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• Fun is the target at shooting event
The New York State Muzzleloaders Association is holding its annual spring shoot and campout this weekend at the Elbridge Rod and Gun Club. Shooters will begin setting up camp today at the club, located off Laird Road in Jordan. Competition is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Muzzleloading enthusiasts from throughout the state are expected. Both primitive and modern guns are welcome.
• Writers' safari, New York style
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the New York State Outdoor Writers Association's Annual Safari, this year held in St. Lawrence County. The hub for the gathering was Basswood Lodge and Hunting Preserve near Rensselaer Falls. I've been friends with the Forsythe family, who own and run the operation, for many years. So the four-day visit was special in two ways: I was able to network with my fellow outdoor media members, while spending time with my friends, the Forsythe's.
• Anatomy of a home invasion
Merrily Ottomanelli stood yesterday by her kitchen door and pointed to a fist-sized dent from a shotgun blast that left her Coram home splattered with the blood of an armed teenager who police said broke into her home.
• DEC Re-Opens Application Period for Second Round of Habitat/Access Funding Grant
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis today announced that DEC is re-opening the application period for proposals for grants that will fund projects aimed at improving fish and wildlife habitat and public access for hunting, fishing, trapping and other fish and wildlife related-recreation and study. As a result of a procedural error with advertising the request for proposals in the New York State Register, DEC is required to extend the application period for the Habitat/Access Stamp Grants. Applications that were received by the Department in the first call for grants will also be considered in this application period.
• Group looking for champions of the outdoors
Do you know of someone who has been a champion of the outdoors? Don't be shy, or modest. Perhaps you are such a person. If so, the New York State Outdoor Writers Association would like to hear from you.
• State primary date in limbo
Imagine getting ready to run a road race. You really want to win, but no one has told you where the starting line is or when the gun will go off. For that matter, you don't know where the finish line is, either. A nightmare worthy of Freud? No, it's a bad dream that's been lived daily by potential office seekers, political parties and election boards across New York state since the state Legislature began talking about moving the date of this year's primary election from Sept. 11 to Sept. 18.
• Tenant shoots suspect during home invasion
Shots were fired during a daring broad daylight burglary attempt Tuesday. Police say the incident happened on Sharon Avenue, where a tenant opened fire at a burglary suspect.

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• Firearm sales slower, But more Utahns seeking concealed weapons permits
At the current pace, Utahns will purchase fewer firearms, but obtain more concealed weapons permits than they have in the last five years, according to statistics recently released by the Bureau of Criminal Identification. Nearly 20 percent of the 28,855 firearm purchases this year were made in the Top of Utah. Residents in the area also take up 19 percent of the state's concealed weapons licenses. Consistently increasing year after year, more than 55,000 Utahns own licenses currently -- 4,103 of those were issued in 2003. Based on 2003's firearm transfers, which is what BCI calls a purchase, officials don't think people have a sudden distaste for guns, but rather this year is normal.
• Quick. Handgun or BB gun?
It's a life-and-death decision, made in the tenth of a second the time it takes for one flutter of a butterfly's wing. A police officer stares down the barrel of a gun. Is it real? Or is it one of the many perfect replica BB guns that Lowell police officers have been seizing from juvenile gang members with increasing frequency? 'In that one-tenth of a second that someone lifts it up to point it at me, I don't have time to look at the side for a brand name,' Lowell Police Officer David Peaslee says. He holds a Crosman brand airgun in his hand. It was a gun he'd confiscated when a group of juveniles scattered; he found it on the ground. 'It looks almost exactly like a Glock,' he says. 'Same size, same shape. If someone pointed this at me I'd draw down on them.'
• Anti-gun group seeks to challenge rules on filing Utah initiatives
A coalition that wants to keep guns out of schools and churches also wants to challenge changes to the state initiative laws made during the 2003 Legislature. The 49-page brief filed by the law firm of Jones, Waldo, Holbrook and McDonough for the Utah Safe to Learn-Safe to Worship Coalition seeks to strike down several new provisions governing the state's direct democracy laws. The coalition has been trying to get an initiative on the ballot to ban guns from schools and churches. Last August, the Utah Supreme Court threw out lawmakers' requirement adopted in 1998 that initiative supporters had to gather signatures from 10 percent of registered voters in 20 of 29 counties.
