On June 12, local U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, of the Lehigh Valley, and Senators Corey Booker, of New Jersey, and Chris Coons, of Delaware, were among a group of legislators to announce that, in principal, a bipartisan-supported framework for gun reform had been agreed upon.

The supporters also include Republican senators from Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, Louisiana, Maine, South Carolina, Ohio and Utah.

Senate Democrats in support are from Arizona, Connecticut, New Mexico, West Virginia and Michigan, along with Sen. Angus King, of Maine, an independent.

The general areas of agreement include increased resources for mental health, improving school safety and help for students, support for and expansion of crisis intervention, preventing the mentally ill (those deemed a threat to themselves or others) from purchasing guns and enhancing background checks for those under the age of 21.

Toomey tweeted the following statement on the agreement: “We can protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans while making our communities safer. This bipartisan agreement offers a path forward to achieving that.”

The final impetus for the senators on both sides to come together appears to be the murder of 19 children and two teachers in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

There still remains putting the ideas into proper legislative format, the vote and sending the proposed legislation to President Joe Biden.

While the agreement, in principal, is a step in the right direction, no amount of legislation, rules or laws can prevent some seriously evil people hellbent on death and destruction from carrying out their plan.

All the money in the world can be thrown at a problem, but unless the people on the receiving end of those resources do their job, the result could be devastating.

The people on the front line - parents, medical and psychiatric professionals, social workers, police, and school district boards and administrators - need to take these mass shootings in schools, in the middle of Philadelphia streets and at shopping centers seriously.

Those responding to a mass shooting cannot be as clueless as the police chief at the Uvalde massacre, who left his radio behind and, says according to news reports, he did not know he was the one in charge at the scene.

Parents need to stop being clueless about their child’s off-kilter behavior and attitude. And, they need to stop giving these particular kids guns.

School district administrators, teachers and social workers need to realize the more misfit kids they help now, the better the outcome down the road.

Preventing more coldblooded murders such as the ones that occurred at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Texas, and at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, to name only two mass school shootings, depends on the individual to do whatever is necessary to bring a potential problem to light.

Deb Palmieri

editor

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press