With a green and white ribbon to commemorate the victims of one of the worst school shootings in American history pinned to his lapel, Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy signed a broad new package of gun laws Thursday in the state where 20 children and 6 educators were slain nearly four months ago.

Connecticut is the third state, following Colorado and New York, to pass sweeping new gun legislation after the December school shooting.

“This is a profoundly emotional day, I think, for everyone in this room and everyone watching what is transpiring today in the state of Connecticut,” Malloy said before signing the bill. “We have come together in a new way that relatively few places in our nation have demonstrated an ability to do.”

Lawmakers had worked to forge a bipartisan consensus around the bill. The final package limited the size of gun magazines to 10 rounds, expanded the state's existing assault weapons ban, and required universal background checks on all gun sales in the state.

The bill passed by bipartisan majorities in both the Senate and the House.

“I’ve been amazed at the strength of the families since the day of Newtown,” Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman said at the Thursday ceremony.

State Sen. John McKinney, a Republican who represents Newtown, said on Wednesday that the bill was an imperfect but necessary step in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy.

"The message we can send if those outside the walls of Connecticut are listening is encourage them to do the same, encourage our elected officials in Washington to put aside the politics and see if they can find some common ground," McKinney said Wednesday.

The Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a group that opposes gun control, denounced the new legislation in a post on its blog, saying that when the bill took effect Connecticut would have “the most unconstitutional gun laws in the entire country.”

Adam Lanza fired 154 rounds in fewer than 300 seconds after he entered the Newtown school armed with a Bushmaster .223 rifled and several 30-round magazines, according to investigators.

The shooting provoked a national outcry for tighter gun controls, but so far, with the exception of Colorado, New York and Connecticut, few states have made sweeping changes.

And a handful of states, such as Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, have gone the other direction, passing laws that would expand who can carry a gun and where.

President Obama pushed for a new federal law requiring more comprehensive background checks in a speech in Colorado on Wednesday. Obama said there “doesn’t have to be a conflict” between new gun laws and respect for gun rights.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said the Connecticut bill provides an example to his fellow federal lawmakers on how to pass “tough, common sense gun laws.”

“The people of our state know that it takes bold, courageous action like this to help prevent the next tragic shooting,” Murphy said in a statement.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who led an aggressive January charge to tighten his state’s already strict laws, congratulated Connecticut lawmakers on Thursday “for taking bold new action to protect the people of their state.”

The mother of one of the school children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School thanked Gov. Malloy at the Thursday signing. Nicole Hockley’s son Dylan was among the young students who died on December 14.

“While I am grateful for the progress being made, I wish more than anything that I were just back at home waiting till it was time for both Dylan and Jake to come home from school,” Hockley said.

Related:

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• 'Insane' crowds as customers flood Connecticut gun stores before vote
• Connecticut lawmakers reach deal on 'most comprehensive' gun limits in US

Charles Krupa / AP

Paul Regish of East Hartford, Conn., holds signs as gun rights advocates enter the legislative office building at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., on April 3.

Connecticut lawmakers passed a bipartisan package of gun laws that will expand the state’s existing assault weapons ban, impose limits on the size of magazines, and require universal background checks in the state scarred by one of the worst school shootings in American history.

The state's House voted 105-44 in favor of the bill early Thursday. Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has said that he will sign the legislation into law.

State Sen. John McKinney, a Republican who represents the district where the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre took place, said the bill was far from perfect but a necessary step to ensure the safety of the citizens of the state. 

Moments before the state's Senate bill passed by a vote of 26-10 on Wednesday, McKinney praised the state legislature for coming together in a bispartisan way, a model, he said, for the rest of the country.

"The message we can send if those outside the walls of Connecticut are listening is encourage them to do the same, encourage our elected officials in Washington to put aside the politics and see if they can find some common ground," he said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, a Democrat, opened the debate with a remembrance of the victims of the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook shooting.

“All at once there was a report that as many as 20 children had been killed,” Williams said. “For a few seconds it was hard to breathe. I looked around at my colleagues as we recoiled at the horror of what we were learning.”

