WASHINGTON - The Senate advanced legislation aimed at stanching acts of mass gun violence past a key procedural hurdle Thursday, voting to close debate and move toward a final vote on a package combining modest new firearms restrictions with $15 billion in mental health and school security funding.
The 65-34 vote represented an unlikely breakthrough on the emotional and polarizing question of U.S. gun laws, which have gone largely unchanged for more than 25 years, even as the nation has been repeatedly scarred by mass shootings whose names have become etched in history - from Columbine and Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook and Parkland.