In America, citizen advocacy is a hallmark of democracy.

As much as we disagree with most of the paranoid, harmful positions of the NRA, they do now how to create aroused citizen activists. And they have a right to do so.

And, in a democracy, when you are dealing with a contested issue as incendiary as guns, you can’t give up. The NRA knows that, and supporters of reducing gun violence need to know that to0, as tiresome and frustrating as it may become.

In Lake County, Illinois, the movement for gun control is front and center:

Postcards with a picture of a handgun and children as targets started appearing in mailboxes and on windshields in a few central Lake County towns this week.

The postcards, distributed by representatives of the Brady Campaign, a national gun control advocacy group, criticize Republican state Rep. Sandy Cole of Grayslake for voting against legislation that would require background checks on all handgun sales.

"She is against universal background checks," said Jennifer Bishop, Illinois Million Mom March national program director for victims and survivors while handing out leaflets Thursday outside Cole's Grayslake office. "This bill is an extra layer of protection."

The bill was defeated in the Illinois House in April.

Cole's office released a statement earlier calling the mailers misleading.

Yes, this particular bill failed, but the efforts of gun control advocates continues.

And that is what is necessary to prevail in a free society, with a legislative process open to all citizens.

Some groups, such as the NRA, may have a financial advantage; but some advocates, such as those for gun control, have justice and life on their side.

In Virginia, Man With Permit to Carry a Concealed Handgun Shoots Wife and Children

If we had a nickle for every time a self-described “law-abiding” gun owner shoots someone, we’d be vying with Donald Trump for who has the larger bank account.

Today we report on a man who had a CCW permit in Virginia – you know one of those “good” gun owners – who shot his wife to death, shot his children to death, and then committed suicide.

A May 6th Fredricksburg, VA, “Freelance-Star,” article described the carnage:

A man accused of killing his two small children, their mother and himself Monday night in southern Stafford was heavily armed, police said.

Aaron Poseidon Jackson, 24, was wearing a bulletproof vest and was surrounded by guns and scads of ammunition when police found him dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday night in the Walt Lou Trailer Park off U.S. 1.

Before ending his own life, police said, Jackson took the lives of 23-year-old Lastasha Nicole Thomas and their two children—1½-year-old Aaron Neptune Jackson and 2½-year-old Nicole Aaron Jackson.

All four victims were shot in the head.

Thomas was shot with an AK-47 assault rifle, Sheriff Charles Jett said, while the others were shot with a .38-caliber handgun.

Thomas and Jackson were dead in the living room when police entered 7 Walt Way just south of Drew Middle School about 9:40 p.m.

The .38 was still in his hand, police said, and the AK-47 was lying nearby.

The children were lying in a crib in the bedroom they shared, Jett said. They were rushed out for emergency treatment, but pronounced dead a short time later.

Police later searched the trailer and seized at least seven guns, six knifes, a machete, a sword and numerous boxes of ammunition, according to a search warrant filed today in Stafford Circuit Court.

Jett said police at this point can only speculate as to why Jackson, who had a concealed handgun permit, had so much weaponry and what spurred his actions.

It’s the most common conclusion to a shooting rampage. Police and the public are left “speculating” on what caused a murderous gun rampage.

“We may never know,” Jett [the local sheriff] said. “There can be no explanation for this horrific and senseless tragedy.”

Indeed, we frequently don’t understand the motives in such acts of rage, but we do know that guns facilitate the violent outbursts in a society that allows for the worship of firearms.

Unfortunately, for too many people guns are a religion that always have the potential for using the weapons in a moment of rage, with disastrous, irretrievable results.

We mourn the loss of life, once again, in Virginia.

