At a panel discussion in Washington, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he would like to see Republican support for banning high-capacity ammunition magazines, but said Democrats should “get it done” either way.

Legislative leaders have been negotiating for weeks to craft bipartisan gun-control legislation in response to the Dec. 14 murders in Newtown. Last week, Connecticut Against Gun Violence called out legislative leaders for allegedly waffling behind closed doors on banning existing high-capacity ammunition magazines.

According to the group, legislative leaders are settling on “grandfathering” existing high capacity ammunition magazines, and CAGV said that provision would make the ban useless since the magazines aren’t tracked.

Malloy, who spoke Tuesday at a forum hosted by the Center for American Progress, said people in Connecticut would like to see both parties agree on gun-control legislation. But he said he thought it was unlikely that Republicans would sign on to a limitation on magazines. He said it made “dealing with Republicans in the state all the more difficult.”

“I think that there is more than enough Democratic support. So my hope is we could do this on a bipartisan basis, but if we can’t do it on a bipartisan basis that we should get it done,” he said.

The governor called bipartisanship “a wonderful thing,” but he said the state’s response to the shooting should be meaningful. He said state officials have decided not to pursue confiscating weapons from gun owners, even if they ban the sale of those same weapons moving forward.

But Malloy said there should be no grandfather clause for ammunition magazines that can carry more than 10 rounds.

“The issue with magazines is very different. Number one, they don’t have serial numbers. They are ubiquitous,” he said. “If we’re to have effective limitation on the potential lethal impact of any of these instruments, it has to be along the lines of eliminating capacities greater than 10.”

Malloy said he was anxious to see the legislature take action on gun control, but would rather see them do it “right,” rather than quickly.

“If I have to wait till the first week of June to get a good package, then that’s okay too, as long as we hit these major issues,” he said.