PROVIDENCE — A year after the Valentine's Day massacre by a lone gunman at a Parkland, Florida, high school killed 17 people, Gov. Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Peter Neronha teamed up at the Rhode Island State House on Thursday afternoon to rally support for "a legislative package aimed at keeping Rhode Island schools and communities safe."

The bills unveiled Thursday would:

-Ban high-capacity magazines capable of holding, and feeding, more than 10 rounds of ammunition to a semiautomatic firearm.

-Ban "assault weapons,'' which are defined in nitty-gritty detail and include grenade launchers.

-Prohibit carrying any weapon on school grounds, within 300 feet of a school building or on school-provided transportation. The penalty would be at least a year in prison — as much as five years and a $5,000 fine for an adult — plus loss of driving privileges for up to six months, at minimum, for a juvenile.

Lawmakers have introduced similar bills in the past that died in the face of fierce opposition from gun-rights advocacy groups — which have hired former House Speaker William J. Murphy as one of their top lobbyists — and a cool reception from current General Assembly leaders with high NRA ratings, including House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello.

Asked why she believes the bills will have a better chance this year, Democrat Raimondo said, "First of all, we have to try, right? Second of all, this is what Rhode Islanders want. Poll after poll says Rhode Islanders want this."

Eighteen-year-old Ashley Rodriguez brought the packed State Room to silence by reading aloud a poem she wrote about what it has been like for her living in the Chad Brown housing complex in Providence.

"Gunshots I heard, gunshots that were loud, gunshots that made my heart drop. Looking through my eyes it was horrible.... There were blood stains on the floor.... There was a dead body.... Why I [wasn't] able to play outside. Fear made me sick. Fear is everywhere."

(In the back of the room, asking to go unnamed, was one of the students who survived the Parkland, Fla. massacre.)

Neronha, the former U.S. Attorney who took office last month as the state's top prosecutor, said, "It's not about saving every life; it's about saving some lives.... If making magazines smaller so that someone has to reload before they can fire again, can we buy one second or two seconds or three seconds, and a first responder can take that criminal out or a person can get away ... then that is worth it to me."

But what, if anything, has changed since last year's failed efforts?

For one thing: the proposed gun ban on school grounds now has a long list of people who would be exempt from the ban, including police officers, retired law-enforcement officers who keep up their certification and people under contract with a school to provide security services.

There are also exemptions for "firearm instruction and/or safety courses; government-sponsored military-related programs such as ROTC; interscholastic shooting and/or marksmanship events; military history and firearms collection courses and/or programs; and the use of blank guns in theatrical and/or athletic events."

The reworked bill also exempts a gun that "is not loaded and is in a locked container or a locked rack that is on a motor vehicle." This attempts to address an oft-stated objection from the gun-rights lobby.

Two of the bills reflected the recommendations last fall of a 43-member gun-safety task force that Raimondo created.

In its final report — released in October, within days of the anniversary of a mass shooting that killed 58 people in Las Vegas — the task force recommended a ban on high-capacity magazines but stopped short of recommending an assault-weapons ban.

While such weapons “account for a fairly small percentage of overall gun deaths in this country (the vast majority of gun injuries and deaths are caused by handguns and suicides),” the report concluded “that high-capacity semiautomatic rifles have been the weapon of choice of terrorists, criminals and mass shooters ... and that mass shootings that involve a high-capacity semiautomatic rifle have a higher death toll.”

"Based on this discussion, the working group overwhelmingly supported a ban on high-capacity magazines. Such a ban would be relatively straightforward to implement, would avoid the difficulty of defining what constitutes an 'assault weapon' and would target a principal risk posed by ... weapons [with] the ability to rapid-fire a large number of rounds without the need to reload."

“There is simply no place for such firepower in civilian life,'' the group said.

"While a clear majority of the working group wanted to go farther and ban all military-style assault weapons — as our neighboring states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey have done,'' the report said the task force "would not reach consensus for such a recommendation."

The proposed "assault weapons'' ban unveiled Thursday would allow those who already "lawfully'' own one to hold on to it, but that person would be required to register the weapon within a year, complete an "assault weapon registration statement," submit to a "fingerprint-supported criminal background check" and pay a $25 registration fee.

Asked the prospects for these bills, this year, Mattiello said, "The bills, when introduced, will go through the regular legislative process."

Similarly, a spokesman for Senate President Dominick Ruggerio said "The Senate president hasn’t reviewed the new language of these bills. He will await the public testimony at a full and fair hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the guidance of the committee."