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There's a Lautenberg/gun bill thread at digg.com. It seems that there are more pro-gun people on it that anti-gun nuts. That doesn't happen often over there. FReepers should digg it up. http://digg.com/politics/UPDATE_Lautenberg_gun_show_bill_as_bad_as_expected

The Raahauge's Shooting Sports Fair, a hands-on gun show where you can shoot all the latest firearms on the market, has been cancelled for 2009. The Sports Fair is normally held the first weekend in June each year at Mike Raahauge Shooting Enterprises in Corona. Mike Raahauge said the fair was cancelled because it had become impossible for all the firearm makers to get enough ammunition for this event. "I just spoke with all of the manufacturers and none of them can get ammo," said Raahauge late last week. "We could hold the fair, but we'd probably be out of...

An ad campaign is being launched today to try to force New York City's gun-control laws on Virginians. The ads running in the commonwealth are funded by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The mayor should keep his big-government politics north of the Mason-Dixon Line where they belong. Mr. Bloomberg donated $500,000 last year to a gun-control lobbying outfit called Americans United for Safe Streets, which is running the campaign. The mayor's largesse accounts for 99.5 percent of all money raised by the group. The ads are pegged to the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings and link...

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RICHMOND, Va. - A bill requiring private sellers at gun shows to perform background checks on buyers passed out of a Senate committee Monday, but there remains little chance it could become law. The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 8-7 for legislation to close the so-called gun-show loophole, where private sellers at the shows are not required to perform the federal checks required of licensed gun dealers. The legislation is introduced annually, but it has only cleared the committee a couple times in the past. It has never passed in the full Senate. Even if it does, the measure...

The election of the nation's first democratic president in eight years and the country's economic turmoil is prompting more people to take up arms, according to local gun rights supporters. The promoter of the West's largest gun and ammunition expo said that attendance at some shows across the nation has increased by 50 percent to 100 percent. He expected attendance of about 12,000 for this weekend's show at the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy, compared to a typical crowd of around 9,000. The show will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. "Sales at shows, particularly in the area...

RICHMOND Gov. Timothy M. Kaine called Tuesday for new restrictions on firearm sales at gun shows but stopped short of declaring passage of the legislation as a high priority for the 2008 General Assembly session. Under current law, background checks on buyers are not required by unlicensed dealers who privately sell and trade firearms at the shows. Kaine endorsed closing the loophole, saying it provides an opening for felons and mentally ill people to buy weapons they are otherwise forbidden to purchase. "You either want felons to have guns or you don't," Kaine said on a morning radio show. "You...

LADSON, S.C. (AP) — White House hopeful Fred Thompson called his trip down aisle of rifles, shotguns and pistols at a gun show "a day in paradise," and said he wished he could come back to spend more time and money. It was the former Tennessee senator and "Law and Order" actor's second trip to a gun show since launching his late bid for the GOP nomination in September. He reached out and picked up an old M-1 Garand rifle and raised an over-and-under Winchester shotgun suitable for the skeet shooting he's been known to do as he made his...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - When Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson walks down the aisles of a gun show Saturday in Charleston, the game he's hunting won't be hard to spot. The former senator and actor is looking to differentiate himself from rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney - and use his appeal as a "country boy from Tennessee" who knows NASCAR and hunting to portray the city slickers as out of step with this early voting state's residents. There is little doubt gun rights are a tough issue for the front of the GOP pack. Former New York Mayor Giuliani has...

20,000,000 (20 Million) people attend gun shows every year. 400,000 people attend every weekend! That's a Super Bowl and a World Series every weekend! And, you want to close us down? I wonder why? The GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE is called the CONSTITUTION! We citizens of these United States have had the RIGHT to sell our own private property without the pre-approval of the United States Government for 225 years. Why now are they trying to take this right away from us? WE NEED YOUR HELP!!! We are organizing the GUN SHOW PROTECTION UNION to protect our constitutional rights to gather ...

Here is huge news for Fred Thompson: He will be given exclusive rights to advertise at Florida gun shows, eleven of them, between now and the January 29, 2008 Florida primary! Here's the news from the Miami Herald: "Fred Thompson's presidential campaign has hit a conservative bull's eye: The exclusive rights to advertise at some of Florida's largest gun shows. Pasco County Republican chairman Bill Bunting said he has engineered the deal for the former Tennessee senator and Law & Order star because he's the best person to trust when it comes to the right to buy, sell and own...

