Cuomo Moves to Beef Up NY Gun Laws

New York's Democrat governor is aiming to make some of the country's toughest gun laws even tougher. In his State of the State address today, Andrew Cuomo is expected to outline gun control plans including new restrictions on assault weapons, lower limits on the capacity of magazines, and a requirement for gun permits to be renewed every five years, the New York Times reports. New York already bans some assault weapons but Cuomo says the law introduced after the 1999 Columbine shooting has "more holes than Swiss cheese."

Cuomo has been pushing for fresh gun control measures since the Sandy Hook school shooting and negotiations with legislative leaders continued until late last night, the Wall Street Journal reports. Gun rights advocates—alarmed by Cuomo's suggestion in a radio interview that "confiscation could be an option" for assault weapons—are expected to push back hard against the move, and Republican leaders have demanded that the plan include stiffer penalties for crimes committed with illegal weapons. (More assault weapons stories.)