Adam Lanza fired off 154 bullets in less than five minutes after entering the school in Newtown with a Bushmaster .223 rifle and several 30-round magazines, investigators have said.

Legislators in Connecticut worked to achieve a bipartisan consensus on the gun-control package. Sen. Majority Leader Martin Looney, a Democrat, told NBC News in March that he hoped for a “broadly supported bipartisan bill,” but said it was “more important that we have a strong bill that meets the need.”

The package put together in Connecticut should serve as an example for national lawmakers, Williams said on Monday.

“There were some who said the ‘Connecticut effect’ would wear off – that it would wear off in Connecticut and it would wear off across the country,” Williams said. “What they didn’t know was that Democrats and Republicans would come together and work to put together the strongest and most comprehensive bill in the United States to fight gun violence, to strengthen the security at our schools, and to provide the mental health services that are necessary.”

Malloy called the package “the toughest law passed anywhere in the country.”

Supporters of stricter gun controls applauded the bill even before it went to a vote.

“I am grateful that the Governor and Connecticut Legislature took a bipartisan path to a strong gun responsibility bill,” Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan was killed in the Newtown shooting, said in a statement. “I particularly appreciate that the Legislature listened to us and strengthened the provision on large capacity magazine size. “

Sandy Hook Promise thanked the governor and legislators for “passing the strongest gun responsibility legislation in the nation.”

Dozens of protesters who oppose new gun laws were gathered at the Capitol building in Hartford on Wednesday.

“I’m prepared to contribute maybe to a class-action lawsuit, follow this up through the legal system,” gun owner Joe Winslow told NBC Connecticut.

“I want legislators to pass laws that will protect people while not violating the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Joel Klusek, another anti-gun control protester.

A post on the blog of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League, a group that opposes gun control, said that buses would transport protesters from the parking lot of a Cabela’s sporting goods store in East Hartford to the Capitol and back on Wednesday.

“Please help us fill buses to the Capitol in Hartford as we assemble in the gallery above the floor where critical votes will take place,” the post read. “This is a last stand to show our legislators that we will not go away and accept the proposal as our fate.”

“CCDL wishes to thank the NRA for running these buses throughout the day!” the post said.

The state Senate passed the bill just moments after President Barack Obama finished a rally in Denver where he continued his push for Congress to pass a bill requiring background checks for every gun owner.

Next week, the president will travel to Hartford to continue his call for stricter gun control laws as the Senate prepares to take up the bill.

Related:

• Connecticut lawmakers reach deal on 'most comprehensive' gun limits in US
• Investigators: Adam Lanza surrounded by weapons at home; attack took less than 5 minutes
• 'Insane' crowds as customers flood Connecticut gun stores before vote

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 2:36 PM EDT

Wendy Carlson / The New York Times

Vic Benson, owner of The Freedom Shoppe, records the sale of an assault weapon during a sale in anticipation of new gun control measures in New Milford, Conn., April 2, 2013.

Gun stores all over Connecticut were packed Tuesday, one day before lawmakers voted on a sweeping package of laws that banned military-style assault weapons and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

“They’re insane. I’ve never seen them so busy before,” shopper Shari Reilly, who bought up several high-capacity magazines, told NBC Connecticut.

Gov. Dannel P. Molloy, a Democrat, said he will sign Thursday what could be “the toughest law passed anywhere in the country."

Connecticut will become the latest of a handful of states – following Colorado and New York – to enact strict new gun-control legislation after the mass shootings in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater and Newtown, Conn., shool. President Obama was scheduled to speak in Colorado on Wednesday to push new federal laws.

Gun manufacturers, ammunition makers and gun store owners in Connecticut have said their businesses will be threatened if a stringent new gun control bill becomes law.

“I feel like we have one foot being pushed out the door,” Mark Malkowski, the owner of AR-15 manufacturer Stag Arms, told NBC Connecticut. He said his company has received nearly two dozen incentive-laden offers to move out of the state.

