Despite the bill’s narrow focus disappointing many, it does tighten up gun regulation in several crucial areas.
The Conversation published several articles during the bill’s passage through Congress that examined its contents and their potential efficacy in solving the gun violence epidemic in the United States.
The new bill includes provisions encouraging states to enact so-called “red flag laws.”
According to John A. Tures, a political science professor at LaGrange College, these rules let authorities take firearms away from those who are regarded to be a threat to themselves or others and prevent them from purchasing firearms.
Tures looked at state firearm mortality rates over three years—2018, 2019 and 2020—about whether or not they had red flag laws to see if there was an overall reduction in gun deaths.
In 2019 and 2020, states with red flag legislation had significantly lower rates of firearm fatalities than those without them. The two groups’ averaging death rates in 2018 were closer, but the rate in states with red flag laws was still far lower.
“I calculate that 52,530 Americans would have lost their lives to gun violence in 2020 if there had been no red flag regulations. Red flag regulations saved 7,308 American lives that year, according to the real number reported, 45,222, Tures reports.
The “boyfriend loophole” was one of the issues that wouldn’t go away during negotiations over the measure.
Intimate partner relationships are only those in which two people are or were married, reside or lived together as a pair, or had a child together, according to April M. Zeoli, professor of criminal justice at Michigan State University.
The majority of those who were dating is not included in this criteria.
According to Zeoli, as a result, “dating partners are protected from federal regulations that ban people who have been convicted of domestic violence minor crimes, or those who are under domestic violence restraining orders, from buying or carrying a firearm.”
What is known as the “boyfriend loophole” is this.
According to research, the likelihood that a violent male partner will murder the female partner increases fivefold when he has access to a gun.
The ban is now extended to “people who have or have had an ongoing connection of a romantic or intimate character” with Biden’s signing of the legislation into law.
The bill does not address restraining order provisions, even if it closes the gap for persons convicted of domestic violence minor charges.
The new law would provide schools access to $1 billion in funding, including $300 million to expand access to mental health treatments, to help them implement comprehensive plans to establish safe and healthy learning environments.
Risk assessment is one of the strategy’s components.
Since the Columbine shooting in 1999, experts and federal law enforcement organisations have examined school shootings and created risk assessments to determine the possibility that a young person who has been recognised as a potential danger will actually act violently.
The exams, according to Paul Boxer, a psychology professor at Rutgers University-Newark, are carried out by experts like police officers, teachers, and mental health counsellors.
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They assess a young person’s risk of violence jointly.
Boxer issues a warning that “these teams may not be able to avert every potential incident.” “However, this kind of strategy is essential to enhancing the procedure for locating and apprehending possible shooters generally.”
