Recent months have seen a former Marine from Indiana, a Tea Party activist from California and a nurse from Tennessee all arrested and charged in New York City for possession of firearms they had legal permits to carry back home. All were “nabbed” when they naively sought to check the weapon with security.These innocents fell afoul of the nation’s toughest gun laws. But few New Yorkers know how those laws came to be.

President Barack Obama has certainly changed the tone in Washington. What used to be a town well-known for partisan bickering has been transformed into a 24/7 hate fest. Obama may bemoan the rancor in Congress every time the cameras are rolling, but make no mistake, this acidic atmosphere is by his own design.

Gun dealers backed by the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobbying group, and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, challenged the requirements, arguing they would effectively require national registration of firearms sales, which they said the ATF was not authorized to do.

President Barack Obama has certainly changed the tone in Washington. What used to be a town well known for partisan bickering has been transformed into a 24/7 hate fest. Obama may bemoan the rancor in Congress every time the cameras are rolling, but make no mistake, this acidic atmosphere is by his own design.The most recent manifestation of his divisive handiwork can be found pouring out of the mouth of his attacker in chief, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D FL), who recently tried to pin blame for last year’s tragedy in Tucson on the Tea Party.

Gun smoke from a Kitsap County rifle range lawsuit drifted into Olympia Thursday.The target: A bill that would exempt shooting ranges from noise related civil and criminal legal action.

President Barack Obama has certainly changed the tone in Washington. What used to be a town well-known for partisan bickering has been transformed into a 24/7 hate fest. Obama may bemoan the rancor in Congress every time the cameras are rolling, but make no mistake, this acidic atmosphere is by his own design.

The recent spate of robberies and assaults on or near the Georgia Tech campus near downtown Atlanta is about to unleash an equal and opposite reaction — a furious debate over the place of guns in public spaces long declared gunpowder free. Including, and perhaps especially, in college dormitories and classrooms.

Tomorrow, the Criminal Law Subcommittee of the House Courts of Justice Committee will consider four “Castle Doctrine” bills that will expand your right to defend yourself and your family in your home. “Castle Doctrine” establishes the presumption that an individual who forcibly enters one’s home, business or occupied motor vehicle is there to cause death or great bodily harm, and allows force, including deadly force, against that person. This legislation would guarantee a right thirty states have already recognized and one that needs to be realized in Virginia.

This could be the year for Sunday hunting.The momentum is unmistakable. Last summer, the board of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries passed a resolution supporting a repeal of Virginia’s ban on Sunday hunting.

An unlikely trio of House members has introduced an eclectic trio of gun rights bills, one of which is a direct challenge to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other big city mayors.With the support and aid of the Kansas State Rifle Association, Reps. Jana Goodman, Connie O’Brien and Jim Kelly came into the session locked and loaded, on a mission to make Kansas legally safer for gun sellers, gun manufacturers and corrections officers who want to conceal and carry.