WASHINGTON — A split developed in the usually united gun-rights lobby on Sunday as a well-regarded Second Amendment organization enthusiastically endorsed compromise legislation proposed by Sens. Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey that would expand background check requirements for gun sales, a position opposed by the National Rifle Association.
“We decided to back it because we believe it is the right thing to do,” said Julianne Versnel, director of operations for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which counts 650,000 members and supporters among its ranks.
The group was founded in 1972 and functions as a kind of sister organization to the Second Amendment Foundation, a legal think tank and law firm based in Bellevue, Wash., that, along with the NRA, has been a leader in filing major court challenges to halt restrictions on gun rights.
In explaining the decision, Versnel cited the value of a strong background check system for most gun sales and provisions that would prohibit establishment of a gun owner registry by the federal government.
Supporters of the Citizens Committee were informed of the endorsement by email, Versnel said. Manchin, D-W.Va., announced the endorsement publicly.
“It's huge,” Manchin said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The chairman of the Citizens Committee, Alan Gottlieb, urged members to read the senators' compromise proposal to understand why the gun-rights group would back it.
“If you read the Manchin-Toomey substitute amendment, you can see all the advances for our cause that it contains,” Gottlieb wrote. He then listed the gun rights advantages in the bill: “interstate sales of handguns, veteran gun rights restoration, travel with firearms protection, civil and criminal immunity lawsuit protection, and most important of all, the guarantee that people, including federal officers, will go to federal prison for up to 15 years if they attempt to use any gun sales records to set up a gun registry.”
These “advances” cannot be achieved, Gottlieb wrote, “unless we win the Senate vote on Tuesday to substitute Senators Manchin and Toomey's balanced approach” to background checks. Gottlieb, like other gun group leaders, opposes a more sweeping background check bill proposed by Schumer.
The Manchin-Toomey legislation is endorsed by gun-control advocates such as New York's independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer. The two authors of the bill, Toomey, R-Lehigh County, and Manchin, have been supported in the past by the NRA, but their position stirred speculation that they might lose some of that backing.
The NRA reiterated late last week that it opposes their proposal, saying it would do no good in fighting criminal use of guns and would expand government powers.
The Citizens Committee is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization that can lobby. Gottlieb is a founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, which does legal work on behalf of gun rights. It is a nonprofit that is not authorized to lobby.
