Firearm News
Harshbarger Slams Lawsuit by Gunmakers
15 January 1998
Boston Globe
Attorney General Scott Harshbarger accused gun manufacturers yesterday of putting children's lives at risk by suing to stop state handgun safety regulations from taking effect.
Gun manufacturers went to Suffolk Superior Court yesterday to file a lawsuit challenging the first-in-the-nation rules, which were issued by Harshbarger under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act.
The lawsuit, brought by the American Shooting Sports Council, a Georgia-based firearms... (GunPolicy.org)
Group Says 946 Gun Licensees Arrested
13 January 1998
United Press International
AUSTIN, Texas — An anti-gun group is claiming that 946 Texans who held a concealed handgun license were arrested in the first 22 months that the state's carry law was in effect.
The Washington-based Violence Policy Center released a report in Austin today that said 263 of the arrests were for felonies, including six charges of murder or attempted murder involving at least four deaths.
Susan Glick, the VPC's health policy analyst and author of the study, said,... (GunPolicy.org)
Utah's GOP Boss Likens Gun Bans to Racial Bigotry
11 January 1998
Salt Lake Tribune (Utah)
The chairman of the Utah Republican Party, who also is a gun lobbyist, says school officials and business owners who exclude residents carrying weapons are bigots in the mold of former southern governors who denied blacks entry into state schools.
"If you want to be a bigot on personal private property, you can do that," Rob Bishop told The Salt Lake Tribune. "You can't do that on private property open to the general public."
Bishop, a paid lobbyist for the Utah... (GunPolicy.org)
San Francisco Cops Accused of Using Seized Guns Weapons Had Been Ordered Destroyed
10 January 1998
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Police Chief Fred Lau said yesterday he is ordering an internal investigation to determine if city police used guns seized in a 1993 weapons case for private shooting sessions at the department's firing range.
The guns were confiscated from San Francisco auto repair shop owner Norman Young in 1993 in connection with a police probe of illegal assault weapons. When Young agreed to plead guilty to the assault weapon charges, the guns were ordered destroyed... (GunPolicy.org)
Cop Shoots Good Samaritan Youth
9 January 1998
United Press International
NEW YORK — A 16-year-old black high school youth trying to help a policeman who was being attacked was shot by the officer on New Year's morning.
Police didn't initially report the incident to the media, and the New York Times reports today the first police reports called Raheem Dawkins a possible suspect.
The Times says Dawkins aspires to be a policeman and does volunteer work at his local police precinct. However, since his shooting he has received no official... (GunPolicy.org)
Strange Silence - Deer Management Chief Puzzled by Quiet Hunters
9 January 1998
Akron Beacon Journal (Ohio)
It has been so quiet that Mike Tonkovich can hear himself think — and that's a problem, especially since he doesn't know for sure just what to think.
"I'd say it's a little scary," Tonkovich, director of deer management for the state, said the other day, referring to the general absence of either tumult or shouting since the end of last month's deer gun season.
A year ago, it was quite another matter, with hunters hounding him something fierce in the wake of a... (GunPolicy.org)
City Considers Novel Strategy for Gun Lawsuit
8 January 1998
Philadelphia Inquirer
Lawyers for Mayor Rendell have prepared an extraordinary lawsuit contending that the nation's gun industry has created a public nuisance by saturating Philadelphia with firearms used by criminals.
If the mayor approves, this would mark the first time a government had sued the firearms trade, according to the National Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.
The suit would demand that manufacturers pay millions of dollars to reimburse the city for costs stemming from guns... (GunPolicy.org)
8 January 1998
CTV News (Toronto)
Roger Siblerud v. Sturm Ruger & Company, Inc. Court TV (US), 8 January 1998. Highlights:
This civil suit out of Montana finds the father of a man who died during a gun accident suing the gun manufacturers for wrongful death and product liability.
Roger Siblerud's son, Patrick, 25, died in 1993 after he dropped a Ruger revolver and it accidentally discharged after it hit the ground. Patrick Siblerud suffered a bullet wound to the abdomen and died hours later from... (GunPolicy.org)
Concern Over Handgun Violence Reflected in State-wide Phone Poll
5 January 1998
Post-Crescent (Wisconsin)
MILWAUKEE — Laws that would treat handgun violence as a product safety issue won widespread support in a public opinion poll.
But the survey, by the Public Policy Forum in Milwaukee, also found that state legislators do not seem interested in considering the issue. Lawmakers also were far more likely than the general public to believe that new safety laws for handguns could restrict the constitutional right to bear arms.
The random telephone survey asked 600... (GunPolicy.org)
Gun Advocate Wants Looser Carry Laws
2 January 1998
United Press International
COPPERAS COVE, Texas — A Texas lawmaker whose parents died in the 1991 Luby's Cafeteria massacre wants to loosen the restrictions of the state's concealed carry gun law.
Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampasas, says she wants to eliminate the requirement that applicants take a safety class before they are issued the permit. She says it will expand the pool of armed Texans.
She tells United Press International today, "What we had was a huge step in the right direction.... (GunPolicy.org)
1 January 1998
Washington Post
Among numerous errors in fact and reason in Anthony Pollica's letter ["Safe (and Armed) in Vermont," Free for All, Dec. 20] is the ludicrous implication that Vermont's permissive gun laws have some relationship to its low murder rate. It is a simple fact that most murders and other violent crimes occur in cities and urban areas with a population of more than 50,000. Vermont does not have one city with a population of over 50,000. Vermont's low murder and violent crime... (GunPolicy.org)
A Gun Shop Sting, a World of Trouble
1 January 1998
Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St Paul)
Neighbors around Mark Koscielski's gun store in south Minneapolis long had worried that some of the firearms sold there legally might end up in the hands of criminals.
They didn't know the half of it.
Dozens of cheap handguns traced to Koscielski's Government Surplus and to four suburban gun stores have turned up in crack house raids, shootings, traffic stops and felony arrests, some of them involving juveniles.
But what residents didn't know — and what top city... (GunPolicy.org)
US Militiamen Smuggled Guns to Canada, Escaped Without Prosecution
26 October 1996
Vancouver Sun (British Columbia)
Two men who tried to set up a heavily armed militia training camp in central B.C. are no longer under investigation by any U.S. law enforcement authorities and they do not face charges in Canada, law enforcement officers on both sides of the border said Friday.
The alleged militia members drove into Smithers in a truck with Texas licence plates in the summer of 1995 and later spent $24,000 on a trailer they stuffed with enough explosives to fill a five-tonne... (GunPolicy.org)
US Surgeon General Calls Gun Violence an 'Epidemic'
1 January 1994
Mother Jones (USA)
Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders's crusade to promote health education and awareness encompasses the "epidemic," as she calls it, of gun violence. Frank and opinionated, she told us what Americans need to do-now.
Q: The National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said that gun-related deaths and injuries make gun violence one of the major public-health hazards in the country. Do you agree?
A: Yes, I do. Homicide, often involving guns, is a disease that... (GunPolicy.org)
US Surgeons General on Gun Violence 'Epidemic'
15 June 1992
Philadelphia Local News (Philly.com)
Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and George Lundberg, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, think that if we look closely at death rates due to firearms, it will make gun-control advocates out of most of us.
Consider a few of them:
- Between 1960 and 1980, the U.S. homicide rate due to guns increased 160 percent, while the population rose 26 percent.
- Nationally, gunshot wounds are the second biggest cause of death among Americans age... (GunPolicy.org)