Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sponsored the Senate version of the bill and who worked on the assault weapons ban from the '90s that expired in 2004, said in her remarks that this will be a "tough battle," but she is "incensed that our weak gun laws allow these mass killings to be carried out again and again and again in this country."

"The common thread in these shootings is that each gunman used a semi-automatic assault weapon" or a large-capacity magazine, Feinstein said.

The legislation specifically prohibits 158 types of military-grade firearms, as well as other semi-automatic rifles, handguns and shotguns that can have a detachable magazine and have at least one military characteristic. As Feinstein explained, the 1994 version of the law had a two-characteristic test for a weapon to be banned, but that was "too easy to work around."

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The last bill would have prohibited any "magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than 10 rounds of ammunition" except for any "attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition." Large-capacity magazines were used in the Aurora and Newtown massacres.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has also promised to introduce an assault weapons ban when the new Congress convenes. That bill is modeled on the federal ban, which expired in 2004. Both new bills would not outlaw the possession of banned equipment that is already in circulation. Senator Feinstein has cited a Department of Justice study that the ban reduced gun deaths by 6.7 percent.

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