History > 2008 > USA > Gun violence (IV)

In Texas School,

Teachers Carry Books and Guns

August 29, 2008
The New York Times
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

HARROLD, Tex. — Students in this tiny town of grain silos and ranch-style houses spent much of the first couple of days in school this week trying to guess which of their teachers were carrying pistols under their clothes.

“We made fun of them,” said Eric Howard, a 16-year-old high school junior. “Everybody knows everybody here. We will find out.”

The school board in this impoverished rural hamlet in North Texas has drawn national attention with its decision to let some teachers carry concealed weapons, a track no other school in the country has followed. The idea is to ward off a massacre along the lines of what happened at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.

“Our people just don’t want their children to be fish in a bowl,” said David Thweatt, the schools superintendent and driving force behind the policy. “Country people are take-care-of-yourself people. They are not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”

Even in Texas, with its tradition of lenient gun laws and frontier justice, the idea of teachers’ taking guns to class has rattled some people and sparked a fiery debate.

Gun-control advocates are wringing their hands, while pro-gun groups are gleeful. Leaders of the state’s major teachers unions have expressed stunned outrage, while the conservative Republican governor, Rick Perry, has endorsed the idea.

In the center of the storm is Mr. Thweatt, a man who describes himself as “a contingency planner,” who believes Americans should be less afraid of protecting themselves and who thinks signs at schools saying “gun-free zone” make them targets for armed attacks. “That’s like saying sic ’em to a dog,” he said.

Mr. Thweatt maintains that having teachers carry guns is a rational response to a real threat. The county sheriff’s office is 17 miles away, he argues, and the district cannot afford to hire police officers, as urban schools in Dallas and Houston do.

The school board decided that teachers with concealed guns were a better form of security than armed peace officers, since an attacker would not know whom to shoot first, Mr. Thweatt said. Teachers have received training from a private security consultant and will use special ammunition designed to prevent ricocheting, he added.

Harrold, about 180 miles northwest of Dallas, is a far cry from the giant districts in major Texas cities, where gang violence is the main concern and most schools have their own police forces. Barely 100 students of all ages attend classes here in two brick buildings built more than 60 years ago. There are two dozen teachers, a handful of buses and a football field bordered by crops.

Yet the town is not isolated in rustic peace, supporters of the plan point out. A four-lane highway runs through town, bringing with it a river of humanity, including criminals, they say. The police recently shut down a drug-producing laboratory in a ramshackle house near school property. Drifters sometimes sleep under the overpass.

“I’m not exactly paranoid,” Mr. Thweatt said. “I like to consider myself prepared.”

Some residents and parents, however, think Mr. Thweatt may be overstating the threat. Many say they rarely lock their doors, much less worry about random drifters with pistols running amok at the school. Longtime residents were hard-pressed to recall a single violent incident there.

Others worry that introducing guns into the classroom might create more problems than it solved. A teacher tussling with a student could lose control of a weapon, or a gun might go off by accident, they said.

“I don’t think there is a place in the school whatsoever for a gun unless you have a police officer in there,” said Bobby G. Brown, a farmer and former school board chairman whose two sons were educated at the school. “I don’t care how much training they have.”

His wife, Diane Brown, added: “There are too many things that could happen. They are not trained to make life-and-death-situation judgments.”

Mr. Thweatt declined to say how many teachers were armed, or who they were, on the theory that it would tip off the bad guys. He also declined to identify the private consultant who provided teachers with about 40 hours of weapons training.

Most critics question whether teachers, even with extra training, are as qualified as police officers to take out an armed attacker.

“We are trained to teach and to educate,” said Zeph Capo, the legislative director for the Houston Association of Teachers. “We are not trained to tame the Wild West.”

Texas gun laws ban the weapons on school property. But the Legislature carved out an exception allowing school boards to permit people with concealed handgun licenses to carry their weapons. No local district had taken advantage of the exception until the Harrold school board acted.

Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said the state’s hands were tied. “We have really tried not to get involved in this,” Ms. Ratcliffe said. “Frankly, it’s a matter of local control.”

Gun-control advocates say, however, that while the school district may be complying with state gun laws, it appears to be violating the education statute. That law says “security personnel” authorized to carry weapons on campuses must be “commissioned peace officers,” who undergo police training.

