WASHINGTON – Declaring the time for action overdue, President Barack Obama promised on Wednesday to send Congress broad proposals in January for tightening gun laws and curbing violence after last week’s schoolhouse massacre in Connecticut.

Even before those proposals are drafted, Obama pressed lawmakers to reinstate a ban on military-style assault weapons, close loopholes that allow gun buyers to skirt background checks and restrict high-capacity ammunition clips.

“The fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing,” Obama said in his most detailed comments on guns since Friday’s killing of 20 schoolchildren and six adults in Newtown, Conn. “The fact that we can’t prevent every act of violence doesn’t mean we can’t steadily reduce the violence.”