Biden signs bipartisan gun safety bill

STORY: U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law Saturday the first major federal gun reform in three decades.

BIDEN: "God willing, it's going to save a lot of lives."

The law comes the same week as a Supreme Court ruling that moved to broadly expand gun rights, ruling that Americans have a constitutional right to carry handguns in public.

The law does not go as far as Democrats, including Biden, had hoped for.

It does not ban sales of assault-style rifles or high-capacity magazines.

However, it does take some steps that would help states keep guns out of the hands of those deemed to be a danger to themselves or others and block gun sales to those convicted of abusing unmarried intimate partners.

Still, Biden hailed it as a monumental day.

“From Columbine to Sandy Hook, to Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, Uvalde and for the shootings that happen every day in the streets that are mass shootings that we don’t even hear about. A number of people killed every day in the streets. Their message to us was do something. Just do something. For God’s sake, just do something. Well today, we did.”

Gun control has long been a divisive issue in the United States with multiple attempts to place new controls on gun sales failing time after time until Friday.

What some Democrats called a modest, first-step bill followed mass murders last month at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York and an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

The House voted 234-193 on the bill Friday.

Only 14 Republicans backed the measure.

BIDEN: “It’s times when it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential. If we can reach compromise on guns, we ought to be able to reach compromise on other critical issues from veterans’ health care to cutting-edge American innovation and so much more.”

Biden said he would host an event in July for victims of gun violence to mark the bill's signing.