New York law takes effect

ALBANY, N.Y. – Key measures of New York’s tough new gun law kicked in Monday, with owners of firearms now reclassified as assault weapons required to start registering them and new limits on the number of bullets allowed in magazines.

As the new provisions took effect, New York’s affiliate of the National Rifle Association planned to file a court request for a federal injunction to immediate halt to the magazine limit.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo calls those and other provisions in the state’s new gun law common sense while dismissing criticisms he says come from “extreme fringe conservatives” who claim the government has no right to regulate guns.

New York’s new gun restrictions, the first in the nation passed following December’s massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, limit state gun owners to no more than seven bullets in magazines, except at competitions or firing ranges.