Jeff Klein

File photo: Senate co-leader Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, speaks at a news conference on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014, in Albany, N.Y. Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, is also pictured. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

(Mike Groll)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A key state Senate leader will propose legislation to ban people on federal terrorism watch lists from buying or possessing guns in New York.

The pledge from New York state Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, comes one day after Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy announced his intentions to use executive power to ban people on those lists from buying guns.

Klein, a sponsor of a collection of New York gun laws called the SAFE Act, vowed today to act quickly.

"As the sponsor of the SAFE Act, I will immediately introduce a new provision to ban any individual on the federal terrorist watch list or on the no-fly list from purchasing a gun in New York state," he said in a statement this morning. Klein is the leader of the Independent Democratic Conference and co-leader of the state Senate.

Klein also wants to give the New York State Police the power to confiscate guns from those on the watch lists.

A pro-gun owner group this afternoon criticized Klein's idea.

"Sen. Jeff Klein's proposal to ban firearms sales in New York to those on the federal terrorist watch and no-fly lists and confiscate firearms from those on these secret lists is a blatant affront to civil rights, completely unworkable and potentially deadly for law enforcement," Jake Palmateer of NY2A said.

The New York State Legislature will return to Albany in January. It wasn't immediately clear whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo or Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie supported Klein's effort.

A similar effort to ban guns from potential terrorists has stalled in Congress.