“It seems to us not only an unwise policy but an illegal one,” said Brian Siebel, a lawyer in Washington for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The school district has countered that teachers are not “security personnel” and so do not need to become peace officers.

As a general rule, the seven school board members — a collection of farmers and oil workers led by an ambulance medic — have referred all questions from reporters to Mr. Thweatt. But one member, Coy Cato, gave a short interview. “In my opinion, it is the best way to protect our kids,” Mr. Cato said. Asked if others in the community shared his view, he said that he had not taken a poll, but “I think so.”

Still, several residents complained that the board made little or no effort to gather public opinion on the matter. Some said they did not hear about the plan until reporters started asking questions about it in early August.

Mr. Thweatt said the board discussed the proposal for nearly two years and considered several options — tranquilizer guns, beanbag guns, Tasers, Mace and armed security guards — but each was found lacking in some way. “We devil-advocated it to death,” Mr. Thweatt said.

That discussion went unnoticed by many parents.

Traci McKay, a 34-year-old restaurant employee, sends three children to the school, yet said she had not heard about the pistol-carrying teachers until two weeks before the start of the semester. She was stunned.

“I should have been informed,” Ms. McKay said. “If something happens, do we really want all these people shooting at each other?”

Ms. McKay said Mr. Thweatt had yet to explain why a town with such a low crime rate needed such measures. She is afraid, however, that her children might face repercussions if she takes up a petition against the idea.

“We are pretty much being told to deal with this or move,” Ms. McKay said.

    In Texas School, Teachers Carry Books and Guns, NYT, 29.8.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/us/29texas.html

Police:

Futile job search

sparked church shooting

27 July 2008
USA Today
By Alan Gomez and Donna Leinwand

The man charged with killing two people in a church shooting expressed hatred of "the liberal movement" and frustration at his futile job search, said police chief Sterling Owen of Knoxville, Tenn.

Parishioners said the gunman pulled a 12-gauge shotgun from a guitar case and started shooting as children performed Annie Jr. in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Owen said.

The FBI is investigating the shooting, in which seven others were injured, in case there were civil-rights violations, Owen said.

Owen said at a Monday news conference that police had recovered a four-page letter in which accused gunman Jim Adkisson, 58, expresses his hatred of liberals and indicated he would keep shooting until police killed him.

Police found 76 shotgun shells in the church, including three spent casings, Owen said.

"It appears the church has received some publicity in the recent past concerning its liberal stance," Owen said. "There was an indication he was not targeting the children."

'The letter is not rational'

Adkisson's letter, says Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam, "was basically filled with frustration about his inability to find a job and his frustration at what he termed 'the liberal movement'." "That was a phrase that he mentioned several times, as well as his inability to find work. He somehow equated the two," Haslam says. "The letter is not rational."

Church member Barbara Kemper said the gunman shouted as he opened fire. "He was saying hateful things," she said, but refused to elaborate.

The slain man was identified as Greg McKendry, 60, a longtime church member and usher. Kemper told the Associated Press that McKendry "stood in the front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us."

Linda Kraeger, 61, died at the University of Tennessee Medical Center a few hours after the shooting, city spokesman Randall Kenner said. Though not a church member, she was attending to see the children's play.

Adkisson, 58, was charged with first-degree murder and is being held on $1 million bond in the Knox County Detention Center, Kenner said. His preliminary hearing is set for Aug. 5, Owen said.

Church members had already tackled the shooter by the time police arrived at the church three minutes after the first 911 call, Owen said.

"We're thankful for them for without (them), this situation, as horrible as it is, could've been even worse," Haslam said.

The church, like many other Unitarian Universalist churches, promotes progressive social work, such as desegregation and fighting for the rights of women and gays. The Knoxville congregation has provided sanctuary for political refugees, fed the homeless and founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, according to its website.

Karen Massey, who lived two houses from Adkisson's home, told the Knoxville News Sentinel of a lengthy conversation she had with Adkisson a couple years ago after she told him her daughter had just graduated from Johnson Bible College. She said she ended up having to explain to him that she was a Christian.

"He almost turned angry," she told the newspaper. "He seemed to get angry at that. He said that everything in the Bible contradicts itself if you read it."

