Manchin, who co-sponsored an unsuccessful measure to increase gun background checks, has been targeted by the NRA, which released an ad tying him to the “Obama-Bloomberg gun control agenda.” In response last week, Manchin said that, “Unfortunately, the NRA leadership in Washington has lost its way and is more concerned about political power than gun rights and gun safety."

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Manchin was responding to a new ad put out by the group that urges his constituents to tell him to "honor his committment to the Second Amendment," and connects Manchin to the "Obama-Bloomberg gun control agenda."

Manchin co-sponsored a measure to implement stricter gun background checks, along with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, though it failed in the Senate.

“The Washington NRA could spend one hundred million dollars on ads against me; it still won’t make what they say true," Manchin wrote in a statement, TPM reports. "If they were honest with their members they would see that my bill not only protects 2nd Amendment rights, it enhances and strengthens them."

"Unfortunately, the NRA leadership in Washington has lost its way and is more concerned about political power than gun rights and gun safety," he added.

Watch the NRA's ad:

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From the Grand Forks Herald:

Andrew Arulanandam, NRA spokesman, said the group wanted to make sure its members in the state express their gratitude because Heitkamp stood up to “tremendous political pressure.”

“The NRA thinks that Sen. Heitkamp is a profile in courage and common sense. She listens to her constituents,” he said.

Heitkamp was one of four Democrats to vote against the Manchin-Toomey Amendment. She has an A-rating from the NRA.

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Ayotte, who voted against the Manchin-Toomey amendment to strengthen gun control background checks, has claimed that she actually voted to "improve" background checks by supporting a Republican measure instead, which would have in practice made it easier for people formerly designated as mentally ill to obtain guns.

"Senator Ayotte uses her vote for this law as an alibi to claim she is tough on crime," Police Chief Scott Knight says in the new ad, the fourth released by Mayors Against Illegal Guns against Ayotte. "Don't be fooled. She voted to kill comprehensive background checks, making us less safe. That’s a fact."

Watch:

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The Basic Freedom Defense Fund submitted more than 16,000 signatures in support of the recall, and only 7,200 of them  must be validated before it is approved. The group wrote on its website that "The person who broke his oath, ignored his constituents and pushed anti-freedom and citizen disarmament legislation will be held accountable by the people."

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For 20 years, Charleston has been an island of modest gun restrictions in a very pro-gun rights state. But its gun laws — including a ban on guns in city parks, pools and recreation centers — are now likely to be rolled back, the latest victory in a long-standing push to deny cities the power to regulate guns.

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Now, with the development of new 3-D technology, which could dramatically increase the number of available weapons – and competition to gun manufacturers -- these two competing pressures are at odds. In other words, the NRA faces a test: Will it back the new technology and promote the rights of everyone to have unlimited guns? Or, in an effort to protect its generous contributors, chart a different path?

In the mid-20thcentury, science fiction writers imagined a 21stcentury where consumer goods and food could simply be printed in a machine quickly and at very low costs to the consumer. While this world has yet to truly materialize, we are rapidly seeing the beginnings of such a world emerge with the developments of 3-D-printing technology.

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After almost four and half years on the job, he’s been the first attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress, been called “rabidly un-American,” and even reportedly tried to resign. A LexisNexis search for “Eric Holder” “grilled” and “Congress” returns 534 articles. Attorneys general don’t often last two presidential terms.

Could the AP phone records controversy could be a tipping point for the embattled AG, whom even Democrats have been wary to support?

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The measures the group is advocating for include an assault weapon ban, a ban on high-capacity magazines, increased background checks and mandatory waiting periods for all firearm purchases.

The doctors are hoping to bring a public health perspective and peer-reviewed data to a gun debate marred by ideology and conducted along political fault lines: “What we need is a call to action, to really look at how we can change public policy that is not often affected by data,” Dr. Danielle Laraque, who heads the pediatrics department at Maimonides Infants and Children’s Hospital in Brooklyn, told a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Washington, D.C.

