Big problems, consensus solutions: Why so hard for Congress to act?

“Do something!” a protester cried out as President Joe Biden left a church service Sunday in Uvalde, Texas.

“We will,” the president responded, pointing to the demonstrators as he climbed into his limousine. 

For the second time this month, President Biden and the first lady visited a grieving community following a gun massacre – first in Buffalo, New York, where a racist assailant killed 10 Black people at a grocery store, and then in Uvalde, where 19 elementary school children and two teachers were killed in the worst school shooting in nearly a decade. 

Yet once again, the seeming disconnect over federal action on gun safety appears poised to play out. Overwhelming majorities of the public have long favored certain measures aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. And as in the aftermath of other mass