Connecticut lawmakers pass gun controls

Connecticut lawmakers voted on Thursday to approve a new gun-control bill in response to last December's shooting at a school in Newtown in which 20 children and six adults were killed. After nearly 8 hours of debate that lasted until early Thursday morning, the House voted 105-44 in favor of the bill, which supporters described as one of the toughest in the United States. It followed a 26-10 vote in the Senate Wednesday evening. Governor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat who pushed for passage of the law, is expected to sign it on Thursday. Opponents said the bill infringed the rights to gun ownership protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The new law would require background checks for private gun sales, ban the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips of the kind used at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and require current owners of those large clips to register them with the state. The legislation was proposed after the Dec. 14 attack, in which a gunman used clips that held 30 bullets to fire off 154 rounds in less than five minutes. Owners of existing clips capable of holding 10 or more bullets would be required to register them with the state. Owning an unregistered high-capacity clip would become a felony offense as of Jan. 1, 2014.

Both chambers in Connecticut's legislature are controlled by Democrats, with 99 Democrats and 52 Republicans in the House, and 22 Democrats and 14 Republicans in the Senate.

The measure would also expand the number of weapons covered by Connecticut's assault weapons ban and establishes a $15 million fund to help schools improve security infrastructure.