U.S Senate in decades advances first substantial gun legislation

• voted to hasten the approval of a bipartisan package of gun control laws.
• Before a two-week break, the Senate is anticipated to vote on the 80-page bill this week.
• The legislation introduced on Tuesday falls short of what Democrats, including President Joe Biden, had hoped for.

The U.S. Senate take the first step toward enacting the nation’s first significant gun-control legislation in decades, spurred on by two mass shootings in a country that has long battled to reduce widespread gun violence.

Sens. voted to hasten the approval of a bipartisan package of gun control laws.

Before a two-week break, the Senate is anticipated to vote on the 80-page bill this week.

The legislation introduced on Tuesday falls short of what Democrats, including President Joe Biden, had hoped for. Still, if approved, it would be the most major gun control measure to come out of Congress in a long time.

The measure includes clauses that would assist states in keeping firearms away from people regarded to be a danger to themselves or others and closing the so-called boyfriend loophole by prohibiting the sale of firearms to people who have been found guilty of abusing unmarried intimate partners.

The act would permit states to transmit juvenile records to the federal background check system for gun purchases following horrific killings at a New York grocer and a Texas elementary school, which officials claimed were committed by teens.

The bill does not increase the automatic assault weapon purchasing age from 18 to 21. Both the shooters in Texas and New York were 18 years old and had purchased their own assault guns.