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State plans to appeal ruling shutting Island Lake Shooting Range In one of his last acts in office, retiring Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Burress ordered the Island Lake Shooting Range closed pending the outcome of a trial. No date has been set in the case filed by the Green Oak Township board in June, to force the state Department of Natural Resources to comply with township noise regulations. The gun range is in the Island Lake State Recreation Area, east of Brighton in Green Oak Township. A spokesman said the state would appeal the ruling. At the conclusion...

BANNING boys from playing with toy guns is futile and may even damage their development, a leading child psychologist has warned. Confirming what many guilty parents long suspected, Penny Holland says boys will indulge in gunplay regardless of attempts by schools, nurseries and guardians to stop them. Holland, who claims boys have fallen victim to politically correct dogma, claims that suppressing their need for boisterous play may be counter-productive. Holland, senior lecturer in early childhood studies at London Metropolitan University, believes that boys who have been banned from playing at soldiers, pirates, or superheroes, become disruptive and live up to...

<p>Scientists at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) were awarded $1.1 million by the US Department of Justice to continue testing a safer personalized weapon.</p> <p>"We're still on target with a delivery date of January, 2006, for a commercial-ready prototype of a smart gun," said Donald H. Sebastian, PhD, vice president for research and development at NJIT and professor of mechanical engineering. "This new money allows us to keep field tests and evaluations running smoothly with researchers at the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), in Picatinny." The gun has been in testing at Picatinny for almost a year now.</p>

Britain's gun laws are aimed at the wrong target, curbing and criminalising legal ownership while failing to tackle huge rises in shooting offences over the past few years, according to an international firearms legislation expert. Prof Gary Mauser said that Britain was making the same mistake as Canada and Australia in focusing on legal owners - a section of the law-abiding community where gun crimes, such as the Dunblane massacre, were aberrations. The Home Office and police chiefs should instead tackle the possession of guns in criminal hands, said Prof Mauser, a member of the independent Fraser Institute in Canada....

On October 20, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D), State Senator John Cullerton (D), and State Representative Karen May (D) held a press conference in Chicago to launch their campaign to pass a ban on semi-automatic firearms in Illinois. Also in attendance was the anti-gun extremist organization the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence—a group that has called Members of Congress "arrogant and gutless" for allowing the failed federal ban to expire. Although a study of the recently expired federal ban found that the affected firearms were rarely used in crime, and even supporters of the federal ban admit that it...

Two police officers dropped the handcuffed man on the brick steps before Sheila Harding's front door, she says. From his knees, 23-year-old Richard William Rogers Jr. pleaded to the woman who helped raise him. "They're locking me up," he remembers saying. "But if you give them a gun, they'll let me go." It was a startling proposition, Harding says: Trade a gun to avoid a criminal charge. Interviews and court documents reveal this is a common deal offered by Baltimore police to the suspects they arrest, usually in minor drug cases. It's so typical that one lieutenant recently declared it...

They say only lawmakers can set gun policy The University of Utah has "no separate constitutional authority" to regulate firearms on its campus, according to a brief filed by legislative attorneys. Utah Supreme Court justices last month asked the Legislature to participate in the ongoing gun debate, which has pitted the U. against Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. The Legislature's friend-of-the-court brief was filed Oct. 8, and lawmakers now have copies of the brief, which received no discussion Tuesday — even though it was an item on the agenda of the Legislative Management Committee meeting. Attorneys for the U. are waiting...

Sen. John Kerry has been "extremely effective" in portraying himself as a gun enthusiast and hunter in the 2004 campaign, said Kayne B. Robinson, president of the National Rifle Association, whose group is preparing a push against the Democratic candidate in the final two weeks before Election Day.     The Massachusetts Democrat is "the most anti-gun candidate we've ever had," Mr. Robinson said during an hourlong interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times. He cited more than 50 Senate votes to limit gun rights. He said the NRA is targeting its election efforts, which he said will total...

Sen. Zell Miller urges gun-rights audience to support Bush campaign CONCORD - With the sound of stock cars zooming by as a backdrop, Democratic U.S. Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia Friday urged gun owners to support President Bush's re-election. Miller spoke as part of a National Rifle Association rally at Lowe's Motor Speedway before the Busch Series SpongeBob 300 race. It was the influential gun lobby's first rally in conjunction with a NASCAR race, said Chris Cox, the organization's chief lobbyist. Former President Bill Clinton has credited the group with Al Gore's defeat in the 2000 election. "NASCAR nation is...

FAIRFAX, VA -- The National Rifle Association`s Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) has endorsed George W. Bush for President of the United States. "NRA stands with President George W. Bush on November 2nd," said Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president. "If you believe in freedom and want to preserve the Second Amendment for future generations, vote to re-elect President Bush and Vice President Cheney. "In the United States we have a long tradition of hunting and sport shooting," stated LaPierre. "President Bush and Vice President Cheney both love to hunt and fish. They know the Constitution gives people the personal right...

Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - BILLBOARDS now seen in at least 10 key states show a prancing French poodle, its fur fancily clipped for show, wearing a pink ribbon and a blue Kerry-for-president sweater. The text says: "That dog don't hunt.' And: "For 20 years John Kerry has voted against sportsmen's rights.' As Election Day approaches, the National Rifle Association is clearing its throat, ready to roar. By now, most of the persuading has been done and attention is turning to mobilization getting intense constituencies to the polls. Few are more intense than the NRA. If New England is Red...

Jake is a good friend, and I'm sure he'll forgive me for not using his real name here. One of the reasons I like Jake so much is that he carries a gun. But you'd never know it. He's a big, friendly guy with a lot of friends, and he likes to help people. Jake's wife and two kids love him. From our long friendship, I know there's not a mean bone in his body. Jake isn't my only friend who carries a concealed weapon. You would be surprised at how many of us there are. We've taken the training,...

The fox-hunting ban that has caused a bloody split in Britain is just the first step anti-hunters will take to stop sportsmen all together. Huntsmen and women all over Britain are in open revolt. They have watched their way of life be undermined and ridiculed by the urban masses that consider any form of hunting to be abhorrent. So abhorrent that they have campaigned for a total ban. The fact that the vast majority of urban protestors have little or no knowledge of fox hunting or the countryside is unimportant to our lawmakers. To them the Antis have something more...

The Platte County Sheriff's Department this week reported it has received 218 applications from residents who want a permit to carry a concealed weapon. As of Tuesday, the department has issued 188 permits with 27 applications still being processed, said Helen Means, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's department. Three permits have been denied by authorities. The number of Clay County residents applying for permits to carry concealed weapons was 394. Of those applications, 291 have been approved, three were denied and 100 are pending, according to officials. In June, both county sheriff departments announced they would begin processing applications. Sheriff...

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Assn., one of the country's most influential lobbying groups, is wading into the presidential campaign with television commercials that criticize Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts as an opponent of gun-owner rights. The Democratic nominee's camp flatly denies the charge. The NRA's advertising drive, including a 30-second spot that aired on cable TV last weekend, comes as the gun lobby is savoring two recent legislative victories here in the capital. On Sept. 13, the Republican-led Congress allowed a 10-year-old ban on certain kinds of assault weapons to expire — with no public protest from President...

In 1976, Washington, D.C. instituted the strictest handgun ban in the nation. On Wednesday, the House voted 250-171 to repeal that ban. The prevailing side included 52 Democrats, and 22 Republicans cast no votes. Last week's vote, however, was not about congressional intervention, the young blood being spilled on the streets or even the gun lobby, as opponents of the D.C. Personnel Protection Act would have you believe. Whether people will exercise the right to own a handgun is not at issue either. I even disagree with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who said repealing the ban means "homes of...

EDITORIAL OBSERVER For devoted foes of gun control, September was a banner month. It opened with Congress ignoring pleas from every major national police group to let the hard-won 1994 ban on assault weapons expire, and ended last week with the House approving a loony measure repealing Washington's strict gun laws. And that's not all. In between reinstating every hunter's sacred Second Amendment right to nail Bambi with an AK-47, and mischievously meddling in local affairs to pass a one-chamber bill to weaken public safety in the nation's capital, the National Rifle Association and its busy-beaver allies quietly scored another...

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40699 Thursday, September 30, 2004 The media that couldn't shoot straight Posted: September 30, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Larry Elder © 2004 Laurence A. Elder Can Americans now purchase assault weapons? If you listen to some pols and mainstream media, you probably cannot answer that question. In 1994, Congress passed and President Clinton signed a 10-year ban on so-called "assault weapons." In reality, the bill outlawed certain semiautomatic weapons with cosmetic features that made them look, well, military. The law banned the manufacture and...

E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version October 01, 2004, 7:40 a.m. A Second Amendment StrategyThe Supreme Court, not Congress, must blow away the gun ban. By Robert A. Levy The House of Representatives, this week, has passed the D.C. Personal Protection Act (H.R. 3193), which would overturn a 28-year ban on handguns in the nation's capital. The Senate version (S. 1414) won't be considered until after the election. In the meantime, the usual suspects are raising the usual arguments against letting D.C. residents defend themselves. These arguments are bogus, and the legislation should...

My trusty shotgun is in storage, but I don’t dare tell you where. The fall hunting season opens in a few weeks, and city slickers, including many from Capitol Hill, will try to regain the manly status of hunter-gatherers. They will rise to alarm clocks, tromp over fallen leaves, sniff the frost and perhaps see a wild turkey, covey of quail or a white-tailed deer. No thanks to D.C., which has the strictest gun law in the country. Sportsmen (and even John Kerry hunts with a shotgun) are worse than unwelcome here — they are liable to arrest and imprisonment,...