Now that the House has passed the measure, it will go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law, a major bipartisan breakthrough in one of Washington’s most controversial political issues. The Senate passed the bill in a nightly vote Thursday. The measure includes millions of dollars for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs and incentives for states to include youth records in the National Instant Criminal Background Verification System.
It also makes significant changes in the process when someone between the ages of 18 and 21 goes to buy a firearm and closes the so-called boyfriend gap, a victory for Democrats, who have long been fighting for it.
The package represents the most important new federal legislation to address armed violence since the 1994 10-year assault weapons ban expired, though it does not ban any weapons and is a far cry from what Democrats and polls show. that most Americans want to see.
Reaching a bipartisan agreement on major arms legislation has been notoriously difficult for lawmakers in recent years, even in the face of countless mass shootings across the country.
Democrats, in particular, have quickly concluded the bipartisan arms deal, as action to address armed violence is a major priority for the party.
But the passage of the bill was overshadowed on Friday by news that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, arguing that there is no longer a federal constitutional right to abortion.
Opinion is the most consistent Supreme Court decision in decades and will transform the landscape of women’s reproductive health in the United States.
It came a day after the Supreme Court overturned a New York gun law enacted more than a century ago that imposes restrictions on carrying a concealed handgun out of the home.
The rulings again show the limited power of the Democratic party, despite controlling the two branches of Congress and the White House.
House Republican leaders oppose bill, but bipartisan support still awaited
Despite widespread bipartisan support for the bill in the Senate, top House Republican leaders opposed the bill and urged its members to vote “no.”
The bill was passed Thursday in the Senate with 15 Republicans joining Democrats in support. The final score was 65-33.
The legislation met after the recent mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that was located in a predominantly black neighborhood.
A bipartisan group of negotiators set to work in the Senate and introduced the legislative text on Tuesday. The bill, entitled Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, was passed 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.
Lawmakers then rushed to pass the bill before leaving Washington for the July quarter recess.
While lawmakers were looking for a compromise, there were points where it was unclear whether the effort would be successful or undo. But while the bipartisan effort seemed to be on ice after several key points emerged, negotiators were finally able to resolve the issues that arose.
Key provisions of the bill
The bill includes $ 750 million to help states implement and execute 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 for other crisis intervention programs such as mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.
This bill closes a gap in the domestic violence law – the “boyfriend’s crack” – that prohibits people who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes against their spouses, the partners they shared with. children or couples with whom they live to have weapons. . The old statutes did not include intimate couples who could not live together, be married, or share children. Now the law will ban having a gun on anyone who is convicted of a felony of domestic violence against someone with a “continued serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.”
The law is not retroactive. However, it will allow those convicted of domestic violence offenses to restore their gun rights after five years if they have not committed other crimes.
The bill encourages states to include youth records in the National System for Instant Verification of Criminal Records with Subsidies, as well as to implement a new protocol to verify these records.
The bill prosecutes people who sell weapons as primary sources of income, but who have previously avoided registering as federally licensed firearms dealers. It also increases funding for mental health and school safety programs.
This story and headline have been updated with additional news on Friday.
CNN’s Ariane, Lauren Fox, Ali Zaslav and Melanie Zanona contributed to this report.