United States
Virginia Moves to Allow Hidden Handguns in Premises Serving Alcohol
Roanoke Times (Virginia)
18 Feb 2008
RICHMOND -- A House of Delegates committee endorsed legislation Monday that would allow concealed handguns in establishments that serve alcohol, but punish gun-carrying patrons who get caught drinking. Senate Bill 476 would eliminate the state's ban on concealed handguns in restaurants and clubs that serve alcohol, a change long favored by gun-rights advocates. The Senate passed the bill last week, and the House Militia, Police and Public Safety Committee endorsed it Monday, despite opposition from the restaurant industry and the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta County, said that gun owners... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
US States Try to Plug Gaps in FBI Database, Slow Gun Sales to Mentally Ill
USA Today
18 Feb 2008
In the days after Seung Hui Cho shot and killed 32 classmates and staff at Virginia Tech, Alberta Darling, a state senator in Wisconsin, wondered whether her own state's laws would have averted such a tragedy. Records of Cho's involuntary commitment to outpatient treatment never made it from the state to a federal database that would have alerted a firearms dealer to halt his gun purchase. Darling says she found a similar disconnect in Wisconsin: The courts did not send records to the national gun-check database. "It was very disconcerting to me that we had a gap in our law," says Darling, who has proposed legislation to fix the problem. "We... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
US Politicians' Tender Tales of Hunting Varmints Signal Swing to Gun Rights
Denver Post (Colorado), Column
18 Feb 2008
It's election season, meaning candidates across the political spectrum will rediscover their love of shotguns and regale us with tender tales of hunting varmints. What this pandering actually tells us is that the acrimonious issue of gun ownership is settling in on the side of the Constitution. Though citizens hold varied opinions on how to govern possession, a majority believe that gun ownership is an individual right. Gallup pollsters asked Americans last year, "Do you think there should or should not be a law that would ban the possession of handguns, except by the police and other authorized persons?" Sixty percent said "should not." In 2007, a Pew... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
US Campus Killings Spur Lobby to Arm More Students, Teachers in Class
Sydney Morning Herald
18 Feb 2008
NEW YORK -- In what seems a distinctly American response to a distinctly American problem, last week's Illinois university shooting appears only to have spurred a push to allow students to carry guns. An internet lobby group, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, wants politicians to overrule university boards that ban guns on campus, so staff and students can arm themselves against attackers. The group, formed last April after the Virginia Tech massacre in which 33 people died, argues while millions of Americans carry concealed handguns on their daily routines, they can't carry weapons onto university grounds. A spokesman, Scott Lewis, said... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Unlicensed Dealers at California Gun Show Question Value of Gun Control
Chico Enterprise-Record (California)
18 Feb 2008
Private firearms sellers at the Chico Gun Show Sunday responded to the issue of gun control following a shooting at Northern Illinois University that killed five students Thursday. Dozens of private sellers interviewed at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds refused to give their names, mainly for fear of burglary. Some parents of students at NIU spoke out over the weekend demanding tighter gun controls, according to an article in the Washington Post on Sunday. A different article published Sunday in the Post stated that the shooter, Steven Kazmierczak, purchased handgun accessories from the same Internet dealer that also sold a weapon to Seung-Hui Cho, who... ( gunpolicy.org )
United Kingdom
UK Army NCOs Arrested for Stealing Machine Guns, Selling to Criminals
Mirror (UK)
18 Feb 2008
Three soldiers have been arrested on suspicion of stealing machine guns, grenades and ammunition from their base and selling them to gangsters. A 36-year-old sergeant and two lance corporals -- a man of 27 and a 26-year-old woman -- were seized as police raided their barracks in Canterbury, Kent. An Army insider said: "The police swoop was sensational, there were squad cars everywhere. "We all knew something very big was going down. They raided two homes in the married quarters and a flat in the barracks along with the sergeants' mess." The NCOs from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders are said to have been raking in a fortune stealing... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
To Save Children and Teens, US Supreme Court Must Uphold DC Gun Ban
Huffington Post (USA), Blog
18 Feb 2008
This year, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to overturn a lower court decision striking down the District of Columbia's 1976 handgun ban designed to reduce violent crime. If the Court reverses the lower court and upholds the ban, it will keep in place a crucial measure for the protection of the health and safety of our children in our nation's capital and communities nationwide. At issue in the case, District of Columbia v. Heller, is the contention of opponents to the D.C. handgun ban that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees individuals the right to own and keep guns of any type for private use including self-defense. The Second... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Spread of Replica Plastic Guns Worries US Police Who May Shoot Owners
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Washington)
18 Feb 2008
When deputies arrived, Sgt. Duane Hendrix's children were in the street outside the Seattle police officer's Pierce County home. Neighbors had spotted them running around, playing with what, to any casual observer, looked to be handguns. The deputies approached with their own weapons holstered, checked the children's guns and found them to be airsoft pistols, an increasingly popular type of replica gun that fires oversize plastic BBs. Hendrix says his children have a healthy respect for firearms. But the incident -- his children treating toy guns like toys, not guns -- didn't sit well with him. "After that, we sold them," said Hendrix, one of... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Silence on US Domestic Gun Terrorism: Let's Fight the Enemy Within U.S.