Massey said Adkisson talked frequently about his parents, who "made him go to church all his life. ... He acted like he was forced to do that."

Police took statements from witnesses and collected video cameras from church members who recorded the performance.

Authorities also searched Adkisson's duplex in the Knoxville suburb of Powell on Sunday night but refused to provide any details about what they found. A bomb squad was called in as a precaution.
 

Suspect described as friendly

Neighbors described Adkisson as a friendly man who would often work on his motorcycle outside and go on long weekend rides.

Church member Becky Harmon said she saw Adkisson pull his shotgun out of the case and step toward McKendry. She told WBIR-TV that he barely got off another shot before church members tackled him. "The hardest part was that there were so many children there at the church today, and they all had to see this," she said.

Mark Harmon said he was in the first row as the play got underway.

"It had barely begun when there was an incredibly loud bang," he said.

Harmon said he thought the noise was part of the play, then he heard a second loud bang. As he dove for cover, he realized a woman behind him was bleeding. She looked like she was in shock, touching her wound, he said.

"It seems so unreal," Harmon said. "You're sitting in church, you're watching a children's performance of a play and suddenly you hear a bang."

Harmon said church members just behind him in the second and third rows were shot.

Seven gunshot victims — all adults — were taken to the medical center. Owen said one was treated and released, and the others were in "varying stages of serious to critical condition."

The shooting follows other church tragedies.

In December, Matthew Murray killed four people at a church and missionary center in Colorado. In August, Eiken Elam Saimon shot and killed three people at a church in Anderson, Mo.

Contributing: Steve Marshall and Emily Bazar in McLean, Va., and the Associated Press

    Police: Futile job search sparked church shooting, UT, 27.7.2008, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-27-tennessee-shooting_N.htm

Arrest Is Made in Shootings at Tennessee Church

July 28, 2008
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN

ATLANTA — A man armed with a shotgun entered a church in Knoxville, Tenn., on Sunday and opened fire as congregants were watching a youth performance, killing two people and leaving at least seven others wounded before he was subdued by church members, witnesses and police officials said.

Police officials said they had charged Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell, Tenn., with first-degree murder.

Amira Parkey, 16, had just uttered her first lines as Miss Hannigan in “Annie, Jr.” when the performance at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was interrupted by a loud pop, witnesses said.

“We were just, ‘Oh, my God, that’s not part of the play,’ ” Amira said, adding that she saw a man standing near the door of the sanctuary and firing into the room.

It took a beat longer for fear to strike the audience.

“The music director realized what was going on and she yelled, ‘Get the hell out of here, everybody,’ ” said Sheila Bowen, 70, a church member.

Parents dove under the pews with their children, and the cast of young actors, some of them as young as 6, was quickly herded out of the sanctuary.

None of the victims were children.

Members of the church tackled the gunman and wrested his weapon, a 12-gauge shotgun, from him. The police received a call to the church at 10:18 a.m. and took the gunman into custody four minutes later.

At a news conference, Chief Sterling P. Owen IV of the Knoxville Police Department said that investigators had not determined the motive but that they believed the gunman had acted alone.

Two of the wounded were treated at the hospital and released, Chief Owen said, and the other five were in conditions from serious to critical. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is assisting in the investigation, and Chief Owen said all videotapes of the service had been collected and were under review.

There were about 200 people in the church when the gunman opened fire, church members said.

Witnesses said that the gunman, carrying a guitar case, had first tried to enter the area where the children were preparing for the play, saying he was there to play music. But he was told to use the public entrance to the sanctuary instead.

Ms. Bowen said that the gunman was a stranger to the church and that she had seen him in the entry hall fiddling with the guitar case. She said she did not see him again until the shooting started.

It was when the man paused to reload that several congregants ran to stop him. Ms. Bowen said John Bohstedt, a history professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, was among them.

“He moved very quickly and he assessed the situation very quickly,” Ms. Bowen said. “He’s sitting on this guy. He had a package with him, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and John was afraid that that might be a bomb, so John was screaming at everyone to get out.”

Jamie Parkey, who had been watching his eldest daughter from the front pew, said he turned to see a woman bleeding in the pew behind him. “I thought, ‘Did she have a nose bleed from the loud boom? Did she have a pacemaker blow?’ ” Mr. Parkey said. “It didn’t make any sense.”

