NEW YORK (CMC):
Caribbean American Public Advocate Jumaane Williams welcomed President Joe Biden’s signing into law a bipartisan gun measure aimed at preventing dangerous people from accessing firearms, bringing to an end almost three decades of stalemate in the federal legislature over how to address gun violence in the country.
“Still reeling from the damage that the Supreme Court has done to New Yorkers’ safety this week, it is at once good to see this legislation, which will help to save lives, become law, and frustrating and infuriating that it has taken this many years, this much loss, to make even this small amount of progress in our federal gun laws,” Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, told the CMC.
“We have to be clear that this is a step, a symbol that we must push past inaction, not a substitute,” added Williams, a candidate for Governor of New York in Democratic Primary. “Especially in the wake of these disastrous court decisions, it’s clear that we need to do much more on a city and state level to combat gun violence – both the supply and the demand.
“Each of these aspects must immediately be addressed in a special session of the state legislature, and we must continue to demand more from DC (District of Columbia) – real, sweeping, broadly popular reforms have been left on the Capitol floor, and must be taken up to truly meet this epidemic of gun violence,” he continued.
In signing S.2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, into law on Saturday, Biden thanked the leaders and members of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate for “working together to get this done”.
Biden said the legislation which requires young people, ages 18 to 21, to undergo enhanced background checks, includes the first-ever federal law that makes gun trafficking and straw purchases distinct federal crimes for the first time, and clarifies who needs to register as a federally licensed gun dealer, and run background checks before selling a single weapon.
Last week, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York , hailed the US Senate’s passage of the historic, bipartisan gun safety legislation.
“Tonight, the United States Senate is doing something many believed was impossible even a few weeks ago; we are passing the first significant gun safety bill in nearly 30 years,” said Schumer speaking on the Senate floor. “The gun safety bill we are passing tonight can be described with three adjectives – bipartisan, common-sense, life-saving.”