Gun Guys.com received this email that apparently some pro-gun forum posted and started circulating regarding the “Put the Gun Down Elmo!” campaign. (If you’re just joining the conversation you can check out our first post “Sesame Place’s PR Nightmare” and our update “Send a Message to Sesame Workshop CEO” which prompted the gun guys retort [...]
A Guest Commentary from the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence We know that guns continue to be a major factor in tragedies that result in death and injuries to people around the country. The gun lobby, however, continues to share a message that protects the gun industry – not individuals. The recent tragedy at Virginia [...]
The Springfield-Journal Register writes that parents of gun violence victims are raising their voices and calling for stronger gun laws to reduce the deadly epidemic. The 46-year-old Chicago police officer [Ronald Holt] has become one of the personal stories injected into the perennial, usually deadlocked debate over gun control. On May 10, his only child, [...]
PA: A 13-year-old girl used a shotgun to fatally shoot her father in the head early Monday in a home overrun with animals and filth, police said. GA: Police: Boss kills two workers who asked for raise. NC: Police are investigating an early-morning shooting that sent two people to the hospital. MI: Police are investigating [...]
The Violence Policy Center released a “first-of-its kind national analysis of drive-by shootings” called “Drive-By America.” Findings of the study include: During the six-month period covered in the report, 549 drive-by shooting incidents were reported, claiming 156 lives and injuring 465 individuals. California led the nation in the number of drive-by shootings with 115 shootings, [...]
In perhaps the most simple, commonsense idea to come along in some time, this AP story suggests that the best solution to stop gun massacres — or at least reduce the carnage — such as VA Tech or Columbine would be to put locks on classroom doors versus the gun lobby’s insane idea to arm [...]
VA: Double Shooting Leaves Mother, 29, Dead VT: A Vermont man who wounded two strangers in a motel parking lot before fatally shooting himself Thursday was distraught over his wife’s accidental overdose death earlier this year, according to family members. KY: Police are investigating a shooting that injured a man in Jeffersontown early this morning. [...]
IL: Five males from Elgin were shot, two fatally, late Thursday outside a home in far northwest suburban Elgin. WA: Man hospitalized after West Seattle shooting. MA: Shooting of teen unsettles Brockton FL: A story bound for the Shooting Gallery: Students up at the University of Florida are pressing to be allowed to carry guns [...]
Click here to watch video from the CeaseFire NJ press conference. The unstoppable Bryan Miller, Executive Director of CeaseFire, is at his best. Back in the late 90′s, the group worked to enact a “Child Proof Handgun Law” It took 6 years to pass. The law required that handgun manufacturers design their products so that [...]
From the New Hampshire Union Leader: “Tired of the usual chicken dinners, the Manchester Republican Committee is planning to arm supporters next month with Uzis, M-16 rifles and other automatic weapons for a day of target practice at a Pelham firing range” at their next party fundraiser. As if it wasn’t already obvious how much [...]
Josh Sugarmann writes in the Huffington Post that despite the media’s spin on legislation to overhaul the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in response to the VA Tech massacre, the NICS bill sponsored by former NRA Board Member Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) is “actually a pro-gun bill” according [...]
NC: Father shoots and injures his 14-year-old son before killing his wife and then himself. WY: Man shoots and kills his 29-year-old girlfriend then kills himself –Medical Examiner is checking if shooter was taking steroids. NC: 3-year-old witnessed parents’ Murder-Suicide KY: Pawnshop partners shot in murder-suicide SC: An armed robber held-up a pub and tied [...]
As we noted earlier this week, CeaseFire NJ has brought attention to the National Rifle Association’s fundraising strategy that is offering discounted tickets to Sesame Place and other kid-friendly theme parks – in return for donations to the NRA’s political arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA). Well, CeaseFire NJ is not letting up with [...]
Some choice quotes from a South Carolina newspaper, “The Herald” about the availability of AK-47 assault rifles: David’s Pawn Shop [advertises] the weapons on its marquee, “AK-47s Now In Stock.” Owner David Dresner said he started selling the Romanian-made weapon recently… “We’ve sold a bunch of them,” Dresner said, estimating he sells four or five [...]
A column in today’s paper, “The Star” in Toronto, took aim at Canada’s conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper who seems to suffer from an empathy deficit, or is at least selective. “Empathy and this prime minister are mostly strangers,” said the author James Travers. “That same cold mix of political calculation and ideological certainty is [...]
GA: A 9-year-old girl who was shot in the head while she was at home. NY: A 22-year-old police officer in Middletown, N.Y., was shot twice while responding to a domestic dispute. WA: Man shot outside Capitol Hill nightclub in early morning. NY: Police are investigating the murder-suicide of an 18-year-old woman and a 40-year-old [...]