• 3 held in Phoenix in gun sale fraud scheme
Three people were being held at the Madison Street Jail in Phoenix on suspicion of fraud in connection with an Internet scam, authorities said. Gilbert police and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the U.S. Postal Service executed three search warrants in Phoenix and Mesa on Thursday, said Gilbert police Sgt. Jeff Esslinger. Esslinger said that police arrested Robert K. Floyd, Tina D. Cabezut and Gregory Kelliher on charges that they defrauded at least 20 people out of more than $40,000. The investigation began a month ago after Gilbert police received complaints from people who tried to buy guns from an Internet site, Esslinger said.
• CA: ATF prepares for Dublin move
Dublin, long associated with law enforcement, will soon be seeing even more people with guns. The city, known for being the home of Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail, will soon welcome the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Northern California division. The field division, now based on Main Street in San Francisco, will relocate to 5600 Arnold Drive in Dublin later this year, after some work is completed on its new headquarters building and offices. The move will affect more than 50 workers.
• Anti-Gun Bigotry Alive and Well In Glenview, Ill., Says Citizens Committee
Bigotry is alive and well in Glenview, Ill., but in this case, it is the politically-correct type: prejudice against firearms and those who would buy them, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) said today. 'Glenview Trustee Mike Guinane's suggestion that firearm sales be permanently banned from the village, in order to 'make a statement about Glenview's disdain for guns,' reflects an incredibly sneering attitude toward millions of American citizens who own firearms,' said CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron. 'Some of those citizens live and work in Glenview, and they no doubt take grave exception to Mr. Guinane's narrow social views.' Likewise, Waldron said, statements attributed to Village President Larry Carlson by the St. Paul Pioneer Press suggest that the level of anti-gun social bigotry under his leadership has reached the point where a business has suffered by not being able to sell a perfectly legal and highly regulated line of products.
• GA: Columbus to get gun plant
A firearms manufacturing plant that eventually could employ as many as 500 will be built in Columbus by German gun manufacturer Heckler & Koch. Mike Gaymon, president of the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce, said Friday that the plant initially will employ about 200 people. 'This has been an eight-year project,' Gaymon said of the state's efforts to lure the plant. 'Gov. [Sonny] Perdue has been very supportive.' Heckler & Koch makes firearms -- including submachine guns, assault rifles and handguns -- for both the civilian and military markets. Among its customers are the German and Spanish armed forces.
• Rookie Shooters Right on Target for Tennessee
The Volunteer State's Big Springs Rookie trap team traveled to the Scholastic Clay Target Program (SCTP) Trap Nationals not knowing what to expect, but together the five teammates managed to take second place with a combined 888 broken targets. Coached by Steve Picklesimer and Troy and Janice Cooper, pre-teen shooters Cory Cooper and Brandon Colbert of Henderson, David Keefe of Tiptonville, Sean Picklesimer of Murfreesboro and Tanner Morgan of Christiana found themselves in the evening shoot-off after breaking 777 of their 1,000 targets in the qualifying round.
• IN: Local trapshooters place 2nd in nation
They were trap shooting novices among Novices. Now they not only are state champions, they are America's runnerup team in the Junior Novice Division of the Scholastic Clay Target Program administered by the National Shooting Sports Association. Captain Zach Adams, fellow Princeton resident Brian Collins, Patoka's Kyle Schafer, Owensville's Andrew Koch and Newburgh's Alex Arwood, a first-year team representing the Evansville Gun Club where they practice, combined to place second among 35 teams in last weekend's national championships near Vandalia, Ohio. They qualified for the national tournament by winning the July 12 state tourney on the Indiana Gun Club range in Indianapolis.
• NRA files brief in high-court gun case
The National Rifle Association has filed a brief in support of what backers are calling a potential landmark gun-rights case now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Sponsored primarily by KeepAndBearArms.com, or KABA, a pro-gun rights website and organization, the case challenges 'the California semi-auto rifle ban on the basis of Second Amendment protection of our individual right to keep and bear arms,' according to the group's website. California lawmakers banned a number of rifles under the Assault Weapons Control Act in 1989, but a decade later, the state also restricted the sale, manufacture, or importation into the state of all semi-automatic rifles having combinations of arbitrarily selected features – such as detachable magazines, folding stocks, flash suppressors and pistol grips.
