How the Suburbs Could Drive a Compromise on Gun Control

Democrats in Congress looking for a Republican to work with on gun legislation first tried Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (a regular member of bipartisan "gangs" of various kinds). That strategy, though, may have been done in by geography. As the Washington Post points out today, gun advocates in Coburn's largely rural state balked at potential new background check legislation. Even if Coburn had been inclined toward compromise, his rural state – where gun ownership and NRA sympathies run high – was not.

More recently, Democrats appear to have found a different source of bipartisan support for significant new gun control: otherwise right-leaning politicians who represent suburban constituents. Lawmakers from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Virginia have recently warmed to new gun legislation. As Philip Rucker and Paul Kane propose in the Washington Post: