The US Senate on Thursday easily approved a bipartisan gun violence bill that seemed unthinkable a month ago, putting the legislation on the verge of winning final congressional approval.
The US House of Representatives was yesterday set to vote on the US$13 billion package, exactly one month after a gunman massacred 19 students and two teachers at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school.
Just days before that, a white man motivated by racism allegedly killed 10 black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Photo: AFP
The two slaughters — days apart and victimizing helpless people for whom the public felt immediate empathy — prompted both parties to conclude that Congress had to act, especially in an election year.
After weeks of closed-door talks, Senate bargainers from both parties produced a compromise taking mild, but impactful steps toward making such mayhem less likely.
“Families in Uvalde and Buffalo, and too many tragic shootings before, have demanded action, and tonight, we acted,” US President Joe Biden said after the passage.
The legislation would toughen background checks for gun buyers aged 18 to 20, keep firearms from more domestic violence offenders and help states put in place “red flag” laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people adjudged dangerous. It would also fund local programs for school safety, mental health and violence prevention.
The Senate approved the measure 65-33. Fifteen Republicans — a remarkably high number for a party that has derailed gun curbs for years — joined all 50 Democrats, including their two independent allies, in approving the bill.
Still, that meant that fewer than one-third of Republican senators backed the measure — and with Republicans in the House expected to solidly oppose it, the fate of future congressional action on guns seems dubious, even as Republicans are expected to win House and possibly Senate control in November elections.
Top House Republicans urged a “no” vote in an e-mail from the No. 2 party leader, US Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana. He called the bill “an effort to slowly chip away at law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.”
Although the bill was noteworthy for its contrast with years of stalemate in Washington, it falls far short of more robust gun restrictions Democrats have sought and Republicans have thwarted for years.
Those included bans on the type of weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines used in the slayings in Buffalo and Uvalde.
“This is not a cure-all for the all the ways gun violence affects our nation,” said US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose party has made gun restrictions a goal for decades. “But it is a long overdue step in the right direction.”
US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a nod to the Second Amendment right to bear arms that drives many conservative voters, said that “the American people want their constitutional rights protected and their kids to be safe in school.”
The day proved bittersweet for advocates of curtailing gun violence. Underscoring the enduring potency of conservative clout, the right-leaning Supreme Court issued a decision expanding the right of Americans to carry guns in public by striking down a New York law requiring people to prove a need for carrying a weapon before they get a license to do so.
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