Toomey ads push expanded background checks on gun sales :: 03/26/2016

Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is returning to Pennsylvania's airwaves for the first time since last summer, advancing a pro-law enforcement and pro-gun control message as Democrats step up attacks on him.

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., has no opponent in the April 26 primary but expects a tough fight from Democrats as the campaign season hits high gear later this year. (AP file photo) (AP file photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)

The ads, starting Tuesday, tout Toomey's support for undoing Obama administration restrictions on police access to U.S. military gear and Toomey's push to expand background checks on firearms purchases.

Toomey's re-election bid is expected to be expensive and hotly contested, and the seat in closely divided Pennsylvania is viewed as crucial to control of the Senate.

Each of Toomey's ads feature a female narrator from suburban Philadelphia on camera: Nancy Grogan, a gun-control advocate who is a board member of CeasefirePA, and Trish McFarland, a police officer's wife.

The campaign said the ads were timed to take advantage of lower candidate advertising rates ahead of the April 26 primary, and not to counter criticism of Toomey, a former Lehigh Valley congressman who lives in Upper Milford Township in Lehigh County.

Toomey has no primary opponent, while four Democrats are seeking the party's nomination. Toomey's ads come as Democrats ramp up efforts during the Senate's two-week recess to tie Toomey to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and accuse Toomey of obstructionism in the battle over filling the Supreme Court vacancy.

The Toomey campaign would not say where the ads were running, or at what cost. The campaign of one of Toomey's potential Democratic opponents, Joe Sestak, put the price tag at $700,000 over two weeks for ads in every Pennsylvania TV market, except Erie.

Sestak, a former two-term congressman and retired Navy rear admiral who lost to Toomey in 2010, charged that Toomey has voted against substantial sums in federal grants for community policing programs, training and equipment.

Sestak's campaign also noted that Toomey has opposed other gun-control measures — banning high-capacity magazines, reinstating the 1994 ban on assault weapons and barring suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms — and it pointed to statements Toomey made while campaigning in 2010: "My idea of gun control is a steady aim."

Toomey's campaign countered that Toomey supports aid to local law enforcement agencies, but the reauthorization of the police grants was wrapped into wider-ranging, multiagency government funding bills that Toomey opposed for other reasons.

One of Toomey's signature pieces of legislation was a measure to require background checks for all gun purchases online and at gun shows, introduced after the December 2012 slayings of 20 children and six educators inside the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The measure, however, failed in the Republican-controlled Senate, most recently in December. Currently, the checks are only required for transactions from licensed gun dealers.

While Toomey voted against a bill to let the government bar sales to people it suspects of being terrorists, he supported a measure that would give the government 72 hours to get a judge's approval to halt the sale permanently. It failed to pass.

Last week, Toomey unveiled legislation — nicknamed the "Lifesaving Gear for Police Act" — aimed at nullifying President Barack Obama's order ending long-running federal transfers of some combat-style gear to local law enforcement agencies.

Obama's order came last May, following clashes between police and protesters during riots in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri. The order ended the transfer of grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, firearms and ammunition of .50-caliber or higher to state and local police agencies. It also made riot gear — batons, helmets and shields — subject to tighter standards.

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