The House of Representatives today approved a bill to extend the right to bear arms, currently limited to state permits, to the entire country.
The bill, a legislative priority for the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), received 231 favorable votes, almost all Republicans, and 198 against, mostly Democrats.
This project seeks that weapons permits, which are state-owned, are valid throughout the country.
The initiative has raised misgivings among the states that impose the most restrictions on the carrying of weapons and would see that permits from more permissive states are valid within their limits.
Along with the initiative to eliminate internal borders, the House of Representatives approved improvements for states to report criminal records and psychological histories to the FBI to include them in the database used to legally acquire weapons.
The people listed in that database can not acquire weapons, but the recent shooting in a church in Texas, whose author was able to buy weapons despite having a criminal record, has shown deficiencies in the system.
To become law, the bill now needs the approval of the Senate, which has a smaller Republican majority.
It is the first project on the possession and carrying of weapons that has been debated in Congress since the shooting in Las Vegas in which 58 people were murdered, the worst in the history of the United States.
