Bad news from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania– just when we thought legislators from the Philadelphia Black Caucus were ready to show some backbone against the NRA, they walk out of a meeting with the gun lobby, and it seems they’ve drunk the koolaid again. The president of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus said yesterday that after meeting [...]
More and more murders in Philadelphia. The latest victims include four men, one now dead, in a shooting at a city playground, and a decomposed body found by authorities on Monday. Police have identified last evening’s playground murder victim but not the badly decomposed body found Monday. One man was killed and three other males [...]
Finally today, here’s a couple more insights on the latest news from Florida that we posted yesterday. After gun laws there have been loosened further than ever, both by the NRA and a legislature content to support lobbyists over their constituents, gun violence is up a whopping 42%. While the Governor tries to confuse with [...]
Murders are up in Florida yet again. And while they’ve been busy passing all sorts of loose gun laws, including License to Murder and laws that allow criminals to obtain all the weapons they need, gun violence is jumping right up, too. Murders and other violent crimes rose at a “disconcerting” rate in Florida last [...]
Monica Yant Kinney from the Philadelphia Inquirer has yet another column up about the violence that’s claiming hundreds of lives in that city. Pennsylvania’s loose gun laws make firearms plentiful in that state, even among people who clearly shouldn’t have them. And as a result, citizens are not just seeing a gun death every day– [...]
This is a site about gun violence and gun laws in America, so we don’t usually cover changes in gun laws overseas– what we’re concerned with is changing things here at home. But this is a bit of news we just can’t pass up. Gun guys love to point out that in Switzerland, a country [...]
Apparently those gun makers that were going to abandon Illinois for Iowa haven’t actually made any moves yet at all. They’re still supposedly watching to see what Illinois does with its gun laws. Area gun manufacturers remain in limbo, unsure if Illinois legislators could put them out of business. Bills were introduced this year in [...]
A common answer from the gun guys about what to do to fight crime is simply to “lock ‘em all up and throw away the key.” That should work, right? As long as we can get all the criminals off the streets, then the rest of us will all be safe again, right? Unfortunately, the [...]
The LA Times has a very frank editorial up about the deal made last week between Congressional Democrats and the NRA. According to the headlines, the deal made huge strides towards closing a loophole that would keep mentally ill people from obtaining firearms. But when you take a closer look, you can see how this [...]
Yet another child’s death in Chicago. Citizens there, as they are all over America, are tired of putting up with it, and aren’t ready to take any more violence. As he usually did, Roberto Duran walked his mother to the door before she left for work Monday morning. He kissed her and told her he [...]
The gun guys often try to attack New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, by asking him what he’s doing trying to influence gun dealers and gun laws in other states. Why, they ask, is he bothering with Virginia instead of passing stronger gun laws in his own state? The fact is, however, that New York [...]
While there’s a lot of talk lately about closing loopholes, the biggest loophole in American gun law today remains open: while gun sales at a licensed dealer require any number of background checks and paperwork, private gun sales (at gun shows and through newspapers) require no such checks– private gun dealers can sell weapons to [...]
From the blogosphere, we get this charming little backwards ad from 1904 about a revolver that made “accidental discharge impossible,” and thus the gun was “absolutely safe” for even children to use. Nowadays, an image like that is sickening. We’ve got children dying every single day on Americas’ streets, and it’s hard to believe anyone [...]
Earlier this week, we posted that FBI violent crime numbers were up, and nowhere is that more apparent than in a city like Philadelphia, where loose state gun laws contribute to more and more firearms in urban areas. Their numbers are up big time, and they’re still rising. Philadelphia had the highest murder rate among [...]
More bad news involving the relationship between children and firearms: the latest information says that at least two-thirds of families who own guns don’t store them safely. And yet, the gun lobby has somehow found a way to actually argue against keeping children safe from gun violence. Unbelievable. Two-thirds of gun-owning families fail to store [...]
Here are two sets of numbers to consider. The first set comes from a poll convened by the Associated Press. Fifty percent of Americans are, they figured, “ashamed” that the weak gun laws of our country could make a tragedy like Virginia Tech possible. And a whopping eighty seven percent understand that gun violence is [...]
You might remember the story of Jim Zumbo, the outdoors writer who was struck with the unbelievable (to gun guys) notion that shooting prairie dogs with assault rifles might be a little, you know, crazy. Bullied into submission by the nutso brigade, Zumbo quickly retracted his suggestion that anything involving assault rifles might ever be [...]
