Gun crime in London is increasing so rapidly that police fear they may not have the resources to cope, the BBC has learned. Members of the Metropolitan Police's SO19 firearms unit say lack of staff, money and out-of-date equipment is threatening to affect their work. The BBC's Zubeida Malik says that at a meeting this week, officers reported there had been a 100% increase in firearms-related crime in the capital this year. This follows the publication of Home Office... (GunPolicy.org)

WASHINGTON — The Senate defeated an effort to restore financing to a federal gun buyback program, which President Bush had said he wanted to eliminate. In a 65-to-33 vote, the Senate defeated the effort, by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, to shift $15 million to the program. The Clinton administration started the program in 1999 to allow police departments to buy back guns, especially around housing projects that received federal grants. The Bush... (GunPolicy.org)

Violent crimes involving the use of guns nationwide increased in the first half of this year to mark their highest figure in a decade, National Police Agency officials said Thursday. According to the agency, gun-related crimes, including murder, robbery, infliction of injury and blackmail, totaled 93 cases in the January-June period, up six cases from the same period last year. Of these, murder and attempted murder cases increased from 16 to 29, with the number of... (GunPolicy.org)

The first time you hear it you jump. The rapid crack of gunfire from the street, followed by a wafting cloud of smoke. Soon you get used to it and when the shots ring out you manage not to spill the cup of tea you've been handed. Welcome to Darra Adam Khel, gun city Pakistan, one of the most unique towns you're likely to come across and not a place for pacifists. For more than 100 years it has been a centre of gun making and today it continues, beyond the control of... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW YORK — With gun control a hot topic of debate for police, lawmakers and public health experts alike, a survey of one law enforcement agency in the US shows that many officers keep a loaded and unlocked personal firearm in their homes. The results from a survey of officers in a Southern enforcement agency found that 80% had a firearm in addition to their service gun. Of those, 60% of the officers stored their guns unlocked, 68% kept their guns loaded and about 44%... (GunPolicy.org)

NEW YORK — Talk show host Rosie O'Donnell said she has been on anti-depressants for two years after having been depressed and in denial about her condition for years, according to the September issue of her magazine. In the upcoming issue of "Rosie," available on newsstands on Aug. 7, O'Donnell wrote, "I think I have been depressed for years." Saying she was in denial about her condition during that time, O'Donnell wrote, "I wasn't depressed. I was sad, yes, and... (GunPolicy.org)

Editor's note: This is the third installment in an NRO series on the United Nations Conference on Small Arms. Rejected by the electorate last November, American gun prohibition found the United Nations Conference on Small Arms to be the friendliest of venues. Appalled by the Bush administration's insistence that the U.N. conference not become a springboard for the destruction of Second Amendment rights, a coalition of antigun groups organized a demonstration outside... (GunPolicy.org)

Following the alleged involvement of serving and retired military officers in illicit arm deals, Governor Donald Duke of Cross River State has urged the National Committee on the Proliferation and Illicit Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons to investigate the charge. Duke who was speaking when members of the Committee paid him a courtesy call on Monday in his office, said setting up special committees to monitor border towns and villages to track down illegal... (GunPolicy.org)

Behind a security blanket of defence services' secrecy that still lingers today, Lithgow, NSW, for almost a century has produced some of the world's finest weapons of war. The town is not only one of the state's coldest places in winter, often ice and fog-bound, but is one of the country's toughest places. Its working-class past is solidly built on the production of coal, iron and steel and, most proudly of all, guns. Lithgow was once NSW's third largest city, after... (GunPolicy.org)