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Rob Zaleski: What's with mock assault rifle sales for kids?
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Bruce W. Krafft
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"I must confess that it's probably been two decades since I've done any Christmas shopping for kids. So I was a bit taken aback when I visited ShopKo last week - searching for an action toy for my 4-year-old grandson - and happened upon a black soft air rifle that fires plastic BBs and bears a striking resemblance to an assault weapon."
"Yes, the same kind of assault weapon that gangs have used to gun down police." ...
"Now, for all the NRA members who are foaming at the mouth as they read this, I should point out that I'm not an anti-gun guy, that I support the Second Amendment and that I actually did some hunting as a kid."
"At the same time, I'll admit I've never had much interest in guns. ..." ... |
Schumer Calls for Improved Gun Database
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"Sen. Charles Schumer is calling for an improved gun database -- following the death last week of NYPD officer Dillon Stewart, who was shot with a stolen gun."
"Schumer says he wants all states to be required to report stolen guns and guns involved in crimes to a nationwide database. Right now, only about 25 states voluntarily report such weapons." ...
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KABA Note: And this would have prevented the officer's murder . . . how? |
Forced Entry, the National Rifle Associations Campaign to Force Business to Accept Guns at Work (BCPGV)
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"In 1997, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence published a comprehensive guide: Guns & Business Don’t Mix: A Guide to Keeping Your Business Gun Free. ..." ...
"Unfortunately, the gun-free choice is now under a serious new attack by the National Rifle Association. The NRA has launched a nationwide campaign to pass legislation modeled after a law passed in Oklahoma in 2005. The Oklahoma law requires all businesses and property owners, including homeowners, to accept guns onto their property, as long as the guns are in a locked motor vehicle. ..." ... |
Brady Campaign to Host Press Conference on Gun Lobby Trying to Force Businesses to Allow Firearms on Company Property (BCPGV)
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... "The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence will host a press conference at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6 in the Plaza Level Rotunda of the State Capitol, on South Monroe Street in Tallahassee, to announce steps to oppose legislation that has been introduced in Florida that would force businesses to allow employees to keep loaded firearms in their cars on company property."
"Similar legislation has been passed in Oklahoma, Alaska, Minnesota and Kentucky, defeated in Indiana, Alabama, Montana, Utah and Tennessee, and introduced in Wisconsin." ... |
Some hy-pathetical questions
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"In my continuing efforts to create the illusion that this column has intellectual heft, I once again dare to ask the epistemological question, 'What if …?'" ...
"What if the U.S. Constitution did not include an amendment giving citizens the right to bear arms?"
"We'd be in terrible trouble, right about now. We wouldn't have a 'well regulated Militia,' as the amendment specifies. So we couldn't, like, get citizen farmers to band together if English or French frigates arrive, and brigades of musketeers march upon our towns and hamlets. Or something. Actually, I've never figured this out, but it would definitely be bad, I guess." ...
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Submitter's Note: You can e-mail Mr. Weingarten at weingarten@washpost.com and let him know that the Bill of Rights doesn't give anyone anything, it merely recognizes certain existing human rights. But at least he recognizes that it applies to the individual citizens. |
NY: Indicting the gun merchants
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"Judge Jack Weinstein spelled out how firearms makers flood New York with illegal weapons when he upheld the city's right to sue last week. Here's how he summed up the charges."
"The United States leads the world in the number of people and in the number of children who die and are injured each year by guns. The yearly toll of several thousand persons killed compares to no more than a few hundred per year in every other industrialized country. A teenager in the United States is more likely to die from a gunshot wound than from all natural causes combined." ... |
UK: AK-47: Iconic weapon
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"The global trade in small arms is big business - it involves almost 1,250 companies operating in at least 92 countries producing weapons, parts or ammunition."
"The most popular, and perhaps the most iconic, of all these weapons is the AK-47 assault rifle. Its distinctive shape and widespread use made it an icon of violence in the 20th Century." ...
"But away from the glamour of the big screen, NGOs lament the deadly toll exacted by small arms."
"The Small Arms Survey 2005 suggested small arms ... were responsible for some 60-90% of direct war deaths, estimated at 100,000 for 2003." ...
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Submitter's Note: 100,000 deaths a year is 10 million a century. Compare that to 168 million people killed by their own governments in the 20th century. |
AZ: Apartment tenant fatally shoots intruder, police say
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"Police say a Tempe resident shot and killed a man who broke into his apartment early Monday while he and his wife were sleeping."
