-popular/

[Turbineguy]

1. Yes.

It's my favorite weapon to get shot with too!

[malaise]

2. So are ganja, cocaine, heroine and opioids

Fuck you enabler of murderers

[Pachamama]

7. I would take Ganja out of that mix....

The other 3 along with assault weapons have not done much good and have played a role in violence and much death....

[malaise]

13. My point is that it is banned

but I do get your point

[Pachamama]

14. I knew what you meant....

[malaise]

15. Back at yah

[SWBTATTReg]

8. Ditto! NT

[bearsfootball516]

3. Hope he enjoys losing reelection in 2022

He won in 2016 by 1.6 percent in a traditionally blue state that barely went for Trump.

[MyOwnPeace]

10. You will NEVER convince me.............

that either Toomey or IQ45 "won" PA. There can be no doubt that the count was altered, "corrected," or in some way tampered with.
BOTH were losing that morning, according to polls, and SOMEHOW......................

[bearsfootball516]

26. Polls aren't perfectly accurate

The morning of the 2017 Alabama Special Election, polls had Doug Jones losing to Roy Moore.

[C_U_L8R]

4. What a profile in cowardice.

How does this slimeball sleep at night?

[MyOwnPeace]

12. He sleeps

on a pile of Wall Street and NRA money.

[Johonny]

5. As long as Americans are getting mowed down by the popular gun brands, I'm all for it.

The battle cry of someone that doesn't give a shit about your life.

[DFW]

6. I'm sure dumping raw sewage on Republican Senators would be popular in some circles, too

As far as I know, it's still banned, though, even though such a ban is an infringement on the rights of freedom of expression to U.S. citizens with any sense of decency or justice.

[cornball 24]

9. Tumor is a blight on Pennsylvania.

[PA Democrat]

23. He is a blight on the whole country.

He was one of the authors of Trump's obscene tax cuts.

[at140]

11. So are STD's

Granted not by choice but all STDs are increasing.
The govt has to do whatever necessary to protect innocent civilians.

[aikoaiko]

16. This is a moderate stance we can work with to get meaningful gun control through

Assault Weapons Bans just don't work in the US because they hinge on definitions that really don't impact the function of the rifles.

For example, CT had the state-equivalent of the 1994 AWB in place when Adam Lanza used a completely legal AR15 to massacre school teachers and children. It most likely met the definition of NOT being a banned rifle because it had a muzzle brake instead of a flash suppressor and didn't have a bayonet lug. How do I know? Well, that's the type of AR I bought legally during the Federal AWB.

The "tighter" AWB that was proposed in 2013 as a response to the Sandy Hook massacre would have made the Lanza rifle illegal, but all he would have done to make it legal again was change the grip. A $30 part replaced with a screwdriver.

[Hoyt]

19. Oh, come on. The laws can be written to ban semi-auto rifles with detachable magazines and

Last edited Tue Aug 6, 2019, 01:16 PM - Edit history (1)

limit rounds to 5. It's not that hard, although you guys will surely obfuscate.

You can modify your rifles to fit that definition or destroy them.

[aikoaiko]

22. California tried to go down this route, but detachable was trickier to define than expected.

The line between disassembling and detaching was the issue if I recall correctly.

Google bullet button.

I didn't pay much attention that that issue not being in CA myself.

[Hoyt]

24. It's only a problem because gunners push the envelope trying to get the deadliest rifles they can.

[fescuerescue]

35. Which means it's a problem

Since we can count on them doing exactly that.

[MarvinGardens]

44. What do you think about magazine size limits for semiautomatics?

An AWB is complicated, but the following would seem simple: treat a 100 round magazine the same way bump stocks or full auto are treated under the NFA. Also do the same for magazines larger than "x", where "x" is a number that most folks would consider extreme. What do I think? 30 seems crazy high. I'd say x should be some number between 10 and 30, but that is just my opinion.

[aikoaiko]

45. I would start be limiting rifles to 30 rounds and pistols to 20.

And then NFA magazines over 30/20 with a reasonable fee.

[MarvinGardens]

46. Thank you.

[packman]

17. The guy brags about NOT taking NRA $, but....

Toomey’s campaign received a $4,950 direct contribution from the NRA’s PAC in 2010. During that cycle, the NRA also spent $882,034 on independent operations in support of Toomey (such as advertisements, printed literature and phone banks) and $558,502 on operations against his opponent, Democrat Joe Sestak. The Toomey race was one of the NRA’s largest campaign investments that year.
...

CRP asserts on Open Secrets that Toomey received $79,908 in pro-gun rights money during the 2016 cycle. But that number doesn’t just count contributions from pro-gun rights groups like the NRA or the SCI – the overwhelming majority of that $79,908 is from individuals who CRP classifies as pro-gun rights based on other donations they have made.


https://checkyourfact.com/2018/03/03/fact-check-toomey-nra-given-dime-since-2010/

[PA Democrat]

18. Just got off the phone with Toomey's office

I told them that I don't care about how "popular" assault style weapons are. I said no one needs a magazine that can hold 100 rounds of ammunition and that for me being able go to a store or for a night out without worrying about being mowed down in a barrage of gunfire seems to be a more "popular" stance.

