Free Republic

Signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, Assembly Bill 173 amended state firearms laws to allow California to turn over gun owners’ personal information to gun violence researchers. Finding there was no “emergency” to warrant restraining California from sharing millions of gun owners’ personal information with gun violence researchers, a federal judge Wednesday declined to block the state’s enactment of Assembly Bill 173.U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns heard from attorneys for Jane and John Does and Attorney General Rob Bonta regarding a constitutional challenge to Assembly Bill 173, a law which amended California firearms laws to authorize...

Jared Loughner, the young Tucson man accused of shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killing six people, is set to plead guilty Tuesday, an official familiar with the case said Saturday. A psychologist appointed by the court is expected to say at the hearing that he is competent to plead guilty, the official said. A previously scheduled status hearing has been changed to a change-of-plea hearing. In February, the psychologist said Mr. Loughner, a diagnosed schizophrenic, remained incompetent to stand trial. But she said at the time that the defendant was making progress toward competency, according to federal Judge Larry A....

Federal authorities are planning to move the trial of the alleged gunman in the Jan. 8 mass shooting in Tucson to San Diego because of extensive pretrial publicity in Arizona, federal law enforcement sources said Sunday night. Jared Lee Loughner, 22, is charged in federal court in Arizona, but court officials plan to move the case out of the state within several weeks, the sources said. They cited publicity and the sensitivity of the case in Arizona, where one of those fatally shot was John M. Roll, the state's chief federal judge. The new chief judge, Roslyn O. Silver, will...