United Kingdom
Barrister Shot by Police in Central London Was Licensed Shotgun Owner
Telegraph (UK)
11 May 2008
Mark Saunders passed stringent checks on his suitability to own guns -- including investigations into his mental health -- before being issued with a shotgun licence. The Metropolitan Police require all applicants for licences to give permission for mental health checks to be made with their GP. The fact that Mr Saunders was visited by a gun licensing officer after he moved to his flat in Markham Square last September suggests he had not been diagnosed with any mental illness. Anyone who wants to own a shotgun must apply to their local police force for a licence, giving details of people who can give character references. The police... ( gunpolicy.org )
Turkey
Celebratory Gunfire, Occasional Deaths Inexplicable Feature of Turkish Life
Today's Zaman (Turkey), Column
11 May 2008
I have always been awed by the inability of people around me to celebrate joyful events. Weddings and soccer games that end victoriously are celebrated with guns held aloft, fired incessantly into the air. Someone who is not familiar with the local culture may feel they have fallen into an ambush, just as the foreign guests did at the wedding ceremony of one of my younger family members last year. They gathered around me in bewilderment asking why. I had such a hard time explaining that this was a way of celebrating, but mainly failed to explain why this gun craze was so widespread in my country. Guns are instruments of war, but we use them to express our joy... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Let's Think Carefully About Gun 'Rights,' Assault Weapons and US Society
Morning Call (Pennsylvania), Opinion
11 May 2008
Another shooting. Another officer down. Another funeral. Sadly, we are again witnesses to the aftermath of a police officer being killed in the line of duty. This time the story comes from Philadelphia, but the tale is told in too many places. The U.S. Justice Department reports that, on average, a law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty every 57 hours in America. With the death of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, public debate over gun laws has become louder. The weapon with which he was killed, an SKS carbine originally designed for the Soviet Army, features a 30-cartridge magazine capable of firing bullets that can pierce bulletproof vests. According... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
One NRA Lobbyist Beat 60 Big-business Lobbyists, Brought Guns to Work
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale)
11 May 2008
As business lobbyists learned this spring, don't mess with Marion Hammer. Hammer, 69, has been the National Rifle Association's lobbyist in Tallahassee for more than three decades. Credit her with the intense, three-year push for the controversial guns-to-work bill that the Republican Legislature and Gov. Charlie Crist made law this session. Business interests -- and their 60-plus lobbyists -- considered the bill an attack on private property rights and mounted a full-court opposition. Hammer worked alone. She met with legislators day and night, twisted arms and got the bill passed. Now 491,000 Floridians with concealed-weapons permits can take... ( gunpolicy.org )
Turkey
Turkish Wife Shot, Paralysed by Husband, Focus of Anti-Violence Campaign
Los Angeles Times / AP
11 May 2008
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Emine Yaman lies in bed, her legs rigid, her feet prone to sores and swelling. Paralyzed by a bullet that her husband fired into her chest, she is the face of domestic violence in a country struggling to discard long-held cultural practices that denigrate women. She wears diapers and reaches for a knotted sheet hanging from an overhead bar to shift her upper body. The weak bones in her 40-year-old hips, knees and left arm have broken since the shooting in 1999. Infections induce fevers; she takes antibiotics. A municipal doctor sometimes visits her bare apartment beside a highway in Turkey's biggest city. Virtually abandoned by her... ( gunpolicy.org )
Kazakhstan
Unregistered Rifles, Pistols Collected in North Kazakhstan Gun Buyback
BBC Monitoring Service (Astana) / Kazinform
11 May 2008
During a campaign to voluntarily hand in unregistered rifles, pistols and explosives to police in [Kazakhstan's northern] Pavlodar Region, people brought 611 weapons, a Kazinform [news agency] correspondent has reported. Police valued the arsenal at 3.79m tenge [over 30,000 dollars], Maskhat Yeshmuratov, deputy head of the public security directorate of the [regional] interior affairs department, said. The explosives, which were brought [to police], included a mine and three grenades. ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
US Actor, 'Law & Order' Star Arrested with Unlicensed Pistol at LA Airport
Associated Press
11 May 2008
LOS ANGELES -- Actor Dennis Farina was charged with a felony Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport after a loaded gun was found in his carry-on luggage. When the weapon was discovered at a security checkpoint, the 64-year-old actor said he had forgotten the .22-caliber handgun was in his luggage, police said. Farina was booked for investigation of carrying a concealed weapon, said Sgt. Dennis Beacham. Bail was set at $25,000 before police discovered the weapon was not registered. Charges were then upgraded to a felony and bail was increased to $35,000. Farina was released after posting bail on Sunday night, according to the Los Angeles... ( gunpolicy.org )
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