TRENTON — A Senate panel today voted to advance seven new bills intended to curb gun violence, including a ban on the future sale of the most powerful gun civilians can buy.

The action by the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee came two days after it voted to advance seven other bills — and two months after the Assembly passed a more stringent package of 22 gun-control measures.

The most controversial bill among those considered today was one (S2178) that would ban future sales of .50-caliber rifles, a civilian version of a military weapon used to destroy material targets at long distances. It cleared the committee, with all three Democrats voting yes, and the lone Republican opposing it. Gov. Chris Christie has also proposed banning the weapon, currently outlawed only in California.

Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based anti-gun violence group, said the guns can destroy domestic "soft targets" like airliners, rail tankers and refineries.

"They’re incredibly powerful and they have incredible range. There is no reason why anyone should want one, frankly, for civilian purposes and their danger is extreme in a state that is full of the sort of targets that these guns are made specifically to destroy," Miller said. "They are the perfect domestic terrorist weapon."

But Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, said the .50-caliber rifle has never been used to commit a crime in New Jersey and it’s generally owned only by wealthy people like doctors and lawyers. "I happen to own one. I think Bryan Miller just called me a terrorist," Bach said.

The committee also cleared a bill (S2719) to stiffen penalties for those convicted of transporting illegal guns into the state and for dealers who sell to customers they know plan to give the guns to people ineligible to purchase them. It approved another bill (S2718) that would require law enforcement agencies to report information on firearms to national databases.

Some of the bills are friendlier to gun owners. One (S2552) would take a current regulation exempting individual gun ownership records from the state’s Open Public Records Act and make it a law.

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The bill, a reaction to a Westchester County, N.Y., newspaper’s publication of a map of local gun owners, is opposed by the New Jersey Press Association. Tom Cafferty, the group’s general counsel, said it would create an "ill-defined exemption from OPRA" rendering domestic violence victims unable to find out if an abuser has a gun.

Another bill (S2721), supported by gun-rights groups, would clarify that state law allows gun owners transporting firearms to and from a firing range to make stops to pick up or drop off passengers, buy gas, food, medicine, use the bathroom, or in the case of an emergency.

Bach said the bill is needed because "law-abiding gun owners are regularly arrested and thrown in jail for hyper-technical violations." He cited the case of Brian Aitken, who was transporting guns that were legally purchased in Colorado in the trunk of his car when he was arrested in 2009. He was convicted on weapons charges and sentenced to seven years in prison. Christie commuted his sentence in 2010.

But gun-control advocates said the bill would allow people to transport guns while running routine errands.

Some of the bills will be heard by the Senate budget committee next week. All 14 are scheduled for a vote in the full Senate on May 13.

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