By FRANCIS X. CLINES
The shooting deaths of 20 elementary-school children and seven adults in Newtown will dominate the agenda of the Connecticut General Assembly as lawmakers open their five-month session Wednesday in Hartford. Gov. Dannel Malloy has appointed a 15-member advisory committee to study and recommend needed changes in public safety, mental health services and the control of gun violence. But lawmakers are already offering a raft of separate proposals, including an outright ban of the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle and 30-round magazine used in the massacre last month.
The General Assembly rejected a proposed ban on such large-capacity magazines in 2011 after the National Rifle Association mounted a heavy lobbying campaign and flooded lawmakers with tens of thousands of protest e-mails. One of the key questions is how much effect, if any, the slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary will have on the push for tighter gun controls in Hartford and in Washington as well.
In announcing the advisory committee of community leaders and experts, Governor Malloy noted that if Congress had not allowed a federal law banning 30-round magazines to lapse in 2004, Adam Lanza, the shooter in the school massacre, might have done less damage. Forensics showed that each of the schoolchildren was struck by 3 to 11 bullets from the rapid-fire rifle.
Other Hartford proposals would increase mental health intervention and even seek to force the mentally ill to take their medications, a controversial step rejected in the past as impractical. Legislative leaders said they also would look into requiring more extensive use of metal detectors at schools, among other measures. So far, there’s been no move to install police guards or arm teachers in every school, as the N.R.A. recommended. One lawmaker has proposed reversing a law that protects the identity of the state’s 170,000 handgun permit holders, allowing for public release of their names.
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