US Congress on Friday passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act which, when signed into law by President Joe Biden as expected on Saturday, will enhance background checks for buyers under 21-years-old, restrict firearm ownership by convicted domestic abusers, while providing funding for "red flag" laws and mental healthcare, among other provisions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the act represents the most significant piece of gun control legislation Congress has passed in three decades. However, many gun rights advocates were disappointed the bill lacks outright bans on automatic weapons of the type used in the recent spate of mass-casualty shootings.
In Uvalde, Texas on May 24 an 18-year-old wielding an AR-15 automatic weapon slaughtered 19 schoolchildren less than two weeks after a white supremacist in Buffalo killed ten Blacks with a Bushmaster XM-15. The weapons used in both incidents were purchased legally, authorities said.
HOUSTON, TX - MAY 27: A gun control advocate holds a sign during a protest across from the National Rifle Association Annual Meeting at the George R. Brown Convention Center, on May 27, 2022 in Houston, Texas.
© AFP 2023 / ERIC THAYER
This year alone the US has seen more than 200 mass shootings, including 27 at schools, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The passage of the bill was also bittersweet for many Democrats as it came a day after a Supreme Court ruling that protected an individual’s right to carry a handgun in public without restrictions. The decision overruled a New York law that requires buyers to show "proper cause" to obtain a concealed carry license.
National Rifle Association (NRA) chief Wayne LaPierre called the ruling a "watershed win" for the gun rights movement while President Joe Biden said the decision should "deeply trouble" all Americans.
Loyola University New Orleans Economics Professor Walter Block, a prominent libertarian scholar, said the new bill's provisions to enhance background checks and incentivize states to adopt "red flag" laws could potentially meet the same fate as New York's concealed carry law.
"Those provisions would indeed be struck down by the Supreme Court in a similar fashion, especially after their recent New York decision," Block told Sputnik.
Gun Lobby Flexes Power
In the wake of the Buffalo and Uvalde tragedies, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seemed ready to act to prevent more mass shootings. However, the momentum was disrupted by the extreme backlash from gun rights groups - and within a matter of weeks the concept of a ban on assault weapons seemed unreachable.
In fact, Texas' Republican Party this week said it approved a resolution that calls for repealing all gun restrictions dating back to 1934. This includes waiting periods which Texas Republicans argue harm those who need to acquire a weapon immediately during emergencies like riots.
Meanwhile, gun rights groups are spending money on lobbyists at record levels, according to the OpenSecrets watchdog group’s tally of filings. Senator Ted Cruz, who has received more funding from gun rights groups than any other politician since he was elected in 2012, expressed frustration with the 17 Republicans in the Senate and fourteen in the House who crossed party lines to back the gun reform package.
Cruz in a tweet on Thursday said "do not disarm law-abiding citizens," if Americans want to keep kids safe. Instead, put criminals in jail and have police officers on campus, he added.
Earlier this week, the Republicans’ top negotiator on the new legislation, Senator John Cornyn, in a moment of surprising transparency, told reporters the NRA has a membership and a "business model" that will not allow them to support any gun control legislation.
Dr. Helen Caldicott, a peace activist who worked as a physician in Melbourne, does not believe there is a chance that serious gun restrictions will ever be imposed given most members of US Congress are funded by lobbyists and "murderous" military industrial corporations.
"In Australia we experienced a dreadful mass murder - 35 people by a man with a gun at Port Arthur in Tasmania, a previous abode of convicts on April 28, 1996," Caldicott told Sputnik. "So shocked was the country that the Prime Minister, John Howard, ordered that all guns were illegal and every gun in Australia had to be, and was handed in to the federal government and they were all torn apart and destroyed by big machines."
Caldicott said in America, in contrast, any disgruntled adolescent or psychotic person has access to and can buy a weapon that "disintegrates a body."
"So, in essence and in reality, Americans worship death at almost all levels of society," Caldicott said. "The great United States has become a country of legitimized murder."