• WA: Woman suspected of shooting boyfriend in hip
• CO: Man found dead following shooting
• FL: St. Pete Police Investigate Early-Morning Shooting
• IN: Police investigate deadly shooting on north east side
• SC: Man arrested in drive-by shooting
• NY: Jeffrey Zachary is dead, killed in a drive-by shooting at age 15. His friend Joshua Torres is in a cell, charged with second-degree murder at age 16.
• WI: Friends and family of Nicole Sell, the 16-year-old Slinger girl wounded in the head in a drive-by shooting in Washington County, said Thursday that she remains in critical condition in a medically induced coma but they know little more than the rest of the public about what happened Saturday night.
• CA: 1 Dead In Linda Drive-By Shooting
• IL: Two people are charged with attempted murder following Sunday night’s shooting that injured a 34-year-old man.
• IL: Guilty plea in shooting near youth football game

According to a breaking news report from the Chicago Tribune on May 7th:

Federal agents raided a multimillion-dollar Lake Forest home of a commodities trader Thursday morning to seize 87 illegal guns, law enforcement sources said.

One man was in custody but no charges have been filed, said Master Sgt. Luis Gutierrez, a spokesman for the Illinois State Police, which assisted the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the raid. A law enforcement source said the person in custody was the homeowner and the guns seized from the home included two .50-caliber guns that were mounted on tripods.

Agents also found a large amount of .50-caliber ammunition in the home, a law enforcement source said.

ATF agents and state police raided the house in the 1900 block of Telegraph Road late in the morning. The owner of the 5,000-square-foot home on a 2-acre lot also is listed as the owner of a commodities brokerage in the Loop, public records show.

The homeowner, who was charged this year with domestic battery in Lake County, does not have a Firearms Owner's Identification card, which is required in Illinois to possess guns, a source said.

When Charlton Heston died nearly a month ago, GunGuys wrote a commentary respectfully recognizing his passing.

Since then, we came across an April 10th reflection in The Economist: " Charlton Heston, America's prophet, died on April 5th, aged 84.”

It wasn’t just Heston’s famed role as Moses that The Economist was referring to. It was his stint as the symbol of the NRA and the relationship of “gun rights” to white males in the United States who feel threatened by the emergence of minorities and women in positions of power.

The Economist observed:

Mr. Heston's favorite of his film characters was no genius or prophet, but the taciturn, determined cowboy in “Will Penny” (1968). His favorite scene was where Penny, carrying a dead cowboy, rode through the rain to apply for the dead man's job, only to be mocked. Mr. Heston saw this as the plight of every white, rural, Protestant, god-fearing, gun-owning male in America. Their voices, too, went unheard. But they would knock the water from their hats and carry on.

He knew where that “blood-call” would take them. He had been there himself for “The Big Country” in 1958. On some mountain-top, as the sun rose, they would look west into a shining place where freedom and greatness still invited them: “where you could pray without feeling naive, love without being kinky, sing without profanity, be white without feeling guilty”. To that mythical America, the Promised Land, he would stretch out his bronzed arm and lead his kind.

That doesn’t diminish the respected hunting traditions shared among families, particularly in rural areas. But no one is threatening those pastimes.

The NRA many years ago became a political organization (particularly through its legislative arm), engaged in a cultural war that spilled over into the political arena. And it has tenaciously advanced the interests of the gun industry in a fanatical and harmful way to the welfare of the public.

Charlton Heston, when his acting career dried up, became the Moses of a political “pro-gun” movement that was largely fueled by a fear of cultural change.

In the end, he didn’t lead a nation to the Promised Land, though. He led us into a nightmare of gun anarchy in America.

It happened again, this time in Florida.

A person walks into a gun range, rents a gun, and shoots himself dead.

One of the least-discussed aspects of gun violence is one that we keep track of on GunGuys: gun ranges becoming a place of choice for people who want to commit suicide.

It’s not an everyday occurrence, but it happens enough to question the practice of renting guns without supervision. We’re not sure of the solution, but we can tell you that there’s definitely a macabre problem at hand here.

Here’s the account of what happened in Holy Hill, Florida:

Holly Hill police Cmdr. Mark Barker said McCarthy walked into the Hot Shot Shooting Range about 12:15 p.m. and asked to rent a Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun, a box of ammunition with 50 rounds and two targets.

McCarthy was asked to fill out a form that states, among other things, that the person renting the firearm is not a convicted felon, Barker said. McCarthy had a misdemeanor battery conviction in 1998, records show.

