Alan Fram, The Associated Press Posted Sunday, June 12, 2022 2:40 PM EDT Last Updated on Sunday, June 12, 2022 7:56 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) – Senate negotiators on Sunday announced the framework for a bipartisan response to last month’s mass shootings, a remarkable but limited breakthrough that offers modest gun limitations and intensified efforts to improve school safety and school curricula. mental health.
The proposal is far from the hardest steps long sought by President Joe Biden and many Democrats. Still, the deal was accepted by Biden and its enactment would mark a significant turnaround after years of gun massacres that have given Congress little more than a stalemate.
Biden said in a statement that the framework “does not do everything I think is necessary, but it reflects important steps in the right direction and would be the most important arms security legislation passed in Congress in decades.”
Given the bipartisan support, “there are no excuses for the delay, nor any reason why it should not be passed quickly by the Senate and the House,” he said.
Leaders hope to push any deal into the law quickly – they hope this month – before the political momentum sparked by recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas fades. Participants warned that final details and legislative language have yet to be completed, meaning new disputes and delays could arise.
In a consistent development, 20 senators, including 10 Republicans, issued a statement calling for approval. This is potentially crucial because the biggest obstacle to enacting the measure is likely to be in the 50-50 Senate, where at least 10 GOP votes will be needed to reach the usual 60-vote threshold for approval.
“Families are afraid, and it is our duty to come together and do something to help them restore their sense of security and safety in their communities,” lawmakers said. The group, led by Senators Chris Murphy, D-Conn., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Thom Tillis, RN.C., and Krysten Sinema, D-Ariz., Produced the agreement after two weeks of talks in closed door. .
The commitment would make available the youth records of gun buyers under the age of 21 when they are subject to background checks. The suspects who killed 10 blacks at a grocery store in Buffalo and 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde were 18 years old, and many of the perpetrators of the mass shootings in recent years were young.
The agreement would provide money to states to enact and implement “red flag” laws that facilitate the temporary taking of weapons from people considered potentially violent, as well as funding to strengthen school safety and mental health programs.
Some people who sell weapons informally for profit would have to obtain licenses from federal distributors, which means they would have to conduct background checks on buyers. Condemned domestic abusers who do not live with an ex-partner, such as separated ex-boyfriends, will not be able to buy firearms, and it would be a crime for a person to legally buy a weapon for someone who could not own it.
Congressional aides said billions of dollars would be spent expanding the number of community mental health centers and suicide prevention programs. But they said some spending decisions are unresolved, as well as the final wording of juvenile records and other weapons provisions that could be controversial.
However, underlining the pressures of Buffalo and Uvalde’s election year, the parties’ shared desire to demonstrate a response to those shootings suggested that the momentum for enactment was strong.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. to vote as soon as possible.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Who has backed the talks, has been more moderate. He praised the work of the negotiators and said he hoped an agreement would make “significant progress on key issues such as mental health and school safety, respect the Second Amendment, get broad support in the Senate and make a difference for our country.” .
The deal was quickly approved by groups that support gun restrictions, such as Brady, Everytown for Gun Safety and March for Our Lives, which staged nationwide demonstrations on Saturday.
The National Rifle Association said in a statement that it opposes gun control and violates the “fundamental right of people to protect themselves and their loved ones,” but supports the strengthening of the school safety, mental health and law enforcement. The group has long been influential with millions of gun-owning voters derailing gun control units in Congress.
The agreement represents a minimum common denominator commitment on armed violence, not a radical change in Congress. Lawmakers have shown a new desire to move forward after saying their constituents have shown a greater desire for action in Congress from Buffalo and Uvalde, but Republicans still oppose more radical measures that Democrats want and the Sunday deal is omitted.
These include banning assault-style firearms such as AR-15-style rifles used in Buffalo and Uvalde, or raising the legal age to buy them. The AR-15s are popular and powerful semi-automatic weapons that can fire high-capacity magazines and have been used in many of the country’s most prominent massacres in recent years. One of them, the murder of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, took place six years ago on Sunday.
Democrats have also sought to ban high-capacity magazines and extend the background checks required to many more gun purchases. None of these proposals have a chance in Congress.
Noting that, the Democratic-controlled House last week passed comprehensive bills banning the sale of semi-automatic weapons to under-21s and high-capacity magazines, and giving federal courts the power to rule when authorities locals want to withdraw weapons from people considered dangerous. Currently, only 19 states and the District of Columbia have red flag laws. These measures will not go anywhere in the Senate, where Republicans can block them.
The last major firearm restrictions enacted by lawmakers were the 1994 assault weapons ban, which Congress passed 10 years later.
For years, congressional Republicans representing rural pro-gun voters have blocked strong restrictions on gun purchases, citing the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
Democrats, whose voters overwhelmingly favor gun restrictions, have been reluctant to pass incremental steps that they believe would allow GOP lawmakers to argue that they have tried to stem the tide of violence without addressing the issue in a meaningful way. .