He dragged his mother and middle daughter to the ground and then looked up to see several church members rushing the gunman, who was described as middle aged, tall and thin. Mr. Parkey’s wife, Amy Broyles, was in a soundproof glass nursery with the couple’s 2-year-old; she dropped to the floor and used her body to bar the door, which was near the gunman.

Mr. Parkey, who installs hardwood floors and is trained in martial arts, joined the others in trying to subdue the gunman, pinning the man’s arms behind his back until the police arrived to take the gunman into custody.

“I didn’t want him feeling around for a handgun,” Mr. Parkey said, adding that the package turned out to have been a prop for the play.

Chief Owen contradicted early reports that 13 shots had been fired, saying his investigators believed that the count was lower. He did not confirm the detail about the guitar case, but said the man had indeed concealed the shotgun as he entered the church.

Mr. Adkisson was being held on $1 million bail, a Knoxville city spokesman, Randy Kenner, told The Associated Press.

One victim who died was identified as Gregory McKendry Jr., 60, a church board member and usher. Chief Owen said it appeared that Mr. McKendry was one of the first people the gunman encountered when he entered the sanctuary.

The other person killed was identified by The A.P. as Linda Kraeger, 61, who died at the University of Tennessee Medical Center a few hours after the shooting.

The church’s minister, the Rev. Chris Buice, returned from a vacation in western North Carolina when he heard about the shooting. “I will tell you, Greg McKendry, we love,” he said before Ms. Kraeger’s death, his voice breaking. “We loved Greg McKendry. Please pray for this congregation because we are grieving the loss of a wonderful man.”

Amira Parkey said Mr. McKendry and his wife had recently become foster parents for a church friend of hers, Taylor Bissette, 16, who was also to be in the musical. According to a previous newspaper article that mentioned Mr. McKendry, he was an engineer with two grown children.

“This guy does not realize how many lives he totally destroyed,” Amira said of the gunman. “People who do this, they think they’ve got problems, but they destroy so many other people’s lives.”

Pam Sohn contributed reporting from Knoxville, Tenn.

    Arrest Is Made in Shootings at Tennessee Church, NYT, 28.7.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/us/28shooting.html?hp

Gun-Control Supporters Show Outrage

June 27, 2008
The New York Times
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

Gun-control advocates across the country reacted with shock and outrage at the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns today, saying the ruling would threaten gun-control measures in other states.

If there was any doubt that other bans would be in peril, the National Rifle Association quickly put those questions to rest when it announced shortly after the ruling that it would file a flurry of lawsuits challenging restrictions in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs. The law in Washington, which spelled out rules for the storage of weapons and made it extremely difficult for most people in the district to legally possess a handgun, was among the strictest in the nation.

“I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of freedom,” Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the N.R.A., said in a statement.

In its 5-to-4 decision, the court ruled that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to own guns, not just the right of the states to maintain regulated militias. It also said that the District of Columbia’s requirement that lawful weapons be disassembled or limited by trigger locks was unconstitutional because it made them virtually useless.

In Chicago, Mayor Richard M. Daley, a staunch supporter of gun control, called the decision “frightening” and said he was bracing for a fight with the gun lobby, which has long criticized the city’s ban on the sale and registration of handguns for everyone but police officers and a handful of others. Enacted in 1982, the law was created in response to the murders of two police officers and the assassination attempt on former president Ronald Reagan.

“Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society?” he said at a news conference. “If they think that’s the answer, then they’re greatly mistaken. Then, why don’t we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West? You have a gun and I have a gun and we’ll settle in the streets.

“They’re changing the rules,” Mr. Daley said of the Supreme Court. “Why should we as a city not be able to protect ourselves from those who want guns in our society?”

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco, which also restricts the owning of guns, reacted strongly to the ruling, saying she was “viscerally affected” by it and worried for the nation’s safety.

“I speak as somebody who has watched this nation with its huge homicide rate, when countries that have sane restrictions on weapons do not have that homicide rate,” she said. “And I happen to believe that this is now going to open the door to litigation against every gun safety law that states have passed — assault weapons bans, trigger locks, and all the rest of it.”

