Three months after the Newtown school massacre, Connecticut state lawmakers have reached a deal to create some of the toughest gun laws in the country, including what would be the nation’s first registry of weapons offenders.
The proposal calls for universal background checks for all firearm sales — even private sales — an expansion of the state’s assault-weapon ban and a ban on the kind of high-capacity magazines Adam Lanza used to kill 20 kids and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in December.
It would also require safety training and other measures to buy any rifle, shotgun or ammunition.
Buyers would have to pass a national background check and a check on whether they have ever been voluntarily or involuntarily committed.
It is “the most comprehensive package in the country because of its breadth,” said Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, a Republican whose district includes Newtown.
However, there are still loopholes.
“It doesn’t prevent someone from going out of the state to purchase them and then bring them back,” McKinney said.
Lanza, 20, used a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle with 30-round magazines and fired 154 shots within five minutes. He had three other 30-round magazines and another rifle.
Under the new plan, the minimum age for buying some semiautomatic rifles would be raised to 21.
The deal comes after weeks of negotiations in the Democratically controlled Legislature and a day after relatives of Newtown victims personally passed out photos of the slain children to lawmakers at the Capitol, asking them to ban existing high-capacity magazines.
A vote is scheduled for tomorrow, and Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, is expected to sign it quickly.