For more than a decade, Robert Hass was a Smith & Wesson trigger man. As the vice president in charge of sales and marketing for the world's largest handgun manufacturer, Hass figured out new and innovative ways to sell the company's weapons. Armed with a Harvard MBA, Hass helped boost Smith & Wesson's market share during the 1980s and launched a successful campaign to sell more guns to women. But in 1989 Smith & Wesson was sold to an English company, Tomkins, which... (GunPolicy.org)

The phrase "lies, damn lies and statistics" is ascribed usually to Mark Twain and interpreted usually to mean that when numerical data seems to support your preconceptions it is valid, but when it does not you can disregard it safely. What might have been a better phrase would have been "there are those who cannot interpret statistics, those who choose to falsify them and raw data which is subject to misrepresentation". Some recent examples of data's being... (GunPolicy.org)

Pietersburg — Northern Province's provincial government is considering radical measures to clamp down on the abuse of legal firearms following the death of at least eight people in domestic disputes over the weekend, African Eye News Service (South Africa) reports. Provincial safety and security MEC, Seth Nthai, said on Monday that increasing numbers of people were murdering relatives or friends with registered firearms during emotional arguments or drinking... (GunPolicy.org)

JEFFERSON CITY — The National Rifle Association already has contributed $75,000 to the campaign to pass a concealed weapons law in Missouri at a statewide referendum April 6. Missouri is the first state to put the issue to a vote in a binding referendum. The money from the NRA is the largest single contribution so far in a campaign that may cost more than $2 million. Committees on both sides of the issue are just now organizing and raising money for the three-month... (GunPolicy.org)

Freddie Hamilton sat in the fifth row in Room 651 in Brooklyn Federal Court listening to hours of testimony about the bullet that killed her 17-year-old son, Njuzi Ray Jr. The witness spoke of lands and grooves — raised areas and indentations, measured in thousandths of an inch — that mark a slug when it is fired. He told of how the fatal bullet twisted in a clockwise direction as it traveled through the gun barrel. The lawyer showed a blowup photo of "the bullet... (GunPolicy.org)

Gun safety advocates call it a life-or-death decision: Whether or not to require "trigger locks" for firearms. It's one of the main battlegrounds in Virginia's annual gun control debate. The struggle got underway in earnest at the General Assembly. Gun control advocates know they're fighting an uphill battle, but they don't give up. They argue their agenda this year is modest, and common sense. In an effort to capture the attention of lawmakers, gun control advocates... (GunPolicy.org)