APPOMATTOX, Virginia -- Christopher Bryan Speight described himself in court papers as a dependable, hardworking person who was not quick to anger, and he showed pride in his ability to "find ways to get out of problems without using force or violence." Friends, in letters in support of his successful 1995 application for a concealed weapons permit, called him "an upstanding, Christian young man" and "very mature and responsible." But something happened in recent... (GunPolicy.org)

The 6-year-old Italian boy struck by a stray bullet during last week's New Year's Eve celebration was in "good spirits" at a Miami hospital on Monday, while police continued their investigation into a shooting that made headlines overseas in Europe. Andrea Fregoneses, whose family was visiting Miami as tourists from Italy, was expected to recover from a bullet wound to the stomach. Meanwhile, fears waned among tourism executives that the bizarre incident would damage... (GunPolicy.org)

MILWAUKEE - A teenager has pleaded guilty to attempted homicide for shooting two Milwaukee police officers. Nineteen-year-old Julius Burton shot Bryan Norberg and Graham Kunisch in June. In return for Thursday's guilty plea, the district attorney is recommending Burton spend 50 years in prison instead of the maximum 90. However, the judge isn't bound by that. The officers say they stopped Burton because he was riding his bike on a sidewalk, in violation of an... (GunPolicy.org)

HELENA, Montana - Montana doesn't have the authority to exempt itself from national gun control laws, the federal government argued in new court filings, hoping to beat back a movement from states adopting the Firearms Freedom Act. The Department of Justice, in a brief filed this week in U.S. District Court in Missoula, said that federal gun control is a "valid exercise of Congress' commerce power under the Constitution." The agency asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit... (GunPolicy.org)

APPOMATTOX, Virginia - The victims of a gunman's violent rampage in central Virginia included the suspect's sister and brother-in-law, as well as two other adults, three teenagers and a 4-year-old boy, according to authorities who charged the alleged shooter with first-degree murder on Wednesday. Christopher Bryan Speight, a 39-year-old security guard, surrendered to police at daybreak after leading investigators on an 18-hour manhunt after the slayings at a house in... (GunPolicy.org)

Police have arrested nine people and recovered two guns and 68 rounds of ammunition in a crackdown after gangsters killed 14 people at the weekend. But the Director of Criminal Investigations, Mr Robert Manumba, said police were yet to confirm if the guns, which were found abandoned in a bush, were the ones used in the killings. He said law enforcers recover a sub mashine gun with 68 bullets and a shotgun with five bullets abandoned in the bush. Addressing a rally, Mr... (GunPolicy.org)

Colorado State University administrators released a draft weapons-control policy Wednesday that would ban all firearms from campus. And while CSU's Board of Governors is expected to enact the policy at its Feb. 23 meeting, student leaders say they won't give up their right to carry concealed weapons on the Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses without having another say in the issue. "Oh, there is no doubt we will respond to it," said Matt Strauch, spokesman for the... (GunPolicy.org)

MEMPHIS — A Tennessee man accused of killing a soldier outside a Little Rock, Arkansas, military recruiting station last year has asked a judge to change his plea to guilty, claiming for the first time that he is affiliated with a Yemen-based affiliate of Al Qaeda. In a letter to the judge presiding over his case, the accused killer, Abdulhakim Muhammad, calls himself a soldier in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and calls the shooting "a Jihadi Attack" in... (GunPolicy.org)

Bowing to Pentagon concerns and an international outcry, a Michigan arms company said Thursday that it would immediately stop embossing references to New Testament Scriptures on rifle sights it sells the military. The company, Trijicon Inc., has multimillion-dollar contracts with the Pentagon for advanced telescopic sights that are widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trijicon also said it would provide the Pentagon with 100 free kits to use for removing the lettering... (GunPolicy.org)