The House Has Passed A Bill That Raises The Age To Have A Gun To 21

photo from flickr

The world has been dealing with a devastating amount of violence. The leading cause of violence is guns, from the mass shooting in Buffalo to the shooting at an elementary school and the pressure to create gun reform to prevent these issues. The regulations before being able to withhold a firearm still give the accessibility of getting a gun at a young age are frightening to some. Throughout the violence, citizens of many states protested and pushed for more rules. After hearing the outcry and testimonies of family members who have lost their loved ones in these recent cases, the House decided to raise the age limit for purchasing a gun from eighteen to twenty-one.

Though the House passed the bill, it still needs to be approved by the Senate, which could be complex. The House created the legislation after the two mass shootings that happened within four weeks. Both gunmen were ages eighteen. The first attack occurred in Buffalo, NY, at Tops's supermarket. On May 14th, an eighteen-year-old man fired an AR-15 at multiple African American citizens. A total of ten people lost their lives during this incident. But it didn't end there; in two weeks, the lives of many little kids and their parents would change forever. Uvalde grade school was a victim of a school shooting on May 20th. Unfortunately, nineteen students and two students lost their lives during the tragedy. After the Uvalde tragedy, the nation cried out for gun laws to be stricter. Citizens from all over felt the devastation and grief from the Uvalde incident. Students who went to school to get the education most people have obtained lost their lives before finding their purpose.

Though the House passed the bill, that doesn't mean it's a law. The Senate still must vote for it to be considered a new law. One of the most central concepts in the bill was the age change. But there are parts of the bill too. Different acts are a part of the legislation, such as the "Protecting Our Kids" act, which would hold stricter household gun storage rules. Following that, there's an "Untraceable Firearms Act" that would help prevent the production of guns without serial numbers, causing it to be facile for officers to track down perpetrators.

The bill may be hard to pass with opposing sides to gun reform, but it's the fight Democratic representatives are willing to take. Whether given or not, the goal in everyone's eyes is to live in a less dangerous nation and prevent similar tragedies from happening again.