DENVER | Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:37pm EST

DENVER (Reuters) - The Democratic-controlled Colorado House of Representatives approved a package of strict gun-control measures late on Friday, in a state rocked by two of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

After a marathon session that stretched late into the evening, the state House voted to advance the proposals with little support from Republicans, but with a boost from Vice President Joe Biden, who called several wavering Democratic lawmakers and urged them to vote for the measures.

The proposals passed on a voice vote, with a formal vote scheduled for Monday. The bills must also pass a final vote in the state Senate, also controlled by Democrats, before it heads to Governor John Hickenlooper's desk.

Among the proposals are bills that would require background checks for all gun purchases - paid for by applicants - a ban on ammunition magazines with more than 15 rounds and a measure to allow colleges in the state to ban concealed weapons on campus.

"We had a full and fair debate, which is exactly how the process is supposed to work," House Speaker Mark Ferrandino said in a statement. "Opinions were sharply divided, but we got our work done, and I thank members on both sides of the aisle."

House Republican leader Mark Waller characterized the bills as a "knee-jerk reaction" to last year's massacre of school children in Connecticut and moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado.

"They (Democrats) are passing these without any evidence that there will be any impact on public safety," Waller told Reuters on Saturday.

Colorado has been shaken by two of the worst mass shootings in recent U.S. history. In 1999, two students at Columbine High School in Littleton shot dead a teacher and 12 students before turning their guns on themselves.

Last July, a gunman opened fire inside an Aurora theater, killing 12, and wounding 58 others. The accused shooter, James Holmes, is awaiting trial on multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Emotions ran high during debate in Denver on Friday.

Several Democrats said they had received death threats for supporting gun control bills, and a gun-rights lobbyist was escorted out of the Capitol after a Republican lawmaker complained she was told a gun-rights group would run ads against her if she supported any of the bills.

And a Colorado-based manufacturer of ammunition magazines threatened to leave Colorado if a ban on high-capacity magazines becomes law, taking some 600 jobs with them.

Democrats amended the magazine-limit bill to allow the company to continue to sell the magazines for out-of-state use, leading Waller to call the Democrats hypocritical.

"Democrats stood in the well of the House and recounted all the mass shootings nationwide, then put in the amendment that says the company can sell magazines in every other state, including those that had tragic shootings," he said.

Biden's call to lawmakers during the debate asking them "to stay the course" is evidence state Democrats are being pressured to advance the president's gun-control agenda, Waller said.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said this week he supported the magazine limits and universal background check measures, but was undecided on the college campus ban.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Todd Eastham)

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Colorado shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes (far right) makes his first court appearance in Aurora, Colorado, July 23, 2012.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. | Thu Aug 9, 2012 10:04pm EDT

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (Reuters) - Accused Colorado gunman James Holmes, charged with murder over a shooting rampage last month at a movie theater in a Denver suburb, has a "mental illness" and tried to get help before the shooting, his defense attorney said in court on Thursday.

Holmes' public defender, in a hearing on media access to court files in the case, repeatedly made references to his client's unspecified mental illness, giving the first clear sign that Holmes' lawyers might be considering an insanity defense.

"He tried to get help with his mental illness," Daniel King said of his client, a 24-year-old former neuroscience graduate student at the University of Colorado who faces 24 counts of first-degree murder and 116 counts of attempted murder.

Holmes is accused of bursting into a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in the Denver suburb of Aurora and opening fire in the crowded theater, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others.

Holmes, who seemed to have not shaved for days, appeared in court on Thursday wearing maroon prison garb and shackled at his hands and ankles, with his dyed hair fading to pink in some places from its original reddish-orange.

He seemed alert but disinterested in his third appearance in a Colorado courtroom since the July 20 mass shooting. He mostly stared straight ahead and did not talk to his lawyers.

"Mental illness is the only possible defense available in this case. It is hardly a whodunit," Craig Silverman, a former chief deputy district attorney in Denver who now practices law privately, told Reuters.

"By saying it repeatedly in open court, Holmes' lawyers provide the sound bite that will be the basis of the defense," he said. "It wasn't just for the court to hear but it was for the people in the courtroom and for people in the press to report."

Court papers filed by defense attorneys two weeks ago said Holmes had been a patient of the medical director for student mental health services on campus before he filed paperwork to drop out of the competitive graduate program.

That psychiatrist, Dr. Lynne Fenton, reported Holmes to a campus threat assessment team and a campus police officer over concerns about her patient, according to media reports.

Lawyers for Fenton and the campus police officer declined to comment to Reuters on those reports. The university has also declined to comment on the reports but said it had hired a former federal prosecutor to probe its dealings with Holmes.

As in many states, mental health care providers in Colorado must warn authorities of potential violent behavior only when a patient has communicated a serious threat of imminent physical violence against a specific target.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

Judge William Sylvester said he would consider a request by 20 media organizations to unseal and make public documents detailing the murder case against Holmes, and would issue a written ruling later.

Lawyers representing news organizations sought the release of the papers in a written motion that said sealing them "undermines our nation's firm commitment to the transparency and public accountability of the criminal justice system."

In the motion, lawyers for the media outlets, including The New York Times Co., The Associated Press, The Denver Post, and CBS News, argued that the U.S. Constitution and state case law requires a presumption of openness. Thomson Reuters is not a party to the motion.

In most court cases, documents are available to the public.

Both prosecutors and defense lawyers objected, saying that it was too early to open the file because the investigation was still ongoing.

"The harm, judge, is very real with the release of the file at this point," defense attorney King said.

Media lawyer Steven Zansberg argued that the decision to close the bulk of the file made it difficult for the public to understand what happened during the shooting, and why.

The media has recently been successful in getting some documents unsealed in the case of Jared Loughner, who was charged last year in a deadly shooting spree that killed six people and gravely wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

As the Holmes case gets further along, there may be other parties who express concerns over what is sealed. Attorneys representing families of the victims may insist that certain photographs from the crime scene not be released, for example.

Holmes is being held without bond and in solitary confinement at the Arapahoe County jail.

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Mary Slosson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Anthony Boadle)

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