May 16, 2013
State House lawmakers voted Wednesday to forbid law enforcement officers from destroying fully-operating firearms, even if they were used in a crime.House Bill 714, "Disposal of Abandoned Firearms," says that, if a firearm is fully functioning and still has a legible identification number, sheriffs and other law enforcement officers cannot destroy it, regardless of its background.
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May 16, 2013
Republican lawmakers began pushing for the measure after learning about the new license procedures early in the legislative session. The push accelerated in March after a Stoddard County man filed a lawsuit challenging the procedures. It said that scanning documents, such as birth certificates and concealed weapons permits, were an invasion of privacy.
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May 16, 2013
The Atlanta City Council is considering a proposal that would make it more difficult to open indoor shooting ranges.
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May 16, 2013
The family of a second-grader suspended from his school in Anne Arundel County for chewing his Pop-Tart-like pastry into the shape of a gun has lost a bid to have the episode expunged from the child’s record, according to the family’s attorney.
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May 15, 2013
The House passed House Bill 972 from Allen Fletcher, R-Tomball, which would allow concealed carry unless the university opts out every year after talking with students, faculty and staff. The bill then went to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, where it passed 4-2.
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May 15, 2013
A gun-control bill calling for background checks at gun shows has been temporarily set aside.The bill scheduled for debate Tuesday was tabled and could be taken up again as soon as Wednesday. It would require that a national instant criminal background check be performed prior to the sale or transfer of a firearm at a gun show. The bill would require gun show operators to post signs at gun shows to notify exhibitors of the background check requirement. Failure to perform a background check could result in a $2,500 fine, not $10,000 as initially proposed.
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May 14, 2013
State police have charged a 31-year-old Dutchess County driver with a misdemeanor after he was pulled over and found with two more bullets in his handgun magazine than allowed under New York's new gun control law. Gregory Dean Jr. of Hopewell Junction was stopped for an inadequate light on his license plate about 9:45 p.m. Sunday in New Lebanon, troopers said. Police said their investigation showed the semi-automatic on the passenger seat was a legally possessed, but its magazine contained nine rounds, not seven as required since April 15.
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May 14, 2013
New York's pistol permit holders are facing a Wednesday deadline to submit opt-out forms that would keep their records confidential. Some county clerks said they would not have all of the forms processed by the deadline.
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May 14, 2013
The Texas Senate is to hear legislation that would allow concealed handgun license holders to carry their weapons into college classrooms.The bill has failed in previous sessions but has gained new momentum since receiving state House passage two weeks ago. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday afternoon that is likely to draw dozens of witnesses to testify.
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May 14, 2013
Police departments and other law enforcement agencies would not be able to destroy confiscated guns that are still in good working order under a bill passed by the House Judiciary Subcommittee B. The measure, House Bill 714, says departments may sell or auction weapons, use them for training or otherwise re-purpose them, but may not destroy a gun if it is legal to own and in good working order.
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May 13, 2013
Most Americans recognize that there are more gun owners in the United States today than there were 20 years ago but don’t know that gun crime in the country has gone down in that same period of time.
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May 13, 2013
Vice President Biden, in a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, says the White House is jumping "right back" into the debate over guns, despite the recent failure to pass background check legislation.
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May 13, 2013
As a committee hearing on new gun-control legislation began winding down Thursday, three state senators started chatting amongst themselves.What they didn't realize was the microphone was still on.A recording of the exchange — which appears to be between Democrats Loretta Weinberg, Sandra Cunningham and Linda Greenstein — ended up on YouTube, and gun supporters said today they were upset by the remarks.The recording opens with what sounds like a senator or staff member saying, "We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate" — although it is not clear who is speaking or if this is what she is saying.
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May 13, 2013
The CDC reports that for 2010 (the latest year available), one single six-year old died from a gunshot. For all children younger than 10, there were 36 accidental gun deaths, and that is out of 41 million children. Perhaps most important, about two-thirds of these accidental gun deaths involving young children are not shots fired by other little kids but rather by adult males with criminal backgrounds. In other words, unless you send your child to play at a criminal’s home, she is exceedingly unlikely to get shot.Indeed, if you are going to worry about your child’s safety you should check into other, perhaps less obvious dangers lurking in the playmate’s house: swimming pools, bathtubs, water buckets, bicycles, and chemicals and medications that can cause fatal poisoning. Drownings alone claimed 609 deaths; fires, 262 lives; poisonings, 54 lives. And don’t forget to ask about the playmate’s parents’ car and their driving records if your child will ride with them: After all, motor-vehicle accidents killed 923 children younger than 10.
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May 13, 2013
At least five Pennsylvania state-owned universities are now allowing guns on campus after the state's lawyers concluded that an outright ban on weapons was likely unconstitutional.
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May 13, 2013
A state senator is concerned about the possibility of someone creating a gun from a 3-D printer.
Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) wants regulations that would possibly track the printers and who has access to them, though he’s not sure how he wants the legislation to work.
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May 10, 2013
A state Senate committee today advanced six bills aimed at reducing gun violence — but not before Democrats made a flurry of changes to appease critics who claimed they didn’t go far enough.
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May 10, 2013
Reps. Jim Townsend of Royal Oak, Vicki Barnett of Farmington Hills and Andy Schor of Lansing announced the legislation Thursday.One of the measures would expand the current permit-to-purchase process for pistols to all guns. Townsend says his legislation would require residents buying any kind of gun to get a permit from local law enforcement and pass a background check. That process currently only applies to pistols.
