Connecticut lawmakers agree on gun control bill

HARTFORD — With the nation watching, Newtown parents still grieving, and gun owners objecting, Connecticut legislative leaders said Monday they had reached a bipartisan agreement on a gun control bill.

Easy passage of the legislative response to the Dec. 14 school massacre is expected in House and Senate votes scheduled for Wednesday, leaders of both the Democratic majority and Republican minority said.

“There were some who said the ‘Connecticut effect’ would wear off — that it would wear off in Connecticut and it would wear off across the country,” state Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams said at an evening news conference in the Capitol.

“What they didn’t know was that Democrats and Republicans would come together and work to put together the strongest and most comprehensive bill in the United States to fight gun violence, to strengthen the security at our schools, and to provide the mental health services that are necessary,” he said.

The bipartisan deal would strengthen the state’s existing ban on semiautomatic assault rifles — such as the military-style Bushmaster AR-15 that Adam Lanza used to kill 20 firstgraders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Current law defines an assault rifle as having two military-style characteristics on a list of several, such as a pistol grip and flash suppressor. The new bill would require only one such characteristic.

People could keep the banned rifles that they already own under a “grandfather provision” if they submit to new registration procedures. But future sales of such rifles would be prohibited in the state. An owner could bequeath his assault rif le to a family member but could not sell it to another person in Connecticut.

But the bill stepped back from an outright ban on large-capacity magazines containing more than 10 cartridges — such as the 30round magazines that Lanza used in the massacre.