Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin congressman and last year's Republican vice presidential nominee, is a staunch supporter of gun rights with an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association.

But in an interview with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, released on Monday, Ryan broke ranks with the pro-gun...

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief lobbyist, will be among the star witnesses at tomorrow's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.

Don't expect any surprises. LaPierre will hold to the NRA's bedrock position of no compromise on gun control legislation, according to prepared remarks distributed by the NRA on...

New Mexico, with its Wild West history, is not known as a hotbed of anti-gun sentiment. So the fate of a new legislative proposal to close the infamous "gun show loophole," that exempts from background checks people who buy guns from "private sellers" as opposed to licensed gun dealers, may...

Two major new polls confirm that a majority of Americans support significant new gun regulations -- even if their lawmakers do not.

The most recent poll is out this morning from the Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health. Salon has the write-up:

According to the survey,...

After a bitterly contentious and emotional hearing on gun control yesterday -- the first since 20 children and six educators were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School -- the Connecticut legislature today takes up the issue of mental health and violence.

The Hartford Courant...

Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son was among the 20 children gunned down by Adam Lanza in a Connecticut elementary school classroom last month, went to the Connecticut state legislature today to call for new laws to keep high-powered weapons out of the hands of maniacs.

But several pro-gun enthusiasts...

A $51 billion aid package for Hurricane Sandy victims easily passed the Senate on Monday, after the failure of a Republican amendment to require the relief be offset by cuts to other federal spending.

The long-delayed bill, coming three months after Sandy battered the Northeast, now goes to President...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips will struggle to pass the Senate with a simple majority if brought to the floor for a vote, Bloomberg reported today. At least six Senate Democrats are either wobbly on the ban or are flat-out opposed. No...

Firearms killed more than 31,000 people in the U.S. in 2010.

In Japan, a country with a population of 130 million, there were just seven gun-related homicides in all of 2011.

What's the deal?

The Associated Press gives us the run-down:

First, anyone...

Horror fiction master and mega-selling author Stephen King waded into the raging national debate on gun control over the weekend, publishing a personal essay supportive of the individual right to bear arms but pushing for new laws to curb mass shootings like the murder of 20 children and six adults...

New gun control bills are flooding into state legislatures around the country, among the clearest signs that the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults in a Connecticut elementary school last month have galvanized lawmakers and the public on the issue of guns.

While pro-gun lawmakers have filed dozens...

WASHINGTON -- Defying skeptics who predicted he'd take a timid approach to the debate, President Barack Obama on Wednesday unveiled a series of far-reaching proposals to help stem future episodes in mass gun violence.

Now comes the tough part.

Selling his policies to Congress will be harder than...

WASHINGTON -- In a bold and potentially historic attempt to stem the increase in mass gun violence, President Barack Obama unveiled on Wednesday the most sweeping effort at gun control policy reform in a generation.

"This is our first task as a society: keeping our children safe. This is how...

The New York Daily News, which has hammered on the NRA repeatedly in the wake of the Newtown massacre (it called NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre a "Gun Nut" on its front page a few weeks ago) is on the attack again. Today the tabloid slammed the gun rights...

A measure providing $51 billion for relief and recovery from Hurricane Sandy was approved by a bipartisan majority in the House on Tuesday evening, three weeks after Northeast Republicans excoriated the chamber's GOP leaders for failing to vote on storm aid before the end of the last Congress.

An amendment...

The House Republican leadership vowed late last year that their first order of business in the new Congress would be passing a comprehensive relief bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy. The first component of that relief -- roughly $9 billion to extend the borrowing authority of the tapped-out

A $9.7 billion bill to pay flood insurance claims from Hurricane Sandy sailed through the House on Friday with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, just two days after Republican officials in New York and New Jersey exploded in outrage after a much larger relief bill failed to come up for a...

The federal government's mandatory flood insurance program will exhaust its borrowing authority and run out of money to pay claims from Hurricane Sandy sometime next week, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said Wednesday.

The Senate passed a $60.2 billion storm relief bill last week that included $9.7 billion for...

In the early 2000s, Smith & Wesson desperately needed its tough guy mojo back.

The storied gunmaker, which armed Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry character with his signature .44 Magnum, was under boycott from pro-gun groups for breaking ranks with other firearms makers and signing a gun safety agreement with the...

In February 2006, Smith & Wesson, the storied gunmaker founded in 1851, unveiled its first-ever semi-automatic assault-style rifle. The company dubbed it the M&P15, for "military and police," but the gun was very much aimed at the retail market.

Consumer response was "overwhelming," Mike Golden, the former CEO, told...