A firearms dealer has been jailed for supplying live ammunition to a man who later shot his best friend dead with it by accident. David Partridge, 56, of Gable End House, Pitchcombe, near Stroud, told pensioner George Gleed that the six rounds of pinfire bullets he had given him for his 1865 Belgian revolver were blanks. Pensioner Mr Gleed was given the bullets after earlier buying the old pistol from Partridge's home based antiques shop and dealership for £85. Mr... (GunPolicy.org)

WASHINGTON — One year after the Columbine High School shooting, newly energized gun-control forces are grappling with a potentially critical split within their ranks over a key strategic decision: How far can they hope to go in reining in guns? For all the recent talk of "smart" guns, trigger locks and other innovations in weapons safety, an increasingly vocal minority in the gun-control community is arguing that nothing short of a ban on handguns will stem gun... (GunPolicy.org)

John Head still remembers where the guns were kept in the Nebraska farmhouse of his boyhood. Rifle perched above the front door on a couple of nails, shotgun leaning in a corner. In 1950, when he was 9, he stomped through fields on his own, a .22 rifle slung over his shoulder. Forty years later, two boys with guns propelled Head, a Denver attorney, to help launch one of the most aggressive gun-control groups in Colorado. Conservative business lawyer. Vietnam Purple... (GunPolicy.org)

The last legislative effort to require background checks at gun shows went down in defeat Monday in a hearing that illustrated the frayed emotions of the gun debate. Sen. Pat Pascoe's legislation would have saved the gun-control group SAFE Colorado the effort of collecting more than 62,000 signatures to put its gun-show initiative on the November ballot. But the legislation was killed on a party-line vote in the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.... (GunPolicy.org)

PANAMA CITY — Guns for cash or guns for drugs: Panama has become an arms bazaar for South American guerrillas and narcos looking to stock up on grenade launchers, high explosives or just plain machine guns. And officials say it is unlikely that Panama's hard-pressed border patrol will be able to do anything soon to stem the flow of weapons from formerly civil war-ravaged Central America to the hungry embrace of Colombian or Peruvian rebels. Panama's borders are "an... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW YORK — There was a time, just six years ago, when Alfredo Valentin ran a prosperous real estate business in the New York borough of the Bronx. Commissions from house sales and apartment rentals provided the kind of affluence that bought Cadillacs and Caribbean cruises, with enough left over for private-school and college tuition for his three kids. Today Valentin faces financial ruin, a reversal of fortune that began one August night in 1994 when his son Derek... (GunPolicy.org)

This week marks a sad anniversary. It's been a year since two heavily armed students terrorized Columbine High School, killing 13 and wounding 23 others before taking their own lives. A year of unfathomable grief for the victims' families, Colorado and the nation. And a year of inexcusable stalemate in Washington. The Columbine tragedy was so horrific that it at first promised to shame lawmakers into tightening gun laws. The proposals President Clinton put before... (GunPolicy.org)

SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts — Vincent DelValle has guns — lots of guns. But like other gundealers in Massachusetts, he just can't sell all of them. DelValle, manager of Strictly Defense in West Springfield, has been forced to alter his business in the two weeks since the nation's toughest handgun safety regulations took effect. "It's killing the small dealers," said DelValle. "We are stuck with thousands of dollars in guns we can't sell." The only new handguns... (GunPolicy.org)