1. Wal-Mart Drops Guns at Many of Its Stores
2. NRA Finds Itself on Losing Side of Gun-Control Bill
3. New York Mayor Bloomberg Steps Up War against the Gun Industry
4. Former Washington State Governors Call for Tougher Gun-Safety Laws

The Associated Press, April 15, 2006
Wal-Mart drops guns at many of its stores
By Marcus Kabel

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has decided to stop selling guns in about a third of its U.S. stores in what it calls a marketing decision based on lack of demand in some places, a company spokeswoman said Friday.

The world's largest retailer decided last month to remove firearms from about 1,000 stores, in favor of stocking other sporting goods. The move is in line with Wal-Mart's strategy for boosting sales by paying closer attention to local differences in demand.

Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington, said Wal-Mart has been a responsible arms dealer that requires customers to pass background checks before they can buy a gun.

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Miami Herald, April 5, 2006
NRA finds itself on losing side of gun-control bill
A drive led by the National Rifle Association to get the guns-in-parking- lots bill passed in the Legislature is proving an uphill battle
By Mary Ellen Klas

The National Rifle Association is close to facing something it has little experience with in the Florida Legislature: losing.

The House Judiciary Committee passed the powerful lobby's guns-in-parking-lots bill Tuesday, but only after significantly watering it down and then showing mercy by withholding a popular amendment that would have killed what was left of the NRA's top priority.

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New York Times, April 3, 2006
New York Mayor Bloomberg steps up war against the gun industry
In his war on illegal guns, Bloomberg is facing uphill
By Sewell Chan

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's war against the gun industry went into overdrive last week, with an appearance on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and a speech two days later, at a fund-raising dinner for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in which he assailed illegal guns as "scourges to our society." And his campaign will only intensify in the next few months, as Mr. Bloomberg intends to announce the city's first lawsuits against rogue gun dealers and to press Albany to toughen the penalties for criminal gun possession.

The mayor has made fighting illegal guns a signature of his second-term agenda and vowed to use "every means at our disposal," from legislation to litigation, to curb the influx of out-of-state weapons, which the city says account for 82 percent of guns used in crimes.

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Seattle Times, April 5, 2006
Former governors call for tougher gun-safety laws
By Albert D. Rosellini, Mike Lowry and Gary Locke

Every year in Washington state, almost 600 citizens die from gun violence and many more are injured. These figures include homicides, accidental shootings and suicides. The recent tragic shooting in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle brought home the fact that we live in a violent society, made worse by the prevalence of easy access to firearms.

Gun violence is everybody's problem. It is not confined to inner cities or only tied to drug trafficking. Gun violence occurs in the suburbs, in our malls, in our schools and in the historic neighborhoods of our largest city. It affects all races, all ages and all incomes.

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