Are there ways to reduce illegal gun activity in addition to legislation? You betcha! In fact, the former executive director of a Freedom States Alliance affiliate group, Iowans for the Prevention of Gun Violence, developed the “Campaign to Close the Newspaper Loophole” What is the purpose of the Campaign? Quite simply it is to persuade [...]
Every weekday for the past few years, we have posted 10 shootings that have been reported from across the United States. Unfortunately, we don’t have to take a lot of time to find a random sampling for our GunGuys “American Shooting Gallery.†That’s because there is always an ample supply of gun shooting victims, 24/7 [...]
AZ: A Sun City woman, a gun enthusiast, was killed Sunday in an apparent accidental shooting while her boyfriend was handling a loaded weapon, authorities said Monday. OK: Police are investigating a drive-by shooting in southwest Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon. LA: Police in Lafourche Parish said they think three brothers are hiding out in [...]
Here is a story from Friday, July 13th, from the Philadelphia Daily News, that continues to circulate around the internet that we wanted to share. It’s a story prompted by our Freedom States Alliance recipient group CeaseFire NJ, and its persistent executive director, Bryan Miller. Put the gun down, Elmo. That’s the war cry of [...]
On last night’s CNN YouTube debate between the democratic presidential candidates, Jered Townsend from Clio, Michigan submitted this question: To all the candidates, tell me your position on gun control, as myself and other Americans really want to know if our babies are safe. This is my baby, [holding up a deadly, military style assault [...]
LA: New Orleans police are investigating a shooting in the Leonidas neighborhood that left a 27-year-old man dead and a 20-year-old woman injured. FL: The state attorney’s office is investigating the shooting death of a 31-year-old Largo man at 12:45 this morning in east Orlando. AR: A shooting at a North Little Rock Wal-Mart leaves [...]
That’s right. Only two states in America have resisted the NRA’s thuggish legislative onslaught when it comes to carrying handguns in public places: Illinois and Wisconsin. It’s hard to comprehend how an extremist, mythic notion of the “Wild West†came to be legally sanctioned in 48 states (although the state laws on carrying handguns vary [...]
Gun turn-in and buyback programs are not without controversy in the gun control community. Detractors argue that there are too many firearms in circulation for such efforts to have a significant impact on reducing gun violence. Furthermore, they don’t get to the core problem of illegal gun trafficking and gun industry profiteering off of increasingly [...]
PA: A 22-year-old Carlisle resident has been arraigned in a Monday night shooting that left a woman hospitalized with a head wound. TX: A woman who shot her grandson in the head and set their mobile home on fire has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. AL: A woman was shot in the face [...]
A short while back on GunGuys.com, we commented on a study that showed BATF investigations of purchasers at gun shows had successfully identified prohibited buyers. The bad news, however, is that protests from the NRA and gun show vendors and customers resulted in the BATF pretty much stopping their investigations of gun shows that sell [...]
As promised, the GunGuys.com Friday Mailbag is back and chock full of opinions. We’ll once again post a few e-mail messages alternating between “For Freedom from Gun Violence†e-mails and “For Guns†e-mails. So, let’s go straight to the e-mail. (Writers are responsible for typos. I have enough of my own.) Also we will use [...]
CT: Police charge Yale student with possessing guns, chemicals. Light was charged with two counts of illegal possession of assault rifles, unlawful discharge of a firearm, first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace, police said. SC: A 19-year-old man picked the wrong time to shoot at two brothers, opening fire just as [...]
The NRA has long been a threat to national security in their opposition to preventing terrorist suspects from purchasing firearms. And then you have to consider how the NRA continues to advocate for the virtually unrestricted sales of guns in the U.S., which makes our nation a supermarket for those who would commit atrocious acts [...]
Much has been discussed about the Washington D.C. federal circuit court ruling overturning the ban on handguns in that city. In fact, the case is now being appealed by the city to the Supreme Court, which may or may not choose to hear the appeal. What was most striking about the original 2-1 ruling by [...]
Yesterday, we wrote about a Yale student, David Light, who was taking to heart the exhortation of gun enthusiasts that a campus well-armed is a safe campus. As we wrote, the New Haven Police, however, felt that Light was violating the law and arrested him, charging him with multiple weapons violations. In a subsequent article [...]
WY: A military sharpshooter accused of killing his estranged wife as she sang at a bar died Tuesday night after being found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, police said. NY: Rapper Remy Ma has denied shooting her friend over allegations the friend took $3,000 from the singer’s purse. NC: Ashley White said [...]
In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, the gun lobby trotted out the overworked and preposterous notion that students should attend classes armed. It is the serious notion among some of the leading spokespersons for the “gun enthusiast” movement that pistol-packing college students would prevent shootings on campus. So maybe that is what a [...]
