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Biden signs bipartisan gun control measure supported by 29 Republicans
Law is meant to take guns out of the hands of individuals deemed a threat, though critics say that's a violation of due process rights.
By Bethany Blankley
Updated: June 25, 2022 - 2:08pm
President Joe Biden on Saturday signed bipartisan gun control legislation meant to take guns out of the hands of individuals deemed a threat, though critics say that's a violation of due process rights. The measure also imposes more thorough background checks on buyers under the age of 21.
It does not include a ban on assault-style weapons or guns with high-capacity magazines.
"While this bill doesn't do everything I want, it does include actions I've long called for that are going to save lives," Biden said when signing the measure Saturday. "Today, we say more than 'enough.' We say more than enough. This time, when it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential."
The U.S. House passed the the Safer Communities Act Friday by a vote of 234-193 after the Senate passed it Thursday night by a vote of 65-33.
The bill was proposed and passed in response to a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, when police reportedly stood by as 19 children and two teachers were shot and killed. Although an investigation is ongoing, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw recently said the Uvalde’s police response “was an abject failure” and they could have stopped the shooter within three minutes if they had done their jobs.
"From Columbine to Sandy Hook to Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, Uvalde and for the shootings that happen every day in the streets, how many times have you heard that, ‘just do something, for God's sake just do something’?" Biden said. "Today, we did."
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, led a bipartisan group in the Senate to push through the gun control bill, arguing it “will save lives while placing no new restrictions on law-abiding gun owners.”
But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who introduced a different bill, the Safe Kids, Safe Schools, Safe Communities Act, said what Cornyn supported won’t stop violent crime or make schools safer, but will restrict law-abiding Americans' Second Amendment rights.
A solution to actually improve school safety would have been to pass his bill, Cruz said, which “goes after criminals and supports law enforcement while protecting the Second Amendment.”
Every time there’s a mass shooting, Cruz said, there’s a reaction in Washington, D.C., to restrict lawful gun owners’ constitutionally protected rights. There are two approaches to addressing violence, he said. The first is to “target the bad guys,” including criminals, felons, fugitives, those illegally buying guns, and those committing violent crimes with firearms, he said.
“Prosecute them, put them in jail, get them off the street,” the Texas senator said, which is what his bill proposed.
Cruz'bill would have devoted resources to prosecuting criminals and to doubling the number of police officers in schools, provisions the bills Congress passed don’t include.
The second approach “is to target law abiding citizens,” he said. “To try to strip away the right to keep and bear arms. … Unfortunately, whenever there’s a horrific crime, Democrats immediately go to the second approach,” which he argues is unconstitutional. This time, 29 Republicans joined Democrats in passing the Safer Communities Act.
In response to ongoing criticism he’s received, including by Texas conservatives who jeered at him throughout the Texas Republican Party Convention last week in Houston, Cornyn began tweeting about the bill. He said the bill “DOES NOT create a national red flag law, DOES NOT require or incentivize states to adopt red flag laws and no state is penalized for not passing one.”
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