A decision by an Illinois state judge last week to continue a private lawsuit that accused the gun industry of knowingly creating an underground market in handguns has encouraged 28 cities and counties suing the firearms companies and may suggest that judges have become more receptive to innovative claims against gun makers. The decision, by Judge Jennifer Duncan-Brice of Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago, was in a case brought by the families of three people killed... (GunPolicy.org)

When Anne Coakley got the call that her daughter had been shot, she responded in quintessential mom fashion. I'll go there, she thought, I can fix her. The mother will take care of it. Everything will be fine. But before her plane had even left Chicago for Boulder, Coakley's daughter was dead. Next May, mothers from across the United States plan to gather in Washington, D.C., on a grass-roots mission for tougher gun laws. Coakley will be among them. This time, she... (GunPolicy.org)

WASHINGTON — Three decades after a landmark study found crime and poverty tearing away at the nation's fabric, a sobering update released Sunday concludes that America has moved backward in fighting these ills and remains "a society in deep trouble" because of misguided policies. The widely publicized decline in crime rates during the 1990s has stemmed primarily from unusually high levels of prosperity, the report said, and masks what it called society's failure to... (GunPolicy.org)

SACRAMENTO — A mother's plaintive wails echoed through the courtyard of a Sacramento apartment complex Sunday, one day after her husband apparently shot five of their young children before turning the gun on himself. Sacramento police said they were still investigating what might have prompted 31-year-old Kao Xiong to kill his daughter and four sons in a shooting that has left family members shaken and searching for answers. "I don't understand, and I am saddened by... (GunPolicy.org)

Nothing in his Mr. Peepers demeanor reveals Stephen Teret's zeal and unfailing sense of aim. For two decades, this mild-mannered public-health professor and attorney has plugged away quietly in his Baltimore office, patiently but irreversibly changing the fundamental nature of the nation's gun-control debate. Officially, he is director of Johns Hopkins University's Center for Gun Policy and Research, but that stiff title doesn't convey the caginess with which he has... (GunPolicy.org)

PHILADELPHIA — The National Rifle Association has agreed to pay an Iowa couple $450,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from a scuffle at the group's national convention in June 1998. The settlement averts a retrial that was scheduled to begin Monday in federal court in Philadelphia. Kenneth Brodbeck of Des Moines, Iowa, had sued the NRA and its president, actor Charlton Heston, for defamation and battery, saying he was roughed up by an NRA security guard during the... (GunPolicy.org)

FORT GIBSON, Oklahoma — At least five students were wounded, and a 13-year-old boy was taken into custody on Monday, following a shooting at a middle school about 50 miles southeast of Tulsa, police said. School Superintendent Steve Wilmoth told CNN the incident took place around 8 a.m.-before classes started-and that the alleged shooter was a student at the school. Wilmoth said he was not aware of any problems with the suspect. A 9mm handgun was recovered, police... (GunPolicy.org)