Chicago Tribune, Column
18 Feb 2008
If a man or woman campaigning to be the next president of the United States didn't have a detailed plan to fight foreign terrorists, we'd think he or she was wasting our time. So why is it that we aren't demanding the Democratic presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and Republican front-runner Sen. John McCain have a plan to fight homegrown terrorists? Why does it take the type of violence that occurred Thursday at Northern Illinois University -- or nearly two weeks earlier in Tinley Park's Lane Bryant store or on Feb. 7 at the City Council in Kirkwood, Mo. -- to remind us that some of the people most intent on doing us harm... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Obama, Clinton, Illinois Shooting Generate Litmus Test of US Gun Politics
USA Today, Editorial
18 Feb 2008
It may seem callous to say so, but there's no better litmus test for where the USA stands on gun violence than a deadly school shooting during a closely fought presidential race. After Thursday's senseless rampage at Northern Illinois University -- where police say Steven Kazmierczak, 27, fatally shot five before shooting himself -- reporters sought out the two Democrats, presumably more sympathetic than Republicans to gun control. What they said was instructive. Both backed Americans' right to own guns. Barack Obama said the nation must do "whatever it takes to eradicate this violence," but quickly added that he believes the Second Amendment guarantees "an individual... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
New US Gun Law Puts Blame on Mentally Ill, Shifts Burden to Health System
ABC News (USA)
18 Feb 2008
Some lawmakers and gun control advocates hope a new law that takes effect in June will help keep guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous people. The law calls on mental health workers to report persons who may be a threat to themselves or others so they cannot legally purchase guns. Sponsors of the new bill say had the law been in place last week, in theory, it may have prevented the Northern Illinois University shooter from buying a gun. Mental health experts, on the other hand, disagree with that. The information given to state police about someone's mental state would be confidential and would only be used for firearms ID card purposes.... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Mental Illness No Bar to Campus Killer Legally Buying Guns in Illinois: Lawyer
Chicago Sun-Times
18 Feb 2008
Northern Illinois University killer Steve Kazmierczak struggled with mental illness but wasn't barred from buying guns, raising questions about whether Illinois does enough to flag psychotic buyers. "For anyone to suggest that there is [adequate] screening for individuals with psychosis is folly," said St. Charles attorney Michael Roe, who focuses on psychological issues in the law. "Because of his history, [Kazmierczak] should have been in a State Police registry of individuals with a complex and serious diagnosis," added Roe, who represented Marilyn Lemak -- the Naperville mother who killed her three children in 1999. Starting this summer,... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Illinois May Need to Tighten New Law on Mental Health of Gun Buyers
Associated Press
18 Feb 2008
CHICAGO -- Illinois lawmakers moved swiftly after last year's massacre at Virginia Tech to make it harder for anyone with a history of mental illness to buy guns, fortifying what were already some of the nation's toughest weapons laws. But the new measure does not take effect until June. And whether it would have prevented last week's bloodbath at Northern Illinois University is far from clear. Steven Kazmierczak, the 27-year-old grad student who bought an arsenal of guns in recent months and used them to kill five people and commit suicide, had been on medication and was said to have spent time in a psychiatric center as a teen in the late 1990s. ... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
Hillary Clinton Wants US Presidential Gun Summit to 'Bring People Together'
New York Daily News / Mouth of the Potomac, Blog
18 Feb 2008
Another new wrinkle from Hillary Clinton today: she wants a presidential summit on gun control. That came up in the Q-and-A session of her stop in De Pere, after a woman asked about dealing with shootings such as the Northern Illinois University carnage. Clinton started with the line she rolled out a couple days ago about recognizing that there is "no conflict" between letting lawful gunowners have weapons and keeping guns out of the hands of bad guys and the mentally ill. She went on to propose a solution to coming up with a solution for the problem -- kind of like her plan to come up with a plan for fixing another politically difficult problem,... ( gunpolicy.org )
United States
1976 Handgun Ban Is Just One in US Capital's Tangled Maze of Gun Rules
Washington Post
18 Feb 2008
In a city with one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, perhaps no one understands the controversial statute in more detail than D.C. police Lt. Jon Shelton. As the officer in charge of firearms registration, he is the answer man. Ask what makes a rifle legal or illegal, and he'll talk about muzzle lengths, ammunition capacity and the difference between bolt action and semiautomatic. What types of handguns are security guards permitted to carry? Shelton can cite a half-dozen local and federal laws and regulations, quoting them from memory, and explain why some guards are allowed more firepower than others, depending on whom they work for. So,... ( gunpolicy.org )
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