Congress Blocks Rule Preventing Mentally Ill From Buying Guns

The Republican-led Senate has voted to block an Obama-era regulation that would prevent about 75 thousand people with mental disorders from being able to purchase a firearm. The measure will now go to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The regulation was made as part of President Barack Obama's efforts to strengthen the federal background check system after the 2012 massacre of 20 young students and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Adam Lanza, a 20-year-old man with a variety of mental impairments, shot and killed his mother at their home, then went to school where he killed the students, adults and himself.