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Biden signs bill that tightens US gun control

The president Joe Biden signed the first major federal gun safety legislation in decades on Saturday, marking a significant bipartisan advance on one of the most contentious political issues in the United States. United States .

“God willing, it will save many lives,” Biden said at the White House as he finished signing the bill.

The legislation came after the recent mass shootings at an elementary school in the city of Uvalde, Texas and in a supermarket in Buffalo in New York , which was in a predominantly black neighborhood. A bipartisan group of negotiators began work in the Senate and released the legislative text on Tuesday (21).

The bill – entitled the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – was introduced by Republican Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

The House passed the bill on Friday by 234 votes to 193, including 14 Republicans who voted with the Democrats. The Senate passed the bill in a Thursday night vote (23).

In his speech on Saturday, the president announced that he would welcome members of Congress who supported historic gun safety legislation at an event at the White House on July 11, following his return from Europe to celebrate the new law with the families of victims of armed violence.

The package represents the most significant federal legislation to address gun violence since the now-expired 10-year ban on assault weapons in 1994 — though it does not ban any weapons and falls far short of what Biden and his party had advocated, and polls show. that most Americans want to see.

“While this bill doesn’t do everything I want it to do, it does include actions I’ve long advocated that will save lives,” Biden said. “Today, we say enough is enough. This time, when it seemed impossible to do anything in Washington, we are doing something important.”

Biden added that “if we were able to reach agreement on weapons, we should be able to reach agreement on other critical issues, from veterans’ health care to cutting-edge American innovation and more. I know there is so much more work to do, and I will never give up, but this is a monumental day.”

The project includes $750 million to help states implement and execute crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage “red flag” programs – which through court orders can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms – and for other crisis intervention programs such as mental health courts, drug courts and veterans’ courts.

The law also closes a gap of years in legislation on domestic violence – dubbed the “boyfriend loophole” – which prevents individuals who have been convicted of crimes of domestic violence against spouses, partners with whom they have shared children, or partners with whom they have cohabited from having weapons. Old statutes did not include intimate partners who could not live together, be married or have children.

The law will now prohibit carrying a gun by anyone convicted of a crime of domestic violence against someone with whom they have “an ongoing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.”

The law is not retroactive. However, it will allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes to restore their gun rights after five years if they have not committed other crimes.

The bill encourages states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System with subsidies, as well as implements a new protocol to verify these records.

The bill goes after individuals who sell guns as primary sources of income but who previously evaded registration as federally licensed firearms dealers. It also increases funding for mental health and school safety programs.

Shortly before signing the bill, Biden praised the families of gun violence victims he met. He said his activism in the face of loss was a differentiating factor.

“I especially want to thank the families Jill and I have known, many of whom we have sat for hours on end, across the country. There are so many we know who have lost their souls to an epidemic of gun violence. They lost their son, their husband, their wife,” Biden said.

“Nothing will fill that void in your hearts. But they have led the way so that other families don’t have the experience, pain and trauma they had to go through.”

Source: CNN Brasil

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