Congress passes new restrictions, breaking impasse
WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval Friday to a bipartisan compromise intended to stop dangerous people from accessing firearms, ending nearly three decades of congressional inaction over how to counter gun violence and toughen the nation’s gun laws.
The House approved the measure 234-193 one month to the day after a gunman stormed into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and used a semi-automatic rifle to kill 19 children and two teachers, sparking outrage across the country and a flurry of negotiations on Capitol Hill. The White House said Biden would sign the bill Saturday morning.
“This bipartisan legislation will help protect Americans,” he said in a statement. “Kids in schools and communities will be safer because of it.”
Galvanized by the horror of the Texas shooting as well as a racist attack at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket that left 10 Black people dead in May, lawmakers struck a deal that fell far short of the sweeping gun control measures Democrats have long demanded but was more expansive than the steps that Republicans have been willing to consider in the past, given their hostility to any step that might curb access to guns.
The legislation will enhance background checks for potential gun buyers under the age of 21, requiring for the first time that authorities have time to examine juvenile records, including mental health records beginning at age 16.
It provides millions of dollars for states to implement red flag laws that allow officials to temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed in court to be too dangerous to own them, and other intervention programs. And it strengthens laws against straw purchasing and trafficking of guns.
In addition, the measure pours more federal money into shoring up mental health programs across the country and toughening security in schools. And the bill tightens a federal ban on domestic abusers buying firearms, including recent or current serious dating partners, to close what has come to be called the boyfriend loophole.
Final passage of the measure came a day after 15 Republican senators joined Democrats in breaking a GOP filibuster to push the measure through the Senate, clearing a hurdle that had proved insurmountable for most past efforts to update gun laws after other horrific mass shootings. The House passed the measure with a similarly low margin of Republican support, as top GOP leaders urged their members to oppose the measure as a threat to the Second Amendment.
“Today, they’re coming after our Second Amendment liberties, and who knows what it’ll be tomorrow,” Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said of Democrats.
Final approval of the measure came after the Supreme Court struck down a New York state law that restricted where gun owners could bring a firearm outside the home, a decision that cast a pall for some Democrats who were elated about the gun bill’s success after decades of congressional failure on the issue.
The compromise was struck by a small group of Senate Republicans and Democrats, including Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats, and John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both Republicans.