America’s Shooting Gallery is our daily look at the violence that guns are causing to happen in this country. Here’s today’s. IN: Cop killer will show up in court next week SC: Two men charged in shooting IL: Police seek 4 after gang-related shooting at wedding reception MS: Third suspect in fatal shooting surrenders to [...]
Just as we told you the other day, our friends at the Campaign to Close the Newspaper Loophole have jumped on the case of Dominick Maldonado, and pointed out that it puts into harsh relief the reason why secondary, background-check free gun markets need to be shut down. They’ve sent out a press release, available [...]
The vote is closer and closer on the concealed weapons bill in Wisconsin, a bill already determined by citizens and police to be unnecessary and dangerous to Wisconsinites. Of course, that doesn’t stop the gun lobby from trying to pass it, and they’re planning to propose a few “concilatory measures” to get their bill through. [...]
“Bart” is a gun guy who regularly drops angry missives off in our inbox. A few weeks ago in our Mailbag, he asked us to print his opinions right next to ours. At the time, we said no, but he’s about to get his wish. Yesterday we wrote about Utah’s new proposal to lower the [...]
The New York Post takes a final look at what is now the gun immunity law. Formerly the gun immunity bill, Bush recently signed into law the measure written and passed by the Congressional cronies of the NRA, and like many, many, many papers before it, the NYP lashes out in an editorial against the [...]
Dr. Robert Kurtz has written a must-read article for the New York Post about why it’s time to get the guns out of New York City. He’s known as the “cop doc” because he takes care of so many cops wounded on duty by gunfire in his post at Kings County Hospital, and, like much [...]
We got a dumb-gun-guy twofer for you today. Of course, most gun guys are dumb every day, but today there’s not one but two reported stories of their less-than-intelligent adventures with firearms. -First, from the Billing, Wyoming Gazette, a man-shoots-self story worthy of CSI. Sheriff’s deputies found the body of 63-year-old Richard Bartman on Friday [...]
Here’s a sad but revealing story from the Stevens Point Journal in Wisconsin. Micayla Ellis’ mother took the suggested precautions with a gun in her home – she locked it up, hid the key and put the ammunition in different locations – but it still wasn’t enough to stave off her children’s curiosity. While off [...]
Every month here on Gun Guys, we highlight a site produced by the stranger elements in the gun debate. We comb the Internet, through cheap animations and even cheaper site designs, all in search of classic gun guys weirdness, just so you don’t have to. And when we find it, we call it our “Site [...]
America’s Shooting Gallery is our daily look at all the gun violence currently wracking this very nation we live in. Remember how we’re fighting to keep guns off the streets? This is why we’re doing it. NC: Suspect who shot the sheriff had a criminal record 18 years long, says deputy, who remains unscathed TN: [...]
We do a lot of hard work here at Gun Guys trying to reverse all the idiocy the NRA has impressed upon the public by spending millions of dollars in lobby money spreading lies and rumors. And so, when even a local columnist sees what we’re saying, it makes our hearts do a little fluttery [...]
A new proposal in Utah wants to lower the age when a kid can first start hunting from 14 to 12. That’s right, Utah wants to send sixth and seventh graders out in the woods with rifles. Even scarier, most states already have the age set at 12. The Wildlife Board says the new rules [...]
Police in Rhode Island are considering a strange proposition: whether or not to keep their police officers “always armed.” An old police tradition of requiring off-duty officers to carry their weapons – “always armed, always on duty†– is being scaled back in police departments nationwide, increasingly being blamed for the deaths of officers shot [...]
The Associated Press (via the Courier in Chicago, IL) takes a look at a glitch in the FBI’s background check system that is keeping the names of mentally ill people off the list that would keep them from buying guns. In Alabama, a man with a history of mental illness killed two police officers with [...]
The AP is reporting that victim of last week’s mall shooting has woken up and granted an interview, and is saying that there was an encounter between the two, and Dominick Maldonado was simply “faster on the draw” than he is. The man most seriously wounded in the Tacoma Mall shootings said Monday he has [...]
In Africa, they’ve come up with yet another neat way to get rid of guns– CRUSH ‘EM! The public’s suspicion as to where do guns that the Malawi Police Service confiscate from robbers or any other unlawful keepers finally go, will cease now that the police has a state-of-the-art gun destroyer machine. The mill-like-machine called [...]
Both sides of the gun issue are checking in on the story of Dominick Maldonado, who bought a semiautomatic assault rifle from private gun dealer Joe Pasamonte, and then used it to shoot up a crowded mall and wound six people. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has the story. Tacoma police said Wednesday that detectives and the [...]