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May 10, 2013
Illinois State Police say they’re trying to deal with a huge backlog of applications for Firearms Owner Identification cards.The agency received more than 28,000 applications for cards during April alone.That’s on top of an existing backlog of nearly 76,000 applications. The state police say they are dealing with a record number of applications.
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May 9, 2013
A House panel has approved legislation that would greatly curtail when veterans deemed mentally incompetent are reported to the FBI's background check system.
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May 9, 2013
The legislation signed Wednesday is the first bill in a package of gun control measures proposed by Markell after the Connecticut school shooting in December to be enacted into law.
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May 9, 2013
A New Jersey Senate committee is set to consider several gun control bills, but a limit on the number of bullets allowed in ammunition magazines is not among the measures due to be discussed.
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May 8, 2013
The state's top gun advocacy group says membership has soared in recent months.The Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts said that it has surpassed 16,000 members in the state. The group said it has added about 3,000 members since January.
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May 8, 2013
Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney blocked four gun control bills from coming to the Senate floor to avoid what appeared to be a certain defeat for them.
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May 8, 2013
Even as President Barack Obama works with legislators in Washington to revive efforts to enact stricter federal gun control legislation, local politicians have filed seven pro gun bills in an effort to pass even more permissive state gun laws.
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May 8, 2013
It's honestly a strange time for politicians to push ever tighter restrictions on gun controls. Even if you're the sort of person who thinks that everybody's personal liberty should be restricted if somebody, somewhere, misbehaves, a report released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics makes it apparent that crimes committed with firearms continue their steady, two decade decline. In terms of specific policy, the recent focus on restricting "assault weapons" makes no sense in an environment in which the preferred weapon for committing those diminishing crimes is the handgun. And the recent obsession with extending background checks on people making legal gun purchases is a true head scratcher, since most criminals don't buy their guns legally, with fewer than one percent acquiring their weapons at much demonized gun shows.
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May 8, 2013
Gun crime has plunged in the United States since its peak in the middle of the 1990s, including gun killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes, two new studies of government data show.Yet few Americans are aware of the dramatic drop, and more than half believe gun crime has risen, according to a newly released survey by the Pew Research Center.
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May 8, 2013
The debate over gun control is coming back to the Senate earlier than expected.Sen. Tom Coburn (R Okla.) intends to file a pair of firearms related amendments to the Water Resources Development Act that the Senate began considering on Tuesday afternoon.One amendment would repeal a gun prohibition on land under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers. The other would require annual reports from federal agencies on ammunition and gun purchases as well as firearm thefts, excepting some national security arms of government.
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May 8, 2013
National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.
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May 8, 2013
A Missouri House committee has advanced a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at protecting gun rights.The amendment approved on Tuesday would define the right to bear arms as "unalienable" and require the state to defend against any "infringement" of that right. It would also include defending one's "family" with a firearm as a guaranteed constitutional right.
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May 7, 2013
It's May, and for most seniors in high school, thoughts turn to final exams, getting a date for the prom and graduation. For David Cole Withrow, an 18 year old senior at Princeton High School in Princeton, N.C., his final days will be spent dealing with a suspension, an arrest record and a felony charge in criminal court.Mr. Withrow, who goes by "Cole," is not a criminal. He's an Eagle Scout and an honor student. He has a college scholarship, and he has been accepted at both Campbell University and East Carolina University. So far, so good.Mr. Withrow arrived at Princeton High on April 29 just as he would on any other school day -- until he realized that he inadvertently left a pair of unloaded shotguns in his pickup, secured there after he went skeet shooting the day before.
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May 7, 2013
Four gun control bills have hit a wall in the Oregon Legislature.Senate President Peter Courtney said Monday the bills won't get a vote on the Senate floor because there isn't enough support for them to pass.
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May 7, 2013
A late amendment to a bill mandating universal background checks for gun purchases in Nevada has given the effort renewed life in the state Legislature.
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May 7, 2013
The Texas House of Representatives on Monday gave final approval to a proposal to allow concealed handgun license holders to carry guns into buildings on college campuses.The proposal, which was approved on a vote of 102 41, would allow public colleges and universities to opt out of allowing guns in buildings after consulting with students, faculty and staff. Private colleges and universities could opt in.
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May 7, 2013
The Republican led House on Monday night tentatively approved a bill that would expand where concealed weapon permit holders can carry or store their pistols, while lengthening penalties for crimes committed with a gun.
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May 7, 2013
One of the principal sponsors of defeated gun background check legislation says he isn't giving up on getting a bill passed.
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May 7, 2013
It's only been a few weeks since the Senate struck down a measure aimed at expanding background checks for gun buyers, but Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D Nev., says his party is already a "couple" votes closer to the support needed to approve the legislation.Reid, speaking in an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal, was optimistic that the Senate would ultimately be able to pass the so called Manchin Toomey amendment, a bipartisan compromise that was hammered out after weeks of negotiations, and which fell five votes short of passage in last month's vote."Joe Manchin called me yesterday," Reid said, according to a video posted on the Huffington Post. "He thinks he has a couple more votes."
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May 6, 2013
Some North Carolina lawmakers want to give concealed weapon permit holders more places to carry or store their pistols.
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May 6, 2013
The U.S. Supreme Court is giving Illinois' attorney general more time to decide whether to appeal a ruling that the state's ban on the public possession of firearms is unconstitutional.
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May 6, 2013
Behind the scenes dealing over reviving stalled gun control legislation will get a push next week when Sen. Joe Manchin, a strong proponent of expanding background checks, plans to meet individually with lawmakers, a Senate source tells CNN.
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