Top Links: Why Sen. Joe Manchin thinks second time’s the charm on background checks

Top story: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia — half of the Manchin-Toomey background checks bill that went down in defeat two weeks ago — says his bill isn’t dead and eventually will pass. He may be right.

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• Sen. Manchin made the comments on an appearance the Sunday talk shows. (Associated Press)

• Robert Levy, one of the top people at the conservative Cato Institute, is on board. (Cato)

• The question is whether the Toomey half of Manchin-Toomey is on board (The Huffington Post)

• Sen. Toomey: “Until we have such reason to believe that we’d have a different outcome I think the issue is resolved by the Senate. I accept when the senate speaks and so I’ve turned my attention to the fiscal and economic matters that I’ve normally focused on.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

• Five “no” votes will have to become “yes” votes for background checks to pass. And as the 2014 midterms get closer, that math gets harder and harder. (The Fix)

• The problem — at least according to this Washington Examiner report — isn’t so much the NRA as Tea Party-backed senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. (Timothy Carney)

• Oh, and senators like James Inhofe who is against — yes, against — closing the terrorist loophole on gun purchases. (Igor Volsky)

• Of course, it took almost seven years and three presidents for gun control advocates to pass the Brady Bill. So nothing’s impossible. (Fordham Urban Law Journal)

• And then there is recent polling, which has not been kind to some of the senators who voted against background checks. (Public Policy Polling)

• Gallup: Two-thirds of voters think the Senate should have passed Manchin-Toomey. (Gallup)

• The NRA is even having to run ads for Senator Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, after her popularity nose-dived after the vote. (Think Progress)

• Bloomberg News’ excellent editorial on the way forward on background checks — force gun dealers to comply with oft-broken firearms laws — has this interesting statistic: “a 2000 report by the ATF found that only 2 percent of licensed dealers accounted for more than half of the guns used in crimes in 1998 that were traced to dealers.” (Bloomberg)