NJ Senate Panel Advances Three Gun Control Bills

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.

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