PITTSBURGH — The nation’s leaders, following this month’s mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., should be focused on how law enforcement can do a better job handling problems, and on grappling with the difficult issue of mental health among would-be gun owners, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said.
Toomey said he expects heavy debate on those issues when Congress comes back to Washington this week, and as lawmakers attempt to figure out how to make schools and other parts of the U.S. more secure.
Toomey said that debate will raise all kinds of questions, such as, “Why did the FBI not take the appropriate measures when they got very clear, specific information indicating that this kid was a serious danger?” he said, adding there also needs to be a conversation about how to address the issue of mental health.
“How can we better understand a troubled, apparently socially awkward young adult male? There’s lots of them. Very few of them actually ever end up killing people, but some do. How do we figure that out? Who’s who? We’re not good at that,” he said.
Toomey said he hopes Congress can take measures, which he supports, to make it more difficult for someone who is a violent criminal or dangerously mentally ill to buy a firearm, “because those are two categories of people that we all agree shouldn’t be armed. I think in this context, in this moment, there might be a chance to do something constructive in that space while still fully respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to exercise their constitutional freedoms of the Second Amendment, which I feel strongly about.”
Toomey, in an interview with the Washington Examiner, also discussed the “power grab” by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in redrawing the state’s congressional lines and, how the U.S. should treat children of illegal immigrants.
Washington Examiner: Mental institutions started to close in the 1970s, with the thought that these issues can be dealt in a different, better way, in smaller places, and with new drugs that came out. It was supposed to help people, but did it?
Toomey: No, no. I think you’re exactly right and, in fact, when I travel around Pennsylvania, and I get all over the state, and most of our state is rural or semi-rural. And in communities all across the state, they will tell you that the local jail is now the place where someone who previously would’ve been in a mental institution [is brought]. But there is a very high frequency of mental health issues in our jail population. These people who need help, they don’t get the help that they need. They end up sometimes being homeless, sometimes committing crimes, and the only place that they end up going is there.
It is a terrible solution. That’s not a solution, and [it’s] a serious problem. We have dramatically increased the amount of taxpayer money we are dedicating to trying to cope with this problem, but we just don’t have a solution yet.
Washington Examiner: Are we afraid to discuss this?
Toomey: I think people are more and more willing to discuss it. I think there’s a greater willingness to acknowledge that this is a really serious problem. I’m of the view, it’s a mistaken notion to think that it’s a gun problem. It’s a mental health problem, and I’m in favor of making it more difficult for people to buy a firearm if they have the mental health problem. But let’s remember, we’ve got to deal with the underlying problem.
Washington Examiner: You are a Republican. You also have a C rating from the NRA, so you’ve had your challenges with the NRA, and I don’t think you’ve taken any money from them since 2010.
Toomey: Well, they haven’t offered any, so that was easy. And the reason I have a C rating is because I introduced legislation, and still support legislation, that would expand background checks for precisely the reason we just discussed, to make it more difficult for a violent criminal or someone who’s dangerously mentally ill to buy a gun. We have a background check system in place now that, by design, does not get used for sales at a gun show, for instance, or for Internet-based sales, and I just don’t think that makes sense. I think all commercial sales should be subject to the background check. That’s what my legislation did. The NRA didn’t agree with me on that. They’re entitled to their view, and that’s why I have a C rating.
Washington Examiner: What are your thoughts on Democrats and the Second Amendment?
Toomey: There are very, very few moderate Democrats left in Congress. There’s a lot across Pennsylvania, there’s a lot across America. Not so much in the established Democratic Party in Washington. That party has become dominated by a very radical left wing. Just look at it, right? It’s Bernie Sanders, who is a declared socialist; Elizabeth Warren, I don’t think she calls herself a socialist, but I can’t think of a single issue she and Sanders disagree on. That’s the wing of the party that is in control. It’s the dominant wing at this point, and it’s very hostile to Second Amendment rights.
