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Both rock stars in their own right, both trying to right their states' ships, and both building serious momentum for a potential presidential run. Every Friday, we'll look at whose week will look better on a résumé come 2016.

Check out last week's results here.

Today marks five years since Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and injured 25 others at Virginia Tech, making it the deadliest American shooting in history. Heavy media coverage has depicted an uptick in school shootings in recent years, but violence in American schools has been a problem for a long time. Rebecca Coffey, a science journalist for Scientific American and Discover Magazine, joins us to discuss: What have we learned since Virginia Tech?

Did the Trayvon Martin shooting reveal a systemic failure on the part of the Sanford Police? We speak with John Rudolf, criminal Justice reporter for the Huffington Post and Calvin Donaldson, whose son was shot and killed in Sanford on October 2011.

Weak gun control laws are to blame for the rise in justifiable homicides, an investigation by The Guardian newspaper concludes. A higher rate of this type of killing occurs when that state has permissive gun laws or Stand Your Ground laws. Harry Enten is a writer for The Guardian.

Virginia's state legislature recently voted to repeal a 1993 law capping handgun purchases at one-per-month. The law was designed to help curb interstate gun trafficking along what was known as the "iron pipeline" — the corridor along I-95 from the south to the northeast. In 1991, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had found that 40 percent of guns found at crime scenes in New York had been purchased in Virginia. Two decades later, opponents of the law say that it's become obsolete.

As famous for its commercials as the big game itself, this year the Super Bowl premiered an ad starring New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston mayor Tom Menino. The thirty-second spot promoted Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition group of 600 mayors organized to promote urban safety by preventing the flow of illegal weapons into cities across the United States. While the ad may have seemed out of place alongside ads for cars, websites, and beers, the message it promoted was, in many ways, as uncontroversial as the aforementioned products.

Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords led a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance on Sunday, one year after a shooting spree that claimed six lives and left her gravely wounded.

Sunday marked one year since the Tuscon, Arizona shooting where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords suffered a gunshot wound to head. In total, thirteen people were injured and six other killed, including the shooter. At 10:11 a.m., when the shooting started, church bells and bells passed out to residents will ring out across Tucson. 

Assemblyman Rory Lancman wanted a shot at the 9th Congressional District during the special election back in September. Since the man Queens party boss Congressman Joe Crowley picked for the seat, Assemblyman David Weprin, lost to Republican Bob Turner, Assemblyman Lancman has kept up a steady stream of criticism of the new congressman, potentially portending a run against him next year.

Today's critique is over Congressman Turner's position on gun control (something the city takes very seriously).Or, I suppose, lack there of: Turner, according to theQueens Chronicle, won't take a position on a bill to strengthen gun background checks.

“Congressman Bob Turner’s troubling position on guns leaves Queens families and New York’s finest vulnerable,” Lancman said in a statement. “It’s extremely unsettling that someone who represents me and my community would put our safety at risk to satisfy the gun lobby.”

Lancman went on to tout his own record on gun control as an Assemblyman, which earned him an "A" from New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and an "F" from the National Rifle Association.

While Lancman almost certainly has strong philosophical differences with Turner, and vice versa, whether or not he'll be able to turn those into campaign fodder will depend entirely on how the Congressional lines are drawn in redistricting.

Hoping to get a response from Turner's folks on this. I'll post when it comes in.

Barack Obama was supposed to lead us into a post-racial America. Instead, his presidency has become a study in incompetency with an accusation of racism toward anyone who dares say so.

The leader of a Tea Party group was arrested at LaGuardia airport Thursday, and charged with gun possession.

Federal law prohibits certain people from owning arms, among those are people who have been convicted of a felony, minors, drug addicts, and the mentally ill. So why can a mentally ill guy with a criminal history still drive to DC, buy an assault weapon, and shoot the White House?

Since suffering a gunshot wound to the head in January of last year, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, have largely shunned the spotlight. But now the couple is opening up about her recovery process in the new book "Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope" and an interview with Diana Sawyer on ABC's "20/20."

Adam Winkler examines America's four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America is centered on the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation's capital, and looks at the Founding Fathers, the Second Amendment, gun rights advocates and gun control lobbyists, and the debate over guns.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other mayors in support of gun control are speaking out against a bill that would allow licensed gun owners to carry concealed firearms across state lines.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is urging Congress to pass a bill strengthening background checks for gun purchases. He was in Washington DC on Tuesday lobbying for the measure.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed a plan to increase federal penalties on states that are not enforcing background checks for prospective gun buyers.

President Obama's speech was a call to arms for those seeking bipartisanship. Unfortunately, those looking for regulations of firearms heard not a word about their cause.

"What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow," Obama said to an audience of Washington lawmakers which, for the first time, had Democrats and Republicans seated next to one another.

"We share common hopes and a common creed; that the dreams of a little girl in Tucson are not so different than those of our own children, and that they all deserve the chance to be fulfilled," said the president, referring to the youngest victim of the massacre that left Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords with a gunshot wound to the head.

But after that, Obama did not address the issue of gun control, something Mayor Michael Bloomberg strenuously advocated for with a major media push leading up to the speech.

Afterwards, Bloomberg released a statement calling the omission of gun control from the speech "disappointing."

Experience suggests there is little chance the attack will produce significant new legislation, let alone change a national culture that has been accepting of guns since its inception—unless we try something new and different.