For Pa.’s Pat Toomey, the bipartisan gun bill caps nearly a decade of unlikely work on the issue

WASHINGTON — When the Sandy Hook school massacre wrenched the country in 2012, Sen. Pat Toomey was largely known as a staunch conservative who focused on economic policy.

That searing incident, though, turned Toomey into an unlikely Republican leader on guns, and after nearly a decade working on the issue, helped bring about votes this week that sent stricter gun laws to the president’s desk for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Toomey was one of the architects of the bill that supporters hailed as an historic breakthrough in Congress, capping his surprising role on the issue. It started in 2013, soon after the Sandy Hook shooting, when Toomey became the lead Republican sponsoring a bill to expand background checks, turning a fiscal hawk into a central figure in the contentious cultural debate. That move made Toomey one of the few Republicans in Congress willing to support any type of tougher gun law, and while Democratic critics questioned his effectiveness on and commitment to the issue, gun groups advocating for tougher gun laws often saw him as a rare GOP ally.

With just months now remaining in his time in office, the bipartisan gun bill that passed just weeks after another school shooting tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, is likely to mark one of Toomey’s last major legislative achievements in a career that has largely centered on advancing conservative views on issues like tax rates, international trade, government spending, and the Federal Reserve. Toomey isn’t seeking reelection this fall.

The plan, certain to be signed by President Joe Biden, won praise from Democrats and advocates for tougher gun laws as a key step, but it falls far short of Democrats’ and Toomey’s original goals.

“One of the things about being in this business is you have to calibrate expectations and strive for what is doable, what can be accomplished,” Toomey told reporters ahead of the Senate vote Thursday. “This is moving us in the direction of increasing the chances that we keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and the dangerously mentally ill while not infringing on law-abiding and competent citizens’ Second Amendment rights.”

» READ MORE: Pat Toomey, again negotiating a gun deal, says senators are ‘closer’ than after Sandy Hook

Toomey’s original plan, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.), would have expanded background checks to cover all commercial gun sales, including those at gun shows and over the internet, which are currently exempt. The measure passed by Congress takes only incremental steps to tighten background checks.

“It’s not exactly the same thing as Manchin-Toomey, but there’s a lot of common sense,” Toomey said. “It will make our communities somewhat safer” and protect gun owners’ rights.

“There’s more work to do, but this is a historic moment we should all be proud of,” tweeted Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman who was gravely wounded in a shooting and has become a leading advocate for stricter gun laws. Her husband, Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), voted for the measure.

The plan passed the Senate in a 65-33 vote, with 15 Republicans joining every Democrat in support. The House passed the measure 234-193, with every Democrat supporting it along with 14 Republicans, including Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Bucks County.

“This bill won’t stop the violent shootings by deranged criminals,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.,), who opposed the measure but didn’t cast a vote. “But it will restrict the freedoms of law-abiding Americans and put too much power in the hands of politicians and political officials.”

Toomey wasn’t the only Pennsylvanian whose role shifted after Sandy Hook.

Sen. Bob Casey radically changed his stand on guns after the incident, reversing his position less than two months after winning reelection as a Democrat who opposed tougher gun laws.

For Casey, Thursday’s vote also marked the first progress since that shift.

“I will never forget the shock, horror, and grief of learning that 26 families would never see their loved ones again,” Casey wrote this month in a Washington Post opinion piece recounting his change of heart after the Connecticut school shooting.

“The idea that more than two dozen students and educators could be slaughtered in a matter of minutes because a 20-year-old had virtually unfettered access to weapons of war was too much to bear.”

» READ MORE: Sen. Bob Casey changes stance, supports new gun laws

Yet if Newtown sparked new roles in the gun debate for both of Pennsylvania’s senators, and Thursday’s vote advanced their views, it also illustrated the limits of even horrific murders’ power to alter the politics in Congress.

It took almost a decade — and countless additional mass shootings — to get any bill through the Senate. And the measure that passed would make small steps.

It would allow for more time to conduct background checks on gun buyers younger than 21 years old, and allow the federal background check system to review juvenile criminal history and mental health records that could bar some potential buyers.

Other provisions would expand restrictions on gun purchases to include, for five years, people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence involving dating partners. It would enhance penalties for gun trafficking; require more people to register as licensed gun dealers, and thus require them to conduct background checks; and increase funding for mental health and school security programs. It would also provide money for states to implement “red flag” laws, which allow authorities to temporarily confiscate guns from people adjudicated to be a threat to themselves or others. The money could also be used for mental health, drug, or veterans courts, in the aim of expanding crisis intervention.

Toomey himself opposed more sweeping moves to ban assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, arguing that those steps would punish law-abiding gun owners. He says background checks only restrict those who should be barred from owning firearms.

His impending retirement could alter the math on future debates over gun laws. The Democratic nominee to replace him, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, supports a range of tougher laws and has said he would support the bipartisan bill that just passed. GOP nominee Mehmet Oz has said he opposes most new gun laws, including universal background checks, but his campaign didn’t respond to questions about whether he would have supported the Senate bill.

Toomey’s stand on guns brought some backlash from conservatives, but arguably it ultimately helped him win reelection in 2016, by expanding his appeal to more moderate voters. Toomey emphasized his role on guns while trying to reach swing voters, and in a narrow victory ran ahead of Donald Trump that year in suburban areas.

Perhaps ironically, his victory with that appeal in turn helped the GOP keep control of the Senate, and advance conservative goals like the 2017 tax cuts Toomey championed and the reshaping of the U.S. Supreme Court, whose conservative justices on Friday struck down the constitutional right to abortion in a decision Toomey applauded.

On Thursday, just as the Senate prepared to vote on its gun bill, the court’s conservative justices also nullified a New York state law that limited gun owners’ abilities to carry firearms outside their homes.

Toomey praised that decision as one that would preserve the rights of law-abiding gun owners, while also preparing to vote for the bipartisan Senate bill.

After years of seeing the issue stymied, he said, “it’s gratifying that we’ve been able to make progress here.”