After he fired off the first box of bullets, McCarthy went back to the counter and purchased another box of 50 rounds, Barker said.

"He shot off at least 20 rounds from the second box and then someone else that was on the range heard one shot and they saw him shaking and then fall to the ground," Barker said.

There was at least one other person at the shooting range aside from McCarthy and the other customer who noticed him. However, neither of the witnesses was available for comment. Store management declined requests to be interviewed.

It’s a challenge to our out-of-control gun culture that gun ranges -- where guns are rented -- have become places people go to kill themselves.

That’s something to take note of: another sign of the dark side of America’s unrestrained love affair with firearms.

• FL: Autopsy Reveals Gun Range Shooting Was Suicide
• TX: Police: Road rage incident leads to shooting
• OR: Off-Duty Maine Officer Dies from Accidental Shooting
• KY: The husband of a nursing home patient shot his wife at the facility before turning the gun on himself Tuesday afternoon.
• CA: Boy, 14, dies in Pacoima shooting
• PA: Police Probe Shooting In Pittsburgh Neighborhood
• IL: In a separate incident, a 15-year-old boy was shot and critically wounded as he walked on the city's Southeast Side, according to police.
• MA: A 19-year-old was shot in the chest in a drive-by shooting this afternoon in Berkley, police said.
• TX: 1 injured in daytime shooting in East Austin apartment complex
• SC: Spartanburg police investigating shooting of 17-year-old male

This tragedy is yet one more example as to why we need to re-think gun ownership, especially for parents who keep weapons at home where there are children. As we have said before, having both a gun and a child at home is a deadly combination.

In the wake of a tragedy like this one, there are important questions that should be asked: Why hasn't the gun industry instituted basic safety features to keep children from accessing and firing handguns? The gun industry could, if it so desired -- or mandated through legislation -- create a host of common sense features that would reduce the lethality of guns. For example, minimum trigger-pull standards would help prevent very young children from being able to pull a gun's trigger.

And secondly, why are parents leaving loaded handguns in the home where children can gain access to them? Did the gun dealer and/or gun manufacture appropriately warn the parents that by owning a firearm, they have put their children and themselves at greater risk of violence, either through an unintentional shooting or a suicide?

It is likely that the parents purchased a gun for protection, but instead, they ended up inviting tragedy into their home. There is plenty of blame to go around in a tragedy such as this. But leave no doubt, that the gun industry is also partially to blame for their incessant stone-walling of common sense safety measures.

According to a local Indianapolis TV station, WISH Channel 8:

Child's play ended tragically on the east side Sunday after a four-year-old girl was shot by her five-year-old brother.

"(The) five-year-old had gotten the gun down to play with it. Yes, ended pointing it at his sister and pulled the trigger shooting the girl ending her life, killing her," IMPD Sgt. Matt Mount said.

It was an accident that no one saw coming. Four-year-old Makayla Booher was shot by her five-year-old brother.

Officers say the five-year-old pulled a chair up to a six-foot tall bookcase. The gun was on top of the bookcase with one bullet in the chamber.

The father, 24-year-old James Booher, and the children's 15-year-old step-sister and an aunt were at home at the time, but they were in another room.

When police arrived, they began questioning everyone at the home at the time.

"You could possibly be looking at neglect charges here," Sgt. Mount said.

This is the rub of the matter in dealing with gun violence. We fervently believe that the focus should be on "preventing" gun violence, not "punishing" parents after the fact from an accidental shooting.

We have solutions to save the lives of children by requiring that the gun industry's products are designed and manufactured with basic features to lessen their lethality.

Our collective responsibility must be that we work to save lives before we lose more kids and young people to gun violence. Right now, the punishment strategy is failing.

Three cheers to Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano for supporting law enforcement officials, fighting crime and plain old common sense!

Napolitano vetoed a bill passed by the Arizona legislature that would have made it simply a “petty offense” for carrying a concealed handgun without a state permit. In short, it would have become a slap on the wrist to pack heat without going through the state-mandated requirements.