“They’re really good offers,” Malkowski said. “They are offering tax abatements, they’re offering to build you a factory.”

A Connecticut gun store employee who asked not to be identified told NBC News that his store is selling five times the usual amount. “When your governor is threatening to take away your guns, what do you think is going to happen?” he said.

Bob Montlick, owner of Bob’s Gun Exchange in Darien, told the Connecticut Post he believes people will try to get firearms while they can.

"The only people who are going to comply with any of this are going to be the honest ones," Montlick told the paper. "The bad guys are going to get what they get or steal with anything else."

Hoffman’s Gun Center and Indoor Range in Newington reported brisk business on Tuesday as customers scraped shelves for whatever was left.

“I walked through. I walked out because they didn’t have anything. The girl told me what’s on the shelf is what they have. And I totally believe that,” would-be purchaser Nick Viccione told The Associated Press. The Wallingford resident said people were snatching up ammunition and “anything semi-automatic.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association based in Newtown, said that it opposed the proposed legislation in a press release on Tuesday.

“We have a situation where law-abiding citizens will face greater restrictions on their Second Amendment and state constitutional rights while Connecticut’s firearms manufacturers will be forced to pay a price economically for the state’s double-standard of you can build it here, but  not sell it here, public policy formulation,” the NSSF said in the statement.

Frenzied buying at gun stores nationwide has been reported ever since the shooting that left 26 children and educators dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Store owners and customers have cited the threat of new state and federal controls on guns and ammunition as the cause.

Documents obtained by NBC News in January through a Freedom of Information Act request showed that background checks on gun sales in Connecticut rose in the hours following the Newtown shooting. Between 11 a.m. and noon on December 14 – just as news of Adam Lanza’s rampage was breaking – Connecticut gun dealers logged nearly double the number of backgrounds checks performed in the same hour a week before, the FOIA documents show.

Related:

• After Newtown, states slow to embrace new gun laws
• Gun stores running low on weapons as sales surge, owners say
• Guns, paperwork, books flesh out portrait of Newtown killer Adam Lanza

Western Connecticut State University

Undated student ID photo of Adam Lanza from Western Connecticut State University.

A new photo of Sandy Hook massacre gunman Adam Lanza has emerged: a college ID snapshot that shows him staring wide-eyed into the camera as though scared out of his wits.

The picture, one of just a few that have been made public since the Dec. 14 shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, was part of Lanza's records from Western Connecticut State University, where he took classes in 2008 and 2009.

There is nothing in the documents that would foreshadow the monstrous attack, just a few odd notes.

When he took a placement exam in May 2008, Lanza refused to answer some background questions — including his gender.

Asked whether he had a "documented disabling condition" that could impact his test scores, he said no — although his mother had told people he had Asperger's disease, which is low on the autism spectrum.

Lanza was just 16 at the time, but he scored high on the test — in the 90th percentile. The records also show he registered for a precalculus class, but it's unclear if he ever took it.

He did take three computer science courses, earning an A and an A-minus in two of them, and American history, where he received an A-minus.

He got a C in a a class called "Introduction to Ethical Theory."

No grade was entered for "Introduction to German," and that prompted a post-massacre email on Dec. 17 from the registrar to the German professor, asking for her to submit one. The response was macabre.

"Do you realize that this Lanza Adam is the young man who was from Newtown and shot himself and so many others?" the teacher replied. "I do not think he still needs a grade."

Lanza withdrew from classes at Western Connecticut, and he was not enrolled in any school when he went on his rampage at Sandy Hook, killing 20 children, six staffers and himself after murdering his mother in her bed.

Search warrants released last week revealed that Lanza had an arsenal of guns, knives, samurai swords and ammunition at his disposal.

NBC News producer Tom Winter contributed to this report.

He was a "shut-in," a young man with a twisted murder obsession holed up in a suburban house with guns, Samurai swords and a mother who searched self-help books for solutions to his social disorder.

