Almost everybody knows about the San Bernardino shooting on December 2nd where the married couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire on a holiday party, killing 14 people and injuring 22. The Colorado Springs shooting on November 27, where 3 people were killed and 9 were hospitalized, also received extensive news coverage. Additionally, the New York Times published an editorial on the first page for the first time since 1920, its topic: gun control. In the New York Times article “Gun Debate Yields Page One Editorial,” the publisher of New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., explains that the editorial, titled “End the Gun Epidemic in America” was placed there “to deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country’s inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns.” The editorial itself makes the criticism that “America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing.”

Seemingly supporting the point made in the editorial, on December 3rd every Republican senator except Mark Kirk R-Illinois voted against an amendment to the Obama Care Repeal Bill sponsored by Dianne Feinstein to prohibit the purchase of firearms by those on the FBI’s terrorist watch list. A similar bill also sponsored by Feinstein was assigned a congressional committee on the 24 of February, but has not moved forward from there (“Senate Blocks Efforts to Keep Guns From Terrorists,” the Hill). However, bipartisan support does appear to be present, as the Bush administration supported the idea in 2007 and House Republican Peter King introduced a similar bill. The bill introduced by King has also seemingly stalled as it was assigned a congressional committee on February 25th, but has also not moved forward. According to the site govtrack, Feinstein’s bill has a 1% chance of being enacted, and King’s bill has a 2% chance of being enacted.

Some have proposed executive action on the part of the president as an alternate route to reducing gun violence. In his New Year’s Address, Obama stated: “A few months ago, I directed my team at the White House to look into any new actions I can take to help reduce gun violence.” The Washington Post article “Obama Plans Curbs on Guns” explains that the idea of requiring licenses for informal gun dealers and tightening the requirements for background checks to eliminate loopholes such as gun shows and online dealers, was discarded two years ago, but has regained interest after recent shootings. On the other hand, it seems our president is willing to compromise provided it results in some action. In his address he admitted, “We can’t stop every act of violence,” but asked, “what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something – anything – to protect our kids from gun violence?”