South Dakota may be last in the nation by a variety of education measures—but soon it'll be first in the only measure that counts: guns! Gov. Dennis Daugaard just signed into law a bill that would allow teachers to carry guns into the classroom—the first such bill in the country to make it into law:
Police in Ada, Oklahoma, this week arrested 28-year-old Christie Dawn Harris after a search of her car yielded meth, drug paraphernalia, a pistol, and some ammo.
Legislators and gun rights advocates get really angry whenever nosy reporters try to use public records laws to find out who's packing heat. When the Westchester Journal News published an online map of local residents with handgun licenses last year, the paper was excoriated by the NRA and its allies; it eventually took the map down. When Gawker published a similar list—without addresses—of New York City handgun permit-holders last month, we were attacked by Fox News and received multiple death threats. And when the editor of the North Carolina Cherokee Scout dared to request—not publish, but merely request—similar data from his local sheriff, he was forced to apologize and resign; he plans to leave the state entirely.
Users of the internet culture behemoth Reddit are not famous for their level-headedness or discretion. So it was a bit discomfiting to spot this AR15 assault rifle—the same kind of gun used by Newtown shooter Adam Lanza—with a cute little Reddit alien logo engraved into it for sale on the site. Minnesota-based Redditor "x—-x—x-x" listed the gun for $1150 last week on Reddit's Gunsforsale section, where fans of memes and viral videos have been loading up on firearms before Obama orders FEMA to confiscate them all. (Online gun sales between individuals are generally legal, as long as they are shipped to a federally licensed firearms dealer.)
Master schmoozer Joe Biden took part in something called a "Facebook town hall" hosted by Parents Magazine earlier today. Biden was there, presumably, to talk about parenting advice, but, as tends to happen these days on Facebook (if, like me, you're from the South), the conversation turned to gun laws. One of the town hall's participants asked Biden if President Obama's gun control package, which contains proposals to ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines, would make law-abiding citizens "more of a target for criminals as [they] will have no way to sufficiently defend [themselves]."
Hours after her sister sat behind President Obama during his speech in Chicago on Friday, 18-year-old Janay McFarlane was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is; not three weeks ago, 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton was killed by stray gunfire in Chicago, just days after performing at Obama's second inauguration. MacFarlane's 14-year old sister Destiny is a student at Hyde Park Career Academy, the school Obama visited on Friday to speak about Chicago's gun violence.
Turns out "gun raffle" isn't just a folksy term for Russian roulette. The New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police will give away a gun a day in May, with the proceeds from ticket sales to defray the cost of police cadet training. In North Dakota, a youth hockey league will raffle off 200 guns as a fundraiser next month.
Americans for Responsible Solutions, the Super PAC founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, has released its first ad called "Let's Get This Done." The ad is narrated by Giffords, who is seen standing by her husband; it also shows pictures of memorials from several recent mass shootings, including the one that nearly killed Giffords.
Three people, including the gunman, are dead following a shootout at a Delaware courthouse Monday morning. It happened just after 8:00 a.m., when a man walked into the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington and opened fire. Police have not identified the shooter or his victims, both women, though WCAU is reporting the man's name was David T. Matusiewicz.
Denver police are investigating a shooting this morning that left three dead, including two children. Another child was injured and taken to the hospital; all three children involved are under 10 years old.
Appearing on Fox News this morning, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre reiterated his organization's claim in a recent ad that all American children deserve the same amount of protection that the President Obama's daughters receive. Fox News host Chris Wallace responded, "That's ridiculous and you know it, sir." Throughout the interview Wallace continues to be critical of LaPierre, refuting his claims that inner-city gangs are the problem, and pointing out the insanity of putting armed guards in every public place.
Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL whose book American Sniper detailed his over 150 confirmed kills, was shot dead at a gun range in Texas on Saturday afternoon. Kyle, 38, who had recently appeared on the reality show Stars Earn Stripes, was allegedly shot by Eddie Ray Routh, 25, who also shot another person before taking Kyle's truck. He was arrested a short time later after a chase with police.
"Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important," former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, currently convening hearings on gun safety. "We must do something. It will be hard but the time is now." This is the full text of her statement:
From their "What Would Django Do?" campaign to their ill-fated (and shooting-filled) Gun Appreciation Day to idiotic NRA commercials, pro-gun activists have been on an impressive roll. But it's been a few days since their last PR disaster – surely they've done something stupid recently, right? Correct. During a legislative hearing Monday in at the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford, protesters heckled the father of a six-year-old killed at Sandy Hook elementary.