The ruling was quickly seized upon by John McCain, who in recent months has tried to repair a fractured relationship with the gun lobby stemming from his support of regulations on gun sales at firearm shows and other restrictions. Mr. McCain praised the decision today, and used it to renew criticisms of his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama.

“Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today’s ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right — sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly,” Mr. McCain said.

Mr. Obama, however, was more careful and moderate in his statements about the ruling, saying it would provide “much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions” across the country.

“I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures,” he said. “The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.”

    Gun-Control Supporters Show Outrage, NYT, 27.6.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27React.html

Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights

June 27, 2008
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declared for the first time on Thursday that the Constitution protects an individual’s right to have a gun, not just the right of the states to maintain militias.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in the landmark 5-to-4 decision, said the Constitution does not allow “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.” In so declaring, the majority found that a gun-control law in the nation’s capital went too far by making it nearly impossible to own a handgun.

But the court held that the individual right to possess a gun “for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home” is not unlimited. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose,” Justice Scalia wrote.

The ruling does not mean, for instance, that laws against carrying concealed weapons are to be swept aside. Furthermore, Justice Scalia wrote, “The court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

The decision upheld a federal appeals court ruling that the District of Columbia’s gun law, one of the strictest in the country, went beyond constitutional limits. Not only did the 1976 law make it practically impossible for an individual to legally possess a handgun in the district, but it also spelled out rules for the storage of rifles and shotguns. But the court did not articulate a specific standard of review for what might be a reasonable restraint on the right to possess a firearm.

The court also said on Thursday that the district law’s requirement that lawful weapons be rendered essentially inoperable, by trigger locks or disassembly, was unconstitutional because it rendered the weapons useless for self-defense.

Joining Justice Scalia were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

A dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens asserted that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.” Joining him were Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

The high court’s ruling was the first since 1939 to deal with the scope of the Second Amendment, and the first to so directly address the meaning of the amendment’s ambiguous, comma-laden text: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Not surprisingly, Justice Scalia and Justice Stevens differed on the clarity (or lack thereof) of the Second Amendment. “The amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second clause,” wrote Justice Scalia. “The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Not at all, Justice Stevens countered, asserting that the majority “stakes its holding on a strained and unpersuasive reading of the amendment’s text.” Justice Stevens read his dissent from the bench, an unmistakable signal that he disagreed deeply with the majority.

Indeed, it was clear from the conflicting opinions of Justices Scalia and Stevens that the case had generated emotional as well as intellectual sparks at the court.

Justice Scalia devoted page after page of his opinion to the various state constitutions and to the use of language in the 18th and 19th centuries to support his view that an individual right to bear arms is embodied in the Constitution. And Justice Scalia, who clearly takes pride in his writing as well as his reasoning, used adjectives like “frivolous” and “bizarre” to describe the other side’s arguments.

Not to be outdone, Justice Stevens called the majority’s interpretation of the Second Amendment “overwrought and novel” and said it “calls to mind the parable of the six blind men and the elephant,” in which each of the sightless men had a different conception of the animal.

“Each of them, of course, has fundamentally failed to grasp the nature of the creature,” Justice Stevens wrote.

The ruling on Thursday will surely not quiet the debate about guns and violence in the United States, where deaths by firearm take a far higher toll than in many other countries, as Justice Scalia acknowledged.

“We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country,” he wrote, saying that he took seriously the concerns of those who believe that “prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution.”

Lawmakers in the District of Columbia and across the country may look to the decision as a blueprint for writing new legislation to satisfy the demands of constituents who say there is too much regulation of firearms now, or too little, depending on the sentiments in their regions. (Washington’s Mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, will instruct the police department to issue new handgun-registration rules within 30 days while city officials study the ruling, The Washington Post reported on its Web site.)

Nor was there any suggestion that the court’s ruling would lead to a proliferation of deadly, military-style assault weapons. Alluding to the 1939 Supreme Court decision, which held that the weapons protected under the Second Amendment were those “in common use at the time,” Justice Scalia said, “We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’ ”

The White House issued a statement saying that President Bush “strongly agrees with the Supreme Court’s historic decision today that the Second Amendment protects the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms.”

The Supreme Court ruling is likely to play out in this year’s elections, as Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, made clear. “I applaud this decision as well as the overturning of the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns and limitations on the ability to use firearms for self-defense,” Mr. McCain said in a statement, which contained a reminder that his Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, refused to join him in signing an amicus brief in support of overturning the district’s law.

