Gun News

Halbrook: Gun ownership rights violated in Messerschmidt v. Millender

In Messerschmidt v. Millender, the victim of an assault gave the police photographs of the assailant and the black shotgun with a pistol grip he used in the assault. She also said that the assailant "might" be hiding at the house of Augusta Millender, who had been his foster mother years before. Police obtained a general warrant to seize all firearms from the Millender residence, claiming to the magistrate that the assailant actually lived there and not relating that 10 people resided in the house.

Read About It: Jurist (University of Pittsburgh)

Wisconsin: Right-to-Carry permit applications swamp state agency

In less than six weeks, 56,000 people applied for a permit under Wisconsin's new concealed carry law and thousands more bought handguns, swamping the state agency handling the required background checks. The applicants so far amount to about 1% of the state's population, and very few of them have been rejected for a permit. The number of state background checks for handgun purchases is also up more than 50% for the year another sign of the large numbers of people taking advantage of the new concealed carry law.

Read About It: The Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, Wisc.)

Canada: Gun registry not quite dead yet, Tories told

The federal Conservative Party has launched a website and a series of radio ads to boast that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has finally killed the registry that records the ownership of rifles and shotguns. "The Harper government has followed through on their promise and has scrapped the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry," proclaims the website that can be found at www.scrappedtheregistry.ca. But opposition members and gun control advocates say the messaging is premature. The bill to end the registry, a long time goal of the Conservatives, has not yet made it through the House of Commons, been passed by the Senate, or given royal assent.

Read About It: The Globe and Mail (Canada)

FBI Releases Preliminary Semiannual Crime Statistics for 2011

Statistics released today in the FBI’s Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report indicate that the number of violent crimes reported in the first six months of 2011 declined 6.4 percent when compared with figures from the first six months of 2010. The number of property crimes decreased 3.7 percent for the same time frame. The report is based on information from more than 12,500 law enforcement agencies that submitted three to six comparable months of data to the FBI in the first six months of 2010 and 2011.

Read About It: FBI

Illegal immigrants have no right to arms - court

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in Missouri, rejected an appeal brought by Joaquin Bravo Flores, who was charged with possessing a firearm. Agreeing with the 5th Circuit, the court concluded that the protections of the Second Amendment do not extend to undocumented immigrants.

Read About It: News & Insight