Vice President Joe Biden celebrated New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control advocacy Wednesday at a Clinton Global Initiative gala, praising his push for tougher gun control laws as “contagious.”

“Your passion about reducing gun violence in this country is something that has become contagious,” Biden said while presenting the Clinton Global Citizen award to the mayor, as quoted by the New York Daily News.

“One of the things that President Obama said at the memorial for the victims of the Navy Yard shooting is that change isn’t going to come on this issue from Washington, it’s going to come to Washington,” he continued. “And when it does it will be … because Mike has sent it.”

Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns group pushed for gun control legislation that failed in the Senate earlier this year, which would have required background checks on firearms purchases via the Internet and at gun shows. Recently, the group gave $350,000 to the campaigns of two Colorado state senators who faced recall efforts prompted by their support for expanded background checks in that state. Both senators lost their respective recall elections earlier this month.

Accepting the award, Bloomberg pointed out his gun control efforts are “not contagious enough yet,” according to the Daily News.