That's the picture that emerged Thursday of Adam Lanza as search warrants carried out after his Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School were made public.

The documents provide no clear motive for the two-part rampage that left 20 children, six school staffers, Lanza's mother Nancy and the gunman dead, but they hint at the activities that consumed his days behind dark-green shutters on Yogananda St. in Newtown, Conn.

One piece of paper seized from the home is particularly chilling in hindsight: a 2008 New York Times clipping about a shooting at Northern Illinois University, where a gunman murdered five people, wounded another 21 and then killed himself.

Although it's not spelled out in the warrants, a law-enforcement source told NBC News that police also found a spreadsheet that Lanza toiled over, cataloging the details of mass murders through the years.

Police also discovered Lanza's journals, though the warrants don't divulge if they contained any clues about why the 20-year-old slaughtered defenseless first-graders or how long he had planned the shooting spree.

There was a large assortment of computer equipment, including a custom-built desktop unit — not surprising since Lanza reportedly earned an A in computers as a 16-year-old freshman at Western Connecticut State University and worked for a time at a computer store.

Don Emmert / AFP - Getty Images file

Search warrants executed at the Lanza home in Newtown, Conn., detailed the weaponry found inside, along with books about autism and a newspaper clipping about a 2008 mass shooting.

More notable were missing and damaged hard drives, which law-enforcement experts saw as a sign that Lanza didn't want police to examine his computing history after he joined the nation's growing roster of mass killers.

The electronics seized included a Xbox system, and the warrants quoted an anonymous tipster who told the FBI that Lanza was "an avid gamer who plays Call of Duty."

Full documents: Read the Sandy Hook search warrants

Most startling was the array of weapons found at the Lanza home and at the school: a half-dozen handguns and rifles, a BB gun, a starter pistol, hundreds of rounds of ammunition scattered about, high-capacity magazines, three Samurai swords, a bayonet and smaller knives in sheaths.

"It's a stunning amount of ammunition and weaponry," said Mary Ellen O'Toole, a former FBI profiler.

"If the family dynamic is gun-oriented, that's fine. But how do they treat it? Are their weapons locked up? Is the ammunition kept in the same place? These documents tell us this is not the case. You've got this stuff laying all around and it's not stored properly."

The warrants also reveal that bullets were kept in a Planters nut canister and plastic baggies, in a bedroom gun safe, on closet shelves, in a shoe box, a duffel bag, and a filing cabinet drawer.

Family friends and acquaintances have said that Nancy Lanza, who grew up in rural New Hampshire, saw recreational shooting as something she could do to bond with Adam and his older brother, Ryan.

New details about Sandy Hook massacre gunman Adam Lanza were revealed in search warrants released Thursday.

A holiday card found in the house underscores that connection: it contained a check that Nancy wrote to Adam for the purchase of a firearm, according to the warrants.

Mother and son both had documents described as National Rifle Association certificates, though it was unclear what that signified, along with files of gun-related receipts, manuals and other paperwork.

Had the guns and ammunition been kept in a safe place and had Adam Lanza been a well-adjusted person with friends and outside interests, the arsenal might not have raised any eyebrows, O'Toole said.

But Lanza didn't fit that description.

The FBI tipster told agents the suspect "rarely leaves his home and considers him to be a shut-in," according to the warrants.

An extensive profile of the shooter in the Hartford Courant last month chronicled how Lanza cut himself off from others in the last two years of his life — following his parents' divorce and an abrupt end to his education, which had been a patchwork quilt of mainstream and special-education classes and home-schooling.

The FBI's source said school had been Lanza's "life" and that he once attended Sandy Hook. After moving from New Hampshire to Newtown, Lanza entered the first grade there. A report card from Sandy Hook was found in the home.

Over the next decade, Lanza was shuttled in and out of classrooms by his mother, who believed he had sensory integration disorder and needed independent study at home, the Courant reported.

