Gun

[ Updated at 3:45 p.m. on April 24: GE Capital has issued a statement on its revamped gun policy: "As a responsible lender, we regularly review our lending policies and products to meet changing conditions and requirements. In 2008, we adopted a policy to cease providing consumer financing programs to merchants whose primary business is to sell firearms.  Recently, we implemented a more rigorous audit process in our sporting goods segment in light of industry changes, new legislation and tragic events that have caused widespread reexamination of policies on firearms.

Don't look for Max Baucus in a new edition of “Profiles in Courage.” My colleague Jon Healey on Tuesday lamented the effect that the Montana Democratic senator's decision to not seek reelection in 2014 will have on an overhaul of the tax code. But my issue with Baucus is far less complex; in fact, I just wonder one thing: Why couldn't Baucus throw us gun control advocates a bone on his way out the door? Recall that last week, Baucus was one of four Democratic senators who voted against extending background checks on gun purchases.

Los Angeles officials on Tuesday revealed details of the city's upcoming gun buyback day, the first held after similar events in December yielded record numbers for some area municipalities. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck announced that residents can anonymously turn in firearms May 4 and receive up to $100 of Ralph's gift cards for handguns, shotguns and rifles, and up to $200 for assault weapons. Authorities will collect weapons at four locations from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day: The Los Angeles Fire Department Academy, 1700 Stadium Way; a South L.A. park-and-ride parking lot, 1300 West Pacific Coast Highway; the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 7900 South Western Avenue; and the Van Nuys Masonic Temple, 14750 Sherman Way. Though the event is usually held in the spring, the December shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school prompted officials across Southern California to host buyback days at the end of the year.

WASHINGTON--Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev allegedly shot and killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Thursday because they wanted his service revolver, according to two federal government law enforcement officials who have been briefed on the Boston Marathon manhunt. So far, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces federal charges for allegedly detonating a homemade bomb during the April 15 race. The Middlesex County district attorney is expected to file separate charges in the shooting of MIT officer Sean Collier.

SACRAMENTO -- Last week, eight different bills involving gun control were approved by a state Senate committee. But that will only help so much if Congress continues to reject stricter federal rules, says George Skelton in his Monday column. A measure to expand background checks died in the U.S. Senate last week.  "Without universal background checks nationwide - not only in gun stores, which already is the law, but at gun shows and via the Internet - California is vulnerable to Wild-West dealing in other states," Skelton writes.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Dozens of people, including many civilians, died in gun battles between Nigerian security forces and Islamist militants in recent days, according to Nigerian officials. However, reports of the number of casualties varied, with some government officials saying about 185 people were slain while security officials put the death toll lower. The fighting began Friday in Baga, a fishing community near Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria, but news of the violence only reached Abuja, the capital, late Sunday.

Irma Garcia pulled back her sweater to show me where the bullet entered her shoulder and spun her around. It then torpedoed through her body and exited near the middle of her back. "I still have problems with it," she said, standing to show me how the left side of her upper body is still somewhat twisted. It happened 47 years ago in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Charles Whitman, who had served as a Marine, killed his wife and mother and then proceeded to the University of Texas at Austin, where he ascended a campus tower with rifles and handguns and began shooting at people below.

SACRAMENTO - "Living in parallel universes," is how Senate leader Darrell Steinberg describes it. Gun control and gun rights advocates "talking past each other. " Emanating from different cultures, incapable of agreeing on how to make us all safer from firearms. Their opposite views were in full voice last week in the Legislature during a marathon 10-hour committee hearing - longest anyone could remember - on gun bills. Unlike in Washington, where gun control forces couldn't muster enough strength in the U.S. Senate to pass legislation expanding background checks, a state Senate committee in Sacramento approved eight bills to strengthen California's already stringent firearms regulations.

HELENA, Mont. - Stephen Watt is no stranger to gun violence. In 1982, as a 26-year-old Wyoming state trooper, he stopped a fleeing bank robber who pumped five bullets into Watt before leaving him for dead on an empty stretch of highway. Watt lost his left eye and a good chunk of his liver. He has a bullet lodged in his spine, which still causes pain, and uses crutches and a wheelchair to get around. Despite all that, Watt is a fierce opponent of gun control, convinced it doesn't work.

Early on in the Sunday morning panel about "Guns in America," author and UCLA constitutional law professor Adam Winkler held up his new book, "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America," and opened it to an 1879 photograph of Dodge City, Kan., one of the most storied of the Wild West towns. The photograph depicted a familiar scene of a dusty street and squared wooden facades. But there was also the unexpected: A sign warning that carrying a firearm in town was “strictly prohibited.” "The Wild West towns like Tombstone (and Dodge City)