My research shows that such mandatory rules will make families less safe. Accidental guns deaths involving children are very rare, when they do occur they don't involve the child firing the gun, and the locks make it difficult for people to use the guns defensively. The new Virginia rules are available here:
R. Possession of any weapons, including firearms, in the home or independent living arrangement shall comply with federal and state laws and local ordinances. 1. Any firearms and other weapons shall be unloaded and stored with the weapon's safety mechanisms activated in a locked closet or cabinet. 2. Ammunition shall be stored in a locked location separate from the weapon. 3. The key or combination to the locked closet and cabinet shall at all times be maintained out of reach of all children in the home.
A federal judge on Wednesday blocked enforcement of a first-in-the-nation law that restricted what Florida physicians can say about guns to their patients, ruling the law violates the U.S. Constitution's free speech guarantees and does not trample gun rights.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke said it was important to emphasize "the free flow of truthful, non-misleading information within the doctor-patient relationship."
"This case concerns one of our Constitution's most precious rights — the freedom of speech," Cooke said. "A practitioner who counsels a patient on firearm safety, even when entirely irrelevant to medical care or safety, does not affect or interfere with the patient's right to continue to own, possess or use firearms."
The law was passed earlier this year by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law June 2 by GOP Gov. Rick Scott. The governor, the National Rifle Association and other supporters contended it was a violation of privacy and possibly the Second Amendment for doctors to question patients about guns at home.
But physicians' groups representing some 11,000 doctors and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence sued. They said the law halted meaningful discussions between doctors and patients — especially parents with guns — about keeping the weapons out of the hands of children.
Dr. Lisa Cosgrove, president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the ruling will help save lives. She said doctors routinely counsel patients about safety issues at home, on everything from backyard swimming pools to use of bike helmets. . . .
Accidental deaths general fall over time. What this is saying is that accidental gun deaths have been falling at a faster rate.
No one blames "our nation as a whole" for the tragic accidents that claim the lives of children, and adults, involving automobiles, swimming pools, poisonings, suffocations and falls, all of which rank far higher than firearms as causes ("Collateral damage," July 25). In fact, less than 1 percent of fatal accidents in the home are the result of firearms, according to the National Safety Council. Let's not demonize firearms or lawful firearms owners in the search for answers to the unfortunate accidental deaths of three city-area children. Let's instead remind the public that such accidents are rare and can be prevented by taking steps to ensure that guns cannot be accessed by children or other unauthorized persons. Place unloaded guns in locked storage. Store ammunition in a locked location separate from firearms. If a gun is kept in the home for protection, make sure only authorized persons can access it. Quick-access lock boxes are suitable for this. . . .
I don't really think that trying to convince people to lock up there guns makes a lot of sense from a safety campaign because it ignores how much harder all this makes it for people to use guns defensively.
Ontario police shut down a portion of a major highway because of a minor police call involving someone who owned registered guns. The big offense turns out to be in the end that trigger locks weren't properly attached to his registered guns, even though there were not kids in the home and the guns were stored in a "closet" (actually I am told in a gun case). Is this really serious?
What started as a simple squabble between two grown men turned into a major calamity Sunday when the OPP and the tactical team shut down a section of Hwy. 11 for the entire night.
Police responded to a 911 call after a man reported he had been assaulted by his roommate, Ron Woods, who is also the owner of the home on Hwy. 11 just north of Barrie.
The red flags went up when police learned Woods owned firearms.
Police shut down the highway between Line 5 and Line 9 and the tactics and rescue unit surrounded the area around midnight.
Soon the region’s emergency response ream and the canine unit joined in and the place was swarming with officers with machine guns.
The highway was reopened at 6 a.m. Monday after Woods, 51, who claims he had no idea of what was going on, surrendered to police and was taken into custody.
“They threw a flash grenade through my window,” said a battered and bruised Woods, as he limped out of court after being released on $4,000 bail. “They handcuffed me and dragged me out on my face.”
Outside of court he hugged family members who shook their heads and wept.
“We’re confused,” said one family member.
Turns out the weapons were properly registered, in gun cases, stored in a closet but police say the trigger-locks were not applied.
Woods was charged with five counts of improperly stored firearms and one count of assaulting his roommate. . . .
Fox News for example had this from the father, John Carpenter:
"Lott cited a Merced, Calif. family whose guns were put away because of the state's safe storage law. John Carpenter, who lost two children in an attack in 2000, said a gun would have stopped the man who broke into his home with a pitchfork. 'If a gun had been here, today I'd have at least a daughter alive,' Carpenter said."
I also talked to the children's grandfather Rev. John Hilton in person and participated in a radio interview with him where he made very similar statements to the father, though I don't have recordings of either discussion.
Well, now some comments from the father's parent's have now been found. It doesn't seem to line up exactly with what Suprynowicz wrote, but one thing is clear is that the children's parents and the grandparents on both sides of the family are convinced that gunlocks prevented the family from using guns defensively.
