Democrats getting more concrete on proposed gun law changes

President Barack Obama and members of Congress are moving from the immediate but vague "we've got to change something" response to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School toward some more concrete policy proposals. While the proposals start with bringing back the assault weapons ban, they don't stop there:

'[President Obama] is actively supportive of, for example, Senator Feinstein's stated intent to revive a piece of legislation that would reinstate the assault weapons ban,' White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters, publicly backing for the first time legislation Feinstein plans to introduce. The White House had previously been reluctant to publicly named any specific action it might support in an effort to prevent future massacres.

'[The President] supports'and would support legislation that addresses the problem of the so-called gun show loophole, and there are other elements of gun law'gun legislation that he could support,' Carney said. 'People have talked about high- capacity ammunition clips, for example, and that is something, certainly, that he would be interested in looking at,' he added.

Greg Sargent reports that Senate Democrats, too, aren't expecting to stop with just the assault weapons ban:

'This is likely to be part of a package of proposals,' Senator Dick Durbin told me, in a reference to the assault weapons ban, adding that Dems would consider including other ideas like limiting high capacity magazine clips, beefing up background checks, expanding mental health services, and looking at violence in movies and video games. He said action was likely 'early next year.'

Durbin told Sargent that he was hoping to get a significant number of Republican votes in the Senate, which seems optimistic (better do filibuster reform as a backup measure there). Then, even if the bills pass the Senate, House Republicans are likely to stand in the way. So even with the horror of what happened Friday, change will be hard-fought.