A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Sunday unveiled a potential legal framework for gun safety in response to recent mass shootings in many parts of the country.
The outline includes measured gun restrictions and increased efforts to improve mental health and school safety programs.
“Our plan saves lives while protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” the group led by Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican John Cornyn said in a statement. “We look forward to getting broad, bipartisan support and passing our usual proposal into law.”
The proposal does not encounter the more difficult steps that President Joe Biden and many Democrats have long sought.
But if the accord leads to legislation, it would signal a shift from years of gun homicides that have brought little but deadlock in Congress.
Leaders in the Senate hope to push any deal quickly into law – possibly this month – following the deadly mass shootings in Buffalo, NY, at a Tops supermarket and in Uvalde, Texas, at an elementary school, as well as other blocks kill people with guns.
The agreement was announced a day after tens of thousands of people in Washington, D.C. and hundreds of other places across the country rallied to demand that lawmakers pass legislation to curb gun violence.
More to come