We’re back from our turkey-laden Thanksgiving break! Hope you had as much fun (and food) as we did. Unfortunately, according to our America’s Shooting Gallery, looks like gun violence didn’t take a vacation at all. TX: Bloody Holiday: 11 homicides in Houston over Thanksgiving weekend, most of them shootings IL: Armed robber shoots convenience store [...]
Our friends at .50 Caliber Terror have sent out another alert, this one about the Associated Press’ profile of Ronnie Barrett, owner of Barrett Firearms, and the creator of the .50 caliber rifle. A 1999 investigation by the U.S. General Accounting Office found the rifles were available on civilian markets with fewer restrictions than those [...]
The L.A. Times has an in-depth report of the conflicting stories coming out of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Numerous news organizations ran stories during the chaos in New Orleans that snipers who were shooting on rescue operations were eventually killed by police, but as the dust settles, new details are emerging that say that [...]
The beautiful, tropical ads from local Hawaii businesses almost distracted us from the news story on this page: that a man there was able to build up an arsenal of 54 weapons without registering a single one. Michael Hyatt, 65, also was placed on five years’ probation as part of the sentence imposed Wednesday by [...]
18 year old Dominick Maldonado used a MAK 90 semiautomatic rifle to wound six people at a mall in Tacoma, Washington last week. Despite his age, he would have been legally eligible to own the weapon except for a felony conviction a few years ago, and so ever since the incident, police have been looking [...]
More talk from Boston about beefing up gun laws in the northeast, where states with lax gun laws like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont are flowing illegal weapons into states with tighter laws like New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Officials say more lenient gun laws in other states pose an ongoing problem. ”Massachusetts has [...]
Here’s your America’s Shooting Gallery for this year’s Thanksgiving Eve. Your faithful Gun Guys are heading off in a little bit to drive home and get some of Mom Magnum’s tasty turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie, so we’ll be off the rest of the week. Happy Thanksgiving, and we’ll see you on Monday! IN: Man [...]
The Seattle Times is reporting that one of the victims at the mall shooting last weekend had a gun on him during the incident, and pulled it on 20 year old Dominick Maldonado, who shot six people in the Tacoma, WA mall. Brendan “Dan” McKown was delivering a bank deposit for a mall gift store [...]
Los Angeles County has come up with an interesting way to keep confiscated guns out of the hands of their owners– bill them. The Sheriff’s Department gained approval from the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to begin charging $54 to people who want to reclaim seized guns. A new state law allows the fee [...]
A Denver firefighter has been arrested for illegally selling fully automatic machine guns to FBI informants. Firefighter first-grade Stan T. Ford, 34, was arrested without incident at his home in southwest Denver by FBI agents at 4:45 a.m. He appeared Tuesday afternoon before a U.S. magistrate, who ordered him held in custody until a preliminary [...]
Yesterday we told you about the FBI report that listed 139 officers killed in the line of duty in the United States in 2004, the majority of them (54) shot to death. Today, we have a little more perspective on the issue. The British newspaper the Guardian has a look today at an initiative there [...]
After a shooting earlier this year, San Francisco has bought all of their toll takers over the Golden Gate Bridge bulletproof vests. Bridge district spokeswoman Mary Currie said today that the 42 full- and part-time toll takers were given vests last week after bridge managers, the collectors and union officials brainstormed about what could be [...]
America’s Shooting Gallery is our daily look at exactly what guns are doing to our country. While the gun lobby is trying to pass bills that let even more guns out onto our streets, people are killing and getting killed twenty four seven. PA: Girlfriend in Borden shooting willingly ran away with boyfriend (police found [...]
Our friends at the Campaign to Close the Newspaper Loophole have released a report with some shocking information about how illegal gun dealers shamelessly use classified newspaper ads to sell deadly weapons. The report says that a very large percentage of “crime guns” (guns used in crime, legal and illegal) are obtained from “secondary markets,” [...]
Right after yesterday’s post from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle about the increasing number of illegal weapons on the streets there (and the crime they bring), they’ve published an editorial calling for police to step up their efforts to keep Rochester’s streets clean of weapons. As a story in Sunday’s Democrat and Chronicle revealed, police [...]
There’s almost nothing we love better than a man-shoots-self story, except maybe one submitted by our readers. This one comes to us from reader TB: “Man Shoots Self in Bathroom at Gun Show.” Those hooks in bathroom stalls are meant for coats, not guns. Authorities in Faribault report a Bloomington man accidentally shot himself in [...]
