WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama "strongly" supports the renewal of the assault weapons ban and would back new gun legislation, the White House said Tuesday.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney made the announcement Tuesday during his daily briefing, saying Obama "is actively supportive of, for example, Sen. Feinstein's stated intent to revive a piece of legislation that would reinstate the assault weapons ban."

US President Barack Obama speaks at a vigil held at Newtown High School for families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut Dec 16, 2012. Obama is visiting Newtown High School to meet with the families of the victims and to thank first responders to the school shooting here that was one of the deadliest such incidents in the nation's history. [Photo/Agencies]

California Senator Dianne Feinstein, a top Democrat and leading liberal voice in the Senate, said Sunday that she is reintroducing a federal ban on assault weapons on the first day of the coming Congress, and urged President Barack Obama to lead on the issue, after a gunman killed 20 kids and 6 adults in an elementary school shooting rampage Friday in Newtown, Connecticut.

Carney also offered some other gun laws Obama would back, such as those that "addresses the problem of the so-called gun show loophole, and there are other elements of gun legislation that he could support ... high capacity ammunition clips, for example. That is certainly something he would be interested in looking at."

The press secretary also said Obama spoke with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin earlier Tuesday. Manchin, a Democrat, is a longtime National Rifle Association member who has since voiced his support of tougher gun laws after the tragedy in Newtown.

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