It seems like politics have divided us so much to the point where it has resulted in violence. As I have stated before, America is in a time where we are more divided than ever. This divisiveness has caused us to sadly overlook our political differences, set them aside and face our problems head-on. Within the past few months, there seems to be no talk of compromise or how we can face the problems that seem to plague or nation, like gun violence.
Yesterday, tragedy struck the city of Alexandria, Virginia as someone shot Steve Scalise, representative of Louisiana as well as 4 others. The shooter has been identified as James Hodgkinson, from Belleville, Illinois. His motive appears to be his strong resentment for Donald Trump which he has expressed on social media and his beliefs have been described as, “progressive”. According to his Facebook page (which has now been deleted), he was even a strong Bernie Sanders supporter. His neighbor described him as “quiet” and “mellow”, making him a very unlikely person to commit such a heinous crime. There have been strong reactions to this shooting, as both Republicans and Democrats have condemned this act of violence. Bernie Sanders himself condemned the shooting and Speaker Paul Ryan gave an emotional speech in front of the House of Representatives saying, “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us”.
The gun violence debate is nothing new, as there have been multiple violent shootings within the past 10 years in the United States. For some reason, it seems like Republicans and Democrats can never agree on what to do. There are two sides to this argument: those who are pro-gun and those who feel like there needs to be restrictions when it comes to buying them. Those who are for guns feel it is a fundamental right, as it does say in the Constitution. By their logic, putting restrictions on them means that they are taking away the rights described in the “Second Amendment.”
Those who want restrictions on guns believe that they have done too much damage. They say there needs to be restrictions on guns, meaning that before someone buys one, there should be a background check, which would check any criminal history on the person wanting to buy the gun. Although gun violence is a bipartisan issue, there never seems to be a bipartisan agreement. In typical U.S. government fashion, the act of agreeing does not exist. Sadly, it either has to be one way or the other.
What is needed more than ever is a compromise. Recently, there seems to be a lack of it and that has caused many things to go awry. America could really use common sense, empathy and the ability to take into consideration other’s perspectives. Everyone knows America as a ‘melting pot’, and the country is even named the UNITED States of America, but we are not as ‘united’ as we think. There are a lot of things that America needs to fix, but the most important issue at hand is that we fix the way that we approach issues as well as the way we handle them.
