President Joe Biden on Saturday signed a bipartisan gun reform bill into law–the first significant firearms violence legislation in nearly three decades–after the mass shooting massacres of 19 students and two teachers at a Texas elementary school and the spree killing of 10 Black people in a Buffalo supermarket. Both gunmen were 18 years old and used AR-15-style assault rifles in their lethal attacks.
“Time is of the essence. Lives will be saved,” Biden said in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. Citing the families of shooting victims he has met, the president said, “Their message to us was, ‘Do something.’ How many times did we hear that? ‘Just do something. For God’s sake, just do something.’ Today we did.”
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It took weeks of closed-door talks, but senators emerged with a $13 billion package that tightens background checks for younger gun buyers, closes the “boyfriend loophole” to keep firearms from more domestic violence offenders, and helps states put red flag laws into motion so that it’s easier for authorities to take weapons from people legally deemed to be dangerous.
The president called it “a historic achievement” but acknowledged, “I know there’s much more work to do, and I’m never going to give up, but this is a monumental day.”
Biden signed the measure two days after the Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling, striking down a New York law restricting peoples’ ability to carry concealed weapons, and the first expansion of gun rights since 2008. And Saturday’s ceremony came less than 24 hours after the high court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, which had legalized abortion nationwide for nearly five decades.
In his gun case dissent released on Thursday, Justice Stephen Breyer said his conservative colleagues in the majority acted “without considering the potentially deadly consequences” of their decision.
Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Elena Kagan issued a poignant joint dissent in the Mississippi abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson released Friday.
“With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent,” they wrote.
Before departing for Europe, Biden was asked by reporters if the nation’s highest court was broken. “I think the Supreme Court has made some terrible decisions,” and walked away without answering more questions, noting, “I have a helicopter waiting for me to take off.”
The president is en route to Germany to attend the Group of Seven leading economic powers: the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. He will travel later to Spain for a NATO meeting.
The post “Lives Will Be Saved”: Biden signs gun violence bill into law but is it enough? appeared first on Vanity Fair.
