On Sunday, a bipartisan group of Senators announced a deal on new gun safety legislation, although the actual text of an eventual bill hasn’t been formulated yet. The group included 10 Republicans, meaning that if all stay onboard with the initiative through the stage of voting on it, it can overcome the Senate’s filibuster rules. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) pledged to bring the eventual legislation to a vote.
“Today’s announcement of a bipartisan gun-safety framework is a good first step to ending the persistent inaction to the gun violence epidemic that has plagued our country and terrorized our children for far too long,” Schumer said. “Once the text of this agreement is finalized, I will put this bill on the floor as soon as possible so that the Senate can act quickly to advance gun-safety legislation.” There’s been another renewed push for action on gun safety following the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 kids and two adults were killed. The attacker in that incident was under 21 and legally procured an assault weapon he used in the massacre — and the attacker in another recent mass shooting, which took place in Buffalo, New York, was also under 21 years old.
This initiative will address that. As agreed to by the 20 total Senators in the group behind the weekend announcement, the legislation — if passed — “will limit the ability of potential mass shooters to quickly obtain assault rifles by establishing an enhanced background check process for gun purchasers under age 21, invest in the adoption and expansion of state red flag laws, close the boyfriend loophole, establish federal penalties for gun traffickers, and fund critical support services to help address our nation’s mental health crisis,” as Schumer’s statement explained it. Devastating gun violence has continued in tragedies across the nation since the Buffalo and Uvalde incidents. “After an unrelenting wave of gun-related suicides and homicides, including mass shootings, the Senate is poised to act on commonsense reforms to protect Americans where they live, where they shop, and where they learn. We must move swiftly to advance this legislation because if a single life can be saved it is worth the effort,” Schumer said.
David Hogg, who survived the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and is now involved with the national advocacy organization March for Our Lives, which he helped found, hailed the announcement of the new bipartisan gun legislation deal. “This is a first step and it’s actually a lot more than I thought it would be,” Hogg said on Twitter Sunday. “This is progress even if small. Even if it stops one parkland it’s worth it.” Among other recent displays of intense opposition to the persistence of the pro-gun lobby in the United States, a huge crowd of protesters turned out to the site of the recent Houston NRA convention as it began, and more recently, there was a series of anti-gun violence demonstrations around the country this past weekend associated with March for Our Lives. Houston was among the sites of protests this past weekend.