Lanza hated to be touched, had few friends and was easily freaked out by changes in routine, the newspaper said. In middle school, he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum marked by social awkwardness and obsessive interests.

Phil Simpson via Reuters file

A former FBI profiler says Adam Lanza's mother, Nancy, seen here on a 2008 cruise, may not have acted on warning signs that her son could turn violent.

Proof that Nancy Lanza was still looking for insight into her son's behavior years after that diagnosis could be found on her home's bookshelves. Among the titles seized by police were a primer on Asperger's and another on autistic savants.

A third book, "Train Your Brain to Get Happy," had pages tabbed off, though it was unknown if mother or son had been looking for the "joy, optimism and serenity" promised in the subtitle.

Those feelings appeared to be elusive at the two-story yellow Colonial, where investigators found three gruesome pictures of a blood-spattered body under plastic. The origin of the photos was not specified.

O'Toole said the warrants reveal there was no shortage of warning signs for Nancy Lanza that her younger son was headed down a dark path.

"But it takes a big step for a lot of people who love their children to go from, 'I think i have a problem' to 'I think this person could commit homicide,'" she said. "It's not unusual for people to ignore behavior, explain it away or to normalize it or to rationalize it."

Not unusual — but in this case, fateful.

Among the other items ticked off in the warrants were two bloody sheets, apparently from the bed where Nancy Lanza was killed with a .22-caliber round to the forehead while sleeping, just before her son loaded her Honda Civil with handguns, rifles and bullets and, police say, went hunting for innocent children.

NBC News' Michael Isikoff contributed to this report

Related:

Invoking Newtown, Obama presses Congress on guns

Sandy Hook shooter fired 155 bullets in 5 minutes, documents show

Guns, ammo, Samurai swords: Adam Lanza's arsenal

Newtown Police

David Csanadi, 36, sexually abused three female children of friends and kept videos of their ordeals at his home in Newtown, Connecticut.

A federal judge sentenced a Connecticut man to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing a toddler and two other young girls and videotaping the abuse.

Between 2006 and 2009, David Csanadi, 36, of Newtown, sexually abused the three female children of friends and kept the tapes at his home in Newtown, according to court.

Csanadi was charged with three counts of production of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. 

He pleaded guilty in November to one count of production of child pornography.

'Unspeakable crimes'
One victim was approximately 18 months old, another was 4-and-a-half years old at the time of the abuse and the third was identified as being under the age of 12, according to the U.S. Attorney, District of Connecticut.

"The sexual abuse of children and production of child pornography are detestable crimes, and the harsh reality of it all is that those who commit these unspeakable crimes live and work among us," said Kimberly Mertz, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division.

"The Connecticut Child Exploitation Task Force's devotion to identifying those who commit these monstrous crimes and to bringing them to justice remains, and always will remain, resolute.”

More news from NBCConnecticut.com

According to prosecutors, the abuse happened in his home in Newtown and in Rhode Island.

Csanadi has been detained in state custody since April 15, 2011, when he was arrested on three counts of first-degree sexual assault, three counts of risk of injury or impairing the morals of children, three counts of illegal sexual contact with a child, and one count of third-degree possession of child pornography.

Upon his release, Csanadi will be subject to 15 years of supervised release. He will be sentenced on state sexual abuse charges in April.

NBCConnecticut.com

BOSTON -- New Englanders were preparing for another messy day of snow as they welcomed spring's unseasonable arrival.

Forecasts called for as much as 16 inches of snow in parts of northern New England through Wednesday morning, bringing slippery road conditions. Snow was expected to taper off in other locations.

"It's the real deal — the heavy, wet snow," said National Weather Service forecaster John Cannon in Gray, Maine. "Travel will be treacherous into the early morning hours."

Snow and sleet blasted the Northeast on Tuesday, where some places received over a foot of snow. Classes were canceled in some districts in Massachusetts, Connecticut and upstate New York, adding a few more snow days to the calendar.

