Demonstrators join the "March for Our Lives" rally in Los Angeles, California
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)US campaigners have welcomed a potential bipartisan deal cracking down on new gun control safety measures but say the proposals don’t go far enough.
The plan includes support for “red flag” laws keeping firearms from potentially dangerous people, tougher criminal background checks for gun buyers under age 21 and a crackdown on “straw purchases” by people buying weapons for others who could not pass a background check.
A bipartisan group of senators announced the potential breakthrough proposals on Sunday, with 10 Republicans indicating support.
It comes in the wake of last month’s shooting massacres at a school in Uvalde, Texas and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York
Among campaigners David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida, said: “This is progress even if small.”
Former lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured in a 2011 shooting in Arizona, wrote on Twitter: “Today, our country takes an important step forward with the announcement of a bipartisan framework on gun safety.”
President Joe Biden hailed the plans as “important steps in the right direction”.
“It does not do everything that I think is needed, but it reflects important steps in the right direction, and would be the most significant gun safety legislation to pass Congress in decades,” he said in a statement.
“With bipartisan support, there are no excuses for delay, and no reason why it should not quickly move through the Senate and the House.”
Tens of thousands of people rallied in Washington and around the US to urge lawmakers to pass legislation to curb gun violence.
The US has the highest rate of firearms deaths among the world’s wealthy nations.
