State officials are looking into a 15 year-old gun seizure law to thwart mass killings in the United States, The Associated Press reports on Sunday.

Mass shootings flooded U.S. media that took place in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 and another one in the University of California in Santa Barbara, California this year.

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The mass killings happened in public places where victims were mostly students. The violence was all over the news in the United States until now, and the nation is still looking for ways to prevent similar incidents from happening again.

Recent reports said that California and New jersey lawmakers are now looking into establishing a law similar to 1999 Connecticut enactment. The 1999 Connecticut law allows judges to order guns to be confiscated temporarily after police officials have proven that a person carrying the gun poses a potential danger to himself or to others.

The very first gun-seizure law was passed in the year after the 1998 killings of four managers at the Connecticut Lottery headquarters by an angered employee who has a history of psychiatric problems.

In line with the law, Connecticut has seized over 2,000 guns in 2009. Passed in 2005, the only other state to have a similar law is Indiana, in response to the Indianapolis incident where a police officer was shot by a mentally ill man.

On the other hand, gun aficionados debate the consideration of such law because, according to them, it is an authority abuse and will breach certain constitutional rights. Though its effectiveness is still disputed, Connecticut ranked fifth while Indiana ranked 18th in having the lowest firearm-death rate in 2011 as recorded by the Violence Policy Center.

TagsConnecticut, california, University of California, Sandy Hook Elementary School