There’s a new player in Cleveland, OH’s lawsuit against a state law that keeps them from passing stronger gun legislation– Cleveland’s Plain Dealer says we can say hello, once again, to the NRA. Cleveland’s challenge of a state law that prevents Ohio cities from making their own gun laws faces a new opponent — The [...]
Here’s another look at the goings on between NYC Mayor Bloomberg and Representative Tiahrt from Kansas. For a long time, all we ever heard about Tiahrt was about his legislation: he’s pushing a bill that would actually make it illegal for police and feds to share information about where crime guns come from. The gun [...]
William Robiner is the Director of Health Psychology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. So he specializes not only in making sure people are able to get and stay mentally healthy. And when it comes to thinking about ways to stay healthy, that’s exactly what we need in America today. In this editorial, Robiner [...]
Cathie Whittenburg, Director of the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence has had a letter published in Maine’s Kennebec Journal calling for courage from legislators there. The facts are clear on stronger gun laws– they’re important, and necessary, because they’ll make a difference. That’s what the Journal said in an editorial earlier this month [...]
Finally today, Nina Vinik of the Legal Community Against Violence has an editorial published in Illinois’ Herald News, about a few bills facing the Illinois legislature which, she says, need support in the final run towards passage. All of these bills are important and necessary in Illinois– gun violence is everywhere, and stronger gun laws [...]
We’ve been passed this story a few times by gun guys eager to make their point about how guns can sometimes be used to protect. Apparently, a young girl was attacked at home one night by two illegal aliens. But according to the story, it turns out she was a crack clay shooting champion, and [...]
Some frank talk from two American leaders today, confirming yet again what we’ve been saying all along: that our legislators and elected officials are under the sway of the gun lobby, and not working for the interests of the people who are voting them into office. First up, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania [...]
We’ve said before that criminals get their illegal guns from legal gun dealers, but usually we mean via unsavory gun dealers or via straw purchases, in which someone who can buy a gun does so for someone who can’t. But there’s another way criminals can get their guns from legal gun dealers– and that’s by [...]
Finally today, since this is a blog about the dumb stuff that gun guys do, we feel obliged to tell you that yesterday, only hours away from where Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people and himself with a firearm he never should have been able to obtain, the gun guys were giving away firearms like candy. [...]
Good news from Louisiana, where a gun store known for selling firearms used in crimes has been shut down by the ATF. They claim it’s for good, but thanks to all the loopholes the NRA has built into the laws, gun stores are like pests– just when you think you’ve gotten rid of them, they [...]
Our good friends over at the New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence have launched a new campaign and a new website. You can see their brand new digs over at http://www.necpgv.org/. We are currently working to raise public awareness about the illegal gun crisis in New England and urging regional solutions like criminal background [...]
The Justice Department has released a new report that says a nationwide crime spike can be attributed to one major factor in America today: youth gangs. Increasing violence among teenagers and other youths appears to have contributed to a nationwide crime spike, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Gangs and gun violence are partly to blame [...]
Police are seizing record numbers of firearms in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this year. While some states, in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, are beefing up background checks, the gun show loophole remains open, which allows criminals everywhere to obtain all the guns they want. Milwaukee police have seized more than 1,000 guns so far [...]
Finally today, the NRA shows just how far they’ll go to sacrifice the safety of Americans for their own selfish interests. A bill is currently coming through Congress that would disallow suspected terrorists from buying firearms, but the NRA, worried that such a bill would cut into firearms sales, is actually opposing it. You read [...]
The other day we reported on Virginia’s closing of the loophole that leaves mental health information out of federal background checks (and the fact that the gun show loophole remains open, in spite of that). Today, Connecticut is thinking about dealing with the same problem. Even after all the violence and tragedies, why are we [...]
Another mayor is stepping to the plate to fight gun violence in America– this time it’s Mayor Sheila Dixon in Baltimore, who’s promising to set up a task force to both combat illegal weapons, and figure out what crime guns are coming from where. With violent crime rising sharply here, Mayor Sheila Dixon announced plans [...]