"The man, who lives at Elliot's Crossing Apartments at 7250 S. Kyrene Road, woke up at about 3:40 a.m. after hearing a man beating down his third-floor apartment door, police say."
"The apartment resident, armed with a handgun, struggled with the assailant, who had used his shoulder to force the door open. The resident then fatally shot the suspect, according to police." ... |
VA: Police say family feud leads to arrest
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"A man shot his son in the wrist Saturday after the son attacked him with a knife during a fight, police said."
"'We have an old saying, 'You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,' Washington County Sheriff Fred Newman said."
"John Jefferson Tuggle, 22, faces an attempted first-degree murder charge after police said he threatened to kill his father, 44-year-old Jefferson Lem Tuggle, and attacked him at the home they share at 32364 Santa Cruz Drive."
"Police don’t plan to file any charges against the father, who apparently acted in self-defense, the sheriff said." ... |
TX: NRA's newest convert: Even a hippie needs a gun
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"About two weeks ago, a male approximately 5 foot 9, 150 pounds broke and entered my house. (SIDE NOTE: This is funny because it is true.)" ...
"... I peek in my front room. If anyone's there, they are not in eyeshot of the doorway. Then I see the shadowed reflection of a man in the double glass doors leading to the dining room." ...
"(SIDE NOTE: I am a pretty liberal hippie when it comes to life, a make-love-not-war type of girl. But I know enough about anatomy to know a butcher knife doesn't protect from a bullet. I have been an anti-hand gun person for years, mainly because they serve one purpose: to kill people. However, this has become a matter of self-defense. Damn it, this is Texas, and I'm gettin' a gun.)" ... |
AL: Al Benn's Alabama: Hatfield used Magnum force to protect store
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"Two men thought they had developed the 'perfect crime.' It might have worked if Jerry Hatfield hadn't messed it up for them."
"What they got was a hail of bullets from a man who wasn't going to let them steal his possessions or harm five people they held hostage."
"At least 17 bullet holes were left in and around Hatfield's electronics store on Dec. 3, 1999. Others weren't found by police." ...
"Hatfield, who had been staying in a living area above the large store, heard the noise below, but thought his employees were doing some late-night work."
"When he peered through a one-way mirror, Hatfield quickly sized up the situation. He grabbed his guns and walked onto a balcony overlooking the crime scene." ... |
NE: Pawn Shop Reopens -- Limited business operations (follow-up)
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FULL TEXT BELOW:
A week after deadly gunfire erupted at Benson Jewelry and Loan, the pawn shop was open on a limited schedule of operation Monday.
Last Tuesday, two men were shot by a co-owner of the business while they were allegedly trying to rob the store.
One of the would-be robbers was shot to death and the other was seriously injured.
Prosecutors say the store owner was acting in self defense and no charges have been filed.
On Monday, the store reopened for a few hours but the doors were kept locked to all but known customers. They were not accepting new merchandise.
Future hours of operation are uncertain. |
CA: San Francisco Going Gunless
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"With a crime rate far above that of the rest of the country, San Francisco voters have passed a ban on handgun possession - leaving local citizens defenseless against criminals who are often armed."
"According to the 2004 FBI Crime Reports, the overall crime rate in San Francisco per 100,000 people was 54 percent, while in the rest of the U.S. is was only 39 percent." ...
"If the new ban, which contradicts state law, stands up against legal action by the National Rifle Association, which has announced that it would challenge the ordinance in court, San Francisco citizens will be at the mercy of the city's criminal element." ... |
CA: The line of fire -- Some citizens fear for safety if courts uphold S.F.'s voter-approved ban on handguns
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"For a long time, Margaret Hurst lived in fear."
"Gangs control turf just a few blocks from her Mission District apartment in San Francisco, and she's sure a neighbor across the street deals drugs. Her building was broken into four times in one year. She saw teenagers on her street display a gun. And while she was stopped at a red light one day, a man tried to punch in her car window in a case of road rage."
"So she bought a handgun. Now Hurst is no longer scared."
"'I'll tell you one thing. If I'm going down, I'm taking them with me,' said 49-year-old Hurst, who is about as un-Charlton Heston as any woman with a British accent, braided bun and long flowing skirt could be." ... |
PA: Gun law's flaws (third letter on page)
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"Thanks to the signature of anti-Second Amendment, anti-Bill of Rights Gov. Rendell on House Bill 1717, all disgruntled wives, girlfriends or companions of the state's legal gun owners can now get back, in spades, at their former honey ('Unlikely coalition behind gun law,' Wednesday)."
