An arsenal of illegal guns — 477 this year alone — has been snatched up from Hub streets with the majority coming from other states as part of a continued push to tighten the Bay State’s gun laws, Mayor Thomas M. Menino announced yesterday.

“This has nothing to do with gun control, and everything to do with crime control,” Menino, a vocal advocate of stricter gun penalties, said at a hearing before the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security.

He noted the city has seen 189 shootings, 25 of them fatal, since January — an uptick from 164 and 21 through the same time last year, according to police statistics.

The heavily attended hearing drew hundreds to the State House’s Gardner Auditorium, including two parents who lost children in the Newtown, Conn., shootings in December; dozens of gun-control proponents; and a slightly smaller but still sizable contingent of Second Amendment advocates, some wearing NRA hats and others who protested outside the State House, carrying signs reading, “It’s the constitution, stupid” and “It’s about civil rights.”

The hearing is the fifth the committee has held across the state, each lasting anywhere from six to eight hours. It features 58 separate bills on the docket, though co-chair, state Rep. Harold P. Naughton, has said the committee is collecting ideas before releasing final legislation.

Menino joined others in pushing for a bill that would bring Massachusetts into compliance with federal background check standards.