republicans. three members of the gop senators toomey and kirk and collins are breaking with their party. two other republicans senators mccain and ayotte are reportedly on the fence along with six democrats. steve schmidt, we, obviously, are focusing on the republican party. marco rubio and 90% of the state believe criminals should have a background check before buying a bush master on the internet you have to scratch your head and democrats as well. i should direct this to david and harold next. i don t know how any democrat, any democrat in this national democratic party votes against background checks to make sure that violent rapists or violent child molesters or terrorists don t have to go through a background check before buying a
bill, the manchin/toomey bill, would address what happened in newtown. it is true. they also say, gary, that in fact the families didn t come to ask for anything specific. no. they just came to ask for action. i think in that sense they were very effective. in other words they got the debate galvanized. i think what s really striking from their point of view and the point of view of gun control advocates how far back the line has moved here. we re talking about background checks, we re not talking assault weapons bans or limits on magazines. in effect the agenda might move forward but more limited agenda than people really would have thought two months ago i believe. in fact, donna, we re not talking universal background checks. private sales can go on without background checks, which certainly senators toomey and manchin hope will bring folks on board. is it any less of a victory if it doesn t have kind of the things we started out talking about, assault weapons ban and limiting
checks. it s really hard to say. you know, you and i grew up, remember we heard the nra say guns don t kill people, people kill people? the logical result of that is, let s do background checks and keep the guns out of the hands of people who shouldn t have them. this registry thing is the best argument they have. frankly, i m disappointed in senator cruz. he s a really senator guy. there s nothing about registries. in fact, toomey and manchin have negotiated this. we ve been having background checks for 25 years and the records are kept at the gun shops. there s no federal record of them. there s not a federal registry. everybody understands that what the issue there is. and he, you know, he lumped me in i guess with everybody else because i m supporting background checks saying what they really want is registration. that s not what i want. i want a background check so the people who shouldn t have guns don t get them. and it s people with criminal records, people who are prone to vio
latinos. obama will get most of the credit but republicans will get some. on guns with this recent agreement between senators toomey and manchin, that also will, i believe, not just pass the senate, but it will be approved in the house. the reason being wow, you are optimistic, sir. here s why, chris, this is why this bill is going to go through in the house. obviously there are some republicans who are scared of primaries, but if they are in swing districts, several of them there s ten of them. which were carried by obama, they have to worry about those ads paid for by mike bloomberg and others that have newtown parents in them, that are denouncing them for being on the wrong side of this issue. what wants to sail into that wind? they will come around to this legislation. you re making the case. i don t think it s there yet. thank you, mayor brown, about the exposition i think is true about past and future. thank you, jonathan. i think you re way ahead of time on that
provision pushed by senators toomey and manchin. that s going to be an amendment at some point to the larger democratic legislation. and all of these are going to require more votes and more votes to finally try to push through a package. of the 68 senators who voted to start debate on this bill, 16 were republicans. so to get to 60 votes again is going to require significant republican support on numerous more votes. that s going to be a tough call. if, by chance, this does clear the senate, what chance if any, will it have in the house? well, the house, as you know is a republican majority. 232 republicans. speaker john boehner has faced a lot of criticism over the past few months for bringing up bills that were opposed by a majority of his caucus. something that something called the hastert rule named for former house speaker dennis hastert where the speaker is not supposed to bring legislation that s opposed by the majority of the majority. the senate bill if it does, or