The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives approved an 80-page gun control bill. It was supported by 65 senators, including 15 representatives of the Republican Party, which traditionally opposes stricter control in this area. In the House of Representatives, 234 people (including 14 Republicans) voted for the bill and 193 opposed it. Now it will be sent for the president’s signature.
The bill was drafted after two mass murders took place in the U.S. in May. The shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo and at an elementary school in Yuvalde killed 31 people, more than half of them elementary school students.
After the Senate vote, U.S. President Joe Biden said, “Today, after 28 years of inaction, members of Congress from both parties came together to heed the call of families across the country to pass a bill to address gun violence in our community. Families in Yuvalda and Buffalo, too many past tragic incidents have demanded action. And today we are taking action.”
The new bill calls for increased funding for school security, major investments in mental health and suicide prevention programs, and additional spending on other crisis support services. There are also plans to impose more rigorous background checks for people between the ages of 18 and 21 who want to buy guns. Controls on the private arms trade would be greatly increased.
In addition, it is proposed to limit access to guns for those who pose a threat to themselves and others, in particular, a loophole will be closed, thanks to which people convicted of domestic violence could buy firearms. There are also plans to funnel significant money into state budgets to develop their own laws regarding restricting access to guns for potentially dangerous people and developing crisis-relief programs.
“For years, the extreme left has falsely claimed that Congress could solve the terrible problem of mass murder by amending the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. This bill proves that’s not the case. Our colleagues have put together a package of popular, common sense steps that will help make horrific incidents less likely without violating citizens’ constitutional rights under the Second Amendment,” said Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.
The new bill does not impose tough restrictions, but the American public calls the results of its consideration a victory for the Democratic Party, which for years has been advocating for stricter gun control.
American media noted that the previous law of similar importance was adopted in 1994. Then, gun manufacturers were prohibited to produce high-capacity magazines for civilian use and certain types of semi-automatic weapons, which fell under the definition of an assault rifle. The ban was in effect for 10 years, but it expired in 2004 and could not be extended due to opposition from the Republican Party. Today, only seven states and the District of Columbia have banned assault weapons.
The U.S. remains the country with the highest rate of firearm deaths among developed nations. Nearly 21,000 people died in 2022 – more than nine thousand homicides and about 12,000 suicides. According to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, there have been 280 mass murders since the beginning of the year.
The Democratic Party of the United States – and, as polls show, the majority of the country’s population – favor tightening existing gun control laws. Opponents of such measures (including the National Rifle Association of America) believe that any change in existing laws would violate the constitutional right of citizens to own guns, as enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. They fear that any concession would trigger new requirements and eventually lead to a total ban on guns.
One of their main arguments is that restrictions on gun ownership would not, in practice, prevent most mass murders. The example often cited is that of American Stephen Paddock, who in 2017 committed the most mass murder in U.S. history–then killed 59 people and injured more than 500. Paddock purchased his weapons legally – he passed all the necessary checks, he had no criminal record and no obvious signs of mental illness.
A growing number of people in the United States in recent years have argued that the problem of gun violence can only be solved by repealing the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has called for the repeal of the amendment, calling it a relic of the 18th century. Walter Shapiro, a scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice (New York University School of Law), said no reform would solve the existing problems of a society with some 400 million guns stored “in closets, glove compartments and nightstands.