WASHINGTON - As the horrific details continue to emerge from the Connecticut massacre, lawmakers, advocacy groups and gun experts have begun weighing in on policy changes that they say could reduce the chances of another mass shooting.
But experts said it was far from clear that any proposal -- including extending background check requirements to purchasers in private transactions or a renewed ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines -- would have single-handedly prevented 20-year-old Adam Lanza from opening fire on defenseless pupils, teachers and administrators at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
What's more, some experts doubt that, despite a fresh round of interest by lawmakers, Congress would pass any reform measures, citing the muscular gun lobby and some polling data that indicates dwindling public support for tighter gun rules.
At the center of the gun control debate is the expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which was enacted in 1994. Some political analysts blame this law, which was heavily supported by Democrats, for the GOP takeover of Congress later that year. The rules, formally called the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, expired a decade later when Congress did not extend them.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that she planned to introduce legislation to outlaw assault weapons on the first day of the new session of Congress in January. Feinstein said her legislation would ban the possession or sale of assault weapons and "big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets." The purpose of the bill, she said, is to get "weapons of war off the streets."
In the Connecticut school shooting, Lanza reportedly used a Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle as his primary weapon.
At least two handguns also were found at the school. Authorities have said the guns belonged to his mother, Nancy, who Adam Lanza killed at the home they shared before going to the school.
It's unclear whether the specific model of semiautomatic rifle Lanza reportedly used would have been forbidden under the expired assault weapons ban. The Bushmaster .223 "wasn't banned by name" in the 1994 assault weapons ban, said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Gun Policy and Research, and a supporter of stricter gun laws.