"If you've been with your 'ex' for any appreciable amount of time, you probably know how much said firearms are valued, both monetarily as well as emotionally, by their owners."
"Imagine the horrid anguish you can cause the object of your scorn just by requesting a protection-from-abuse order from your local law-enforcement agency." ... |
WI: Some state police oppose concealed-carry
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"Concealed-carry legislation now faces opposition from several police organizations in the state. ..."
"Opposition from police organizations may hinder its support in Wisconsin and require additional amendments."
"'I can see how this would make some people in society feel safer, but myself, as a law enforcement officer, it would not make me feel safer knowing there are that many more guns out on the street,' Lt. Bradley Florence, a Green Bay Police Department shift supervisor said."
"Florence also noted that although concealed-carry licensing would mandate prior training, such training would not ensure proper actions in a 'stressful situation.'" ...
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Submitter's Note: Then why is it police shootings kill innocent bystanders 11% of the time and "civilian" shootings only 2%? |
MS: Gun control offers 'tyranny' prospect
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"If John Paul ('Public's desire to bear arms in America must be changed,' Nov. 23 letter) wants complete banishment of firearms why didn't he stay in the United Kingdom where that is the law?"
"Or perhaps he ought to choose Nazi Germany (1938) or Armenia (1912) or China (1935) or the Soviet Union (1920). All of those places implemented total gun control — and then proceeded to kill off their 'undesirables.'"
"Hear the words of Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court, himself an immigrant to these shores: 'The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late.'" ... |
MS: Crime rates rise where citizens restricted by gun control
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Bruce W. Krafft
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"After reading the letter from John Paul ('Public's desire to bear arms in America must be changed,' Nov. 23 letter), I became very angry."
"If Mr. Paul doesn't like the way things are in the United States, he should move back to Britain. We broke away from England in the American Revolution so the people would have freedom from a monopolistic government."
"Since he believes that the government should have a monopoly of force, would he have been very happy living in Germany under Adolf Hitler, in Uganda under Idi Amin, or in Iraq under Saddam Hussein?" ...
"Take a close look at the crime rate in England and Australia after the people had their guns confiscated. The crime rate rose dramatically, because this left the people at the mercy of the criminals, with no means of self-defense." ... |
MS: Right to bear arms basic in America
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Bruce W. Krafft
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"I see John Paul ('Public's desire to bear arms in America must be changed,' Nov. 23 letter) migrated here from Britain in 1965."
"There have been many changes in Britain since he left, total outlawing of private ownership of firearms."
"Since that will not happen here, my suggestion is that he return to Britain, live there a few years, then tell us his opinion as to whether bans on public ownership of guns makes anyone — except the crooks — safer." ...
"Among the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the Second Amendment is the one that ensures that the others will not be taken away." |
MS: Criminals avoid an 'armed' citizenry
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Bruce W. Krafft
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"It is perhaps understandable that a letter writer ('Public's desire to bear arms in America must be changed,' Nov. 23 letter) who grew up in England and has had little exposure to or understanding of firearms would find them scary and intimidating."
"It is less understandable that he would not have noticed that violent crime has been soaring in England in the last decade since Draconian gun control legislation was enacted following a sensational schoolyard shooting."
"An almost casual investigation of statistics in America will show that firearms use is overwhelmingly law-abiding and self-defense in nature, in spite of the sensational reports sent our way by the media." ... |
CA: Witness disputes narcotic agent Walker's testimony
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"Sherrie Green says she was on her way to church when fate and a bad sense of direction put her on St. James Street in San Jose at the moment when Rodolfo 'Rudy' Cardenas was gunned down by a state narcotic agent."
"Green testified for the prosecution this morning that she saw Cardenas running full stride, arms pumping, when she heard a pop and saw Cardenas' reaction."
"'I thought it looked as if he stepped into a pothole or on a bottle,' she said, describing how Cardenas twisted his body. He kept running, she said, and that's when she heard a second series of pops. She said Cardenas leaned back, hands in the air and appeared to be going down." ... |
CA: LAPD Officer Won't Be Charged in Killing
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rammed a stolen vehicle into a patrol car after a short chase, prosecutors announced Monday."
"Officer Steven Garcia fired 10 rounds and struck Devin Brown six times during the confrontation Feb. 6 in South Los Angeles."
