Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Was this summer’s gun bill the beginning, rather than the conclusion, of a movement?

In June, President Biden signed the first significant gun control legislation in a generation, culminating a process that would have failed without public support and bipartisan cooperation in the Senate.

While some will say the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is the culmination of a social movement that kicked into a higher gear following the murder of 20 Newtown, Conn., elementary school students in 2012, a Democratic senator and former Republican House member came together Tuesday evening to discuss ways to achieve even more.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, one of the architects of the new law, and ex-Rep. Will Hurd, who represented Uvalde, Texas, for three terms, were the featured guests at a Common Ground Committee event to explore where the nation goes next on gun policy.


Murphy and Hurd agreed that two factors drove Congress’ ability to get beyond partisanship and pass significant gun control legislation: demand from the American public and strong inter-party relationships in the Senate.

“There was an imperative from the public to ... get beyond our politics and make some progress,” said Murphy, who led negotiations with Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas while Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema brought in other Republicans.

“It starts with Chris and John Cornyn having the tenacity to stick with this,” Hurd said, but agreed that popular sentiment had shifted in favor of action following the May 24 shooting in Uvalde that resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two teachers. “The public was tired. Fifty percent of teenagers are afraid of getting shot at school. That’s nuts.”

The new law takes a few big steps, including funding implementation of states’ “red flag” laws, closing the “ boyfriend loophole,” requiring stronger background checks for people under age 21 who attempt to buy a gun, requiring more gun sellers to conduct background checks, and establishing new gun crimes for purchasing a gun on behalf of another person.

However, the law does not address some gun control ideas that are popular with the American public.

For example, 92 percent told Gallup in June that they favor background checks for all gun purchases. In March 2021, the House passed a bill that would require universal background checks. Like this summer’s bill, fewer than a dozen Republicans supported it. Murphy introduced a similar bill in the Senate, but that measure never made it out of the Judiciary Committee.

“Its always had massive public support and yet it couldn’t pass. I think the only way you can explain that is through the power of the NRA,” Murphy said.

But Hurd warned against giving the National Rifle Association too much credit for preventing the passage of that measure, or other bills.

“An overreliance on just one entity would take away from how complicated this is and the need to educate members and for people to be active on these types of issues,” he said.

Hurd and Murphy both took issue with polling data that showed Democrats and Republicans divided over whether it’s more important to control gun ownership or protect the right to own guns.

“I think most Americans actually would say we can do both, we can actually protect people’s right to own guns and regulate that right. And the two are not mutually exclusive,” Murphy said.

“When you start with an issue that we agree on, then you can start talking about the things that we should be doing to ultimately solve the problem,” Murphy said.

Both men support an individual’s right to own a gun but believe that right can be regulated, including limiting the type of weapons people can purchase. However, Hurd noted, the politics of gun control has changed significantly since Congress passed a since-expired assault weapons ban in 1994.

“The environment was different on this particular issue,” he said. “There are other things that we should be focusing on in order to start building the momentum to get up to an issue of talking specifically about the weapon.”

While acknowledging data shows limits on assault weapons would likely reduce the number of gun-related murders, Murphy agreed that such a regulation likely isn’t feasible in the current state of politics. According to Gallup, 55 percent of Americans believe there should be a ban on manufacturing, owning or selling assault rifles.

So what’s next for legislation addressing gun violence? Hurd and Murphy expressed optimism that the social movement for changing gun laws has picked up momentum and there is more to come. But if Republicans win control of the House of Representatives in November, gun control advocates will find a far more difficult road to victory.

Nevertheless, they remain hopeful.

“I think the public demands a response,” Hurd said.

Read More

elections
Report: Party control over election certification poses risks to the future of elections
Brett Deering/Getty Images

The Trump Administration’s Efforts To Undermine Election Integrity

The administration’s deployment of the military in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., on a limited basis tests using the military to overthrow a loss in the midterm elections. A big loss will stymie Project 2025, and impeachment may perhaps loom.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the president have said L.A. is “prelude to what is planned across the country,” according to U.C. Berkeley law professor Erwin Chemerinsky. Chemerinsky reports that on June 8, “Trump said, ‘Well, we’re gonna have troops everywhere.’” The Secretary of Homeland Security recently announced that in L.A., “Federal authorities were not going away but planned to stay and increase operations to ‘liberate’ the city from its ‘socialist’ leadership.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Is Trump the Wizard of Oz? Behind the Curtain of Power, Illusion, and a Constitutional Crisis
Getty Images, bbsferrari

Is Trump the Wizard of Oz? Behind the Curtain of Power, Illusion, and a Constitutional Crisis

“He who saves his Country does not violate any law.”

In February 2025, Donald Trump posted a quote attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte on Truth Social, generating alarm among constitutional experts.

Keep ReadingShow less
A Wealthy Congress Doesn’t Reflect American Constituents

US Capitol

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

A Wealthy Congress Doesn’t Reflect American Constituents

Imagine being told from a young age that your life is already written: the jobs you’ll hold, the obstacles you’ll face, the limits you’ll never cross. What you’re born into is what your life will be. For millions of Americans making a low wage, that’s the reality. Democracy, in theory, is supposed to offer a way out — a chance to shape your own future. That’s the “American dream.” But for too many, it remains just a promise, out of reach. When children grow up believing their circumstances are permanent, they inherit a cycle instead of a chance.

I know this tension firsthand. On paper, I might look like I fit the mold of opportunity: white-passing, educated, and building a career. But beneath the surface, my story goes beyond that. I grew up in a low-income, mixed-race household with a Hispanic father and a white American mother. In my family, the paths laid out were often blue-collar jobs, teen pregnancy, addiction, incarceration, or worse. None of my three sisters graduated from high school, and no one in my immediate family attended college. I became the exception — not because the system was designed for me but because I found a way through it.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump’s Imperial Presidency: Putting Local Democracy at Risk

U.S. President Donald Trump visits the U.S. Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility on August 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker

Trump’s Imperial Presidency: Putting Local Democracy at Risk

Trump says his deployment of federal law enforcement is about restoring order in Washington, D.C. But the real message isn’t about crime—it’s about power. By federalizing the District’s police, activating the National Guard, and bulldozing homeless encampments with just a day’s notice, Trump is flexing a new kind of presidential muscle: the authority to override local governments at will—a move that raises serious constitutional concerns.

And now, he promises that D.C. won’t be the last. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia—cities he derides as “crime-ridden”—could be next. Noticeably absent from his list are red-state cities with higher homicide rates, like New Orleans. The pattern is clear: Trump’s law-and-order agenda is less about public safety and more about partisan punishment.

Keep ReadingShow less