Congress sends landmark gun compromise to Biden

WASHINGTON » The House sent President Joe Biden the most wide-ranging gun violence bill Congress has passed in decades on Friday, a measured compromise that at once illustrates progress on the long-intractable issue and the deepseated partisan divide that persists.

The Democratic-led chamber approved the election-year legislation on a mostly party-line 234-193 vote, capping a spurt of action prompted by voters’ revulsion over last month’s mass shootings in New York and Texas. The night before, the Senate approved it by a bipartisan 65-33 margin, with 15 Republicans joining all Democrats in supporting a package that senators from both parties had crafted.

The bill would incrementally:

• toughen requirements for young people to buy guns,

• deny firearms from more domestic abusers, and

• help local authorities temporarily take weapons from people judged to be dangerous.

Most of its $13 billion cost would go to bolster mental-health programs and for schools, which have been targeted in Newtown, Conn., Parkland, Fla., and many other infamous massacres.

The bill would make the local juvenile records of people age 18 to 20 available during required federal background checks when they attempt to buy guns. Those examinations, currently limited to three days, would last up to a maximum of 10 days to give federal and local officials time to search records.

People convicted of domestic abuse who are current or former romantic partners of the victim would be prohibited from acquiring firearms, closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole.”

That ban only applies to people married to, living with or who have had children with the victim.

There would be money to help states enforce red-flag laws and for other states without them for violence-prevention programs. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have such laws.

The measure expands the use of background checks by rewriting the definition of the federally licensed gun dealers required to conduct them. Penalties for gun trafficking are strengthened, billions of dollars are provided for behavioral-health clinics and school mentalhealth programs, and there is money for school-safety initiatives, though not for personnel to use a “dangerous weapon.”