Twelve years old, my pockets stuffed with crumpled bills gleaned from a summer of lawn mowing, I stood enraptured by the slingshot on the hardware store shelf. This was no forked-stick child's toy, mind you, but a real weapon. This steel beauty had a handle that looped around your wrist, a pistol grip, and a wide leather pouch that could hold a stone big enough to slay Goliath. They called it a Wrist Rocket. With marbles for ammo, I headed into a field near my house,... (GunPolicy.org)

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that most journalists who die in war zones are murdered. That is, they don't die from playing hopscotch through a mine field or getting dinged by a stray bullet, but are deliberately targeted and killed. The current war in Afghanistan is no different. Since the start of the Afghan campaign, seven journalists have been shot and killed — at least four of whom were executed — while another was murdered in his hotel room. A... (GunPolicy.org)

NORTH WEST RIVER, Newfoundland — Police were called to an elementary school in central Labrador after a student fired a rifle in a classroom during a show-and-tell demonstration. No one was hurt last Thursday when the gun went off inside Lake Melville School in North West River, the RCMP said in a statement released Monday. The slug from the .22-calibre rifle lodged in a cabinet. The nine-year-old student, whose name was not released, had brought the rifle to school... (GunPolicy.org)

Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, who is running hard for governor, wants to create a mandatory one-year-minimum sentence for felons and violent juveniles who possess firearms, or even ammunition. The aim of the Michigan Exile program, Posthumus says, is to stop crime before it happens and let felons know that even possessing a gun will send them back to prison. It's a good message, but state and federal laws for dealing with the problem are already in place. Michigan Exile... (GunPolicy.org)

Nearly 170 people have been killed by handguns in mainland Britain since private possession of pistols became illegal in 1997, Lord Rooker confirms. The Home Office Minister told Tory former Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit that there had been 160 homicides using a handgun in England and Wales and seven in Scotland since the passage of the Firearms Acts in the wake of the Dunblane school massacre. There had been a further three homicides in Scotland in 1998 in which the... (GunPolicy.org)

The government of China has just issued this year's Human Rights Record of the United States. Much of the report consists of pseudo-factoids created by Leftist interest groups, allegedly showing what a terrible country America is. The leadoff item is an extended complaint about American gun ownership. The Chinese government frets that The United States is the country with the biggest number of private guns. We are also, of course, the country with the biggest number of... (GunPolicy.org)

DARRA ADAM KHEL, Pakistan — All along the main street in this dusty, one-horse town, dozens of weapons stores are lined with floor-to-ceiling replicas of Russian, Chinese and American arms. Turbaned men, rifles slung over their shoulders, stroll casually past dirty- faced boys hunched over grinding wheels all seemingly oblivious to a government ban on public display of weapons. Before people carried guns, they carried swords. It has always been this way, said... (GunPolicy.org)

Does domestic gun ownership pose a more serious threat to Americans than foreign terrorism? That's what New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof seems to be saying in a recent article. Alarmed by reports of a surge in gun sales after Sept. 11, Kristof cites familiar statistics on the perils of guns. Japan, where handguns are practically unavailable, had only 29 gun deaths (both murders and suicides) in 1999, while the United States had 26,800 gun deaths in 2000.... (GunPolicy.org)

How much should we compromise freedom to combat the threat of terrorism? In Israel, although checkpoints and searches are common, Israelis have found that trusting their citizens is often the most important line of defense. They have learned only too painfully that the police and military simply can't be there all the time. As Israel's national police chief said earlier this month, There's no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of... (GunPolicy.org)