AMN / WEB DESK
U.S. President Joe Biden today signed into law the first major federal gun safety legislation passed in decades, marking a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious policy issues in Washington. After signing the bill at the White House, Biden said that God willing, it’s going to save a lot of lives.
“This is monumental day,” Biden said at the White House, with his wife Jill by his side. “God willing, it’s going to save a lot of lives.”
The Supreme Court on Thursday declared for the first time that the U.S. Constitution protected an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. Gun control has long been a divisive issue in the nation with several attempts to put new controls on gun sales failing time after time.
The legislation came together in the aftermath of recent mass shootings at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school and a Buffalo, New York, supermarket that was in a predominantly Black neighborhood. The house on Friday passed the bill by 234-193, including 14 Republicans voting with Democrats.
The Senate passed the bill in a late-night vote on Thursday. The new law enhances background checks on young gun buyers between 18 and 21 years of age.
It encourages states to develop more and better red flag laws that would deny guns to people who are deemed to be dangerous. Gun rights groups still protested the final product. The National Rifle Association said these measures were hastily jammed through with ambiguous language and overbroad definitions to appease gun control supporters in Congress.
Some Democrats said, they wished the law would go farther, but supported it as better than nothing. They also vowed to continue pushing for more restrictions on guns in the future.