Who would this law have benefited the most? Why criminals, of course. But that doesn’t stop the gun lobby from enabling them.

An April 20th Arizona Republic article quotes the governor on why she vetoed the bill: "As our law-enforcement professionals will tell you," Napolitano wrote Tuesday, "serious criminals, especially gang members, often carry concealed weapons without permits. Our law-enforcement officers must have the full array of enforcement options to use against these violators, including the power to arrest the violator and confiscate his deadly weapon."

In addition, the pro-gun, pro-criminal legislation would have prevented police from confiscating illegally carried handguns from offenders.

Why doesn’t the NRA just change its name to the NCA: the National Criminals Association?

Good question.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been leading a valiant coalition: Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Their goal is simple, to make their communities safer by putting illegal gun traffickers out of business.

Since the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby insist that they are law-abiding, it would seem that they would support the efforts by Bloomberg’s bipartisan coalition that includes cities, suburbs, and small towns across America. But, of course, the NRA is less than sincere about cracking down on illegal gun sales.

That is why it pushed through a 2005 bill in Congress that exempted the gun industry from liability lawsuits in most cases.

As a result, Bloomberg’s efforts to sue gun manufacturers for allegedly tolerating -- if not enabling --illegal gun distribution and sales was recently dismissed. According to a May 1st New York Times article, “A federal appeals court threw out New York City’s longstanding lawsuit against the gun industry on Wednesday, ruling that a relatively new federal law protects gun makers against such suits.”

Wouldn’t you think that the gun industry would want to cleanse itself of rogue gun dealers and sellers? Apparently not. Selling guns is profitable – and the gun industry depends upon the "criminal market” to bolster its bottom line.

The gun industry knows full well it has a problem with illegal gun dealers who enable the trafficking of arms, but the industry refuses to do anything about it. According to ATF's own government report:

1.2 percent of current dealers (1,020 dealers) account for 57 percent of crime gun traces to active dealers. Each of these dealers had 10 or more crime guns traced to them. Just 0.2% of dealers (132 dealers) had 50 or more crime guns traced to them, accounting for 27% of crime gun traces.

Even though most of the problem of gun trafficking is driven by a few bad apple gun dealers, the gun industry's line, and promulgated by the gun lobby, is that they "see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing." Almost sounds like the mob doesn't it?

The New York Times article tells us:

The city’s suit, filed in 2000, was upheld in December 2005 by Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Judge Weinstein allowed it to move forward, despite protests by gun makers like Beretta U.S.A., Browning Arms, Colt Manufacturing, Glock and Smith & Wesson, all of which cited a federal law that had been passed two months earlier.

That law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, banned all suits against the gun industry except those in which a plaintiff could prove that gun makers had violated state or federal statutes in their sales and marketing practices.

The city contended that the gun makers did exactly that, by failing to monitor retail dealers closely enough and, therefore, by allowing guns to end up in the hands of criminals. As a result, the city said, the manufacturers had created a “condition that negatively affects the public health or safety” and, thus, had violated New York State’s public-nuisance law. It requested an injunction.

But the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument, ruling that the nuisance law did not constitute a permissible exception under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. It reversed Judge Weinstein’s decision and ordered the suit dismissed.

So, once again, a craven Congress has prevented a local governmental body from stopping the illegal flow of guns into its community.

According to the Times, in a statement released on Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg expressed disappointment in the decision but said it would have no effect on the suits still pending against the dealers, which claimed a clear violation of gun-sale laws. “Regardless of this ruling, we will continue our fight against illegal guns full-bore — in the courtrooms, on the streets, and in Congress,” he said.

You need a strong backbone and a long-term commitment to keep battling the bullying gun lobby. We are grateful that Bloomberg isn’t backing down.

If you have a fear of flying, it probably won’t be eased by knowing that your trusty pilot is packing heat.

Even though a pilot’s handgun recently was accidentally discharged while landing, the Transportation Security Administration indicates that 9,500 pilots carry guns on domestic routes.
According to one article, “pilots must go through a week long training session before they are cleared to carry a .40-caliber semi- automatic pistol.”