Indeed, Mr. Obama’s view, expressed in a statement, was more nuanced than Mr. McCain’s. “I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures,” Mr. Obama said, predicting that the ruling would provide needed guidance for lawmakers.

The National Rifle Association and other supporters of rights to have firearms are sure to use the decision as a launch pad for lawsuits. The N.R.A. said it would file suits in San Francisco, Chicago and several Chicago suburbs challenging handgun restrictions there. “I consider this the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of providing relief for law-abiding Americans everywhere that have been deprived of this freedom,” Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the N.R.A., told The Associated Press.

Reaction on Capitol Hill differed sharply. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader in the House, applauded the ruling. “The Constitution plainly guarantees the solemn right to keep and bear arms, and the whims of politically correct bureaucrats cannot take it away,” he said in a statement.

But Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a former mayor of San Francisco, said she was disappointed in the ruling. “I speak as a former mayor,” she said at a session of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I speak as somebody who has gone to homicide crime scenes.”

The last time the Supreme Court weighed a case involving the Second Amendment, in 1939, it decided a narrower question, finding that the Constitution did not protect any right to possess a specific type of firearm, the sawed-off shotgun.

By contrast, the issues in the District of Columbia case seemed much more “mainstream,” if that term can be used in reference to gun-control issues. When the justices announced on Nov. 20 that they were accepting the case of District of Columbia v. Heller, No. 07-290, they indicated that they would go to the heart of the long debate.

The question, they said, is whether the district’s restrictions on firearms “violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.”

Dick Anthony Heller, a security guard who carries a handgun for his job protecting federal judiciary offices, challenged the District of Columbia’s law after his request for a license to keep his gun at home was rejected.

There have been debates about the efficacy of gun-control efforts in the capital. Those district residents who want guns — and are willing to risk punishment if caught with them without bothering to apply for permits — can get them easily enough, across the Potomac River in Virginia and in other nearby states.

Washington’s homicide rate, while high by world standards, is sharply lower than it was in the early 1990s. Last year, there were 181 homicides in Washington, down from a peak of 479 in 1991, when crack cocaine was a huge problem in some sections of the city.

Concluding his opinion, Justice Scalia wrote, “Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem.”

“That is perhaps debatable,” Justice Scalia wrote, “but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”

When the Heller case was argued before the justices on March 18, Mr. Heller’s lawyer, Alan Gura, did not assert that the Second Amendment precluded any kind of ban related to gun possession. He said that a ban on the shipment of machine guns and sawed-off shotguns would be acceptable, and in answer to a question from the justices, so, too, might be a prohibition on guns in schools. Some of the justices signaled during arguments that they thought the District’s near-total ban on handguns went too far.

A legislature “has a great deal of leeway in regulating firearms,” Mr. Gura argued, but not to the extent of virtually banning them in homes.

The Washington law not only established high barriers to the private possession of handguns, it also required that rifles and shotguns be kept either in a disassembled state or under a trigger lock.

Walter Dellinger, the lawyer who argued for the district on March 18, asserted that “the people” and “the militia” were essentially the same, and that the Second Amendment gave people the right to bear arms only in connection with their militia service.

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the federal government, argued on behalf of the individual-rights position, which has been the Bush administration’s policy. But he said that the appeals court had also gone too far in overturning the ordinance and that the right to bear arms was always subject to “reasonable regulations.”

    Justices Rule for Individual Gun Rights, NYT, 27.6.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27scotuscnd.html?hp

Man in Kentucky Kills 5 Co-Workers

June 25, 2008
The New York Times
By GRAHAM BOWLEY

An employee shot and killed five of his fellow workers at a plastics plant in Henderson, Ky., on Wednesday, before shooting himself, the police said. The chief executive of Atlantis Plastics, Bud Philbrook, told the Associated Press that the rampage was a “total shock.”

A total of six workers were shot, according to the police, with two of the wounded transported to hospitals in nearby Evansville, Ind., where one died.

“The cause behind this incident is unknown; however, the suspect is known to have gotten into an argument with a supervisor earlier in the evening,” the police statement said.

