Twenty bipartisan members of the U.S. Senate announced Sunday they had reached agreement on a series of provisions to increase gun regulation, which are limited measures taken as a result of pressure following the recent killings that rocked the country.
Measures requiring overwhelming Senate majorities include encouraging states to remove guns from people deemed dangerous and measures to keep schools safe.
“Today we are announcing a logical bipartisan proposal to protect America’s children, keep our schools safe, and reduce the risk of violence in our country,” the Democratic-Republican group said in a statement.
“Our plan increases critical mental health resources, improves school safety, supports students, and helps ensure that dangerous criminals and people diagnosed with mental illness cannot buy guns,” she added.
But these measures do not include the basic demands for reform that the Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, are calling for.
However, immediately after the agreement was announced, the US president praised “progress”, which he considered insufficient but “important”.
“It clearly doesn’t include everything I consider necessary, but it provides important steps in the right direction, and it will be the most important arms control law passed by Congress in decades,” Biden said in a statement.
“With bipartisan support, the Senate and House of Representatives have no excuse for delays and no reason not to act quickly,” he added.
The President is pushing for more fundamental reforms, including a ban on the sale of assault rifles, which were recently used in the Texas elementary school shooting that killed 21 people and the New York State store that killed 10 people, or at least least, raising the age threshold for those who can buy them.
He also urged lawmakers to step up background checks on gun buyers and hold gun manufacturers accountable for the crimes they commit.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a wide range of proposals, including raising the age for buying most semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.
But the party doesn’t have the 60 votes needed to get it into the Senate, making a bipartisan agreement the only hope for federal action to combat gun violence.
