US Senate votes to increase gun control

Washington, June 23 (EFE), (Camera: Erik S. Lesser).- The United States Senate voted this Thursday in favor of increasing control over firearms in the country, with a minimum agreement between Democrats and Republicans after of the mass shootings in a supermarket in Buffalo (New York) and in a school in Uvalde (Texas).

This is the first time in decades that the two major parties in the US have agreed to vote in favor of greater gun controls, and after its approval in the Senate, the bill will now move to the House of Representatives, where Democrats have a majority.

The measure went ahead with the support of all 50 Democratic senators and 15 Republicans - including Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell - while 33 other conservatives voted against it.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, issued a statement in which he celebrated that, "after 28 years without progress", representatives of both parties managed to agree to "act" and give a response from politics to the relatives of the victims of the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings.

Biden assured that the bill will help protect Americans and that schools and the community will be safer, and urged the House of Representatives to follow the steps of the Senate and approve the measure so that it can become law.

The bill includes a review of the process for buying weapons for those under 21 years of age, and extends the so-called "danger alert" ("Red Flag") laws to the entire country, which allow the activation of a legal procedure to confiscate the firearms of those who represent a danger to third parties or to themselves.

In addition, the proposal also seeks to put an end to what is known as "the boyfriend vacuum", whereby until now if someone is accused of domestic violence without being married, they are allowed to continue to own weapons, something that does not happen in the case of married people.

Apart from slightly restricting access to weapons to certain people and under what circumstances, the agreement between Democrats and Republicans also includes more funds for mental health resources and to strengthen security in schools, two aspects that the Gun advocates every time there's a media shootout in the US.

Just a few hours earlier this Thursday, the Supreme Court of the United States had issued a decision in which it extended the right to bear arms by endorsing that they can be carried in public.

In the first case of draft on weapons that it examined in thirteen years, the high court, with a conservative majority, ruled against a century-old law in the state of New York that requires concealed weapons to be carried on the street.