On GunGuys.com, we offered our best wishes to three police officers who were wounded in Chicago the other day. Now comes word from USA Today that the number of U.S. police officer deaths has reached a record level not seen in decades. That is deplorable and unacceptable. As each family who loses a GI in [...]
CO: A man carrying a gun and declaring “I am the emperor” was shot and killed Monday outside the offices of Gov. Bill Ritter by a state patrolman, a spokesman said. Ritter was inside the office but was not injured. IL: Woman’s past mental illness, recent rent dispute may have played roles in shootout that [...]
Is America one community or a collection of self-absorbed communities? Are we concerned about all our citizens, or just the ones whom we believe are “like us”? This is a key question in the gun violence prevention debate, because it appears that many NRA gun owners limit their compassion and sense of responsibility. We are [...]
Why a man with a gun was aiming to shoot up the office of the Governor of Colorado remains unclear, although there are clues that the man — who was shot dead by a security officer — was mentally unstable. – Click here for complete story. The incident made us recall a similar shooting by [...]
After a panel of three D.C. federal judges overturned the Washington D.C. ban on handgun ownership, there was uncertainty as to whether or not the city would appeal to the Supreme Court. On July 16th, the city of Washington ended speculation by announcing that it would indeed appeal the adverse ruling: The DC government will [...]
Okay, the mail has been coming in fast and furious to gunguys@gunguys.com. There’s a lot of spam, of course. Either they are selling some stock that’s about to explode or they are trying to get guys to pay to have a better explosion, and not of the gun shooting kind, I might add. It’s a [...]
This July 16th story in the Chicago Tribune reminds us of our appreciation for the police, who put their lives on the line everyday. In this case, they were called to what apparently appeared to be a “routine” domestic disturbance call. They probably didn’t anticipate gunfire, which appeared to be as sudden and inexplicable as [...]
Okay, call me obsessed. It won’t be the first time. But when I read an article like this one, with a paragraph like this, I just get a little hot under the collar: In Compton, Calif., gangsters preferred Boulevard Sales & Service, a shop police said was so felon-friendly, some salesmen offered tips on how [...]
Well, friends, I promised a GunGuys mailbag this week, and I am a man of my word. I thought we’d try it this way for a while, sort of a point-counterpoint. We’ll post a few e-mail messages alternating between “For Freedom from Gun Violence†e-mails and “For Guns†e-mails. So let’s open those letters! (Writers [...]
WA: Seattle police arrest two in fatal shooting. CA: The San Francisco Medical Examiner identified a man killed in a double shooting Monday as 19-year-old Demetrius Mayburns MA: Two young men were shot and killed overnight in a car parked near a rowdy outdoor concert and barbecue at the Franklin Hill public housing complex. CT: [...]
MI: A local gang member is speaking out about the growing problem of gun violence in Kalamazoo, after 18-year-old Timothy Palmer was shot and killed. Palmer’s grandmother says he was getting his life back on track. WA: Murder-Suicide: The bodies of Kathleen ÂUpton, 43, and Stanley Upton, 49, a couple married for 20 years, were [...]
The NRA has been, unfortunately, successful in advancing the infamous anti-police, anti-crime solving “Tiahrt Amendment” in a House Committee on July 12th. Here is what the Violence Policy Center has to say about the unfortunate development for our police and for solving crime: Today the House Appropriations Committee rejected amendments offered by Representatives Patrick Kennedy [...]
I don’t see the point in getting hysterical, and I don’t like it when other people do too. So I was disappointed to find out that after living in the Canadian North Country for a couple of years, things hadn’t changed with my buds in the gun lobby. One of my customers shared this news [...]
In an article from the LA Times, comes this bizarre, if not completely dishonest statement: “I’ve never run into a situation where a dealer has intentionally violated the law,” said Richard Gardiner, a Virginia lawyer who represents gun dealers. If guns are being bought at these stores by criminals, “it is because they are being [...]
When the Pennsylvania legislature refuses to address gun violence, when the body count rises week after week, when all else fails, what in the world is an urban city supposed to do? From AP: Philadelphia officials struggling against a rising wave of violent crime have sued the Pennsylvania legislature, accusing it of not allowing the [...]
We strongly encourage you to watch this debate from the NewsHour on PBS last night. As you’ll see in the video and parts of the transcript quoted below, Mayor Barrett laid out the case for how the Tiahrt Amendment is handcuffing police officers from preventing gun crimes, solving gun homicides, and interrupting illegal gun sales [...]
DE: A man accused of fatally shooting his mother in Prince George’s County shot himself in Wilmington, Del., last night after leading officers on a car chase. KY: 15-year-old Tyler Dumstorf killed himself after he shot and killed Deputy Frank Denzinger and wounded Deputy Joel White outside his home. Dumstorf fired at least six shots [...]
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