In modest breakthrough, US senators announce outline of gun control deal

Measures include access to juvenile records of young gun buyers and incentivizing states to enable confiscation of guns from those deemed dangerous; Biden hails ‘important steps’

A woman listens to speakers during a rally near Capitol Hill in Washington, June 10, 2022, urging Congress to pass gun legislation. On display next to her are school notebooks representing children who have died from gun violence. (Susan Walsh/AP)
A woman listens to speakers during a rally near Capitol Hill in Washington, June 10, 2022, urging Congress to pass gun legislation. On display next to her are school notebooks representing children who have died from gun violence. (Susan Walsh/AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — US Senate bargainers announced a bipartisan framework Sunday responding to last month’s mass shootings in the country, a modest breakthrough offering measured gun curbs and bolstered efforts to improve school safety and mental health programs.

The proposal falls far short of tougher steps long sought by US President Joe Biden and many Democrats. Even so, if the accord leads to the enactment of legislation, it would signal a turn from years of gun massacres that have yielded little but stalemate in Congress.

Leaders hope to push any agreement into law quickly — they hope this month — before the political momentum fades that has been stirred by the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.

The compromise would make the juvenile records of gun buyers under age 21 available when they undergo background checks. The suspects who killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo and 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde were both 18, and many of the attackers who have committed mass shootings in recent years have been young.

The agreement would offer money to US states to implement “red flag” laws that make it easier to temporarily take guns from people considered potentially violent, and to bolster school safety and mental health programs.

And it would take other steps, including requiring more people who sell guns to obtain federal dealers’ licenses, which means they would have to conduct background checks of purchasers.

Biden said in a statement that the framework “does not do everything that I think is needed, but it reflects important steps in the right direction, and would be the most significant gun safety legislation to pass Congress in decades.”

Given the bipartisan support, “there are no excuses for delay, and no reason why it should not quickly move through the Senate and the House,” he said.

Most Popular
read more: