With a push from Gov. Jeb Bush, state agencies have settled two lawsuits against a Pinellas Park gun range as Florida lawmakers prepare to pass legislation that would have dismissed the cases. The settlements end a contentious four-year legal battle capped by the National Rifle Association's push to ban state agencies from ever suing a gun range. NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer called such lawsuits "back-door gun control." State House members spent an hour Wednesday... (GunPolicy.org)

A Florida-based arms company is at the center of the international probe into a New York-bound ship seized in Italy while laden with thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles, The Post has learned. The AK-47s were apparently bound for Vermont. Officials have linked Century International Arms Inc. in Boca Raton to the discovery of a cache of 7,500 AK-47s hidden beneath piles of properly labeled arms in several cargo containers confiscated in the port of Gioia Tauro in... (GunPolicy.org)

AMSTERDAM — Dutch artist Joanneke Meester has put more than her personal feelings into her latest piece to protest at rising violence in society — she used her own skin to make a tiny gun. A surgeon friend scraped a 20 centimetre section of skin from Meester's abdomen under local anaesthetic to provide the raw materials for the work of art. Meester then used the skin to cover plastic bars to make a three-by-six centimetre pistol. Describing the consistency as... (GunPolicy.org)

The debate over the nation's assault weapons ban will be repeated this spring, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein arguing the need for extending her groundbreaking legislation. Lest she need any more ammunition, tragic news has provided it — the recent cold-blooded slaying of San Francisco police officer Isaac Espinoza at the hands of a killer wielding an AK-47 assault rifle. That there is still strong opposition to extending the weapons ban in spite of its obvious merits... (GunPolicy.org)

Extending the ban on assault weapons needs public support From all indications, Congress intends to let the 10-year-old ban on military-style assault weapons expire on Sept. 13. Unless, of course, public demand that the ban be extended reaches such a pitch that Congress dare not do otherwise. That's why it is important to make the public aware of the ban's pending expiration through such events as the news conference held by New Yorkers Against Gun Violence in White... (GunPolicy.org)

As co-chair of an NAACP violence-prevention program in Pittsburgh, Hill Jordan knows a few things about the effects of guns on poor city neighborhoods. So when members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) came to his city on the weekend of April 16-18 for the organization's annual members meeting, Jordan made sure that he was there, outside the David D. Lawrence Convention Center along with many others who had gathered to voice their opposition to the powerful... (GunPolicy.org)

Easy access to firearms by prominent citizens was a major contributing factor to conflicts in Papua New Guinea, a national security seminar has been told. National Research Institute acting head of political and legal studies Lt-Col James Laki told the workshop in Port Moresby the easy availability of small arms and shotguns to the country's elite was among the causes of conflict in PNG. Speaking as a resource person at the Pacific Islands Forum-sponsored workshop... (GunPolicy.org)