On July 1, county gun boards across Michigan began handing out concealed weapon permits to most law-abiding applicants who passed a gun safety course. Now, six months and 21,000 newly pistol-packin neighbors later, are we feeling safer? Ross Dykman is. He's the director of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners, one of several groups that lobbied for the controversial right-to-carry law. Dykman concedes that it's too early to document what, if any, impact... (GunPolicy.org)

When several hundred young men from the Pokot ethnic group, armed with a motley of small arms, violently attacked neighbouring Marakwet villages in March 2001 and left 47 people dead, stole hundreds of livestock and burned an estimated 300 homes, the official belief was that the attack was part of the traditional practice of inter-community raids. A similar attack had occurred in 1999 at Kalemnog orok market in Turkana District. Up to 1,000 young men, presumably Pokot,... (GunPolicy.org)

While Britain has some of the toughest firearms laws in the world, the recent spate of gun murders in London has highlighted a disturbing growth in armed crime. The shooting of a young woman in London by a mobile phone thief has again raised the issue of escalating gun crime in the UK. The attack follows a series of gun-related incidents in east London between Christmas and New Year, which included the case of two men who were killed by a single shot at a... (GunPolicy.org)

US gun-control advocates claimed a significant victory yesterday after the Illinois appeal court ruled that gunmakers and dealers could be sued for creating a public nuisance by flooding markets with cheap weapons. The ruling could clear the way for a new offensive by city and state authorities which regard the gun epidemic as one of their biggest problems. Gun-rights groups have denounced the ruling, saying that the same legal arguments could be used against other... (GunPolicy.org)

The dispute between the Federal Government and Virgin Blue over who should pay for putting air marshals on passenger planes is like two brutes fighting for the hand of a maiden. Whoever wins, it's the bride — in this case the public — who pays, either through their taxes or travel costs. Writing as someone who survived an airline hijacking, I'd suggest the debate is a dangerous distraction from the real issue, which is whether the Government's response to the... (GunPolicy.org)

The New Year arrived in a burst of gunfire. Some 100 people were arrested in Baltimore, and four were wounded, because of the senseless use of deadly firearms to celebrate the holiday. This sad annual ritual highlights the willful abuse of lethal weapons in our society despite growing efforts to promote gun safety. It's also a reflection of the widespread proliferation of firearms, with more than 1 million handguns circulating in a state of 5 million residents. The... (GunPolicy.org)

SMYRNA, Tennesee — A 22-year-old policeman was killed by his 3-year-old son when the boy picked up his father's gun off the kitchen table and accidentally fired, police said Friday. Joshua Haffner, who had recently joined the Smyrna Police Department, returned home Thursday from night shift duty, put down his gun, and was struck in the back by a bullet fired by his unidentified son, police spokeswoman Barbara Wilford said. Haffner was taken by helicopter to... (GunPolicy.org)

Maryland's new U.S. attorney said yesterday that his office would prosecute fewer city gun crimes, despite long-standing calls from his own political benefactor and Baltimore's mayor for federal authorities to pursue more gun cases as a way to help reduce street violence. An unapologetic Thomas M. DiBiagio said federal prosecutors in Baltimore instead would take on a greater number of complex drug conspiracy and violent crime cases. In an interview, he said targeting... (GunPolicy.org)

DETROIT — The Detroit Police Department says it was able to solve 64 percent of murder cases last year, a dramatic improvement that would put the department on par with most large cities. The 2001 rate of solving murders, the highest since 1995, was a 36-percent improvement over 2000, when investigators closed 47 percent of homicides. Nationwide, police cleared 63 percent of homicides with arrests in 2000, the FBI reported. The rate sank to 57 percent among cities... (GunPolicy.org)

Sixteen panic-stricken people seeking to put "safe distance" between themselves and machine gun bullets in Mendi town last Friday made a daring escape in a Mt Hagen-bound twin otter as it prepared to take off. The incident has earned the ire of the Civil Aviation Authority and an investigation is now underway. It has not been confirmed whether the aircraft was hijacked. A CAA eye witness in Mendi told the Post-Courier yesterday that 16 people from a large crowd... (GunPolicy.org)

The Papua New Guinea Defence Force is confident it will retrench 500 servicemen by the end of this month. Defence Commander Peter Ilau said yesterday processes towards finalising the retrenchment exercise were well under way and that the force was confident in retrenching the first 500 men at the end of this month and a further 800 by end of March. "It is not an issue of finance, but we don't want to end up in court with people not being renumerated correctly,"... (GunPolicy.org)