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One-fifth of U.S. households purchased guns during the pandemic, a national arming that exposed more than 15 million Americans to firearms in the home for the first time, academic studies show. Americans purchased nearly 60 million guns between 2020 and 2022, according to an analysis by The Trace, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that tracks gun violence. Yearly gun sales are running at roughly twice the level of 15 or 20 years ago. (de Visé, 4/21)

Vice President Harris slammed Congress on Thursday for lacking “the courage to stand up” to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and pass gun safety laws in the wake of several recent mass shootings. “I just think it is pitiful that the people in the United States Congress do not have the courage to stand up to the gun lobby, stand up to the NRA, and say, “Look, I support Second Amendment, but we need reasonable gun safety laws,’” Harris said during an appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show.” (Shapero, 4/20)

A bill that would have banned the sale or transfer of so-called assault weapons in Colorado narrowly failed in a Democratic-majority state House committee early Thursday, even after the sponsor of the measure proposed a much narrower prohibition on devices that make semi-automatic weapons fire at a rate similar to automatic firearms. (Wenzler and Paul, 4/20)

Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, said Thursday he plans to introduce a package of laws that would create community violence prevention resources and add some restrictions for gun owners with mental health concerns. (Swetlik, 4/20)

Beshear hosted a blood drive this week for state lawmakers at the capitol. The governor said the latest violence in Louisville inspired him to host the event. Five people were killed in last week's mass shooting at Old National Bank. (4/20)

After 9/11, Sam DiPasquale was embedded with the Navy in Iraq, as part of the FBI's largely unadvertised C.E.X.C. (Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell), deployed to suicide bombings to collect DNA for its database of bomb makers. He had picked limbs from trees. Defused homemade explosives. But the worst thing he’d ever seen was the inside of an elementary school in Connecticut. (Kirk, 4/20)