Gun Control

WASHINGTON - Two days after the shooting deaths of 26 people at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, Sen. Dianne Feinstein pledged Sunday that she would introduce new gun-control legislation at the beginning of next year's congressional session. “It [the bill] will ban the sale, the transfer, the transportation and the possession,” the California senator said on NBC's “Meet the Press.” “Not retroactively, but prospectively. And it will ban the same for big clips, drums or strips of more than 10 bullets.” Feinstein said the purpose of her proposal, a version of the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004, is to get “weapons of war off the streets of our cities.” PHOTOS: Connecticut school shooting Officials have said that most of those killed in Friday's massacre - a toll that included 20 children - were shot with a semiautomatic assault-style rifle.

WASHINGTON - Second Amendment rights to carry firearms are cherished by most gun owners, a new poll finds - no surprise there. But the same poll says a sizable majority of those same gun owners, even members of the National Rifle Assn., also strongly support some gun control measures. The poll, done for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, found that 76% of gun owners think people on the terrorist watch list should be barred from buying guns, and 68% were in favor of measures requiring gun owners to tell police if their guns are lost or stolen.

On Tuesday, I wrote about two senators' bipartisan plan to expand background checks on gun buyers, saying it was a common-sense measure and should pass. On Wednesday, its sponsors -- Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, an NRA member, and Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania -- all but conceded they don't have the votes. Thus, 26 children and teachers slaughtered in Newtown, Conn., and 12 people gunned down at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

Letters reacting to the search for Christoper Jordan Dorner , the disgruntled former Los Angeles Police Department officer suspected of a double homicide and the shooting three police officers, are finding their way into The Times' mailbag. Surprisingly, only one of those letters discusses the manhunt for Dorner, and the rest connect the shootings to the hot-button issue of the last few months: gun control. Readers responded likewise immediately after 26 people were shot, including 20 children, in Newtown, Conn.

WASHINGTON - Gun control advocates who have long struggled to match the political clout of groups such as the National Rifle Assn. say the anguish and outrage spurred by Friday's deadly massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school is powering a groundswell of support for their cause. “As somebody who has worked on this for 17 years, there is something very different about this,” said Brian Malte, director of mobilization for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence . “We are getting an unprecedented amount of donations, of people wanting to volunteer.” He declined to say how much money had come in. Another big shift: Malte said the organization is fielding calls from members of Congress asking to meet with the group.

In the aftermath of the deadly Colorado theater shooting that left 12 dead and dozens more wounded, the focus is on the victims and the shooting suspect, who is in police custody. But in coming days, as the spotlight shifts to what might have prevented the mass shooting, attention is sure to focus on the semiautomatic weapon and the high-capacity ammunition magazine that were part of the arsenal that police say James Holmes used in the massacre during the opening minutes of a showing of “The Dark Knight Rises.” And Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is sure to face scrutiny, given the varied positions he has taken about the legality of assault weapons, as well as gun control in general.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of the few members of Congress willing to publicly discuss the politically unpopular issue of gun control, has done so again in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shootings. Congress convened Monday for the first time since the shootings in the Denver suburb, with the Senate holding a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the GOP leader, read aloud the names of the 12 people, including a 6-year-old girl, who were killed.

President Obama supports an effort already afoot in the U.S. Senate to renew the expired ban on assault weapons, his spokesman said Tuesday. Obama also plans to back a law to tighten the regulations governing the sale of firearms at gun shows, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in his afternoon briefing. The declarations of support are the first specific details about how Obama intends to fight gun violence in his second term, a war he declared after the mass killing of children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School last week.

Gun control was among the many issues President Obama and Mitt Romney addressed at Tuesday's debate in New York. Both candidates showed support for the 2nd Amendment -- though Reason's Jacob Sullum thought Obama's "acknowledgment of armed self-defense as a constitutional right" was "belated" and "halfhearted" -- but agreed that this country must curb its culture of gun violence. When I was in Chicago recently, a rather candid cab driver told me his son had been killed on Chicago's streets.