[link to news.yahoo.com] The Obama administration proposed two new federal gun control rules Friday to ensure more information about the mentally ill reaches background check databases, after a series of high-profile US shootings.

The rules come on top of a series of executive actions President Barack Obama announced after the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting that left 20 young children and six staff dead in December 2012.

The massacre relaunched a push for gun control laws in America and a handful of states have since tightened gun rules.

But the national measures Obama sought, including a plan for enhanced background checks on gun buyers and a ban on assault-style rifles, failed in the US Senate in April due to fierce opposition from gun rights supporters.

In the first nine months of 2013 following a presidential directive, federal agencies have provided more than 1.2 million records identifying persons prohibited from buying or owning guns for mental health reasons, the White House said.

The figure is a 23 percent increase from the number of records tha

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