Gun Control

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley will sign into law one of the nation's strictest gun-control measures Thursday , a major victory after months of contentious debate during this year's legislative session. But the signing of the law, which goes into effect Oct. 1, isn't the end of the fight. A new battle begins to convince judges and voters that it was the right response to last year's school shootings in Newtown, Conn. The National Rifle Association on Wednesday renewed its promise to...

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., wasn't planning to co-sponsor legislation seeking to expand background checks for gun purchases if reintroduced. While Toomey noted that it was "unlikely" another attempt to pass the measure would succeed in Congress, he said he would be a co-sponsor of such a bill if it were to be reintroduced. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association with an "A+" rating for her voting record in the Tennessee House of Representatives, Debra...

The Newtown tragedy took place amid a parade of homicidal images, stories and films so steady that it almost goes unnoticed. Kids obsess over video games in which they kill, shoot and rob their way to riches. Last season's finale of "The Walking Dead," AMC's zombie-killing flesh feast, was the most-watched television episode in cable history. At the cinema, "Hitchcock" spends two hours narrating how "Psycho," perhaps the godfather of the slasher film, came to be. On bookshelves, the big bestseller is " Gone Girl ," a...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is tapping former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for the board that selects recipients for Fulbright scholarships. The Arizona Democrat resigned from Congress in 2012, a year after a gunman shot her at close range while she was greeting constituents in her Tucson district. Six people were killed and 13 others wounded in the shooting rampage. Giffords has since become a prominent advocate for gun control, testifying before in Congress and starting an advocacy group.

Maryland residents overwhelmingly support Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to force gun buyers to submit to fingerprinting, safety training and more background checks, according to a new Washington Post poll . Across the state, fully 85 percent back the governor's licensing plan and 73 percent do so "strongly. " They also support banning high-capacity ammunition clips and assault weapons — two other portions of O'Malley's (D) bill, which in the wake of the December school shooting in...

Twenty minutes into his State of the Union address last week, President Obama entered the realm of uber-geekery — three-dimensional printing. The magical devices capable of printing prosthetics, violins and even aircraft parts have the potential, the president said, "to revolutionize the way we make almost everything. " Forty miles away from the Capitol, in Glen Burnie, Md., Travis Lerol is proving Obama's point — with guns. In a spare bedroom, where an AR-15...

At 3 a.m. on July 2, 1993, Steve Sposato sat down in his darkened living room to write, by hand, a letter to the president of the United States. His life had just been shattered. Hours earlier, in the afternoon, a deranged man armed with semiautomatic weapons had gone on a rampage, slaughtering eight people at an office building in downtown San Francisco. The gunman's motive would remain forever a mystery. Among the slain: Steve's wife, 30-year-old Jody Jones...

Thirty-one months ago Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell affronted the media and other custodians of propriety by saying something common-sensical . On Oct. 23, 2010, he said: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. " He meant that America needed conservative change from the statist course of Obama's presidency (the stimulus, Obamacare, etc.), therefore America needed a president who would not veto...

The afterglow of President Obama's reelection and inauguration appears to have vanished as increasingly negative views among Americans about his stewardship of the economy have forced his public approval rating back down to the 50 percent mark, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll . In December , just after he won a second term, Obama held an 18-percentage-point advantage over congressional Republicans on the question of...

Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination. And where Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown and proceeded to ride his reelection success to a crushing victory over the GOP at the...

NELSON, Ga. — A group that supports gun control filed suit Thursday against a north Georgia town that recently passed a law requiring gun ownership that it said is mostly symbolic. The Washington-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a federal lawsuit against the town of Nelson, about 50 miles north of Atlanta, claiming the law is unconstitutional. The suit contends the Second Amendment doesn't require anyone to have a gun, and government cannot require citizens to arm themselves.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Gov. Martin O'Malley has signed a gun-control measure to give Maryland some of the nation's tightest gun laws and the National Rifle Association says it plans to challenge the law in court. Part of the law requires people to submit fingerprints to the state police to get a license to buy a handgun. O'Malley says states with similar laws have substantially lower gun death rates than states that do not The other states include New Jersey, New...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley will sign into law one of the nation's strictest gun-control measures Thursday , a major victory after months of contentious debate during this year's legislative session. But the signing of the law, which goes into effect Oct. 1, isn't the end of the fight. A new battle begins to convince judges and voters that it was the right response to last year's school shootings in Newtown, Conn. The National Rifle Association on Wednesday renewed...

DOVER, Del. — The state House on Tuesday approved two gun control measures proposed by Gov. Jack Markell following the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school last year. House members voted 40-1 to approve and send to the Senate a bill expanding the ability of authorities to prohibit people with mental health issues from having guns. The other bill, which would require gun owners to report the loss or theft of weapons to police within seven days, passed by a...

Milwaukee Public officials are very selective about when violence and death matter. Massacres and terrorist incidents cannot be ignored, but the day-to-day toll from gun violence is often swept aside. Politicians who tout themselves as advocates of law and order don't want to be unmasked as caring even more about their ratings from gun lobbyists. And opponents of the most moderate gun reforms engage in a shameless game of bait-and-switch. Because measures such as background checks would not stop...

Here's a complete transcript of President Obama's remarks on his administration's plans for gun control, and his views on the impending fiscal cliff, as delivered on Dec. 19, 2012. Transcript was updated as the remarks unfolded. PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good morning, everybody. It's now been five days since the heartbreaking tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut; three days since we gathered as a nation to pray for the victims, and today a few more of the 20 small children and six educators who...

Moments after clearing the first procedural hurdle, Democrats and gun control groups began readying themselves for a potentially more difficult fight: Weeks of Senate debate defending their carefully crafted legislation against possible amendments — particularly a plan to allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons from one state to another — that would kill the bill's underlying goal. If previous Senate votes are any guide, the concept of "national reciprocity" enjoys enough support in the Senate to...