US Senate approves 'historic' gun safety bill
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The United States Senate, with a small minority of Republicans, passes a bill set to minimize gun violence in the country amid surging levels of gun violence throughout the US.
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Open carry gun rights advocates
The US Senate passed on Thursday a bill aimed at curbing the gun violence ravaging the United States, which has been particularly rampant over the past couple of months. The bill that passed the Senate floor includes narrow restrictions on firearm ownership and allocates several billion dollars to mental health and school security funding.
The bill is likely to be met with a green light on the house floor on Friday, but the changes included in the package pale in comparison to the demands made by the masses - especially gun safety advocates - and President Joe Biden. However, the reforms have been received positively nonetheless.
Regarded as a life-saving breakthrough for Congress, the reforms have been praised after Capitol Hill stood idle for almost three decades as gun violence tore through the United States.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act received a consensus from the Senate Democrats, garnering 50 votes from the blue party, and was further pushed by 15 votes from the body's Republicans.
"This bipartisan legislation will help protect Americans," Biden said in a statement shortly after the vote. "Kids in schools and communities will be safer because of it."
The legislation in question includes background checks for anyone under the age of 21 seeking to acquire a firearm and allocates $11 billion in funding for mental health support and $2 billion for school safety programs. It also provides funding to incentivize states to implement "red flag" laws to remove firearms from people perceived as a threat.
"Tonight, the United States Senate is doing something many believed was impossible even a few weeks ago: we are passing the first significant gun safety bill in nearly 30 years," Senate Democratic majority leader Chuck Schumer said in the wake of the vote.
His Republican counterpart, minority leader Mitch McConnell, said the legislation would make the United States safer "without making out country one bit less free."
The National Rifle Association and many Republican representatives and senators opposed the bill, but it received the endorsement of advocacy groups working in policing, domestic violence, and mental illness.
The bill also closed the key "boyfriend" loophole, which allows individuals found guilty of domestic abuse to avert bans on purchasing firearms if they were not married to or living with their victim.
Both chambers of Congress are on a two-week-long recess starting next week, but the House of Representatives, which is predominantly Democrat, is expected to approve the bill with little discourse.
US President Joe Biden had pleaded for lawmakers to pass stricter gun control laws, including a ban on assault weapons as mass shootings were turning domestic communities into "killing fields".
Biden called on members of Congress to pass tougher laws just a day after a mass shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, over a week after a school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, and almost three weeks after a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York City.
The Democrat called on lawmakers to raise - at a minimum - the age at which assault weapons can be purchased from 18 to 21. He highlighted the "unconscionable" fact that the majority of Senate Republicans do not want any of these proposals to be debated or come up for a vote.
Other measures include bolstered background checks, a ban on high-capacity magazines, maintaining safe storage of firearms, and allowing for the liability of gun manufacturers for crimes committed using their products.