"An investigation concluded there was 'insufficient evidence to initiate criminal proceedings,' District Attorney Steve Cooley said. The prosecutor's report was based on police findings, witnesses and scientific tests."
"'We cannot disprove that Officer Garcia was acting under an actual and reasonable belief in the need for self-defense and the defense of others,' Cooley said." ...
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Submitter's Note: Just wondering if these are the same criteria they use when dealing with 'civilian' shooters? |
AL: Cop Guilty of Reckless Endangerment
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"[Former Midland City police officer] David Baker was charged with shooting at brother's Craig and Donald Saucier, after Donald and Craig showed up to Donald’s ex-girlfriends house."
"The brothers were there to pick up the rest of Donald’s belongings, but after a verbal argument turned into a physical altercation, Baker ordered his girlfriend to get his pistol and shoot the brothers. She wouldn't, but according to testimony, Donald got the gun and fired 2 rounds. The 2 brothers were later charged with assault for beating up Baker."
"Baker's been sentenced to 6 months in the county jail, and 2 thousand dollars. He can waive going to jail if he completes anger management courses, within the next 2 months." ... |
Brazil: Report: Police kill minors outside Rio
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"Police killed at least four people, most of them minors, during a weekend clash in a shantytown outside Rio, adding to a wave of violence plaguing Brazil's best-known city, police and local media reported Monday."
"The state security secretariat's press office said investigators were looking into allegations that the police may have killed innocent people during the operation Saturday night ..."
"The press office said it would not have a tally of the dead or any comment on the killings until later." ...
"Police told O Globo that the deaths occurred after suspected drug gang members opened fire on a police patrol." ... |
OH: Discouraging a behavior may have opposite effect
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"The mother of 5-year-old Drew recently asked me how to discourage her son's 'preoccupation with violence.' ..."
"Her concern focused on the fact that since he was 3 years old, Drew has been fascinated with guns. When he first asked for a toy squirt gun, Mom informed her son that guns were not allowed in their house. She told him how bad and dangerous they were, and cautioned him to never play with them."
"After listening numerous times to his mom's lectures, this little guy did what any typical 5-year-old boy would do. He made a gun out of his Lego blocks. ..."
"... This boy's 'preoccupation with violence' was really caused by a well-meaning mom who was unintentionally encouraging the behavior she wanted to stop." ... |
WA: Put more limits on private-party gun sales
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Bruce W. Krafft
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"When Joe Pasamonte sold a semiautomatic rifle that was later used to shoot up the Tacoma Mall, he thought it was a perfectly legitimate transaction."
"After all, the young customer showed him what looked to be a valid concealed weapons permit – which can be obtained only after criminal and mental health background checks. Pasamonte also recorded the sale, making note of the buyer’s address and driver’s license number. Although the permit turned out to be fake, the rest of the buyer’s information was correct."
"What’s remarkable about this transaction is that as a private-party gun seller in the state of Washington, Pasamonte didn’t have to take any of the steps he did. ..." ... |
OH: Blaming Others For Gun Crimes
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"An article in today's Union Leader shows the typical response to the failure of gun control laws... blame someone else."
"Despite strict gun control laws in Boston, the city is experienced a 28% increase in shootings last year. Rather than admit that their gun control schemes do not work, they instead choose to blame their neighbors to the North."
"The Boston Globe reported that 'New Hampshire and Vermont, where firearms laws are less strict and easy for criminals to manipulate.'"
"The UL article raises the obvious question, 'If our firearms laws are the cause of high gun crime, then why is most of the crime in Boston?'"
"The answer, of course, is because gun control laws only deter those who are inclined to follow the law in the first place." ... |
OH: Zips Rifle Wins Third-Straight Competition
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"For the third straight week and the fourth time this season, the University of Akron rifle team took the top two spots in a competition. The Zips closed out the 2005 portion of their schedule as both the Gold and Blue squad's defeated the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. on Saturday afternoon." ... |
NE: NU rifle team has decisive win over UMKC0
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"The Nebraska rifle team capped its 2005 fall season with a decisive victory over University of Missouri-Kansas City, 4,668-4,493 Saturday at the Nebraska Rifle Range."
"The Cornhuskers gained the top four spots in air rifle and the top three spots in smallbore in what was the 10th consecutive victory for NU over UMKC."
"NU leads the all-time series 10-1 with the lone loss coming in the teams’ first meeting in 1998." ... |
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