Democrats have struck a deal with the National Rifle Association (NRA) to tighten gun laws in America for the first time in 13 years, as the nation was shocked by another mass shooting that left six dead and a toddler clinging to life with a gunshot wound to the chest.

The deal, aimed at improving background checks on gun-buyers, opens the way for the first nationwide gun-control legislation since the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, partly in reaction to Democratic legislation earlier that year banning assault weapons.

The Democrats, who won control of Congress in November, convinced the NRA gun lobby at the weekend to accept financial incentives and penalties to ensure that states keep the national system of background checks up-to-date. The move follows weeks of talks in the wake of the massacre of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech in the worst shooting in American history.

Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman, had been ordered by a judge to submit to psychiatric evaluation, which should have disqualified him from buying guns. The state of Virginia never forwarded that information to the National Instant Check System for gun-purchasers.

The deal worked out between senior Democrats and the NRA will provide $250 million (£125 million) a year for states to keep the national data-base up-to-date.

The US attorney-general would be empowered to cut federal law enforcement funding to states that do not comply.

The NRA, however, won concessions that would allow individuals with minor infractions in their past to petition states to remove their names from the national blacklist. The Government would also be barred from charging gun-buyers or sellers a fee to cover the cost of the background check.

Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat who won a seat in Congress after her husband was killed in a massacre in New York, had been pushing to tighten the background checks for years.

The talks were led by John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who once served on the NRA board. The NRA said that it had always supported keeping guns out of the hands of mentally incompetent people. But the organisation warned that it would withdraw its support for the legislation if other measures were tacked on in Congress. The Bill still faces opposition from the NRA’s smaller rival, Gun Owners of America The agreement came as police found the bodies of six people shot dead at a house in the town of Delavan in southern Wisconsin.

Officers called to the home on Saturday night found a two-year-old girl in critical condition with a gunshot wound to her chest. Local residents were evacuated, but then allowed to return home when police apparently concluded that the shootings were a murder-suicide and the gunman was among the dead. The house had been the scene of domestic disputes.

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