I told the staffer no one who does the NRA's bidding will get my vote.

[Butterflylady]

20. Well I see the Heritage Foundation

Is getting their moneys worth.

[mainstreetonce]

28. I just called

I told them his statement about "popular" is totally unacceptable and he needs to put out a retraction of those words immediately.

[spanone]

21. MAY YOUR VOTERS KICK YOU OUT ON YOUR STUPID ASS, SIR

[PA Democrat]

25. That is the plan!

[Frustratedlady]

27. "...assault weapons are almost invariably no more powerful than regular hunting rifles."

Am I wrong in saying that is a load of BS?

Am I wrong in that those bullets of assault weapons tear up the insides of the victims?

All those people hit in under 30 seconds would be enough to ban assault weapons without considering the number killed.

"Very popular" tanslates into "number of votes I might get if I don't ban assault weapons."

[hack89]

36. He was half right

The bullet from a typical hunting rifle is much deadlier than one from an assault weapon - it is bigger and hits with much more energy. Also hunting bullets, unlike military bullets, are designed to expand after impact.

But assault weapons have the capacity to carry more bullets.

[Frustratedlady]

38. I thought assault bullets exploded on impact and spun around...

Probably not a good description, but I thought they did a lot of damage to organs when they hit... nothing like going straight through. It was my understanding that surgery was a nightmare in a lot of situations.

The only time I shot a rifle was back in the 50s. I hit a squirrel sunbathing on a limb (big challenge, eh?) and never picked up another gun. I'm sure "hunting" rifles have changed a lot in those years.

[hack89]

42. Military bullets are covered by the Geneva Convention

It would be a war crime to arm soldiers with civilian hunting bullets. Expanding bullets are explicitly banned - military bullets must have full metal jackets which is why they are illegal to hunt with - they can go right through a deer without doing fatal damage.

[Frustratedlady]

43. Thanks to everyone for their input. Never too old to learn. n/t

[haele]

39. From what I understand, the AR-15 type beloved by mass shooters

Is less powerful than the average hunting rifle, or military rifle, for that matter. The average civilian "scary looking bad-assed man card" with those high-capacity magazines are made for killing or wounding large groups of people with the body armor of at most a lined leather motorcycle jacket.
They're not optimal for hunting anything with thicker hide than a yearling. Certainly not any good for "30 to 50 feral hogs invading my yard just after my small kids went out to play" as one gun-humper claimed he used his AR-15 for - unless he has using it as a noise-maker.
As it is, he'd have just made a typical feral hog Sounder (usually no more than a dozen hogs in most heavily rural locations in the real world) pissed at him if he actually shot at them with an AR-15 - like using a .21 cal. pistol to take down an elk or grizzly at distance. Feral hogs are f'ing light tanks.
These wanna-be warrior firearms are only good for plinking, hunting small game for sport, or hunting civilians.


Haele

[sarisataka]

40. It depends

If you are speaking purely of kinetic energy, it is a true statement. The 5.56 round of an AR 15 is on the low end of power, an AK's 7.62 is getting closer to the middle of the range.

If you expand your definition of power, few pure "hunting" rifles can match the capacity and rate of fire of "assault" rifles though each type can function in the opposite role to varying degrees.

All bullets tear up the insides of what they hit, there is no kinder, gentler way to be shot.

[Clarity2]

29. Can we

get grenades legalized? Because that would be popular too. They do basically the same kind of damage some of these assault weapons do.

[mainstreetonce]

31. Junk food is very popular

Could you get those damn fruits and vegetables off supermarket shelves.We need more room for the popular stuff.

[FakeNoose]

30. Says the stupid prick who stole a Senate seat

They are not extremely popular, certainly not in Pennsylvania. The only pro-gun thing that Pennsylvanians care about is DEER HUNTING and nobody does that with an assault rifle.

Prick!

[trueblue2007]

32. [said in all caps] I SUPPORT A BAN ON HIM. get him out of the senate now !!!

[Freethinker65]

33. Screw right from wrong...popularity rules!!! GOP values

[grumpyduck]

34. In other words, ASSHOLE,

you get money from NRA, so you'll do whatever they tell you.

[dustyscamp]

37. Another Repug that needs to be gone

[MFM008]

41. Think of the poor mass shooters!!

[struggle4progress]

47. "And I'm just beginning to notice how popular sexual assault is, too!"

[GoCubsGo]

48. So, are you going to remove the national ban on marijuana, too?

It's way more popular than guns are.

[Takket]

49. "very popular."

No they're not.

"Do the math and it works out to between 15 and 20 million modern sporting rifles now in circulation. (An important note: The NSSF report includes weapons produced for law enforcement.)"

https://www.thetrace.org/2018/09/how-many-assault-weapons-in-the-us/

even if you assume 20 million and no one person owns more than 1 (which is actually inaccurate, most people that own them own multiple)........ 20 of 350 million is only 5.7% of the population.