KWTX in Texas is reporting that firearms were the most lethal threat to police officers last year. An FBI report says 139 police officers were killed in the line of duty last year, 16 of them in Texas. Fifty-four of the officers were shot to death and 48 were killed in traffic accidents. Three Texas [...]
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that the kid who shot up the mall in Tacoma, WA last weekend is named Dominick Maldonado, and police are reporting that he was not legally supposed to have the guns he used to wound six people. It’s not Dominick Maldonado’s age that prohibited him from possessing the firearms he allegedly [...]
The major story in today’s America’s Shooting Gallery is the mall shooting over the weekend in Tacoma, Washington. We found six or seven major news stories about the 20 year old who shot up the mall from a Sam Goody store– he made scary text messages, he came from a poor and rough family, and [...]
We don’t live in Florida (even though at this time of year, we’d like to at least have a second home there). But if we did, a) we’d have to make sure we owned lots of bulletproof vests (since the “shoot first” law passed down there), and b) we’d know a little bit more about [...]
Dan Carpenter writes a column for the Indianapolis Star about a new program in Indiana schools called “EKG”– “Educating Kids about Gun Violence.” Like almost all gun education programs for kids, it tries (usually unsuccessfully, especially in the case of the NRA’s kids program) to educate kids about the dangers of weapons, but still ignores [...]
It looks like Mike Magnum’s old buddies at the Front Sight Firearms Institute are in a little bit of trouble. Oh, not because they let children play with firearms (after all, that’s completely legal, right?), but because they’re facing a lawsuit and racketeering charges. The staccato of controlled bursts from Uzi submachine guns was mixed [...]
Well well well, look at this. The gun lobby (and their various worshippers) like to claim “more guns, less crime!” (as in more guns on the streets equals less crime) until they’re hoarse, but statistics in today’s Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York prove that reality is exactly the opposite. Less illegal guns taken [...]
After it was revealed last week that Chicago Bears football players have been spending time at the FBI’s shooting range, the Chicago Sun-Times runs a piece investigating the link between athletes and weapons. Somehow, guns have become part of the culture of American sports. That doesn’t mean the athletes are necessarily doing anything illegal or [...]
Just a note from KXLY in Spokane, WA about a new tactic that “gun collectors” (who else would need practically illegal weapons?) are using to buy firearms, even without the permission of the local sheriff. Sheriff Sterk says he will not grant anymore specialized weapon permits. Collectors say, they found a way to by-pass him. [...]
The Roanoke Times’ Outdoors columnist Bill Cochran has an interesting take on the Virginia governor’s race of a few weeks ago, in which Tim Kaine (given an F rating and strongly opposed by the NRA) trounced opponent Jerry Kilgore, who had been greatly supported by LaPierre’s gang. In fact, Cochran says in no uncertain terms [...]
It’s America’s Shooting Gallery, where we bring you a daily roundup of all the shooting action from around the country, and, in today’s case, sometimes out of the country, if it’s strange and wonderful enough. IL: Mom brings a gun to pick her kids up from school– just wanted to make sure she got a [...]
Well, we knew it was too good to be true. After last week’s nice and friendly mailbag, we braced ourselves for a rough one, and we got it. Record numbers of insults and bile flowed into our inbox this week, and lucky for you we survived to print it right here on our website. Apparently, [...]
Illinois Governor Blagojevich has joined in the fight to close down Bell’s Gun and Sport Shop. The gun shop in a northwest suburb of Illinois has lost and regained its license three times already, and community leaders have been calling for the ATF to shut it down once and for all, and close down a [...]
Just as police found 54 weapons in Pennsylvania teen David Ludwig’s house, our friends at Ceasefire NJ were rallying just across the river to call for tighter gun laws in PA. The Philadelphia Inquirer has the story. With Camden facing the prospect of being named one of America’s most dangerous cities for the second year [...]
Lots of depressing news today (especially for a Friday), but we do have a responsibility to show you the way it is in America in 2005, when guns flood our streets, legally and illegally. In Florida, Representative Dennis Baxley (backed by the NRA) is pushing for a law that would make it illegal for employers [...]
Maybe already you’ve heard about David Ludwig, the 18 year old who killed his girlfriend’s parents, and ran off with her, leaving their other daughter and son to report the crime. We reported the story in our America’s Shooting Gallery, but maybe it got lost in the cracks between the other things like this that [...]
Lots of coincidences in America’s Shooting Gallery today– a man gets hit with a bullet near an apropos tattoo, a man named “Spud” gets buried, and a guy with a violent background is able to find a guy and attack two women. It would be pretty spooky if it didn’t happen every day, but it [...]
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