It was a perfect façade, so they thought. Who could have suspected that a couple riding in a neat-looking Mercedes Benz car was not what they pretended to be. To an ordinary onlooker, they were mere international travellers, perhaps heading to Nigeria on a pleasure or a business trip. However, the vigilance of a police patrol team uncovered their evil intention. The duo of Mr. Daniel Ofori, a Ghanaian and his Nigerian counterpart, Ms. Olufumolayo Adeyemo, were nothing... (GunPolicy.org)

Santo Domingo - Justice minister Francisco Domínguez on Tuesday slammed criticized [sic] that for more than 20 years law enforcement agencies' policy of "cronyism" for giving weapons to politicians and businesspersons, to befriend them and get favors in return. He said even when many of those weapons are used for protection, it's also the military and police's method to gain their acceptance. Dominguez said the weapons handed out range from pistols to machine guns.... (GunPolicy.org)

Egypt's armed forces were able to successfully thwart an attempt to smuggle arms into Egypt from the western border shared with Libya on Wednesday. The border-forces confiscated seven sacks that contained 47 machine guns among other arms, reported the official page of Egypt's army spokesman. The defendants were referred to a prosecutor to act appropriately in accordance with the... (GunPolicy.org)

Luanda — The Attorney-General, João Maria de Sousa, has defended the application of severe punitive measures on individuals found in possession of illegal firearms. João Maria de Sousa has defended this stance at the session that discussed, in specialty, the State Budget Draft for 2013, with the coordination of the 1st and 10th Commissions of the National Assembly. The magistrate said that this measure is justified by the fact that the country has recorded a high... (GunPolicy.org)

The Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman has dismissed the depiction of gun violence in Hollywood as "fraudulent" and claimed that studios actively discriminate against actors who refuse to carry firearms onscreen. Interviewed on National Public Radio in the US, The Graduate star became the latest high-profile figure to wade into the debate following the killing of 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.... (GunPolicy.org)

Pilot Mohammed Rizwan Khan has been refused bail by the Lautoka Magistrates Court for offences relating to the death of six-year old Mohammed Khubayb Salman Khan last weekend. Appearing before Magistrate Sujeewa Nishanka, Mr Khan was charged with one count of failure to maintain arms in a safe and secure custody and one count of manslaughter by negligence or breach of duty. While ruling on Mr Khan's bail application by his lawyer Vishal Pillay, Magistrate Nishanka... (GunPolicy.org)

PESHAWAR - A nationwide ban on the issuance of new small arms licences has hit manufacturing units hard, Peshawar's gunsmiths told The Express Tribune on Tuesday. While talking to The Express Tribune, Siraj Afridi, the proprietor of City Arms, explained that locals do not purchase arms from Peshawar's gun shops, as they prefer indigenously-made arms from Darra Adam Khel. The 80 functional small arms manufacturing units operating in Peshawar rely solely on orders from... (GunPolicy.org)

Critics says the government's report on arms exports lacks transparency: exporting companies are not named, and government sales are merely summarized. Yet the government claims it's in-depth and detailed. How is it that time and again military equipment "made in Germany" shows up in war zones, despite German government claims that it handles its weapon exports "restrictively" and that it maintains a broad ban on exports to countries with questionable track records for... (GunPolicy.org)

For those looking for quick action by Congress to curb guns in America, here's a lesson from the effort to ban smoking in public places: An official curb on risky products or practice isn't nearly as powerful as a shift in public attitudes about what is acceptable. Nonsmoking zones became commonplace in the 1990s, but not until public concern about the hazards of tobacco smoke to nonsmokers had doubled in the 1970s and the '80s. By the '90s, smoking was already in... (GunPolicy.org)