Although many people continue to question the law’s actual impact on reducing gun violence, the U.S. Congress this week decided to approve the country’s first gun control measures since the ban on assault weapons for ten years in 1995.
Following a difficult two-week process to persuade a dozen Republicans in both chambers to join a chorus of Democrats in response to tremendous public outrage over recent mass murders, the Senate’s definitive vote of 67-34 on Thursday and the House’s vote of 237-198 on Friday.
Sandy Phillips, a national gun control campaigner whose 24-year-old daughter Jessi was killed in a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, ten years ago, said, “We now have a minor dent in the NRA’s (National Rifle Association) dominance over Republican legislators.”
She told Bazzup on Friday that although “this bill doesn’t go nearly as far as it should to safeguard children and innocent people in America from gun murder, it’s better than nothing.”
The measure was created in response to a number of mass shootings that occurred last month, including one in Texas that left 19 children and two instructors dead at an elementary school and another hate crime massacre in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 African Americans dead at a grocery.
The bill’s passing startled gun control experts on both sides of the issue and was postponed last week by Republicans who opposed a “Red Flag” provision known as the “boyfriend exclusion” that shielded women from irate, dangerous boyfriends.
The wealthy, prominent, and powerful NRA spends millions of dollars each year backing Republican candidates who are opposed to all forms of gun control.
In contrast, the Democratic Party has fought for modest measures to reduce the startling 41,367 gun deaths each year in America, compared to 9,543 in Europe, which has twice the population of America.
In the next days, Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden is anticipated to sign the legislation into law.
National Public Radio summarized Biden’s appeal to Congress last month, asking them to establish national Red Flag rules, raise the purchase age for semi-automatic firearms to 21, and enhance background check regulations.
A small number of GOP legislators rebelled against the NRA to pass these straightforward ideas, but the NRA rejected their requests and the majority of its Republican supporters continued to support them.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump instantly opposed the law, capitalizing on NRA talking points that any gun control measures were giving in to liberal demands to take away guns from all Americans.
When will middle America wake up and understand that the far right is manipulating it like a puppet and advancing a radical right wing agenda that oppresses and kills Americans? stated Phillips.
Baby steps continue to kill babies, according to Phillips. Although this law could be beneficial, it falls far short.
