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“I never thought I had a need for that type of a high-capacity automatic weapon,” Manchin told CNN on Monday. “I like to shoot, I like to go out and hunt. I like to go out sports shooting. I do all of that. But I’ve never felt I needed something of that magnitude.”
“It depends on what they, how they would approach it,” Manchin said. “I’m open to anything that makes gun sense.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wants a deal resolved by this week, but both sides are uncertain whether they can get there.
While Democrats can pass gun bills through the House on the strength of a party-line vote, as they plan to do this week, the vote count math is far more difficult in the Senate. Democrats control the narrowest possible majority in the chamber with only 50 seats and would need at least 10 Republicans to break a filibuster and advance any potential gun package.
In the Monday interview, Manchin argued that two new laws could prevent some of the recent mass shootings: Requiring individuals to be 21 to buy high-powered rifles and imposing minimum state standards to create red flag laws. The two elements are part of the bipartisan negotiations, but Senate sources have expressed skepticism that raising the age for gun purchases will be included in any final package due to GOP resistance.
“Every time we’ve tried to do something after horrific, horrific tragedy such as this, people said, ‘Well, that wouldn’t have prevented that, that wouldn’t have prevented that,’ ” Manchin said. “Well, we know we can do something that would have prevented this: raising the age. Making sure that the age at least gives us a chance to work with that person, see, evaluate and, and have a little maturity to them. And the second thing is that we know that the red flag laws do work, as long as there’s due process.”
Republicans have pushed back on raising the age to 21, with some pointing to a 2-1 ruling in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit finding a ban on 18- to 20-year-olds buying the guns is unconsitutional, though a full panel of the court has not ruled of the matter. Manchin rejected the argument that raising the age is unconstitutional.
“Why do we have driver’s license? Why is there a certain age for everything that we do in this society?” Manchin asked. “It’s always been accepted. So I don’t see how this one thing can be any different than other things we do.”
“Oh, internet sales has to be taken care of,” Manchin said.
As Democrats try to see if a deal can be reached this week, Manchin said talks should continue into next week if the senators are close to a deal.
“I think if we’re close to getting an agreement, yeah, I’m not gonna push something that’s gonna blow the thing up,” Manchin said.
CNN’s Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.