Phoenix, AZ - Three high-ranking Mexican police officers were arrested on allegations of buying weapons and ammunition at a gun show in Phoenix in violation of a law barring noncitizens from purchasing firearms, a U.S. official said Wednesday. The three had crossed the border at Calexico, Calif., in an official police vehicle and driven to Phoenix, said Tom Mangan, a spokesman with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Police and federal agents arrested them after the three bought three guns and about 450 rounds of ammunition Saturday at the gun show, Mangan said. It appeared the officers were...

NEW PORT RICHEY - Fred Thompson got a strong endorsement from gun control opponent Bill Bunting, who's also chairman of the Pasco County Republican Party, during a campaign stop Friday. Thompson spoke at the county party's Reagan Day fundraising dinner to a packed room at Spartan Manor in New Port Richey. Thompson, just starting out as an announced candidate in the GOP primary, appears likely to find strong support in Pasco County, some local GOP leaders said. Attorney General Bill McCollum, the Florida chairman for Thompson's competitor, Rudy Giuliani, was planned to be keynote speaker at the dinner for months,...

September 14, 2007 -- ALTOONA, Pa. - An off-duty auxiliary cop who helped train fellow officers was accidentally shot and killed at a gun-club demonstration, police said yesterday. A military-style Gatling gun mounted on the back of a Hummer discharged Wednesday night, shooting Michael Kurty, 36, of Hollidaysburg, once in the head. "We don't know if it malfunctioned or if he was trying to clear it, but it appears to be an accidental shooting," state Trooper Jeff Petucci said.

CELEBRATION -- Fred Thompson's presidential campaign has hit a conservative bull's eye: The exclusive rights to advertise at some of Florida's largest gun shows. Pasco County Republican chairman Bill Bunting said he has engineered the deal for the former Tennessee senator and Law & Order star because he's the best person to trust when it comes to the right to buy, sell and own guns. In a state with 435,000 concealed-weapons permit holders, the arrangement all but guarantees that thousands of voters who care deeply about the issue could identify Thompson as their man heading into the Jan. 29 primary,...

Mayor Gavin Newsom and District Attorney Kamala Harris have sent a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking him to halt gun shows at the Cow Palace. The Crossroads of the West Gun Show happening there this weekend. The letter follows a Thursday announcement by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, that he would introduce legislation to ban gun shows at the arena. The officials say that the shows attract people who sell guns illegally and that those guns are being used in crimes in the city. They have no evidence to support those claims, however.

PLEASANTON -- A federal judge has upheld Alameda County's ban on possessing guns on county property, rejecting a free-speech claim by former promoters of gun shows at the fairgrounds in Pleasanton. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Martin Jenkins of San Francisco was dated March 31 but was not received by lawyers until Tuesday, as the nationwide debate over gun control was being rekindled by Monday's slaughter of 32 people by a gunman at Virginia Tech University. Donald Kilmer, lawyer for the gun show operators who challenged the ordinance when it was enacted in 1999, said they hadn't decided yet...

Special to The Star As I See It A March 26 article in The Star presented an unfortunately limited perspective on gun shows — a great, fun and important American tradition. There are some bad apples in any group, but from 30 years of attending gun shows on a regular basis I can assure you that the vast majority of table holders and attendees are as fine a group of law-abiding and patriotic Americans as you’d want to find. Current and former military and law enforcement personnel tend to be disproportionately represented. A commitment to safe, responsible and legal firearms...

Each weekend in America, vast arsenals of weapons are bought and sold. Critics say those buyers include criminals. Advocates insist it’s all legal. Assault rifles were displayed for sale at a gun show March 12 at the 3 Trails Expo Center in Kansas City. While legal, such shows worry law enforcement officials. AK-47s. SKS sniper rifles. Armor-piercing bullets. Machine gun displays. It’s just another weekend at a Kansas City gun show, where there is so much firepower at your fingertips that even some gun enthusiasts shake their heads in wonder. But the shows — which gained popularity in the 1990s...

U.S. agents, police rattled customers, organizer tells panel WASHINGTON -- A crackdown on illegal firearm sales at Richmond-area gun shows led to a congressional inquiry yesterday into whether federal agents trampled the rights of gun buyers. The organizer of an August gun show at Richmond Raceway Complex told a House panel that a large team of federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and city, state and county police patrolled the two-day show, harassing law-abiding gun buyers while looking for illicit gun sales. Annette Gelles of Showmasters, the organizer, told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime...