Associated Press Nov 5, 2009
Supreme Judicial Court Hears Challenge To Mass. Law That Requires Guns To Be Locked In Homes
BOSTON - Gun control proponents argued before the state's highest court Thursday that a Massachusetts law requiring gun owners to lock weapons in their homes saves lives while gun advocates pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling holding that people have a constitutional right to keep weapons for self-defense. The case involves a Billerica man whose mentally disabled son allegedly shot at a neighbor with a BB gun. The 18-year-old showed police where his father kept other unlocked guns. Under the Massachusetts safe gun-storage law, the youth's father, Richard Runyan, was charged with improperly storing a 12-gauge shotgun, a semiautomatic hunting rifle ...read the full article


Boston Globe Nov 4, 2009
State's Highest Court To Mull Gun Safety law
The state's highest court will review the validity of a state law that requires gun owners to safely store their weapons. It will be the first test in Massachusetts of a landmark US Supreme Court ruling that Americans have the constitutional right to own guns and stow them as they see fit. The state Supreme Judicial Court will hear oral arguments Thursday in the case of a Billerica man whose disabled son was accused of shooting a BB gun at a neighbor and who then showed police officers where his father kept other unlocked weapons. A Lowell District Court judge cited the ...read the full article


Philadelphia Daily News Nov 2, 2009
“Don’t Lie For The Other Guy”
ON THE GLASS cases featuring guns for sale at the Delaware Valley Sports Center, the stickers warn: "Don't Lie for the Other Guy." Behind the cases, center manager Dwayne O'Brien stands ready to rat out scofflaws, with dozens of cops' numbers programmed on his cell phone, some on speed dial. You'd never suspect that this shop was once among the city's top crime-gun dealers, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The center, using data supplied by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ranked gun shops in 2000 by how many crime guns were traced back ...read the full article


The State Nov 1, 2009
Gun Culture's Dark Side Filled With Horror, Grief
Sumter -- Last Halloween, when Tony "T.J." Darrisaw happily ran up to a single-story house in Sumter, he was met by a burst of fire from one of world's deadliest weapons - an AK-47 assault rifle. T.J. died instantly, a bag of trick-or-treat candy in his hand and more than a dozen bullets in his body. The AK-47 was set on fully automatic. It was, in effect, a machine gun. T.J. was 12 years old. His death illustrates the horror of the unintended consequences of South Carolina's love affair with guns - an affair marked by easy access to firearms by just about anyone. "One ...read the full article


Union Leader Oct 24, 2009
Guns not seized before deadly shooting
MANCHESTER - Jonathan Charbonneau should not have had the gun he used to murder his wife, wound his father-in-law and commit suicide Thursday. In the hours leading up to the murder-suicide, Charbonneau was served with papers that required the confiscation of any weapon. One paper, a domestic violence petition delivered by a deputy sheriff, barred him from possessing any gun. It also specified that Charbonneau kept his hunting rifle in the closet at 223 Jewett St. But no gun was confiscated, and Charbonneau fatally shot his wife, Melissa, Thursday afternoon at the house before shooting himself. Her father was wounded in the ...read the full article


New York Times Oct 22, 2009
Editorial: Virginia and Gun Control
Lost in the public polling fine print of the Virginia governor's race is a strikingly vital statistic: a vast majority of Virginians want to plug the gun-show loophole that for years has fed the "Iron Pipeline" of weapons flowing into states and cities with stricter gun controls. The issue of gun control has traditionally been a third rail in Virginia campaigning, and it still is. But a new poll for The Virginian-Pilot by Christopher Newport University found that 8 out of every 10 likely voters want to end the practice of allowing unlicensed dealers at "sportsmen" shows to sell guns wholesale ...read the full article


Boston Herald Oct 22, 2009
Gun laws may haved KO’d plot
Bay State gun shops operate under some of the strictest laws in the nation when it comes to providing firepower to the public. Federal investigators said that in the case of Tarek Mehanna, the inability to get an assault rifle likely jammed his alleged plot to pull off a shopping mall massacre somewhere in Massachusetts. "Massachusetts is not a firearm-friendly state," said Robert Kalil, who manages Gun and Sport North. Since 1953, the shop had been located in Lawrence, where it has sold a variety of handguns, rifles, police supplies and taught safety classes. But in August, Kalil said the shop moved up ...read the full article


Charleston Gazette Oct 22, 2009
Editorial: Pistols: Quadruple Danger?
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Since 2000, Kanawha County has issued 13,272 five-year permits to carry concealed pistols, according to Lt. Rick Rose in the sheriff's department. Cabell County has issued perhaps 4,000 in that period. Statewide, the grand total probably is over 100,000. Presumably, all those West Virginia pistol-packers carry hidden guns because they think it makes them safer. But a new federal study concludes that people with concealed pistols are four times more likely to be shot than unarmed people. Published in the American Journal of Public Health, the study funded by the National Institutes of Health examined 3,485 shootings in Philadelphia ...read the full article


Oct 21, 2009
Sadie Mitchell, 92-year-old Bronx woman killed by stray bullet, made frantic call to friend for help
A 92-year-old woman struck by a stray bullet in her Bronx living room used her last moments of strength to crawl to a phone and call her best friend for help. Sadie Mitchell - a beloved "mother to everyone on her block" who always carried fresh roses to church - was still alert when she dialed her pal minutes before she died. "She said, 'I've been shot,'" said neighbor Mary Fields. "I couldn't believe it. I said, 'What do you mean you've been shot?'" Fields and her husband, who live across E. 224th St. from Mitchell's tidy two-story Williamsbridge home, dashed over at ...read the full article


Virginian-Pilot Oct 21, 2009
Editorial: Closing Loophole Has Wide Support
"At the moment, the state government is complicit in a large number of no-questions-asked transactions at gun shows at civic centers and other public venues throughout Virginia... The current law caters to a small percentage of the population who put their own personal convenience ahead of the safety of the general population. It's time for the legislature to stop easing the way for criminals to acquire guns." ...read the full article