Gun Control | featured news

Aiming to show he's still focused on creating jobs, President Barack Obama is beginning a series of quick trips around the country to resurrect ideas from his State of the Union address that became overshadowed by the intense debates over gun control, immigration and automatic spending cuts.

Here’s an odd political reality: The collapse of the gun bill in the Senate last week may well make the passage of immigration reform legislation slightly easier. “I think the continued intensity of the dysfunction of Congress on this [gun] vote will help immigration,” Democratic pollster John Anzalone said. “I don’t think the opposing senators — Democrats and Republicans — expected the reaction, backlash and how they were portrayed” in the wake of the failure of the amendment to expand background checks for firearms purchases.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate will "hit pause" on the gun bill while senators see if they can find a workable compromise on strengthening background checks on gun purchases.

The defeat of several measures in the Senate made it clear that while the national sentiment about stemming the menace of guns in the wrong hands has shifted, the political dynamic has not.

The Senate has rejected a bipartisan effort to expand federal background checks to more firearms buyers in a crucial showdown over gun control. Today's vote was a jarring blow to the drive to curb firearms sparked by December's massacre of children and staff at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. President Barack Obama made broadened background checks the centerpiece of his gun control proposals.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, broke his long faith with the National Rifle Association on Wednesday and said he would vote for a ban on assault weapons.

The United States Supreme Court has declined to take up the hottest question about gun rights now dividing the nation's courts: is there a constitutional right to carry a gun outside the home? The justices today passed up a challenge brought by five residents of New York's Westchester County to a state law that forbids carrying a gun unless a person desiring to do so can show "proper cause" -- some special need for protection that goes beyond a general desire for self-defense. Those who can demonstrate that need can be granted a license to carry a firearm. The federal appeals courts are split on whether the Second Amendment provides a right to carry a gun in public.

The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to overcome a Republican-led filibuster against tougher gun laws, clearing the way for a major congressional debate on a package of proposals sought by President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the Connecticut school massacre.

A bipartisan pair of senators introduced a compromise proposal to expand background checks on Wednesday, an agreement which could form the basis for major gun control legislation to pass through Congress.

Police in Connecticut say they arrested a man who pulled out a rifle-like BB gun as President Barack Obama's motorcade passed by him. Authorities say the man was pacing back and forth and then pulled out the gun Monday as the motorcade went by in Bloomfield while returning to Bradley International Airport, after the president gave a speech on gun control at the University of Hartford.