The office of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said Saturday he plans to reintroduce a bill that would "curtail the ability of a shooter to fire at length without reloading," The Huffington Post reports.
The move comes after reports that James Holmes, the suspect in Friday morning's mass shooting at an Aurora, Col. movie theater, purchased more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition online within the past two months, as well as weapons that allowed him to fire 50 or 60 rounds in less than a minute.
"If reports are correct and a high-capacity gun magazine was used to commit these awful murders, Senator Lautenberg will absolutely renew his effort to limit the availability of this dangerous firearm attachment," Lautenberg's communications director Caley Gray told The Huffington Post.
Last year, Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) teamed up to introduce legislation banning the manufacture and sale of high-capacity ammunition feeding devices, following the shooting of former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. In that incident, the gunman was able to shoot 30 rounds at a time before reloading.
The bill eventually stalled out, but at the time, Lautenberg told Talking Points Memo he felt such weapons should not be on the market.
Earlier this year, Lautenberg chided the National Rifle Association for accusing President Barack Obama's administration of being part of a "vast conspiracy" to pursue gun control legislation, even though it had not proposed any new laws on the issue.
[image via ShakataGaNai/Wikipedia Commons]
