Guns

WASHINGTON — An Iraq war veteran and Internet talk show host is trying to gather thousands of protesters to march into Washington on Independence Day with loaded rifles on their backs.

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston this weekend bristled with the combative and triumphant rhetoric of a group that achieved a major victory in 2013: completely defeating the White House-backed package of gun-control legislation.

WASHINGTON — Rene Carlos Vos, an arms dealer in Alexandria, Va., began hanging around the Washington headquarters of the National Rifle Association in the mid-1980s. The NRA’s staff were intrigued to see the garrulous, back-slapping Vos in the group’s seventh-floor suite, home to its lobbying operation and the chief congressional lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre.

Vos and LaPierre struck those who saw them huddle together as an odd couple. Vos took to cowboy boots and neatly pressed western wear.

“He came off like something of a dandy and a hustler, glad-handing with everybody,” recalled Johnny Aquilino, a former NRA communications director.

BURKESVILLE, Ky. -- As Stephanie Sparks cleaned the kitchen, her 5-year-old son, Kristian, began playing with a rifle he was given last year. She stepped out onto the front porch, poured grease out of a frying pan for the dogs and "heard the gun go off," a Kentucky coroner said.

Authorities said the boy had fatally shot his 2-year-old sister, Caroline, in the chest.

WARREN, N.H. — The contentious political fight over gun control moved into the White Mountains of New Hampshire on Tuesday as gun-control activists began to focus on Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., as a prime target in their effort to revive their push for stricter gun laws.

OLYMPIA, Wash. - After struggling to sway both state and federal lawmakers, proponents of expanding background checks for gun sales are now exploring whether they will have more success by taking the issue directly to voters.