This raises all sorts of questions, such as at what point is a pilot empowered to legally start firing away? Do pilots fly open holstered with the guns locked and loaded? What happened to the armed air marshals? How exactly does a shootout work in a crowded plane?

As far as we’re concerned, the safest part of the plane may be the rear seats, as far away from an unintentional shooting as possible.

Excuse us, but whatever happened to the “friendly skies”?

(For more info about arming pilots see: "Arm Pilots? The Facts Argue Against It"; and this op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times from Freedom States Alliance affiliate, Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.)

• LA: Double shooting leaves 1 dead in Iberville
• TX: Suspect in trooper's shooting kills himself
• TN: Man Killed After Shooting Outside Club
• VA: Man accused of shooting teen in foot surrenders
• MD: Man Admits to Shooting During Baby Shower
• ME: Portland Police Investigate Munjoy Hill Shooting
• PA: Hearing Today in Church Shooting
• NY: 2 men being held in fatal shooting in Mohawk Valley city
• TX: Mesquite man charged in wife's fatal shooting
• FL: Sarasota Man Accused In Fatal Shooting Of Sister

We’ve been perplexed about something here at GunGuys.com.

For over three decades the NRA went on a successful campaign to make sure that every state but two – Illinois and Wisconsin – would allow people to carry (with varying restrictions) hidden and loaded handguns in public. These are known as carrying concealed weapons, or CCW laws.

But one of the key rationales that the gun lobby has used for CCW laws is that “the bad guys” will keep away from armed citizens.

If that’s the case, why is it that after passing a CCW law, the gun lobby comes back to the respective state legislature to ask that the records of people who carry hidden handguns be kept secret?

You know, that just doesn’t pass the common sense test. What is the gun lobby trying to hide?

According to a recent article in USA Today:

South Carolina last week became the latest in a growing number of states to make the names of people who have a license to carry a concealed weapon a state secret.

Five other states might not be far behind in a battle that pits a public policy of open government against the right of people to keep their gun ownership records private.

Bills that would make concealed gun permit records confidential have been introduced in eight other states this year — Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia — according to Janna Goodwin of the National Conference of State Legislatures….

Concealed-weapon records always have been confidential in many states, said Colin Weaver, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Prior to South Carolina's action, the Brady Campaign counted 26 states where the records are confidential.

So let’s get this straight, you need a concealed handgun to intimidate others from attacking you, but you don’t want anyone, especially law enforcement officials, to know that you are a CCW permit holder? Now that’s a head scratcher, to be sure.

The truth is that if a CCW permit holder is pulled over for a traffic violation for example, it would be helpful for a police officer to know that the person might be armed with a concealed handgun. What is more important: the safety of our law enforcement officers, or the gun lobby's paranoia over databases? We should also state that just because the media, law enforcement officials and other persons of interest have access to the information about CCW permit holders in no way prohibits applicants from obtaining a CCW permit.

The gun lobby's fears are completely irrational. But if logic had anything to do with guns, we would have had strong gun control in the United States decades ago.

In an era of open government, accountability and transparency why does the gun lobby feel they deserve a special privilege over public safety? Instead the gun lobby demands total secrecy.

What's not a secret is that carrying deadly, hidden and loaded handguns in public places such as child daycare centers, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, college campuses, shopping malls, churches and even bars is a really bad idea and puts communities are risk.

• FL: Police are searching for the person who shot a man during an on-campus party at Florida Atlantic University early Wednesday morning.
• PA: Three Arrested In Monroeville Parking Lot Shooting
• MD: Mother turns in her son in shooting
• WA: Man charged with shooting after Dr. Dre book party
• VA: Chesterfield County police are investigating a shooting death that apparently occurred early this morning.
• WI: Police are investigating an overnight shooting on the city's north side.
• GA: Man dies outside LaVista Waffle House after shooting
• AR: Garland County authorities were called to a double shooting just after 1 Wednesday morning.
• AZ: Phoenix Police Investigate Double Shooting
• MO: Two critically injured in KCK shooting