The Secret History of Guns. "The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Aug 10, 2011 -
36 comments
How two American kids became big-time weapons traders - "Working with nothing but an Internet connection, a couple of cellphones and a steady supply of weed, the two friends — one with a few college credits, the other a high school dropout — had beaten out Fortune 500 giants like General Dynamics to score the huge arms contract. With a single deal, two stoners from Miami Beach had turned themselves into the least likely merchants of death in history." (
via; previously on
arms contractors)
posted by kliuless
on Mar 21, 2011 -
69 comments
LA Deputies: 100+ rounds, two wounded. After firing nearly 120 rounds, some Los Angeles County Sherriff's Department deputies manage to wound the driver of an SUV they'd been pursuing, one of their own number, and punch lots of 9mm holes in a Compton neighborhood. Report says no weapon in the suspect's vehicle.
posted by alumshubby
on May 10, 2005 -
50 comments
Britain's strict gun laws not really working. While Britain has some of the toughest firearms laws in the world, the recent spate of gun murders in London has highlighted a disturbing growth in armed crime. Could the NRA be correct? Should the Bobbies now be required to carry guns, something they have never done before?
posted by Rastafari
on Jan 8, 2002 -
43 comments
"I’d keep guns off the streets if I could -- keep them off people, off cops, off everybody. They’re just built to kill people, and that’s no good. Sometimes I feel like turning people in -- like when there’s a shooting in front of my house. But something always stops me. I grew up in this place. I knew these people before they even started dealing with guns. Those are the people who watch my back when I need them. They’re like family -- I can’t turn them in." Jesus Gonzalez reports on the
illegal handgun trade in Brooklyn, NY, as part of a
Marketplace series on the underground economy.
posted by sudama
on Nov 15, 2001 -
6 comments
Gun control in Kennesaw City The
Marrieta Daily Journal has an
interesting article about gun control vs. crime control. "In 1982, the Kennesaw City Council unanimously passed a law requiring heads of households to own at least one firearm with ammunition. ...following the law’s passage, the crime rate dropped 89 percent in the city, compared to the modest 10 percent drop statewide." Unfortunately they don't include accident statistics so it's only half the picture.
posted by revbrian
on Mar 14, 2001 -
17 comments