Beto O’Rourke (D) backed away from his past assertions that assault weapons should be taken from gun owners, The Hill reports.

Said O’Rourke: “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone.”

He added: “What I want to make sure that we do is defend the Second Amendment. I want to make sure that we protect our fellow Texans far better than we’re doing right now. And that we listen to law enforcement, which Greg Abbott refused to do.”

Unfortunately for O’Rourke, his comment is on video: “Hell yes, we are coming to take your AR-15, your AK-47.“

“The Biden administration is expanding a crackdown on untraceable guns and firearms trafficking along the East Coast ‘iron pipeline’ and elsewhere as police departments across the nation fight surging gun violence that’s left a trail of bloodshed already this year,” the AP reports.

Washington Post: President Biden, Mayor Eric Adams and the volatile politics of policing.

New York Times: White House moves to reset relationship with police leaders.

Kansas City Star: “After an Independence police officer was killed in a shootout in September, Missouri state law enforcement initially refused routine federal assistance in tracing the murder weapon. The same month, a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper released a federal fugitive after a traffic stop.”

“The incidents are described in a blistering court brief filed Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice outlining the consequences of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, a new state law that prohibits Missouri police officers from helping enforce certain federal gun laws.”

New York Attorney General Tish James told The View she plans to follow California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lead to create a law that empowers private citizens to enforce an assault weapons ban modeled after Texas abortion restrictions.

Said James: “What we need to do is hold these gun manufacturers and these gun distributors liable.”

“In a new approach to gun control inspired by Texas’s controversial approach to banning most abortions, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday announced that his administration will work to make it easier for private citizens to sue people who sell assault rifles and parts for untraceable ghost guns,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

“State officials will aim to craft a measure that would allow residents to seek damages of at least $10,000, plus legal fees, against anyone who manufactures, distributes or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit in California.”

Said Newsom: “If states can now shield their laws from review by the federal courts that compare assault weapons to Swiss Army knives, then California will use that authority to protect people’s lives, where Texas used it to put women in harm’s way.”

“Since he was acquitted of homicide and other charges last Friday, Kyle Rittenhouse has said he wanted to stay out of politics, and that he was disturbed by how his case became politicized,” CNBC reports.

“Yet Rittenhouse, who argued he was acting in self defense when he fatally shot two people during protests last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has emerged as a symbolic figure for the pro-Trump right wing as the former president considers running again and wields power by issuing endorsements in various Republican primary races.”

Associated Press: “Across much of the nation, it has become increasingly acceptable for Americans to walk the streets with firearms, either carried openly or legally concealed. In places that still forbid such behavior, prohibitions on possessing guns in public could soon change if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a New York law.”

Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke (D) said he stands by his controversial 2019 comment that “we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” The Hill reports.

Said O’Rourke: “Look, we are a state that has a long, proud tradition of responsible gun ownership. And most of us here in Texas do not want to see our friends, our family members, our neighbors shot up with these weapons of war. So yes, I still hold this view.”

Adam Serwer: “The United States is a nation awash in firearms, and gun owners are a powerful and politically active constituency. In state after state, they have helped elect politicians who, in turn, have created a permissive legal regime for the carry and use of firearms, rules that go far beyond how courts originally understood the concept of self-defense.”

“These laws have made it difficult to convict any gun owner who knowingly puts themselves in circumstances where they are likely to use their weapon—that is, anyone who goes looking for a fight. It should come as no surprise then, that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges after shooting three men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020, killing two of them.”

“Four days before Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder, the judge in his case tossed out a charge: illegal possession of the military-style semiautomatic rifle he used to kill two people,” the New York Times reports.

“The withdrawal of the misdemeanor charge, which carried a maximum sentence of less than a year, was a footnote in a much bigger drama. Yet it was a telling reminder that the Rittenhouse case, in addition to examining the polarizing issues of race and the right to self-defense in the country, highlighted the growing proliferation of guns on America’s streets and the failure of efforts to enact even modest new gun restrictions.”

A new Gallup poll finds Americans’ support for stricter gun control has fallen five percentage points to 52%, the lowest reading since 2014.

Meanwhile, 35% of U.S. adults think laws covering the sale of firearms should be kept as they are now and 11% favor less strict laws.

“A superior court in Connecticut granted a sweeping victory to the parents of eight people killed in a 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., suing the far-right broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars media outlet for defamation,” the New York Times reports.

“The judge in Connecticut ruled on Monday that because Mr. Jones refused to turn over documents ordered by the courts, including financial records, he was guilty by default.”

“Juries… will next decide how much Mr. Jones should pay the families in damages, atop court costs.”

New York Times: “Ghost guns — untraceable firearms without serial numbers, assembled from components bought online — are increasingly becoming the lethal weapon of easy access for those legally barred from buying or owning guns around the country.”

“The criminal underground has long relied on stolen weapons with sanded-off serial numbers, but ghost guns represent a digital-age upgrade, and they are especially prevalent in coastal blue states with strict firearm laws.”

“As the Supreme Court weighs a ruling on Texas’ new abortion law after Monday’s oral arguments, an unlikely ally is throwing its weight behind the law’s opponents: gun rights advocates worried that Texas may have come up with a way for states to nullify constitutional rights with impunity,” the Dallas Morning News reports.

David Chipman, who was once President Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told the New York Times that he spoke to no one from the administration from the moment he was first nominated.

Said Chipman: “In the back of my mind, I always thought that there would be a Plan B, but so far there hasn’t been.”

In a marked change from the past, women accounted for nearly half of new gun sales in the U.S. since 2019, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Researchers and gun store owners attributed the jump to fears driven by the Covid-19 pandemic and the protests, sometimes accompanied by violence, that followed the police killing of George Floyd, as well as the divisive atmosphere around the 2020 presidential election.”