You also had Democrats voting against it. But we don't have compromise as an incentive in Washington anymore.Īnd when I look back to the last time we really got gun legislation done, it wasn't just that you had Republicans supporting something. There are certainly - when you look at the data, the polling data, most Americans are somewhere in the middle and accept all kinds of compromises. Part of the challenge we have right now is that this debate is, like so many things in our politics, it's all or none. So, he is coming into it with a certain degree of skepticism that something is able to get 10 Republican votes. “Even Senator (Christopher) Murphy I think said at one point: I have been Charlie with the football many times on this issue. Add the supermajority requirement that’s emerged over the past fifteen years, and you get a political system built for paralysis – even when policy proposals have wide public support.Ī second factor: very organized and well-funded lobbies opposing changes to the status quo, no matter how deadly and unsafe for public health. As a result, individuals are increasingly taking steps to use existing legal frameworks to hold people and gun manufacturers accountable.īut a third reason for the likely gridlock ahead was pinpointed by Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report on PBS Newshour earlier this week : America’s a country founded in opposition to a monarchy and aimed at safeguarding individual freedoms, so the pace of change can often be slow. The lack of major steps on this front is partially the result of America’s system of checks and balances, one in which power is divided among different branches and levels of government.
More mass shootings will happen – indeed, they already have at a pace of two a day since the murders at the school in Uvalde. It’s very unlikely that this deadlock on guns will break anytime soon. The reaction? A chorus of conservatives saying Biden will take Americans’ guns away, with some calling for Biden’s impeachment. “Do something!” shouted someone in the crowd to President Joe Biden outside of a Catholic church where a memorial service was held Uvalde, the town where the mass shooting happened. Biden responded back: “we will.”īiden delivered an impassioned prime time speech last night calling for a ban on assault weapons, more background checks, and a repeal on gun manufacturer immunity, among other measures. Noisy gridlock: what America’s political system is best at producing these daysĪnother massacre takes place in America: this one at a school in Texas last week, killing 21 children and 2 adults. The result is a cycle with rituals that have become all too familiar: shock and horror followed by grief and mourning, then calls to action that go nowhere to change laws and policy.
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