USA Today has launched an offensive against our loose gun laws in America. In a huge editorial, they’ve laid out exactly what changes need to be made, as soon as possible, to save American lives. Their changes aren’t extremely far-reaching, hard to accomplish, or in any way extreme. But they’re right– getting these three things [...]
We really love this story. A week or so ago, a few gun manufacturers in Illinois got very angry that Illinois legislators were thinking about passing stronger gun legislation (including an assault weapon ban and a .50 caliber ban). So they told residents of the towns where they set up business that they would leave [...]
Elayne Boosler has posted a must-read essay over at the Huffington Post. With great intelligence and searing wit, she lays into the gun lobby and the legislators who, despite all reason and common sense, continue to support them. We agree 100% with her– we too, like most Americans these days, are “tired of prying your [...]
Bob Herbert has written a great column in the New York Times about how our country seems to be “hooked on violence”– even after a week where we see the worst mass-shooting in modern American history, we’re still talking about putting more and more guns into both public and private life. Just what is this [...]
We’ve knocked this one down again and again, but it keeps climbing back up. Newt Gingrich is the latest advocate of the insane “the way to stop guns is with more guns” line– he showed up on the sunday talk shows this week advocating that we pour gasoline on the burning problem of gun violence. [...]
Finally today, here’s a great editorial from the Economist that lays out just what our loose firearms laws have done to this country– the problem isn’t just the school shootings at Virginia Tech and Columbine. It’s a wide wash of deaths that affect every state, city, and county in this nation. Our citizens are dying [...]
Once again, while our legislators can’t seem to figure out what to do about gun violence, our nation’s newspapers are far from silent on the issue. After last week’s violence, the media from coast to coast has responded, and the editorial pages, just like the citizens they write to, are overwhelmingly in favor of reintroducing [...]
Dennis Henigan, the legal director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, went head-to-head with the readers of the Washington Post this morning, and solidly answered a lot of questions running through American minds after the Virginia Tech shooting that took place a week ago. Jackson, Wyo.: We have more gun laws than any [...]
Our colleagues at the Violence Policy Center have released a few very informative reports that help to fill in a lot of the background information about Monday’s shooting. Yesterday, they released a very in-depth report on the guns used in the shooting, which have been reported as a Glock Model 19 and a Walther P22, [...]
According to a recent study, violent crime is up all over the Midwest. The Chicago Tribune reports that the situation in Milwaukee and many other Midwestern cities, is getting worse and worse. “I feel violated, and I’m afraid a lot,” said Warford, who was last robbed in early March. “I’m not looking forward to the [...]
Bloomberg has struck again. This time he’s in Cinncinnati, where he unveiled, along with mayors from Ohio, a brand new campaign, designed to let the public know what the NRA is trying to do to our police officers in Congress. They’re working to try and pass the Tiahrt Amendment, which would actually keep law enforcement [...]
A Florida newspaper reports on a brand new group standing up to fight the NRA’s guns at work law down there– Floridians Against Workplace Violence are going to set out to show the public, via a few different forms of media, that the NRA is wrong for trying to put even more firearms into a [...]
The Violence Policy Center has released a new study that, yet again, opposes what the NRA is telling us about firearms in America. According to the latest data, gun ownership in the United States has hit a 35 year low. Contrary to public claims by the gun industry and the gun lobby, firearms ownership has [...]
There was a big gathering of police chiefs, academics, business leaders, and others interested in gun violence in the Midwest this week– the Great Lakes States Summit on Gun Violence was held in Chicago on Tuesday. Mayor Daley in Chicago and Mayor Tom Barrett from Milwaukee both attended (both belong to New York City Mayor [...]
Another study on firearms ownership has been released by the Harvard School of Public Health, this one researching the link between suicide and the availability of firearms in the home. What they found isn’t surprising, but it is very important: where more people have access to firearms, more people are killing themselves with them. In [...]
The editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, you’ll remember, is where the shooting happened at CNN Center last week) has written up a commentary about America’s supposed romance with firearms– even though we continually suffer from gun violence, the NRA’s iron grip on our legislators seems to keep even the most reasonable gun legislation from [...]
More gun dealer whining from Red’s in Idaho today. The majority of firearms dealers are good, hardworking people, and they realize that the product they sell is dangerous, but they follow the law in selling that product. As Bloomberg’s lawsuit shows, when asked to be more responsible in the way they sell their weapons, most [...]
Gun Policy News Feed