(Trends Wide) — President Joe Biden signed the first major federal gun safety legislation in decades on Saturday, marking a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious political issues in Washington.
“God willing, it will save a lot of lives,” Biden said as he finished signing the bill.
The legislation came in the wake of recent mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, which was in a predominantly black neighborhood.
A bipartisan group of negotiators went to work in the Senate and released the legislative text on Tuesday. The bill, titled the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” was signed by Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
The House approved the bill 234-193 on Friday, including 14 Republicans who voted with Democrats. The Senate approved the bill in an overnight vote on Thursday.
The package represents the most significant new federal legislation to address gun violence since the 10-year assault weapons ban that expired in 1994, though it doesn’t ban any guns and falls far short of what Democrats and polls show the most Americans want to see.
Includes $750 million to help states implement and execute crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and administer early warning programs, which through court orders can temporarily prevent people in crisis from accessing firearms, and for other crisis intervention programs, such as mental health courts, drug and veterans courts.
This bill closes a years-long loophole in domestic violence law, the “partnership loophole,” that prohibited people who had been convicted of domestic violence crimes against spouses, co-parents, or partners with whom they cohabited had weapons. The old statutes did not include intimate partners who cannot live together, be married, or share children.
The law will now prohibit anyone convicted of a crime of domestic violence against someone with whom they have a “continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature” from having a gun. The law is not retroactive. However, it will allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to have their gun rights restored after five years if they have committed no other crimes.
The law encourages states to include juvenile criminal records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) with grants and implements a new protocol for checking those records.
It also goes after people who sell guns as their primary source of income but have previously evaded registering as federally licensed firearms dealers, and increases funding for mental health and school safety programs.
Vogue’s Ariane, Lauren Fox, Ali Zaslav, Melanie Zanona and Trends Wide’s Jeremy Herb contributed to this report.
(Trends Wide) — President Joe Biden signed the first major federal gun safety legislation in decades on Saturday, marking a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious political issues in Washington.
“God willing, it will save a lot of lives,” Biden said as he finished signing the bill.
The legislation came in the wake of recent mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, which was in a predominantly black neighborhood.
A bipartisan group of negotiators went to work in the Senate and released the legislative text on Tuesday. The bill, titled the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” was signed by Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
The House approved the bill 234-193 on Friday, including 14 Republicans who voted with Democrats. The Senate approved the bill in an overnight vote on Thursday.
The package represents the most significant new federal legislation to address gun violence since the 10-year assault weapons ban that expired in 1994, though it doesn’t ban any guns and falls far short of what Democrats and polls show the most Americans want to see.
Includes $750 million to help states implement and execute crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and administer early warning programs, which through court orders can temporarily prevent people in crisis from accessing firearms, and for other crisis intervention programs, such as mental health courts, drug and veterans courts.
This bill closes a years-long loophole in domestic violence law, the “partnership loophole,” that prohibited people who had been convicted of domestic violence crimes against spouses, co-parents, or partners with whom they cohabited had weapons. The old statutes did not include intimate partners who cannot live together, be married, or share children.
The law will now prohibit anyone convicted of a crime of domestic violence against someone with whom they have a “continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature” from having a gun. The law is not retroactive. However, it will allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to have their gun rights restored after five years if they have committed no other crimes.
The law encourages states to include juvenile criminal records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) with grants and implements a new protocol for checking those records.
It also goes after people who sell guns as their primary source of income but have previously evaded registering as federally licensed firearms dealers, and increases funding for mental health and school safety programs.
Vogue’s Ariane, Lauren Fox, Ali Zaslav, Melanie Zanona and Trends Wide’s Jeremy Herb contributed to this report.