Snow also socked other parts of the northern U.S., with as much as 2 feet forecast in parts of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Icy roads caused numerous auto accidents. In Marlborough, Mass., the Harlem Globetrotters' bus collided with a car on Interstate 290, but no one was hurt and the bus was able to drive away, the state police said. No citations were issued.

There was nothing unusual about a snowstorm in the Northeast this late in the season, when it can still get plenty cold.

"They don't happen all the time, but it's not, you know, unheard of," said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass.

Nina Walker, of Woburn in suburban Boston, said she had to shovel about 8 inches of snow off her driveway before driving to Boston's South Station to take a train to New York. As a lifelong New Englander, she takes the snow in stride, but draws the line at storms after March 31.

"Once I hear the word 'April,' I am really offended when I hear the word 'snow,'" she said. "So this is OK today, but a couple of weeks from now, it had better not happen."

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Full coverage from weather.com

Severe storms, large hail cause extensive damage in South

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:13 AM EDT

Bristol, Conn. Police

Derek Rupe is accused of setting fire to a shop in Bristol, Conn., and stealing martial arts weapons.

A 29-year-old Bristol, Conn., man is suspected of setting fire to the Wasteland Gift Shop in Bristol to help him get in and then stealing martial arts weapons, according to Bristol police.

Police responded to the shop at 320 Terryville Road at 1:22 a.m. on Thursday after the burglar alarm went off and found Derek N. Rupe, of Ruth Street in Bristol, inside, according to police.

Rupe surrendered to police.

As officers investigated, they determined that Rupe started a fire to weaken the outside of the building to make it easier to get inside, then broke a water pipe, according to a news release from police.

Rupe was found with more than $500 in cash and $48 in stolen merchandise, including some sort of martial arts weapon and a metal throwing star, according to police.

Police estimate that Rupe caused around $15,000 of damage to the building and merchandise.

He was charged with third-degree burglary, possession of burglary tools, fifth-degree larceny, carrying a dangerous weapon, first-degree criminal mischief and third-degree arson and held on $50,000 surety bond.

The Bristol Fire Department also responded to ensure that the fire was completely extinguished.

Herb Swanson / EPA

Residents of Byron, Maine, vote against a proposal that each household be required to own a firearm.

BYRON, Maine -- Voters in a small Maine town unanimously rejected a proposal on Monday that would have required every household to own a firearm and ammunition.

More than 60 residents of Byron, Maine, packed into the tiny Coos Canyon Schoolhouse and quickly voted to make the symbolic measure the first order of business during the town's annual meeting.

After a brief discussion, residents elected to skip debate and vote. Not even Bruce Simmons, the resident who originally came up with the proposal, voted to support it.

Backers said the point of the measure, which was considered unenforceable, was to send a message to state and federal lawmakers trying to pass gun control laws.

"I feel we accomplished what we set out to do and I hope we will wake this town up," Simmons said. "We made a statement to the federal government that they can't take our guns away."

Herb Swanson / EPA

Philip Paquette, a Byron resident opposed to forcing people to own guns, put up signs urging people to vote against the proposal, which was unanimously defeated.

Selectman David Noyes, who told the group he opposed the requirement, said he was relieved the question was dispatched so quickly so the town of about 140 people could move on to other pressing matters.

Even if the measure had passed, Maine law bars municipalities from legislating on firearms.

The December shooting rampage that left 20 first-graders and six adults dead at a Connecticut elementary school has re-ignited the national debate over guns.

In response, some states have been prompted to tighten gun laws, while other states have sought to keep federal gun measures from being applied within their borders.

Byron is not the only U.S. town to mull such a measure. Last week, selectmen in the Maine town of Sabattus, about 60 miles from Byron, voted against putting a similar proposal before town residents.

In Georgia, a city leader in Nelson has proposed an ordinance calling on every head of household to have a gun as a way to keep crime down in the city of 1,300 residents, which employs only a single police officer.

The Nelson city council is expected to vote on the gun ownership ordinance on April 1.

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A gun for every home? Maine town to vote on mandatory firearm ownership

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