NRA member Senator comes out in favor of MORE regulation as nation gears up for tough debate on gun laws



You'd be hard-pressed to find politician with a better record on supporting the right to bear arms than Sen. Joe Manchin. He's an avid hunter, self described 'proud outdoorsman,' and a longtime member of the National Rifle Association.

But with Newtown, Connecticut beginning their funerals for 20 dead children murdered in their classrooms Friday by gunman Adam Lanza - not to mention seven more adults - Manchin believes that stricter gun control laws are not only reasonable but absolutely necessary.

'This is bigger than just about guns,' Manchin said. 'It's about how we treat people with mental illness, how we intervene, how we get them the care they need, how we protect our schools. It's just so sad.'

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Bigger than politics: NRA member and U.S. senator Joe Manchin said there was no civilian need for automatic weapons

Searing: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg demanded gun control be the nation's number one priority on 'Meet the Press' on a show gun-rights advocates refused invitation to

The West Virginia Democrat's comments Monday morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe echoed a call for

Killer: Adam Lanza shot and murdered 27 people Friday, 20 of them schoolchildren

gun control that's grown substantially in voices and volume since Friday's tragedy.



As a man who'd spent the weekend hunting with his family, Manchin said he understood gun owners concerns about the chipping away at the Second Amendment and 'taking guns away and people not allowed to have them. That's not what this should be about. Millions and millions of people are proud gun owners and they do it responsibly and by the law.'

Still, that did not mean that anyone should be able to buy any gun they want.



'I don't know anyone in the sporting or hunting arena that goes out with an assault rifle,' he said. 'I don't know anybody who needs 30 rounds in a clip to go hunting.'

Today, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) spoke out in favor of tighter gun control laws, saying that his role as a father has made his stance all the more personal.

'I'm a father of three daughters, and this weekend they all said, dad you know, how can this go on?’ he said, speakin g on WTVR in Richmond, Virginia.

Sen. Warner, who has an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association, said Monday that 'enough is enough,' and urged both Republicans and Democrats to put bipartisanship aside, and together strive for harsher gun control laws.

Speaking out: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) said that enough is enough and there should be serious discussions on gun control

‘I join with the president and reasonable folks in both parties…what those specifics ought to be, there will be time for that,’ he said, declining to go into more specifics.



The U.S. has more private gun owners than any other country.

Sales of firearms spiked in 2012, a year in which spree shootings routinely dominated national news from the July slaughter at a midnight screening of the Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado that killed 12, to a shooting at the Empire State building in August that claimed 2, to a massacre inside the Clackamas Town Center shopping mall in Oregon where 2 innocent people died just 72 hours before gunman Adam Lanza stepped into the hallways of Sandy Hook elementary.



Approximately 16.8 million background checks for gun purchases were performed this year alone, double the number performed just ten years ago, according to the FBI.



In the early 90s Congress enacted a 10-year ban on assault weapons that exp ired in 2004, and since then the issue has essentially been avoided with politicians fearful of gun-rights lobbyists and few Americans loudly demanding changes.



But now the debate is unlikely to quiet down again any time soon.

President Barack Obama's trip to console grieving families in Newtown is the fourth such journey he's made during since his election.



Angry: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg rallied for stronger gun control laws with survivors and family members of gun violence

Hero: Vicki Soto, 27, was trying to shield her first grade students from the gunman when she was shot

Shooter: Nancy Lanza taught her son, Adam, to shoot and he raided her gun collection to carry out his massacre

Sunday night he vowed to use 'whatever power this office holds' to keep America's children safe, with pundits speculating that that is an unspoken promise to change gun policies.

Manchin is the most prominent gun rights advocate to speak publicly in the wake of the shooting.

The National Rifle Association has made no statement on either the Sandy Hook shooting or the call for increased gun control.

The organization went so far as to remove its Facebook page after it was slammed by millions of people blaming the group's strong lobbying influence for weak gun control laws, and culpability in the deaths of the children in Connecticut.



Manchin believed his fellow NRA members knew regulation was necessary.



'Never before have we seen our babies slaughtered. It's never happened in America that I can recall, seeing this carnage,' Manchin said. 'Anybody that's a proud gun owner, a proud member of the NRA, they're also proud parents, they're proud grandparents. They understand this has changed where we go from here.'

'Meet The Press' host David Gregory said pro-gun rights senators refused to appear on the news program Sunday.



Memorial: A makeshift memorial to the Sandy Hook victims lights the night in Newtown

'We reached out to all 31 pro-gun rights senators in the new Congress to invite them on the program to share their views on the subject this morning,' host David Gregory said during the broadcast. 'We had no takers.'

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg did make a searing appearance, demanding Obama make reform his top priority.



'It only happens in America. And it happens again and again,' Bloomberg said. 'There was another shooting yesterday; three people killed, I think, in a hospital. We kill people in schools, we kill them in hospitals, we kill them in religious organizations, we kill them when they're young, we kill them when they're old. We've just got to stop this...If [Obama] does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns.'

Ironically, Jim Lanza's first victim and the person who taught him to handle firearms was a his mother, Nancy Lanza.

Nancy's friends described her as avid gun enthusiast, always responsible with her weapons, who regular took her two sons target shooting and had several firearms.



Change: President Obama spoke at an interfaith vigil on Sunday night for the shooting victims from Sandy Hook Elementary School, promising his office would use all its power to protect children

Lanza raided that collection, taking her Glock, Sig Sauer, and Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic rifle.



They may not be ready to publicly debate regulation, but pro-gun politicians certainly haven't disappeared entirely.



In an e-mail sent to school superintendents in his district, Oregon State Rep . Dennis Richardson boasted that he himself would have stopped the shootings had he been a an armed teacher at Sandy Hook.

'If I had been a teacher or the principal at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and if the school district did not preclude me from having access to a firearm, either by concealed carry or locked in my desk, most of the murdered children would still be alive, and the gunman would still be dead, and not by suicide.'

Aim: Three men hold their guns in cases as they walk to the entrance of Shooters Pistol Range in New Milford, Connecticut on Saturday

Meanwhile, gun owners are flocking to Shooters in New Milford, Connecticut, the nearest shooting range to Newtown.

On Sunday, the range was open and it was business as usual as customers lined up outside waiting to take turns to squeeze off rounds in one of the 12 stations where shooters take aim at targets at up to 50 feet away.

The range rents out guns too, and advertises revolvers and semi-automatic handguns and rifles from .22 to .45 calibers.

Mike D'Amico and his 14-year-old son were there Sunday for their weekly hour-long target practice. 'We enjoy it, it's our personal enjoyment,' D'Amico told The Gaurdian. D'Amico also gave his opinion on President Obama's call for 'meaningful action' on gun control. 'I've thought this for quite a while,' he said. 'I think we do need more gun control. I don't see the need people to carry some of these big guns. They're not appropriate.'

