Politics

A group representing people with disabilities is filing a legal challenge to the state's expanded assault weapons ban, arguing that the new law prohibits features that make guns adaptable for people with physical limitations, taking away their rights to use firearms.

With the parents of Sandy Hook's young victims peering over his shoulder, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a bipartisan gun-control bill into law at noon Thursday, just 10 hours after final passage by the General Assembly.

"This is a profoundly emotional day, I think, for everyone in this room," Malloy said. "We have come together in a way that relatively few places in our nation have demonstrated an ability to do."

In emotional back-to-back debates, the Connecticut Senate and House overwhelmingly voted for one of the nation's most comprehensive gun laws Wednesday and Thursday, a long-awaited response to one of the nation's worst mass shootings, the Sandy Hook school massacre.

The Democrat-dominated legislature passed the sweeping measure with significant Republican support, a rare bipartisan gesture on a political and cultural issue that has divided America, deadlocked Congress and stymied a president who promised strong action.