WASHINGTON – Senate removes first hurdle on Tuesday to pass bipartisan measure to keep firearms out of dangerous hands, agreeing to accept compromise bill, enacting a one-year stalemate federal legislation to address armed violence.
While the bill does not meet the long-running gun control measures that Democrats have long demanded, its passage would be the most important action in decades to revise the country’s gun laws. The 64-34 vote came just hours after Republicans and Democrats published the text of the legislation, and after days of feverish negotiations to finalize the details.
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.
The 80-page bill, entitled “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” will improve background checks, giving authorities up to 10 business days to review the mental and juvenile health records of small arms buyers. 21 years, and direct millions to help states implement it. -the so-called red flag laws, which allow the authorities to temporarily confiscate weapons from people considered dangerous, as well as other intervention programs.
The measure would also ensure, for the first time, that serious dating partners are included in a federal law banning domestic aggressors from buying firearms, a long-standing priority that has eluded security advocates. weapons for years.
Senators agreed to provide millions of dollars to expand mental health resources to communities and schools, in addition to funds dedicated to increasing school safety. In addition, the legislation would toughen penalties for those who evade license requirements or make illegal “straw” purchases, buying and then selling weapons to people with a ban on buying handguns.
The margin of vote – and the swift support of the top leaders of both parties – indicated that the measure has more than enough support to scale the 60-vote threshold needed to break a Republican stalemate that has thwarted this legislation in the past. reach the final. step in the next few days.
Fourteen Republicans, including Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, a minority leader, joined Democrats in advancing the bill. Two Republican senators were absent; one of them, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, announced his support in a statement.
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. The National Rifle Association almost immediately announced its opposition, and the vast majority of Republican officials fell behind it.
But the two Senate leaders quickly issued statements of public support, suggesting that public sentiment in favor of tightening gun laws, especially in the wake of recent mass shootings, had finally broken in Congress. Mr. McConnell described the bill as “a package of common sense popular measures that will help make these horrific incidents less likely while fully guaranteeing the rights of the Second Amendment of law-abiding citizens.”
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, said he hoped the legislation would be passed by the end of the week.
“This bipartisan arms security legislation is progress and will save lives,” he said before the vote. “While it’s not all we want, this legislation is urgently needed.”
The negotiation attack has been fueled by two mass shootings in the past two months: a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two teachers dead, and a racist attack that killed 10 blacks in a Buffalo supermarket. Human devastation has brought the issue of armed violence back to the forefront on Capitol Hill, where years of efforts to enact arms restrictions in the wake of these attacks have fallen short amid Republican opposition.
Since 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats announced their agreement on a bipartisan scheme less than two weeks ago, the main negotiators: Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats, and John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both Republicans – have spent hours working out the details and working to keep their fragile coalition together.
“Today, we have finalized bipartisan, common-sense legislation to protect American children, keep our schools safe, and reduce the threat of violence across our country,” the four senators said in a statement. “Our legislation will save lives and will not violate any rights of the Second Amendment of law-abiding Americans. We hope to gain broad, bipartisan support and pass our common-law legislation.”
Last week, talks had been on the verge of failure repeatedly as lawmakers, in meetings and nightly calls, struggled to translate their outline into a legislative text. The group spent the three-day weekend haggling over the details.
The title of the bill reflected that careful negotiation; “security” was especially emphasized, not any particular limit to a person’s right to own or buy a firearm. This was in line with the way Republicans have been discussing the framework agreement, emphasizing all Democratic efforts to limit access to the weapons they have managed to keep out of the final bill.
In its final form, much of the bill’s spending went to investing in mental health, according to a summary reviewed by The New York Times. It includes $ 60 million over five years to provide mental health and behavior training for primary care physicians, $ 150 million to support the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, and $ 240 million over four years for Project AWARE, a program that focuses on supporting the mental health of schoolchildren. $ 28 million of which goes to trauma care in schools.
Two provisions have been particularly complicated in the last days of talks: whether to extend funding for red-flag laws to states that do not have such laws, and how to define exactly a boyfriend or intimate partner, as lawmakers they tried to close what has been done. it is known as the “groove of the groom”.
Current law only prohibits the purchase of a firearm by domestic abusers who have married or lived with the victim, or have had a child with her. Lawmakers expanded the definition to include “a current or recent dating relationship with the victim,” although the change cannot be applied retroactively.
Negotiators also agreed to allow dating partners convicted of a misdemeanor to regain the right to purchase a weapon after five years, as long as they were first-time offenders and not found guilty of any other crime or violent crime.
And lawmakers agreed to allow states access to federal funds to implement red-flag laws or to support what Mr. Cornyn described them as “crisis intervention programs,” including programs related to mental health courts, drug courts, and veterans’ courts.
The bill will be funded by delaying the implementation of a Medicare standard passed under former President Donald J. Trump that would limit hidden discounts negotiated between pharmaceutical companies and insurers.
Most Republicans in the Senate still opposed the move, arguing that it violated the rights of gun owners. Over the weekend, Texas Republicans booed Mr. Cornyn and he went on to formally “rebuke” him and eight other Republicans for their role in the negotiations.
Some Progressive Democrats, especially in the House, where they have advanced much more ambitious gun reform legislation, have expressed concern over the notion of “hardening” schools or further stigmatizing mental health struggles.
But arms security activists and groups such as the NAACP, which supports broader arms legislation, said they would support it in trying to address at least some aspects of a crisis that has affected the country.
“When school children, church attendees and grocery buyers are shot down, the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement.
“This bipartisan legislation meets the most important test: it will save lives,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in a statement. “We are now one step closer to breaking the 26-year deadlock that has blocked Congressional action to protect Americans from armed violence.”
Margot Sanger-Katz contributed to the report.