The too-little-too-late redemption tour of one Jay Dickey continued today—of all days—on Capitol Hill, with a letter released by the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. This will be a handy reminder that regret—truly a weighty motherfucker for the sufferer—has a realtime value of roughly jack-shit in the world outside your tormented soul.

Today, your future president Donald Trump doubled down on his assertion that the Paris terror attacks could have been stopped by armed civilians, telling Boston-area radio host Jeff Kuhner the following (via Buzzfeed):

A report from the Government Accountability Office says at least 2,043 known and suspected terrorists in the United States have legally purchased firearms between 2004 and 2014, according to the Washington Post.

Three were injured and one was killed in an early morning shooting today at Northern Arizona University, according to officials. The AP reports the suspected shooter, 18-year-old freshman Steven Jones, is in custody.

Earlier today, current non-Trump GOP frontrunner Ben Carson went on Fox and Friends to complain about President Obama’s “politicizing” of the Oregon shooting tragedy. And as with all of Ben Carson’s interviews—he probably would have been better off staying home.

The other day, there was a mass shooting in the United States. The president said, entirely accurately:

Following this past Thursday’s massacre at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, in which a lone gunman armed with five guns and an assault rifle slaughtered nine people, there will be much talk about gun control.

On Sunday, Rick Perry attempted to stand out from the (already spectacularly incompetent) pool of GOP hopefuls with one of the dumbest responses to the Lafayette shooting yet. In an interview with CNN, the Texas governor said that “it makes a lot of sense” to allow more people to carry guns into gun-free zones like movie theaters.

On Friday, a Northern Virginia medical examiner determined the cause of James S. Brady's death to be "a gunshot wound and its health consequences" and the manner of death a homicide—some 33 years in the making.

Gun rights activists have been bringing their guns to Target stores in Texas for months, sometimes with children in tow. Today, Target "respectfully" asked these customers to cut it out.

Since 1968, at least 1.4 million Americans have been killed by guns—more than all the U.S.'s accumulated war dead in that same period. Any way you look at it, 2013 was another killer year for arms manufacturers and armed bullies.

The U.S. is recovering from yet another mass shooting, and the debate over gun control seems no closer to a satisfying resolution. But what if a stand-up comic already figured it out?

Iowa is giving gun permits to people who are legally or completely blind that will let these residents acquire guns and carry these firearms in public. Officials from Polk Country report that at least three people who can't legally drive and weren't able to read the application forms have been given permits to carry firearms.

One thing that's essential in the ongoing discussion about how to regulate guns, everyone agrees, is to hear the voices of ordinary, law-abiding gun owners. So here's columnist Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post, explaining why proposed gun restrictions won't prevent gun crime:

Senators Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin just announced a major breakthrough on gun-control legislation today, regarding the central feature in the gun legislation bill: the expansion of background checks on gun sales. The key negotiations come just in time for the Senate vote tomorrow, which will be the most significant debate about gun control since the 1994 federal crime bill. The bill will need to achieve a baseline of 60 votes in the Senate in order to move forward.

While he attempts to put pressure on Congress to pass federal measures that would increase gun control, President Obama is visiting Colorado today to draw attention to its recently passed gun control laws.

Hours before Gov. John Hickenlooper, surrounded by family members of victims of shootings in Aurora and Littleton, signed a package of contentious gun control bills, Colorado's top prison official was shot and killed in front of his home. Tom Clements, 58, had been appointed executive director of Colorado Prisons in January 2011, and had won praise from officials and activists for his commitment to reform; Tuesday night at around 8:30, he answered his front door and was killed by an unknown gunman. Police have no suspects, but prisons have been placed on a partial lock-down and security has been increased at the state capitol and the governor's mansion. In an emotional press conference, Hickenlooper called Clements' murder "an act of intimidation." Hours later, the governor signed a series of new laws requiring background checks for private gun sales and banning magazines with more than 15 rounds, the end result of a long and emotional process. "I started crying," Tom Mauser—whose son was killed at Columbine High in 1999—told The New York Times. [Denver Post | Denver CBS | NYT]

South Dakota may be last in the nation by a variety of education measures—but soon it'll be first in the only measure that counts: guns! Gov. Dennis Daugaard just signed into law a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns into the classroom—the first such bill in the country to make it into law:

A shooting at a factory close to the Swiss city of Lucerne has left at least three dead and seven injured, according to reports (Swiss authorities haven't confirmed those numbers). The killer is most likely one of the dead, police have said, and the number of deceased is most likely higher.

Turns out "gun raffle" isn't just a folksy term for Russian roulette. The New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police will give away a gun a day in May, with the proceeds from ticket sales to defray the cost of police cadet training. In North Dakota, a youth hockey league will raffle off 200 guns as a fundraiser next month.