Under current law, anyone 18 or older can buy rifles and shotguns, including the military-style semi-automatic rifles used in numerous recent mass shootings, as well as the ammunition for both. In an attempt to keep Republicans on board, Democrats agreed to a narrower bill that largely tweaks existing gun safety measures.įor instance, the bill enhances background checks, but only for prospective gun buyers under the age of 21, requiring for the first time that authorities search juvenile criminal and mental health records over a 10-day period. There have been 279 mass shootings in 2022, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.īut while leaders on both sides of the aisle consider this a breakthrough moment, the bill falls well short of the more sweeping gun-control measures that President Joe Biden and many activists have called for, such as an assault weapons ban or restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines.
That massacre occurred just 10 days after a racially-motivated mass shooting at a Buffalo, N.Y. The Senate vote comes nearly a month after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Tex., the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. If it becomes law, it would mark the most significant action Congress has taken on gun control in nearly 30 years. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, as both parties sought to achieve the sort of deal that had eluded them for years. The bipartisan legislation came together over several weeks of intensive negotiations largely between Cornyn, a Republican, and Democratic Sen. “But it is a long overdue step in the right direction … I hope it paves the way for future action on guns in Congress.” “This is not a cure all for all the ways gun violence affects our nation,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said Thursday. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, signaled last week that the House would enact whatever bill the Senate could pass.
The bill now heads to the House, which is expected to pass it on Friday. After hours of feverish debate, they lost their motion 39 to 58. Ted Cruz of Texas and John Barrasso of Wyoming urged the chamber to instead take up their legislation, which would increase funding for school-based security officers and leave the current gun laws intact. Rand Paul of Kentucky proposed nine amendments to the bill on Thursday, arguing that the framework would not do enough to protect the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. But that didn’t stop others from attempting to delay the vote. It was all but inevitable the bill would pass after 10 Republican Senators vowed to back the original framework last week. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania and Todd Young of Indiana. It contains zero, zero new restrictions, zero new waiting periods, zero mandates and zero bans of any kind for law-abiding gun owners.”Īlong with McConnell, the other 14 Republicans that voted for the bill were Sens. “This is the sweet spot … making America safer, especially for kids in school, without making our country one bit less free,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, said Thursday.