House Democrats will waste no time in the new Congress pushing legislation to tighten the nation's gun laws.
Reps. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) will introduce a proposal Thursday, the first day of the 113th Congress, to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines like those used last month in the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre.
The legislation will be introduced after the 113th Congress is officially gaveled in Thursday, the same day that children from Sandy Hook Elementary School returned to classes for the first time since a lone gunman stormed into the school and fatally shot 26 people. They are attending school at a different location.
The shooter, a 20-year-old who reportedly had a history of mental illness, fatally shot himself as the police moved in.
McCarthy, DeGette and other gun-control advocates say the elimination of ammunition magazines that hold dozens of bullets would help lessen the carnage in such indiscriminate shootings.
"These assault magazines help put the ‘mass’ in ‘mass shooting’ and anything we can do to stop their proliferation will save lives in America,” McCarthy said in a statement. Her husband was killed and her son seriously injured in a 1993 shooting on a Long Island, N.Y., commuter train.
"These devices are used to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time possible, and we owe it to innocent Americans everywhere to keep them out of the hands of dangerous people," McCarthy said.
"We don’t even allow hunters to use them," she added. "Something’s deeply wrong if we’re protecting game more than we’re protecting innocent human beings."
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