United States
Baltimore Woman Illegally Bought Gun for Boyfriend, Faces Up to 10yrs Jail
Baltimore Sun (Maryland)
3 Apr 2008
A 26-year-old woman pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to buying a handgun for her boyfriend -- an illegal transaction known as a "straw purchase," the Maryland U.S. attorney's office said. Christine Brzezenski, who lives with her boyfriend in an apartment in the 6500 block of Brown Ave. in Southeast Baltimore, faces up to 10 years in prison when she is sentenced May 22. According to plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Brzezenski's boyfriend was arrested by city police detective Greg Hillen on Aug. 30 after an informant tipped him off about a suspected drug dealer. Police said that Hillen pulled over a dark blue... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Barack Obama Comes Out Against Hidden Handguns, Gun Law Loopholes
Townhall (USA), Web Page
3 Apr 2008
Barack Obama is embracing anti-gun policies in the run-up to a Democratic presidential debate scheduled on the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings. "I am not in favor of concealed weapons," Obama told the Pittsburgh Tribune. "I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations." These remarks break from Obama's previous moderate rhetoric on gun control. While campaigning in Idaho in February, Obama promised, "I have no intention of taking away folks' guns." Obama elaborated later that month in a political forum sponsored by ABC News and the Politico. He said: "I... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Connecticut 9yr-old Steals Gun, Shoots Father: Dad Faces Gun Charges
WTNH-TV News (Connecticut)
3 Apr 2008
MIDDLETOWN -- A 9-year old son got his hands on one of his father's guns and now the father faces a list of charges. "They were under lock and key," Joseph Simonelli, of East Hampton, said. When asked how his son accessed the gun, Simonelli said, "He broke the lock." Leaving Middletown Superior Court after posting $10,000 bond, Simonelli insists he is a victim, not a criminal. Simonelli was accidentally shot Sunday inside his East Hampton home by his own nine-year-old son. And police say at first the family tried to cover up the shooting -- claiming Simonelli was hit by an errant bullet from a hunter while in his driveway. But, when... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Georgia Senate OKs Hidden Handgun Carrying in Eateries, on Trains
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Georgia)
3 Apr 2008
Georgians with concealed weapons permits could carry guns on MARTA trains, and into restaurants as long as they don't drink, under a bill that passed the Senate after two rounds of contentious debate Wednesday. Senators tacked the provisions onto HB 257, a bill that would have allowed Magistrate Court constables to carry guns, and significantly expanded its scope. The last minute changes come after months of intense pressure from the National Rifle Association and Georgia gun groups to loosen the state's weapons laws. The Republican-controlled Senate has struggled with gun legislation throughout the past two sessions, caught between the NRA... ( gunpolicy.org )
Germany
German Collector Had So Many Guns He Had to Move Out, Live at an Inn
Cape Times (Capetown)
3 Apr 2008
BERLIN -- A German man was such an avid collector of weapons and other paraphernalia that he ran out of space at home and had to sleep in a hotel, neighbours said following the 71-year-old's death. Executors found an arsenal of weaponry and assorted goods at the man's two-storey home in the western city of Aachen. "There were 71 guns, one for each year of his life," said police spokesperson Paul Kemen. "He also had 41 cases of ammunition and five walking sticks fitted with retractable blades." Heiner Hautermans, a reporter at the Aachener Nachrichten paper, said neighbours related how the man, who lived alone, collected everything from clothing... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Guns, Fear, the Constitution, and the Public's Health in America - NEJM
New England Journal of Medicine (USA), 358:14:1421-1424, Opinion
3 Apr 2008
It is 1992, and schoolmates Yoshihiro Hattori and Webb Haymaker have been invited to a Halloween party. Yoshi, a 16-year-old exchange student and avid dancer, wears a white tuxedo like John Travolta's in Saturday Night Fever. By mistake, they stop at a house up the block from their destination. No one answers the doorbell. Inside are Rodney and Bonnie Peairs. She opens a side door momentarily, sees the boys, and yells to her husband, "Get the gun." He does (it is a .44 magnum Smith & Wesson revolver) and reopens the door. Yoshi and Webb, by now back at the sidewalk, start to return. Yoshi exclaims, "We're here for the party!" "Freeze!" responds Peairs.... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Gun Violence Survivors Prove One Bullet Can Kill, But Sometimes 20 Don't
New York Times
3 Apr 2008
A man in North Carolina was shot roughly 20 times in 1995 and lived to tell about it. The rapper 50 Cent was shot nine times in 2000 and has since released three albums. And in 2006, Joseph Guzman survived 19 gunshot wounds during the 50-shot fusillade by police detectives that killed Sean Bell. While surviving numerous gunshots could be a miraculous feat, doctors who have treated gunshot victims say that being shot is not automatically a death sentence. When major organs -- the heart and brain especially -- and blood vessels are avoided, the chances of survival are good, they said. The catch, of course, is that there is no science to preventing a bullet... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Handgun Violence, Public Health, and the Law: America's Situation Today
New England Journal of Medicine (USA) 358:14:1503-1504, Editorial
3 Apr 2008
