The Mayor of Denver is reportedly considering strengthening his city’s gun laws in the wake of a recent shooting death of a child in Denver.

In today’s Denver Post:

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper will consider tougher gun laws and adjusted nightclub operating hours after a child was shot in the Curtis Park neighborhood and a gunfight erupted in Lower Downtown over the weekend.

The shootings have alarmed community members who fear a “summer of violence,” he said.

“Let me be clear: This community will not accept violence — not a day of it, not a week of it, not a month of it — and certainly not a summer of it,” the mayor said Monday.

Hickenlooper will look at Denver’s gun laws to ensure they are as effective as they can be in keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals and young people.

“There are a number of other cities addressing gun laws,” he said. “We want to look at the matrix of our existing laws and see if some of these other laws are able to help.”

He offered no specifics but pointed to Philadelphia, where authorities have tried to restrict gun owners to one purchase per month and allow judges to order guns taken from people deemed to be a threat to themselves or others.

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From Capital News 9 (Albany):

Governor Paterson says that legislators have reached ground breaking legislation that will improve background checks while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

Paterson joined state legislators to announce an agreement on legislation that will allow more comprehensive background checks on persons who are purchasing firearms. The legislation implements a new federal requirement was put in place in response to last year’s Virginia Tech shootings. The new law will significantly improve the State’s ability to submit mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System by amending the state law that mandated those records remain confidential.

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More of the weekly examples of children paying the cost of easy access to guns in America.

From the Press-Enterprise:

Banning police arrested a 15-year-old boy accused of accidentally shooting his 12-year-old relative in the head Sunday night.

Police said the boy had accidentally fired a gun in the home in the 1500 block of East Jacinto Avenue shortly before 10 p.m., Banning police Lt. Mike West said.

The boy was holding the gun when it went off and the bullet shot through a wall, hitting the 12-year-old girl in the head, West said. When police arrived, the girl was still conscious and was able to tell police she had been shot.

“All indications show it was an accidental shooting,” West said.

The bullet lodged in the girl’s brain, and surgery will be performed at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley. Surgeons have to wait for swelling to subside on her brain before they can operate.

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Facts about kids and guns in the United States are here.

Solutions about how to keep our children and families safe are here and here.

A story in today’s Chattanooga Times states that applications for concealed carry permits “skyrocketed” between 2003 and 2007:

… Applications for Tennessee carry permits statewide have skyrocketed over the last five years, increasing from 237 in 2003 to 195,251 in 2007. Applications more than tripled between 2006 and 2007, records show.

The Brady Campaign’s Brian Malte was quoted later in the piece responding to a question about how concealed carry should be implemented:

… Still, some groups such as the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said Tennessee and many other states have weak control over who gets a concealed weapons permit.

“We feel, at the very least, local law enforcement should have the discretion in deciding who gets a concealed weapons permit,� said Brian Malte, director of state legislation for the Brady Campaign. “Laws like Tennessee’s just say that, if you pass a background check and any other requirements, you must be allowed to receive a permit.�

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The Associated Press reporting on the Chattanooga Times story, however, calls into question the notion that permit applications are “skyrocketing” at all:

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — Safety Department records show applications to carry concealed handguns have dropped slightly between 2005 and 2007.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported Monday the number of Tennessee residents applying for permits to legally carry handguns skyrocketed from 237 in 2003 to 195,251 last year.

Tennessee Department of Safety spokesman Mike Browning says the paper incorrectly interpreted the department’s statistics.

Browning told the Associated Press in an e-mail that “statewide the number of handgun carry permits issued dropped from 57,044 in 2005 to 51,987 in 2007.”

New Jersey CeaseFire’s Bryan Miller has a column today about it.

Read it at Nj.com’s New Jersey Voices:

Ceasefire NJ, the state’s leading organization devoted to reducing gun violence, has learned that NJ Assembly bill A-339, commonly known as One Handgun A Month, will be voted on in Trenton on Monday afternoon (June 23rd) by the full NJ Assembly.

This is a critical measure whose intent is to severely undermine the existing intrastate illegal trade in handguns, without burdening law-abiding handgun owners. It will limit individuals to the purchase of no more than a single handgun in any thirty-day period, in order to dramatically diminish the bulk buying and selling of illegal handguns that fuels the criminal market. At the same time, it will allow individuals to purchase up to 13 handguns per year, hardly a burden.

Any and all New Jerseyans eager to reduce the level of handgun violence and crime in the Garden State should call the Assemblypersons who represent them on Monday and tell said legislators to vote for A-339. You can find your state legislators and their phone numbers at:

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/legsearch.asp

Please call on Monday! Help make your community safer!

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Click here to learn more about the illegal gun trade, and why limiting bulk purchases of handguns is essential to protecting our communities and keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.