Democratic and Republican senators from the United States announced on Sunday (12) that they will propose to increase restrictions on access to weapons in the country, after the series of mass attacks in recent weeks.
The announced proposal includes tightening background checks for firearms buyers under the age of 21, stepping up the crackdown on cases where people with clean slates buy and pass guns on to third parties who could not legally obtain them. , support state crisis intervention orders, and distribute resources to increase school safety.
The idea was still considered modest in the face of pressure that Parliament has suffered from sectors of American society, especially after the attack that ended with 22 dead in Texas in May. However, the fact that it was articulated by both Democrats and Republicans, who were more resistant to increasing gun control, adds weight to the measure.
“Our plan saves lives while protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” the group of senators, led by Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican John Cornyn, said in a statement. “We hope to gain broad bipartisan support and turn our common sense proposal into law.”
In a statement, US President Joe Biden said the bill “does not do everything I think is necessary, but it reflects important steps in the right direction” and called the measures, if passed, the most significant change in gun control legislation. in decades.
“With bipartisan support, there is no excuse for delay and no reason why it shouldn’t pass quickly through the Senate and House,” he said.
The agreement was announced a day after tens of thousands of people gathered in Washington to protest increased controls on access to weapons. In addition to the United States capital, the March for Our Lives (MFOL), a group founded by students who survived the 2018 bombing at a high school in Parkland, Florida, announced 450 demonstrations in other parts of the country, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Since the beginning of the year, the NGO Gun Violence Archive, which monitors firearms incidents in the country, has recorded 260 mass attacks, with 297 dead and 1,122 injured.
The most serious of them happened on May 24, in a Texas school that ended with 19 children and 2 teachers dead, in addition to the shooter himself. The author, an 18-year-old man, carried an AR-15 rifle and, before being responsible for the worst massacre at a children’s educational institution in the country in a decade, he also shot his grandmother.
The case in the city of Uvalde followed another episode in Buffalo, New York, in which ten people were killed in a supermarket. The author had racist motives and should be indicted for domestic terrorism. After the attack in Texas, President Joe Biden gave an emotional speech in which he criticized the pro-gun lobby in the country and defended the control on access to weapons.
On the 9th, three people were killed in Smithsburg, Maryland, on the US east coast, according to police. A fourth person was seriously injured. The attack took place in a shed of Columbia Machine, a multinational that produces equipment for industries such as concrete structures and assembly line machines. According to security forces, the shooter is 23 years old and worked at the scene.
The previous weekend, at least two other such actions took place, with a toll of nine dead and 28 injured, between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Saginaw, Michigan.
On day 2, two attacks were reported. The first took place in the parking lot of a church in Ames, Iowa, during a mass. At least two women were killed, and the shooter killed himself afterwards. The second took place in Racine, Wisconsin, during a wake, with two dead.
Earlier, on the 1st, a gunman killed four people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. According to the police the following day, the man was targeting a doctor who had operated on his back.
All the episodes have increased pressure on the US Congress and President Biden to propose and debate bills that limit access to weapons or, at the very least, impose a requirement that the purchaser present a background, such as a police record.
The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a comprehensive set of gun safety measures, but the legislation has no chance of advancing in the Senate, where Republicans have objected to the limits for breaching them. the right to bear arms of the Second Amendment to the country’s Constitution.
