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Amid spate of mass shootings, US President Joe Biden signs first significant gun control law in decades - Details

According to a statement uploaded to the White House website the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act "enhances certain restrictions and penalties on firearms purchases" and promotes evidence-based best practices for school safety. It also authorizes grants to expand access to mental health services and appropriates emergency funding for mental health resources and school safety measures.

TN World Desk

Updated Jun 25, 2022, 20:18 IST

US President Joe Biden

Photo : AP

Washington: Amid a recent spate of mass shootings, US President Joe Biden today signed a sweeping gun violence bill into - bipartisan compromise that had seemed unimaginable for quite some time. The development also came a little more than a day after the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that restricted peoples' ability to carry concealed weapons.

"Their (the families of shooting victims) message to us was to do something. Well today, we did...Lives will be saved," the POTUS said at the White House.

While the bill does not included tougher restrictions that Democrats have long championed, such as a ban on assault-type weapons and background checks for all gun transactions, it is the most impactful firearms violence measure from Congress since enacting a now-expired assault weapons ban in 1993.

The legislation will toughen background checks for the youngest gun buyers, keep firearms from more domestic violence offenders and help states put in place red flag laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people adjudged to be dangerous. Most of its USD 13 billion cost will help bolster mental health programmes and aid schools, which have been targeted in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, and elsewhere in mass shootings.

In the wake of several horrific shootouts in Buffalo, New York and Texas (among other places), the move had garnered support from several congressional Republicans as well as Democrats. While a final decision took weeks of closed-door talks, the senators had emerged with a compromise.

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