Firearms were used to kill 30,143 people in the United States in 2005, the most recent year with complete data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [1] A total of 17,002 of these were suicides, 12,352 homicides, and 789 accidental firearm deaths. Nearly half of these deaths occurred in people under the age of 35. When we consider that there were also nearly 70,000 nonfatal injuries from firearms, we are left with the staggering fact that 100,000 men, women, and children were killed or wounded by firearms in the span of just one year. This translates into one death from firearms every 17 minutes and one death or nonfatal injury every 5 minutes. By... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Interpreting the Right to Bear Arms: Gun Control and US Constitutional Law
New England Journal of Medicine (USA) 358:14:1424-1426, Opinion
3 Apr 2008
On March 18, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller, a case challenging handgun-control statutes adopted in 1976 in Washington, D.C. The question before the Court is whether the District's prohibition of further registration of handguns, its ban on the carrying of concealed guns, and its mandate that guns kept in homes remain unloaded and either locked or disassembled violate citizens' rights that are guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. What we do about handguns is of course a question of public policy. Because of the Second Amendment, it is also a question of constitutional law. And the point of... ( gunpolicy.org )
Japan
Japan: Police Could Seize Hunting Rifles for Family Violence, Stalking, Debt
Mainichi Daily News
3 Apr 2008
The National Police Agency (NPA) is seeking a legal ban on those involved in stalking incidents or domestic violence from possessing hunting guns, agency officials said. The NPA is expected to submit a bill during the next Diet session to revise the Firearms and Swords Control Law to include involvement in stalking incidents and domestic violence as grounds for disqualification for possessing hunting guns. Under the current law, only those convicted of serious offenses such as murder or robbery using guns and swords are banned from possessing hunting guns. Due to the loophole, a 58-year-old man shot and injured his former wife in Kumamoto Prefecture... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States, Afghanistan
Licensed US Gun Dealer Given 'Disadvantaged' Status in $300m Arms Deal
Government Executive (USA)
3 Apr 2008
A Miami-based defense contractor under investigation for delivering faulty munitions to Afghan security forces saw his business boom after being incorrectly labeled as a small disadvantaged business. Before the designation first appeared in the Federal Procurement Data System in mid-2006, AEY Inc., owned by 22-year-old Efraim Diveroli, had done $8.14 million in business with the federal government. Since the SDB label was applied, AEY has earned more than $204 million in federal contracts. But several federal sources told Government Executive that AEY has never been certified as a small disadvantaged business. Officials at the Small Business Administration's... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Ohio Police Failed to Take Gun from Licensed Gun Owner Before Shooting
Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
3 Apr 2008
Marc Kidby's concealed-carry permit was not suspended until he lay dying of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. His permit to carry a hidden handgun should have been suspended, and his guns surrendered, when his wife obtained a domestic-violence protection order on Feb. 11. However, the Athens County sheriff's office failed to suspend his permit, as required by state law, and might not even have asked Kidby to turn over his guns. After two public suicide attempts, Kidby killed himself Tuesday morning by firing rounds from his .38-caliber handgun into his chest and head at his rural home. In the weeks before, he had threatened twice to jump... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Pennsylvania Gun Control Advocates Undeterred by Another Legislative Loss
Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania)
3 Apr 2008
HARRISBURG -- A bill to limit the number of handguns a person could buy to one a month has met its fate -- defeat. Another measure that would have allowed municipalities such as Philadelphia to make their own gun laws -- vanquished. And the push to curb illegal gun trafficking? As of Tuesday evening, shot down. It was the latest loss in the last six months for Pennsylvania's gun-control movement, but nevertheless its advocates insisted yesterday they had only just begun their fight. "We have started to draw the gun-safety issue out of the shadows -- which is where the special-interests lobby of the NRA wanted it to stay -- and we are... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States, Afghanistan
Pentagon Promised $300m for 'Barely Legal' Gun Dealer's Corroded Ammo
Taxpayer.net (USA) Vol. XIII No. 14, Web Page
3 Apr 2008
It sounds like the plot of a Tom Clancy thriller: A tiny company run out of an unmarked Miami Beach office by a barely legal troublemaker siphons hundreds of millions of dollars from the Pentagon by selling it rusting weapons from aged Communist stockpiles. A company called AEY Inc., run by 22-year-old Efriam E. Diveroli, managed to do exactly that for four years -- yet another example of unchecked corruption and incompetence in the explosion in "war on terror" defense contracting. AEY began contracting with the defense and state departments in 2004 for weapons, ammunition, clothing and "research and development," according to an internal Army memo (pdf,... ( gunpolicy.org )
Serbia
Serbian Policemen Detained for Illegal Sale of Assault Weapons, Handguns
Radio B92 (Belgrade) / BBC Monitoring Service, Transcript
3 Apr 2008
Four Belgrade police officers have been arrested on suspicion of illegal possession and sale of firearms. They were arrested and remanded in custody for 48 hours, announced the Interior Ministry late last night. The ministry states that members of the Sector for Internal Control Dragan J., Sasa Z., Branko R. and Zoran M. have been arrested as part of the Interior Ministry's wider activities in fighting corruption and crime. The police discovered weapons destined for re-sale at the homes of the suspects. On their release from custody, the suspects will be charged and handed over to the jurisdiction of the competent investigative judge.... ( gunpolicy.org )
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