“Where there are more guns in the United States, there are more people dying,” added Dr. Matthew Miller of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. “There are more women dying, there are more men dying, and there are more children dying. We are talking about a lot of people who are dying when they live in places with a lot of guns and homes with guns.”

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Last May in St. Louis, NRA leaders pounded away at this idea in a torrent of Apocalyptic warnings about the consequences of failure in the November elections. A year later, gathering two weeks after helping defeat the biggest effort to strengthen gun laws in a generation, the same men delivered the NRA's Second Amendment gospel with a newfound swagger. Unchanged was the primacy of guns and gun rights in the NRA's understanding of the world and everything in it. In his opening speech, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre described the gun enthusiasts before him as "Freedom's biggest army, greatest hope, and brightest future." The group's chief lobbyist-strategist, the boyish Tennessean Chris Cox, celebrated the convention as "the biggest celebration ever of American values," whose 86,000-plus attendees embodied "the essence of participation in American democracy."

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A point of view largely missing from the discussion is whether someone who is sworn to protect school safety should be armed, says Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO)

“When I first got started in this, I was a little concerned that kids were going to be focused on my gun,” adds Canady, a former police lieutenant who spent 12 of his 25 years as a school safety officer in Hoover, AL—where he still lives, and where the national association is based.

“But they weren’t. As I interacted with them and got to know them, it humanized my role. And, yes, I do realize that they still were seeing me as law enforcement.”

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Sources at the conference spoke to BuzzFeed:

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The Wheelers’ courage and commitment deeply touched us. Since their son’s death, they have managed to cope with memory and hold together their lives — and the life of their surviving son, Nate — with uncommon grace. Along with other Newtown families, they lobbied the Connecticut state legislature — which now has the toughest gun law in America — and in Washington, they walked the halls of Capitol Hill, urging senators to vote yes for the amendment that would expand the use of background checks for people buying guns.

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CNN reports:

While Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre is widely known as the face of the NRA, Keene had an active role in publicity and media appearances, especially in the wake of the Newtown elementary school massacre that left 26 people dead.

Porter has been serving as the NRA's first vice president, and before that he served as the group's second vice president. The presidency, an unpaid position, is the next stop in the NRA's leadership rotation.

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Just four months after Adam Lanza killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and President Obama promised tougher gun laws, the vote proved to be the latest in a long-running string of victories for gun rights activists, the firearms industry and particularly the National Rifle Association, the nation’s pre-eminent gun lobby.

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When Gillibrand -- a hot topic in political circles this week, as a potential liberal presidential candidate and a champion for addressing sexual assault in the military -- was appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat in 2009, Nate Silver wrote, "This is not a terrific outcome for progressive Democrats," because "Gillibrand, statistically speaking, has been one of the more conservative Democrats in the House. Moreover, she is a somewhat proud conservative, being a member of the Blue Dog caucus. In a state like New York, which is capable of electing and re-electing a very liberal senator, that’s a somewhat underachieving result for the Democrats."

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Adolphus Busch IV, in a letter to NRA president David Keene obtained by a St. Louis television station, wrote that "I fail to see how the NRA can disregard the overwhelming will of its members who see background checks as reasonable."

He said that the NRA seems to have become a lobby for gun and ammunition manufacturers, rather than one for hunters and gun owners.

"One only has to ask why the NRA reversed its original position on background checks. Was it not the NRA position to support background checks when Mr. (Wayne) LaPierre himself stated in 1999 that NRA saw checks as 'reasonable'?"

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Celebrities took to Twitter to condemn the senators and NRA lobbyists who worked to shut down the bill.

Aaron Paul retweeted "Breaking Bad" cast member Bryan Cranston:

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Actress Elizabeth Banks tweeted a link to an article that shared the Twitter handles of the senators who voted to block the bill:

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And many other celebs vocalized disappointment and anger and ridicule:

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Wednesday'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.

The roll call was also a victory for the National Rifle Association, which opposed the plan as an ineffective infringement on gun rights.

The proposal would have required background checks for all transactions at gun shows and online. Currently they must occur for sales handled by licensed gun dealers.

The system is designed to keep criminals and people with mental problems from getting guns.

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