The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From AP:

Jumping out ahead of Washington, New York state enacted the nation’s toughest gun restrictions Tuesday and the first since the Connecticut school massacre, including an expanded assault-weapon ban and background checks for buying ammunition.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the measure into law less than an hour after it won final passage in the Legislature, with supporters hailing it as a model for the nation and gun-rights activists condemning it as a knee-jerk piece of legislation that won’t make anyone safer and is too extreme to win support in the rest of the country.

“Common sense can win,” Cuomo said. “You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with common sense.”

Owners of an estimated 1 million previously legal semiautomatic rifles, such as the Bushmaster model used to kill 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., a month ago, will be allowed to keep their weapons but will have a year to register them with police. The sale of any more such weapons is prohibited.

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Andrew Sullivan reacts to the landmark gay rights bill in the state of New York that legalizes marriage between members of the same sex:

I have a confession. The night after it passed, I slept for twelve hours; the following night for fourteen. Last night, a mere ten. And I still feel tired this morning. I guess my unconscious has decided that this fight has passed a critical landmark and I can relax now.

The passage of this bill should not be underestimated – what has happened in New York will ripple across the country, and probably the world. It validates a basic principle that everyone is entitled to equality under the law, no matter your color, class or sexual persuasion.

Once that principle is unleashed, there is no going back. Gay marriage is here to stay, and the country had better get used to it.

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