Guns in America

Federal funding for research on gun violence has been restricted for nearly two decades. President Obama urged Congress to allocate $10 million for new research after the Newtown school shooting. But House Republicans say they won't approve it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's budget still lists zero dollars for research on gun violence prevention. One of the researchers who lost funding in the political battle over studying firearms was Dr. Garen Wintemute, one of only a dozen researchers across the country who have continued to focus full-time on firearms violence.

For nearly 20 years, Congress has pushed the CDC to steer clear of firearms violence research. As chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that traditionally sets CDC funding, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has been in a position to change that. Soon after Sandy Hook, Kingston said he had spoken to the head of the agency. "I think we can find some common ground," Kingston said. More than a year later, as Kingston competes in a crowded Republican primary race for a U.S. Senate seat, the congressman is no longer talking about common ground.

Democratic worries about this November's elections, a lack of Senate votes and House opposition are forcing congressional gun-control supporters to significantly winnow their 2014 agenda, a year after lawmakers scuttled President Barack Obama's effort to pass new curbs on firearms. But with Reid wary of exposing Democratic senators facing tight re-election contests in some conservative and Western states to politically risky votes people aren't holding their breath waiting for proposed gun restrictions to reach the Senate floor before Election Day.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton was caught erasing critical comments from his Facebook account regarding the CT gubernatorial candidate's flip-flop on common sense gun control. Of course, this is the same man who whitewashed his Twitter account when he announced his run for governor.

Almost unnoticed, something remarkable happened in Colorado over the last month: The common sense gun safety regulations passed in the wake of the Aurora and Newtown massacres survived despite attempts to overturn them. Once again, Colorado’s legislature has achieved what Congress could not. The gun safety laws made in Colorado have stayed in Colorado.

A sailor was fatally shot aboard a guided-missile destroyer docked at the world's largest naval base late Monday, and security forces killed the lone suspect, according to the Navy.

There are few regular CPAC speakers who can match the NRA's Wayne LaPierre when it comes to peddling wholesale paranoia and nightmarish visions of the future as he did while speaking today when he warned that neighborhood streets that were once filled with laughter and freedom now sit ominously silent because Americans are in fear for their lives, which is why they are loading up on all the ammunition and weapons they can get.
"In the world that surrounds us," he proclaimed, "there are terrorists, and there are home-inv

Did you know R. Lee Ermey – the drill sergeant in the movie Full Metal Jacket – was also an NRA board member? He is! And with that position apparently comes the ability to put your foot in your mouth. The rabid second amendment nut made some choice comments about bullied children recently.

Herpin was trying to make a point, not wholly inaccurate, that some of the cheaper civilian-grade high capacity drum magazines aren't very reliable. But the idea that anyone would count on product defects to protect the public in an actual shooting is, of course, ludicrous beyond words.

The Multnomah County Republican Party is pumped that Martin Luther King Day and Abraham Lincoln's birthday are both on the way. To kick off the celebrations they are raffling off an AR-15 assault rifle.