US passes first major gun control bill in decades
- The legislation comes after two massacres last month that saw 10 black shoppers gunned down in New York and 21 people, mostly children, slain in Texas
- Fourteen Republicans defied their leader Kevin McCarthy to cross the aisle and approve the 80-page package in the Democrat-led House of Representatives
US lawmakers broke a decades-long stalemate on firearms control on Friday, passing the first major safety regulations in almost 30 years, less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court bolstered the right to bear arms.
Gun regulation is a touchstone issue for both conservatives and liberals in the United States that has consumed national politics amid multiple mass shootings in recent years.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted to rubber-stamp a bipartisan Senate gun bill that – while modest – amounts to the first significant piece of legislation to regulate firearms since 1994.
Fourteen Republicans defied their leader Kevin McCarthy to cross the aisle and approve the 80-page package, which advanced from the evenly-divided upper chamber with cross-party backing late Thursday.
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That vote came hours after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority had struck down a century-old New York law requiring permits for concealed-carry handguns.