US senators strike deal on gun safety

WASHINGTON: Senate negotiators announced on Sunday they had agreed on a bipartisan outline for a narrow set of gun safety measures with sufficient support to move through the evenly divided chamber, a significant step toward ending a yearslong congressional impasse on the issue.
The plan, endorsed by 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, would include funding for mental health resources, boosting school safety and grants for states to implement so-called red flag laws that allow authorities to confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous. It would also expand the nation’s background check system to include juvenile records for any prospective gun buyer under the age of 21.
Most notably, it includes a provision to address what is known as the “boyfriend loophole,” which would prohibit dating partners — not just spouses — from owning guns if they had been convicted of domestic violence. The framework says that convicted domestic violence abusers and individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders would be included in criminal background checks.
The outline, which has yet to be finalised, falls far short of the sprawling reforms that President Joe Biden, gun control activists and a majority of congressional Democrats have long championed. And it is nowhere near as sweeping as a package of gun measures passed nearly along party lines in the House last week.
The backing of 10 Republicans for the outline announced Sunday suggested that it could scale an obstacle that no other proposal currently under discussion has been able to: drawing the 60 votes necessary to break through a GOP filibuster and survive to see an up-ordown vote on the Senate floor. Still, aides cautioned that until the legislation was finalised, it was not certain that each of the components could maintain that level of support.
“Today, we are announcing a common-sense, bipartisan proposal to protect America’s children, keep our schools safe and reduce the threat of violence across our country,” the 20 senators said in a joint statement. Negotiators must now translate the broad principles of the framework into legislative text, a far more fraught process, and secure enough support in both chambers for the legislation to become law.
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, pledged to put the agreement up for a vote once the legislation had been completed.