More than 500 gun purchases have been blocked since a new gun law requiring stricter background checks for young people went into effect in 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday, the day after a school shooting in Iowa left a sixth-grader dead.
The bipartisan law passed in June 2022 was the most sweeping gun legislation in decades and requires extra checks for any gun purchases by people under age 21. Those denied a gun purchase include a person convicted of rape, a suspect in an attempted murder case and someone who had been involuntarily committed for mental-health treatment, according to the Justice Department.
