Gun Control

THE FIRST funeral to be held for the 27 victims of the Newtown massacre was for Noah Pozner, age 6. Before the service, Noah's mother, Veronique, led Connecticut Gov. Dannell Malloy in to look at her son's mangled body. Noah had been shot 11 times. "His jaw was blown away," Pozner later told the Jewish Daily Forward . "I just want people to know the ugliness of it so we don't talk about it abstractly, like these little angels just went to heaven. No. They were butchered. " "If there is ever a piece of legislation that comes across [the governor's]

IF HIRAM ROSA were alive today, he could have been mayor of Camden, a local business owner or maybe one of the dozens of city residents who returned to his alma mater Tuesday night to talk about gun violence. But it's been almost 12 years since Rosa, a senior finance major at Rutgers-Camden, was shot to death with an AK-47 assault rifle about 500 feet from the student campus center there. That campus center was home to the first of three public hearings for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's NJ SAFE Task Force, which he established last month in the wake of the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Conn.

By Jim Sleeper The Senate Judiciary Committee was told often enough last week that the United States' intolerably high levels of murder and maiming by gunfire would drop sharply if we had the gun control of other developed nations. (Only Mexico and Guatemala have constitutional provisions resembling our Second Amendment.) It won't happen, unless we dissolve the deep bond between our libertarian individualism and our glorification of runaway corporate engines that are disrupting public trust more brutally than their own managers ever intended or know how to stop.

WASHINGTON - Two days before President Obama's first trip outside Washington to promote his gun-control proposals, the White House tried to settle a brewing mystery when it released a photo to back his assertion that he's a skeet shooter. Obama had set inquiring minds spinning when, in an interview with the New Republic magazine, he answered yes when asked whether he had ever fired a gun. The admission surprised many. "Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time," Obama said in the interview released last weekend, referring to the official presidential retreat in rural Maryland, which he last visited in October while campaigning.

WASHINGTON - The Senate's top Democrat offered fresh details Sunday about his position in the renewed debate over guns, as he endorsed expanding background checks on gun sales and promised to consider bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. "Everyone acknowledges we should do something with background checks," Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos . While Reid pronounced his support for expanding background checks on gun purchases, he said he was undecided about proposed bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

WASHINGTON - Severely wounded and still recovering, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords begged lawmakers at an emotional hearing Wednesday to act quickly to curb firearms because "Americans are counting on you. " Not everyone agreed, underscoring the national political divide over gun control. Giffords' 80-word plea was the day's most riveting moment, delivered in a hushed, halting voice two years after the Arizona Democrat suffered head wounds in a Tucson shooting that killed six people.

WASHINGTON - Banning some assault weapons and requiring background checks for all firearms purchases aren't a serious attempt to reduce gun violence, a top National Rifle Association official warned Tuesday as Congress geared up for the year's first hearing on the subject. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, said the country must instead focus on boosting security at schools, enforcing existing gun laws and taking more steps to deny guns to people with mental illnesses.

AS A LIFELONG resident of this city I have seen and heard of a lot of things. What happened to me recently made me so mad that I wanted to get up and just leave this city. I received a $50 citation for putting out my trash early. Are you kidding me? The fact that the city wastes time and money on something like this is absurd. OK, so I find out that trash is not allowed out until after 7 p.m. and I put mine out around noon the day before. The reason is, I worked 2-11 that day and didn't want to have to do it at 11:30 when I got home.

WASHINGTON - Thousands of people, many holding signs with names of gun violence victims and messages such as "Ban Assault Weapons Now," joined a rally for gun control on Saturday, marching from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. Leading the crowd were marchers with "We Are Sandy Hook" signs, paying tribute to victims of the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray and other city officials marched alongside them. The crowd stretched for at least two blocks along Constitution Avenue.

Stop the slaughter of innocents Thanks to Dr. Daniel Taylor for his insightful, thought-provoking, and frightening article noting that guns, for children, are more deadly than disease ("Guns are children's worst enemies," Monday). It's time people understood the dangers, especially for children, and Taylor had the numbers to back his realistic comments. We do need action and need it now - not later - when 18 families a day are burying their children. The bottom line is how we put glorifying violence and defending outdated notions of rights over the health and safety of children.