The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill late Thursday that places restrictions on access to firearms and also allocates billions of dollars in funding for the mental health and school safety sectors.
The bill was passed by 65 votes to 33 in the Senate.
But while it will almost certainly pass the House of Representatives later on Friday, it falls far short of the measures that President Joe Biden is demanding.
Yet, in the end, it sets a decades-long precedent and represents progress in the eyes of arms control advocates.
The bill is modest, especially since its most important provisions provide for tougher background checks on those who want to purchase weapons from minors convicted of domestic violence or serious crimes.
He came up with this softened version after Republicans refused to try to negotiate more comprehensive measures, such as a ban on assault rifles or high-capacity magazines, which Democrats, including Biden, advocated.
Commenting on the Senate decision, Biden believed that this bill would protect Americans and schoolchildren, urging the House of Representatives to vote for it immediately, without hesitation.
He also saw members of Congress from both parties agree to pass a law to deal with the scourge of gun violence after 28 years of inactivity.
This vote comes just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday that citizens have the right to carry guns in public, a historic decision that has far-reaching implications for a nation that has seen an escalation of gun violence.
The decision overturned a New York State law more than a century ago that established a legal necessity or “appropriate cause” for permitting guns to be carried in public places.