Washington Examiner: What is the solution there? Both parties don’t talk to each other.
Toomey: No, there’s a danger there. I think the place that we could land, that we should be able to land, is this space that [West Virginia Democratic Sen.] Joe Manchin and I have been pushing, right? We have 100 percent agreement in our society that if you are a violent criminal, or you are dangerously mentally ill, it is OK to deny you the Second Amendment. You just don’t get it. Little children [should also not be able to buy a gun], right? Everybody agrees. Those are the three categories that do not get to legally buy a firearm. So since we all agree on that, can’t we agree that you need a mechanism to ensure that somebody is not in one of those three categories? That’s all I’m asking. And most strong Second Amendment supporters agree with me on this.
Some pro-Second Amendment institutions won’t go there, but rank-and-file members of those institutions, they’re OK with a three-minute background check when they go to buy a firearm. They know they’re going to pass it, and they don’t want the crazy guy to be able to buy the firearm. They don’t want the violent criminal. So I still think there’s work to be done in this.
By the way, people that we suspect of being terrorists, and we are so worried about [people] being terrorists that we will not allow them to board a plane. Now, let’s think about that, right? We’ve got a category of people that can show up at the airport with a valid ticket and an ID, and we will not let them board the plane because we’re so worried that they may intend to take it down, but yet, they can then walk down the street and buy an AR-15. That doesn’t make any sense. So these are things that we can do that do not infringe the rights of law-abiding citizens, and they will help to make it, at least, more difficult for dangerous people to buy firearms.
Washington Examiner: Where is Congress on DACA?
Toomey: We were unable to get to 60 votes on any of the competing ideas. I think Republicans have put the most generous possible offer on the table, right? It’s available not just to the 690,000 people who signed up for DACA, this protection and legal status, but rather, 1.8 million who are eligible for it. And it’s not just you can stay here legally, it’s a path to citizenship. There’s not much more you can ask for than that, and what we’ve said is, in return for that, we want some resources to help secure the border, and we want to change the rules for immigration so that citizens can bring in immediate family members, but not extended family members, because when you allow extended family members, it becomes an unlimited chain of people who can come to this country.
And I’m OK with legal immigration, but I think it is reasonable to have a more merit-based system rather than just a family-based system. The nuclear family, absolutely. Spouse, dependent children, absolutely. But you start talking about siblings, and the sibling’s spouse, and then the sibling’s spouse can bring their siblings, it becomes endless. And so we’re suggesting those components, right? Path to citizenship for 1.8 million people who came here illegally, but they came as children, not responsible for that decision. Fine. Citizenship for them, security at the border, and change the rules on immigration going forward. I think that’s a reasonable deal.
Washington Examiner: What are your thoughts on the map redrawn by the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court in January?
Toomey: This is outrageous. It is a blatant partisan power grab by the court. It is unconstitutional, it is illegal, and there should be consequences. This is really bad.
They have no constitutional authority to invalidate the map in the first place, that’s number one. Number two, they came along and made up arbitrary criteria for drawing the map. They have no authority to do that. Then, they reject a modified map that the leadership of the House and state Senate proposed, and they decide to draw their own map. They have no authority to draw a map. But not only that, when they draw the map, they violated their own criteria so that they can help Democratic candidates for office.
Look, the existing map has gerrymandered seats. The Republicans absolutely did that. But you know what? They followed the law. They did their job. They drew the map. They had a vote. Forty percent of Democrats in the state House voted in favor of this map. It was a bipartisan vote on a map, and you know what? If the Pennsylvania voters don’t like this map, they can take it out, quite rightly, on the people who drew it, and throw them out of office every two years. These Supreme Court justices who should be held more to the standard of obeying the law, following the rule of law, and respecting the Constitution than our court system, for crying out. We should all feel obligated to follow the law, but my goodness, if you can’t count on your state Supreme Court to follow the law, then where are you?