• Women, Jews, Others Join Pro-Gun Effort
The National Rifle Association has plenty of company in a major gun rights case that the Supreme Court is considering hearing. Among the organizations that have joined the case are the Pink Pistols, a group of gay and lesbian gun owners; the Second Amendment Sisters; and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. They are asking the court to consider if the Constitution's Second Amendment guarantees the right to own a gun. At issue is an appeal filed this summer by some rugby teammates and friends who challenged California's assault weapons ban. They lost at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which ruled the Constitution protects gun rights of militias but not individuals.
• The True Aim Of Gun Grabbers
The debate over the right of the American people to own and carry guns has been, fought, and re-fought over and again. The emotionally charged arguments of those against guns have been heard and re-heard. And they have been proven dead wrong time after time by gun rights arguments. Yet those who despise your gun will never cease their insidious campaign until they have stripped away your most essential personal liberty, the right to self-defense. In the end the sacred right to protect each other and ourselves is the target of the gun-grabbers like Sarah Brady and Senator Charles Schummer. Yes we all know they claim to be defending children when they talk gun control. We know they claim to be interested in reducing crime when they rant about sensible gun laws. We have heard all of these lies over and over and over again.

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• Massachusetts: Court battle over gun storage law
The Middlesex district attorney's office argued before the state Supreme Judicial Court yesterday that a law that requires guns to be stored in locked containers or outfitted with trigger locks is valid. But the attorney for a Billerica man charged with keeping a gun in an unlocked carrying case said the law is negated by a recent decision of the US Supreme Court.
• Women turning to guns for peace of mind
Home is where we feel the safest. Or at least we should. When that security is stolen, it leaves many people, especially women, wondering how to fight back. Pepper spray is a popular option. But these days, more and more women are turning to something much stronger.
• Canada: Gun registry rejected
The first step in getting rid of the boondoggle known as the long gun registry was taken in the House of Commons on Wednesday. MPs voted to scrap the requirement to register individual rifles and shotguns -- a registry that has consumed more than $1 billion, been condemned for its wasteful and reckless spending by the Auditor General, and pitted urban residents against those who actually use guns as tools for hunting, sport shooting and predator control.
• Canada: Battle heats up over gun registry
Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, is under fire for sitting on a 2008 RCMP report on the Canadian Firearms Program, suggested staff at the national firearms registry are deliberately hiding information in order to ensure the registry's survival.
• NRA looks to ban adoption agencies from asking about gun ownership
The National Rifle Association is pushing legislation to ban adoption agencies from asking potential parents if they have guns and ammunition in the home. NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer said adoption agencies are violating gun owners' rights by asking about firearms in an adoption form. She said any request about gun ownership from an agency connected with government was tantamount to establishing a gun registry.
• Arizona: Restaurants let Right-to-Carry permit holders know they're welcome
Mark Peagler, owner of the Silver Spur Saloon, says his business is safer by allowing people with Right-to-Carry permits to dine in his establishment, calling it "a deterrent" to criminals looking for a place to rob. He said businesses posting signs stating, "We do not permit firearms" would logically be more desirable targets.
• New Jersey: Cape May County Sheriff introduces Eddie Eagle program
Cape May County Sheriff Gary Schaffer is pleased to announce that the Sheriff's Office is offering a new educational program on gun safety for children from pre K to grade 3. Sheriff Schaffer said, "The purpose of the program isn't to teach whether guns are good or bad, but rather to promote the protection and safety of children."
• UK: Minister tells sportsmen: 'Get into the real world'
A war of words erupted last night over the future of the ban on hunting with dogs. Labour's rural affairs minister Dan Norris claimed hunt supporters who wanted to see the law repealed had to "get into the real world", with public opposition to the sport on the rise.
• Another good night for the Second Amendment
NY-23: Winning Democrat Bill Owens was A-rated by NRA (as was Hoffman).

Virginia: Either Deeds (B rating) or McDonnell (A) were sure to be a big improvement over outgoing Governor Kaine. Deeds lost the NRA endorsement by supporting closing of the (non-existent) “gun show loophole.” In the Attorney General race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli (A+) handily defeated a D-rated Democrat who advertised very aggressively on the gun show issue. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (A+) trounced an F-rated challenger.