States Move on Tough Gun Laws Despite Growing Evidence Questioning Policy Effectiveness

While national legislation is still moving slow through Congress on gun control after a year of several well publicized instances of gun violence, individual states have already gone ahead with tighter gun laws within their borders. On Monday the Democrat-controlled Colorado House passed limits on the size of ammunition magazines and universal background checks, despite strong resistance from Republicans. In January, New York lawmakers expanded the state's existing assault weapons ban and addressed gun ownership by those with mental illness, and now Missouri Democrats have proposed a bill that would give owners 90 days to either turn in or destroy their semi-automatic pistols, otherwise send the guns to another state.

This scurried reaction of states moving to pass tougher gun laws comes as a leaked internal memo from a subgroup of the Justice Department early this year reveals that popular gun control initiatives like gun buybacks, 'assault weapons' bans, and large magazine restrictions, do not work according to the the department's studies. The National Institute of Justice memo reported that these gun control policy proposals are ineffective or politically untenable.

Emily Miller of the Washington Times appeared on 'Wilkow!' Wednesday to discuss the NIJ memo and extreme gun control proposals now showing up in individual states, watch a clip below.