“God forbid, this will save many lives,” Biden said when the bill was signed.
The bill came after recent mass shootings at an elementary school in Uwalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, which was located in a predominantly black neighborhood. A bipartisan group of negotiators began working in the Senate and unveiled a legislative text Tuesday. The bill, entitled The Two-Party Safe Communities Act, was passed by Republican Sen. John Cornin of Texas and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, and Democrats Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kirsten Cinema of Arizona.
The House of Representatives on Friday passed the bill 234-193, including 14 Republicans voting with Democrats. The Senate passed the bill in a late-night vote Thursday.
The package is the most significant new federal legislation to tackle gun violence since the 1994 10-year ban on assault weapons – although it fails to ban any weapons and is far from what Biden and his party have advocated. as studies show most Americans want to see.
It includes $ 750 million to help countries implement and implement crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs – which, through court orders, can temporarily prevent people in crisis from accessing firearms – and other crisis intervention programs such as mental health courts, drugs and courts for veterans. This bill closes an annual loophole in the Domestic Violence Act – the “Boyfriend Lock” – which prohibits individuals who have been convicted of domestic violence offenses from spouses, partners with whom they have children in common, or partners with whom they have cohabited. to have a weapon. The old statutes do not include intimate partners who cannot live together, be married or share children.
The law will now prohibit anyone who has been convicted of a crime of domestic violence against someone with whom he has a “continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature” from having a weapon. The law has no retroactive effect. However, this will allow those convicted of domestic violence crimes to regain their gun rights after five years if they have not committed other crimes.
The bill encourages states to include juvenile records in the National System for Immediate Inspection of Criminal Origin with Grants, and implements a new protocol for verifying these records.
The bill applies to people who sell weapons as a major source of income but have previously avoided registering as a firearms dealer with a federal license. It also increases funding for mental health and school security programs.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Claire Foran, Christine Wilson, Annie Grayer, Arian de Vogue, Lauren Fox, Ali Zaslav, Melanie Zanona and Jeremy Herb contributed to this report.
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