I am the paternal grandmother of the two children who were brutally murdered inside their rural Merced California home on August 23, 2000 by a stranger with a pitchfork. Instead of suing gun manufacturers, I am of the opinion it is our lawmakers who need to be sued. It was you who created the laws that kept my grandchildren from being able to defend themselves with any weapon greater than their bare hands. All of my son's children had been trained in the use of firearms but were unable to get to their Dad's weapon because of California State Law. . . .
DC crime data is available here. For a discussion of what Chicago's Mayor Daley predicted would happen see here. My own argument for what has happened focuses most heavily on the Supreme Court striking down DC's gunlock law.
UPDATE: For a discussion on what happened to murder in Chicago after its ban ended see here.
Duffy shot back at her husband with claims that he often smoked pot, watched adult-themed shows on television in Galen’s presence and kept loaded guns in the house where she could potentially get to them. She also requested that the court ensure she is financially well taken care of should Hopper die before the divorce is finalized, given that their pre-nuptial agreement as it stands would leave her with very little of the actor’s earnings.
BOSTON, MA -- State Police Lt. Richard Bolduc has Justice Antonin Scalia and four of the judge's colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court to thank for the likely resurrection of his law enforcement career. On June 25, 2007, Cape Cod detectives went to Bolduc's home to investigate a report that his son had pointed an unloaded gun at a 5-year-old girl and pulled the trigger. When the 12-year-old son directed investigators to an unlocked bureau in his father's bedroom, they discovered a department-issued, high-capacity handgun that was not secured with a trigger lock. The 34-year police veteran, who was not home at the time, was charged under G.L.c.140, §131L with the illegal storage of an unsecured firearm in his house. A felony conviction, which appeared likely, could have landed Bolduc in jail for up to 10 years and ended his career. But then Bolduc hit the legal lottery. His lawyer, Daniel W. O'Malley of Quincy, was able to persuade a Barnstable District Court judge, and eventually the county's district attorney, to dismiss the case based on District of Columbia v. Heller, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling decided less than 24 hours after Bolduc's criminal troubles began. "Having a case dismissed as a result of the Supreme Court handing down such an outcome-altering decision the day after someone is charged with a crime sounds like something from a James Patterson crime novel, not from a courthouse on the Cape," remarks former prosecutor Paula J. Clifford, a Boston lawyer who was not involved in the case. "[Heller] is obviously an extremely significant case that's going to be cited by lawyers throughout the state, but to have that kind of an immediate impact is pretty unusual." A no-go in Chelsea The eight months since Heller have been frustrating ones for Revere lawyer Carmine P. Lepore, of Lepore & Hochman, who says lower court judges are split over what the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision means to §131L prosecutions. . . . .
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — An effort to expand an Illinois law requiring safe storage of guns failed Thursday.
Illinois law currently allows criminal charges against people who fail to store guns safely when they know a child under 14 could get hold of the weapon without permission.
Chicago Rep. Deborah Graham proposed raising the age limit. Under her proposal, gun owners could be charged if they didn't keep weapons away from anyone under 18. But critics said the law was too broad and would do little to improve gun safety.
The final outcome of the pilot who accidentally discharged his handgun when he was re-installing the trigger lock on his gun is discussed here:
A US Airways pilot who said he accidentally discharged a pistol in the cockpit during a flight has been fired.
The pilot, Capt. James Langenhahn, 55, of Franklin Park, reportedly told avaiation officials that his .40-caliber pistol accidentally discharged March 22.
The shot was fired while Capt. Langenhahn was stowing weapon as the jet prepared to land in Charlotte, N.C. Damage was limited to a bullet hole in the left side of the fuselage.
Scott Theuer, spokesman for the newly validated US Airlines Pilots Association, said the union had heard about the pending firing.
"We will fight it vigorously," Mr. Theuer said.
The incident is the first to be reported since 2002 when pilots were permitted to be armed. Those who carry firearms have been trained through the Federal Deck Officer program.
The incredibly dumb TSA rule that requires a trigger lock be put on loaded guns is what is to blame. There is a reason why trigger lock makers warn people not to instill trigger locks on loaded guns.
This is the first time that I have found of this type of discharge. I have had at least one pilot today tell me about the problems with the gun locks required on the guns. According to those that I have talked to, the gun discharged when the lock was being put on the gun. Are these guys supposed to unload the gun before they re-lock their gun. Here is one story here:
A gun carried by a US Airways pilot accidentally discharged during a flight from Denver to Charlotte on Saturday, according to airline and federal officials.
No one was injured, and the aircraft was not in any danger during the flight, officials said. It landed at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport around 11:51 a.m. Saturday.
The pilot, who wasn't identified, was allowed to carry the firearm as part of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program run by the Transportation Security Administration, officials said. The program was created after the 9-11 terrorist attacks and allows eligible crew members to use a firearm to defend against an act of criminal violence or air piracy, according to the TSA's Web site. Those eligible include pilots, flight engineers or navigators.
The pilot involved in Saturday's incident last qualified for the TSA program in November. . . .
