US passes tighter gun law following Virginia shootings

THE US Congress, prodded by the deadliest shooting rampage in modern American history, has passed legislation to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.

Without objection, the Senate and the House of Representatives approved the measure, which would bolster background checks for gun buyers.

It will be the first significant US gun-control law since 1994. It was drafted after a gunman with a history of mental illness killed himself and 32 others in April last at Virginia Tech university.

“Together, we have crafted a bill that will prevent gun violence, but maintain the second amendment rights of law-abiding citizens” to bear arms, said Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy of New York, a chief sponsor of the bill. Ms McCarthy was elected to Congress in 1996, three years after her husband was killed and son injured when a gunman opened fire on a train.

The four million-member National Rifle Association, a powerful US pro-gun lobbying group that has helped stop numerous gun-control bills, backed this one.

“Everybody on both the sides of the issue of firearms’ ownership joined together,” said Democratic Congressman John Dingell of Michigan, a former association board member and another chief sponsor of the bill.

The 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits anyone found by a court to be “a mental defective” from possessing a gun. It also bars felons, drug addicts and wife beaters. But because of state privacy laws and fiscal restraints, most states have failed to fully report such records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

The legislation would provide financial incentives for states to provide mental health and criminal records to a database used for federal background checks on gun buyers.

Congress tackled the explosive issue of gun control after it was disclosed the Virginia Tech gunman had once been deemed by a judge to be dangerous and the information never reached a background check system for gun buyers.