The Connecticut Senate on Monday passed a bill requiring anyone accused of domestic violence to surrender all guns within 24 hours.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said immediately afterward that he plans to sign the bill into law,
CT Post reports.
Republicans, who argue the bill is an effort to confiscate guns, failed in their effort to amend the bill, which was passed by Connecticut's House last week.
"We have a moral obligation to work to prevent needless tragedy and to make this the law," Malloy said, according to
The Wall Street Journal.
But Republican state Sen. Joe Markley countered that "this is not a case of protection but a bill that is aimed at getting guns out of people's hands by whatever process necessary."
"It is nothing but a backdoor method to force the surrender of firearms with no opportunity for a respondent of such an order to be heard prior to any surrender of legal property," said Scott Wilson, president of gun rights group Connecticut Citizens Defense League.
Proponents of the law point to 14 domestic homicides per year in the state, half of which are caused by guns.
"The right to live is more important to any other right we may have," said Democratic state Sen. Mae Flexer.