Associated Press Aug 18, 2010
Texas Gunman Worked Security, Often Praised Police
McKINNEY, Texas -- The man who killed himself during a shootout with a suburban Dallas police department once worked as a jailer and security guard and even praised the very officers he attacked, according to associates and records. Patrick Gray Sharp, 29, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the Collin County Medical Examiner's office said Wednesday. The announcement came a day after Sharp towed a trailer loaded with explosives into the parking lot of the McKinney police station and set his pickup truck on fire, presumably to lure officers out of the building and shoot at them. Sharp retreated ...read the full article


Dallas Morning News Aug 18, 2010
Boy, 13, Girl, 12, Arrested After Garland Woman Found Slain
A 13-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl were in police custody Tuesday after the fatal shooting of a Garland woman and the wounding of her husband. Darlene Nevil, 46, was found dead about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday inside her home in the 600 block of Rilla Drive in Garland, said Officer Joe Harn, police spokesman. A motive for the shootings was still unknown Wednesday, Harn said. Police went to the home when they were alerted that the woman's 48-year-old husband, Alan Nevil, was in a neighbor's front yard, suffering from gunshot wounds, Harn said. The husband was taken to a hospital in serious condition, but ...read the full article


Boston Globe Aug 17, 2010
US Says Gun Shop in N.H. Broke No Law in Sale to Markoff
Federal prosecutors in New Hampshire investigated possible criminal charges against the gun store that allegedly sold Philip Markoff the semiautomatic handgun used to kill Julissa Brisman but found no evidence that the dealer broke any laws, an assistant US attorney said yesterday. "This office is not looking into this issue,'' said Donald Feith, an assistant US attorney in New Hampshire. Brisman's family, deprived of the chance to confront the alleged Craigslist killer in court after Markoff's apparent suicide on Sunday, is calling on federal prosecutors to investigate the New Hampshire gun dealer that sold the suspected murder weapon. The lawyer for the Brisman ...read the full article


Detroit News Aug 17, 2010
Gun Ban Lifted at Arts, Beats & Eats
Royal Oak -- Coming to Royal Oak this Labor Day weekend: The city's first Arts, Beats & Eats festival -- and the first one allowing open-carry guns. Bowing to pressure to conform to state law, the City Commission on Monday night struck down a gun ban in the festival contract to allow holstered guns in plain sight at the event Sept. 3-6. "The law is the law," said Mayor Jim Ellison. "I don't agree with it, but we have the right to change that law so those gray issues are gone," he added, referring to modifying laws that allow guns in public. Not ...read the full article


The Hill Aug 17, 2010
Mayor Bloomberg Talks Gun Control with Sestak
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was at a strip mall in north Philadelphia on Tuesday to help Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) appeal to independents in his run for Senate. But the visit may have ended up helping Sestak only with his base. During his speech, Bloomberg said he backed, among other things, Sestak's push to close a loophole in gun-control laws, according to Fox 29. The remark wasn't included in a release the Sestak camp sent out with quotes from Bloomberg. "I'm not a particularly partisan guy," the mayor told Fox 29 after the endorsement event. "I'm supporting people from both ...read the full article


Minnesota Public Radio Aug 16, 2010
Minneapolis Cracking Down on Straw Gun Buyers
Minneapolis -- Most of the 33 people killed in Minneapolis homicides so far this year have been shot, many likely by people who cannot legally buy guns. Law enforcement officials say people who commit violent gun crimes nearly always get their weapons through a gray market, buying them from straw buyers, or people who can legally purchase them. That has federal agents stepping up their efforts to crack down on such illegal transactions. Many straw buyers are sophisticated, said BJ Zapor, a special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They often legally buy several guns at a ...read the full article


Allentown Morning Call Aug 15, 2010
Editorial: Reasonable Gun Laws Are Necessary to Protect State Residents
Opponents of common-sense laws to prevent gun violence -- most notably the National Rifle Association -- claim the Supreme Court's recent ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago gives them the right to carry guns anywhere, anyplace, all the time. But that isn't what the Supreme Court actually said in its decision. The court sent the Chicago handgun ban back to the lower courts and extended the Second Amendment to apply to state and local gun laws -- not unexpected developments. However, the court also said reasonable regulations of firearms are permitted under our Constitution. They always have been, and they always ...read the full article


Detroit Free Press Aug 15, 2010
Gun Activists Take Aim at Metro Detroit: Battle Over Royal Oak's Arts, Beats & Eats Fest Is Just the Start
Gun-rights activists are not only demanding that Royal Oak officials drop the city's ban on openly carrying guns at the Ford Arts, Beats & Eats festival over Labor Day weekend, they also are going after Clawson, Pontiac, Taylor and Flint for local rules they say infringe on gun rights. Members of Michigan Open Carry plan to visit the Pontiac City Council on Aug. 26 to protest that city's gun ordinance. Their goal is "to bring gun ownership out of the closet," said group founder Brian Jeffs, 53. Besides the Constitution's Second Amendment -- establishing the right to bear arms -- Michigan activists rely ...read the full article


Detroit Free Press Aug 15, 2010
Royal Oak's Choice: Guns or Families
As a huge fan of Western movies, I learned that it was common practice for gunslingers to give their firearms to bartenders -- or the marshal -- upon entering town. In the case of "Tombstone," the fantastic movie that let Kurt Russell channel Wyatt Earp, such action was the law to keep lawlessness to a minimum. Royal Oak isn't Tombstone. But doesn't it deserve the same level of common sense? OK. Here's the story: The Ford Arts, Beats & Eats festival, which was held successfully and gun-free for a dozen years in Pontiac, will move to Royal Oak this year. So-called open-carry gun proponents ...read the full article


Washington Post Aug 14, 2010
Md. Crime Victim Sues Over Denial to Renew Permit to Carry Concealed Handgun
On a snowy Christmas Eve a few years ago, Raymond E. Woollard was watching television with his family when he heard someone tapping at the windows of his Baltimore County farmhouse. It was not Santa. At the sound of breaking glass, Woollard dashed to his bedroom for a shotgun, and the holiday evening quickly became one of the most frightening nights of his life. There was a hand-to-hand struggle for the weapon, but Woollard, with help from his adult son, eventually subdued the 6-foot-2, 155-pound intruder at gunpoint. Then they waited for more than an hour for police to find their way, on ...read the full article