Posted on 06/23/22
| News Source: The Hill
The Senate voted 65 to 33 Thursday evening to pass a bill to strengthen background checks for gun buyers younger than 21, provide billions of dollars in money for mental health treatment and help states administer red flag laws, setting up a vote in the House as soon as Friday.
The strong bipartisan vote for the bill is expected to give it enough momentum to sail through the House and make it to President Biden’s desk, giving him one of the biggest domestic policy achievements of his first two years in office.
Senators hailed passage of the legislation, which cracks down on straw purchasers and illegal gun traffickers and closes the boyfriend loophole to deny guns to romantic partners convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence offenses, as a bipartisan breakthrough.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle praised it as the most significant anti-gun-violence legislation to pass the Senate in nearly 30 years. Congress has done little to crack down on gun violence since it passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993 and the crime bill in 1994.
The legislation also provides money for school resource officers and hardening school buildings from attack.
It’s a moment of victory and redemption for Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and other Democrats who tried and failed to pass legislation to curb violence after a 20-year-old gunman killed 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
This time around, Democrats led by Murphy scaled back their demands for bold gun-control reforms such as universal background checks and bans on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines.