New Jersey Senate Panel Advances Three Gun Control Bills
TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Three gun control bills have cleared a New Jersey Senate committee.
The Senate's budget committee sent to the full Senate on Thursday a bill that would ban guns of 50-caliber or more.
Others would force the state pension funds to divest from companies that make assault weapons for consumers and would require submission of some mental-health records to the national background check system.
The votes fell mostly but not entirely along party lines with support from Democrats and opposition from Republicans.
Those bills are among 22 measures already passed by the state Assembly in the aftermath of the killing of 20 children and six adults in a Newtown, Conn., school last year.
The Senate panel is scheduled to take up some of the other measures Thursday.
Last month, Gov. Chris Christie outlined a proposal to strengthen existing gun control laws in New Jersey and target the root causes of mass violence in response to the Dec. 14 mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.
Part of his plan proposed strengthening the state's background checks and mandating gun buyers to show government-issued IDs when purchasing a firearm. In addition, he called for a ban on the sale of Barrett .50-caliber semi-automatic sniper rifles.
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