World/Nation Briefs March 19, 2013

Colorado governor to sign gun controls into law

DENVER - Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper will sign legislation Wednesday that sets limits on ammunition magazines and expands background checks for firearms, marking a Democratic victory in a state where gun ownership is a treasured right and Second Amendment debate has played out in the wake of two mass shootings.

The measures proposed are some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and their passage comes after weeks of tense legislative battles. Republicans and gun rights supporters put up a major fight against the measures in this politically moderate state, while Democrats made them the centerpieces of a package of legislative proposals drafted in reaction to shooting rampages at a suburban Denver movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school last year.

"I think it will make it more difficult for people to get guns who shouldn't have them, and that's really the goal," said Democratic Rep. Beth McCann on the expanded background checks.

Magazine limits would reduce gun violence and have an impact during mass shootings, because they would force gunmen to reload more times, she said. "It's an interruption in the spraying of bullets."

College student plots attack, kills himself instead

ORLANDO, Fla. - A college student with two guns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a backpack filled with explosives pulled a dorm fire alarm Monday in an apparent attempt to force other students out into the open so he could slaughter them, authorities said. But he instead put a bullet in his head as police closed in.

James Oliver Seevakumaran, 30, was found dead in his dorm room at the 51,000-student Orlando campus of the University of Central Florida. No one else was hurt.

"His timeline got off," university Police Chief Richard Beary said. "We think the rapid response of law enforcement may have changed his ability to think quickly on his feet."

Some 500 students were evacuated from the building in the middle of the night, unaware how narrowly they had escaped what could have been another Virginia Tech-style bloodbath.

Justices split over proof ofcitizenship issue

WASHINGTON - Supreme Court justices disagreed Monday over whether states can require would-be voters to prove they are U.S. citizens before using a federal registration system designed to make signing up easier.

Arizona and other states told the justices the precaution is needed to keep illegal immigrants and other noncitizens from voting. But some justices asked whether states have the right to force people to document their citizenship when Congress ordered the states to accept and use federal "motor voter" registration cards that only ask registrants to swear on paper that they are U.S. citizens.

"I have a real big disconnect with how you can be saying you're accepting and using, when you're not registering people when they use it the way the federal law permits them to," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said to Arizona Attorney General Thomas C. Horne.

Said Horne: "It is the burden of the states to determine the eligibility of the voters."

This is the second voting eligibility issue the high court is tackling this session. Last month, several justices voiced deep skepticism about whether a section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law that has helped millions of minorities exercise their right to vote, especially in areas of the Deep South, was still needed.

Former Oklahoma QB, friend die in plane crash

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - People who knew former Oklahoma quarterback Steve Davis say his passion for flying began before he arrived at the school and led the Sooners to back-to-back national championships in the 1970s.

He and friend Wes Caves, a Tulsa, Okla., businessman, were the flight crew on the private jet, owned by Caves, that crashed into a northern Indiana neighborhood, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Todd Fox said Monday. Davis, 60, and Caves, 58, died. Three others were injured, including two passengers.

Fox said he had minimal information about the pilots, but said both had pilots' certificates and both had multi-engine aircraft certificates.

- The Associated Press