Gun reforms in US gain bipartisan swing amid rising violence

The dividing issue of gun control in the United States seemed to be bridging after senators from both Republican and Democratic parties said they shared similar ideas to move forward. The gun control issue has been recently sparked again in the political sphere of the country after coutnrywide series of mass shootings, which claimed more than a dozen lives, were recorded this month.

In NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’, Democratic Senator from Connecticut Chris Murphy and his Republican counterpart from Pennsylvania Patrick Toomey portrayed bipartisan agreement to tackle the increasing gun violence in the country, after bilateral compromise and understanding from both sides. 

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The discussion revolved around a bill passed in the House of Representatives recently that aims to review and alter the current mechanisms set in the legislature possessing weaker background checks for those wishing to purchase guns. Murphy emphasised the importance of at least 10 Republican lawmakers to breach the filibuster vote in the Senate, reported The Washington Post. 

“Once we convince Republicans that the sky doesn’t fall for you politically when you support a reasonable expansion of something like background checks, you can move on to other interventions,”, he said in NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’. 

Meanwhile, Toomey hopped on the gun reform bandwagon led by the Democratic party and demonstrated support for background checks. However, the Republican Senator, in contrast to Democratic beliefs, said that the reason for such gun violence was criminal intent, instead of the easy access to guns. 

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He said, “I’m not a dangerous person. My focus has always been, make it more difficult for people that we all agree shouldn’t have firearms, make it more difficult for them to get firearms — that is violent criminals, the dangerously mentally ill. That’s what we should focus on”, reported The Washington Post.

US President Joe Biden, earlier this week, urged for gun control and reforms in the US and labelled the notion of this legislative alteration as “common sense”. Biden even hinted at his consideration of signing executive orders restricting access to imported arms.