Washington (Reuters)-Friday (June 24), the US House of Representatives passed an important gun safety law for the first time in 30 years and sent it to President Joe Biden, who will sign the law.
The House of Representatives cast 234-193 votes on the bill the day after the Supreme Court’s ruling significantly expanded gun rights.
The Democrats did not object, but 14 Republicans supported the bill.
It was endorsed by a major law enforcement group, and its passage was a rare defeat for American firearm manufacturers and the National Rifle Association.
The House’s actions were endorsed by 15 Republicans, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, following a Senate vote later Thursday to pass the bill.
Gun control has long been a divisive issue in the United States, and many attempts to set new restrictions on gun sales have failed until Friday.
The passage of what some Democrats characterized as a modest first-step building followed last month’s mass slaughter at a supermarket in Buffalo, NY and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
In a debate, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, “The bill includes several powerful ways to save lives, not only from horrific shootings, but also from the daily slaughter of gun crime, suicide and tragic accidents. Measures are included. “
Pelosi points out that guns have become a leader in “American children’s hitmen,” and Congress goes further and further changes to gun background checks and “massive weapons” restrictions. Said that it was necessary to legislate.
The bill has taken some steps in the background check by allowing access to information about the serious crimes committed by the boy for the first time.
It will also crack down on the sale of guns to buyers convicted of domestic violence.
And it provides new federal funding for states that manage “danger signal” laws aimed at removing guns from those who are considered dangerous to themselves and others.
The Brady Gun Management Group described the “bipartisan safer community law” as “the strongest gun violence prevention law in the last 30 years” and said that “100 people were killed every day” in the United States. .. Many of those deaths are the result of suicide.
Jim Jordan, a senior Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee, said:
He referred to the constitutional right to “hold and bear the right to arm”, which conservatives argue should be widely protected.
Deep divide
On Thursday, the Supreme Court broke New York State’s restrictions on carrying hidden pistols outside the house with its 6-3 conservative majority. The court found that the law enacted in 1913 was unconstitutional.
The ruling and gun safety law passed on Friday show a deep division of firearms in the United States weeks after the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings that killed more than 30 people, including 19 infants, in primary school.
The National Rifle Association, the most powerful gun lobby in the United States, has declared that the Supreme Court has decided a “monumental victory” for American gun owners.
On Friday, it attacked a bill passed by Congress and called it a “meaningless” gun control that “only violates the right to comply with the law.”
Parliamentary legislation is considered modest in scope for the world’s highest per capita gun ownership and the highest number of mass shootings each year among the wealthiest countries. increase.
In 2020, U.S. gun mortality surged 35% to its highest level since 1994, a deadly level for young black men in particular, the U.S. Disease Prevention and Control Center reported on May 10. It is stated in the book.
