WASHINGTON DC- President Biden putting pen to paper to sign the first major gun reform bill into law in nearly three decades.
It includes $750 million to help states implement and run crisis intervention programs. The money can be used to implement and manage red flag programs — which through court orders can temporarily prevent individuals in crisis from accessing firearms — and for other crisis intervention programs like mental health courts, drug courts and veterans courts.
This bill closes a years-old loophole in domestic violence law — the “boyfriend loophole” — which barred individuals who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes against spouses, partners with whom they shared children or partners with whom they cohabitated from having guns. Old statutes didn’t include intimate partners who may not live together, be married or share children.
Now the law will bar from having a gun anyone who is convicted of a domestic violence crime against someone they have a “continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.” The law isn’t retroactive. It will, however, allow those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes to restore their gun rights after five years if they haven’t committed other crimes.
The bill encourages states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System with grants as well as implements a new protocol for checking those records.
riday passed the bill by 234-193, including 14 Republicans voting with Democrats. The Senate passed the bill in a late-night vote Thursday.