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


Washington Post Aug 14, 2010
Editorial: The U.S. Is Turning Away from Mexico's Failing Drug War
GIVE MEXICAN President Felipe Calder?n credit for honesty as well as courage. Last week he presided over a three-day public conference to assess the results of nearly four years of war against Mexico's drug cartels. Most of the facts were grim: -- According to the chief of the national intelligence service, 28,000 people have died violently since Mr. Calder?n deployed the Mexican army against the drug gangs in December 2006. That number represents an increase of 3,000 over the death toll the government reported earlier this summer. -- There have been 963 incidents involving federal forces and the gangs since the offensive ...read the full article


San Antonio Express News Aug 12, 2010
South Texas Gun Seizures Tied to Ex-Drug Agent
Three firearms seizures in South Texas this year, totaling 131 weapons headed toward Mexico, appeared unrelated, until federal agents traced several of the weapons to an unlikely source. This week, agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested a now-former agent with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs on charges that he bought and sold high-powered guns for illegal export to Mexico. Francisco Javier Reyes, 29, is suspected of running the underground venture while he worked for the Oklahoma anti-drug agency, court records show. He was released on bail. Neither Reyes nor his lawyer returned calls ...read the full article


WNYC Radio News Aug 12, 2010
Gun Control Group Endorses Gillibrand
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has been endorsed for election by a leading gun control group, two years after earning a top rating from the National Rifle Association. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence notes that Gillibrand had been an NRA favorite when she was an upstate congresswoman in a Republican district. But the group says that in less than two years as an appointed U.S. senator, she has become a leader in what the Brady group calls sensible gun laws. ...read the full article


Philadelphia Daily News Aug 11, 2010
Gun-Advocates Up in Arms Over Concealed-Carry Hearings
The audience was armed - literally - at a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Upper Darby yesterday to examine a loophole in the state's concealed-weapons laws. From short, pudgy, middle-aged men to young, slim ones, gun-rights advocates came packing heat to the hearing about what's become known as the "Florida loophole." Under Pennsylvania's firearms-reciprocity agreements, the state must recognize "concealed-carry" licenses from certain other states, and vice versa. The "loophole" is that three of those states - Florida, Utah and New Hampshire - allow out-of state residents to get licenses in their state and through the mail, even if their state has ...read the full article


Associated Press Aug 11, 2010
Gov. Parkinson Says He Didn't Like Concealed Carry Law, But Signed it to Protect Other Vetoes
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Gov. Mark Parkinson says he didn't like the state's new concealed carry law, but he signed it to protect other vetoes he had issued. The law approved during the last legislative session removed several restrictions on who could carry a concealed weapon in Kansas. It essentially allows anyone who qualifies to possess a gun under federal and state laws to receive a license to carry it concealed. Parkinson told The Lawrence Journal-World on Tuesday that he signed the bill to avoid having legislators override some of his other vetoes during the last veto session. The governor said the ...read the full article