After the argument, the suspect left the plant for his regular break and when he returned he was carrying a handgun, police said. The identities of the victims and of the suspected killer were not immediately released, and it was not clear whether the supervisor was among those killed.

A police news conference was scheduled for 3 p.m. Central time.

Mr. Philbrook said most of those shot had been gathered in a break room at the plant.

“It appears the shooting was random at this time,” Henderson police Lt. David Piller told the Associated Press.

About 150 people work in the plant, which is in an industrial area on the southern side of Henderson, making parts for refrigerators and plastic siding for homes. After the shooting, employees were sent home.

    Man in Kentucky Kills 5 Co-Workers, NYT, 25.6.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/us/26kentuckycnd.html

Suspect in officer shooting is killed in Anaheim

23 June 2008
USA Today

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Police shot and killed a suspect on a crowded freeway, and a motorist was wounded in the gunbattle, authorities said.

The suspect was wanted in the shooting Sunday of a police officer.

Sgt. Tim Schmidt says the gunfight took place early Monday. Officers tried to pull him over as he headed east on the Riverside Freeway.

The man struck other vehicles in Anaheim, then got out of his car, armed with a handgun. He exchanged gunfire with at least two officers and died at the scene.

Schmidt says it was not clear who shot the motorist. She was taken to a hospital with superficial wounds.

Sunday morning, an officer investigating a report of a man exposing himself was shot in the leg.

The officer was not badly hurt, said police Sgt. Rick Martinez.

Two officers had arrived at the motel near Disneyland shortly before 8 a.m. after complaints that a man in one of the rooms was exposing himself to children and adults.

"They made contact with a guy believed to be the individual," Martinez said. "He was in the parking lot getting in a small compact-type vehicle."

Martinez said shots rang out as the man, in his 40s, drove off.

    Suspect in officer shooting is killed in Anaheim, UT, 23.6.2008, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-23-anaheim-shooting_N.htm

Police: 2 shot dead at N.C. soda bottling plant

13 June 2008
USA Today

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) — Two women were shot and killed Friday at a soda bottling plant 25 miles north of Charlotte, police said.

Concord police Sgt. Lisa Linker said police were looking for the shooter, who ran away from the Sun-drop Bottling Co., which manufactures soft drinks and spring water at the plant.

Linker said an employee called 911 around 10 a.m. and told dispatchers there "were two females down" at the plant. The caller reported seeing the shooter running from the scene.

Linker said police were using a helicopter and police dogs to search for the shooter.

Police said they don't know the shooter's identity or have any ideas about a possible motive. They also don't know if there was a relationship between the shooter and the victims, whose names have not yet been released.

    Police: 2 shot dead at N.C. soda bottling plant, UT, 13.6.2008, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-13-nc-shooting_N.htm

Gun dealer takes on New York City in court

Tue May 27, 2008
11:29am EDT
Reuters
By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's crusade against illegal guns entered the courtroom on Tuesday in a battle against a Georgia gun dealer.

It is the first of two civil cases New York has brought against 27 gun dealers in five states -- Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia -- on the grounds that their sales practices allowed criminals to buy guns and then bring them into the city.

All but one dealer in the first lawsuit -- Jay Wallace -- has settled out of court. Wallace, 51, owner of a sporting goods store in the Atlanta, Georgia, suburb of Smyrna, vowed to fight on, likening his battle to David versus Goliath.

"I believe that I care more about firearms getting into criminals' hands than the mayor of New York City does," Wallace was quoted by local media has having said at Brooklyn federal court. "I'm in the business. I know how my business is run."

Jury selection for the trial began on Tuesday.

City lawyers said Bloomberg had planned to testify about the toll illegal guns have taken on the city, but last week U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein rejected that idea, saying Bloomberg's testimony would do nothing to advance the city's case and could instead create a "media circus."

The city has accused dealers like Wallace of allowing "straw purchases," a transaction where one person shops for a gun and then has someone else fill out the required federal forms to pass a background check.

The guns are then sold on New York City streets for twice or three times their original price, police say.

The city caught some dealers by hiring undercover private detectives with hidden cameras to carry out straw purchases.

The second trial is expected to begin in July.

Nationally, the black market is the source for guns used in more than 90 percent of gun crimes. Since Bloomberg became mayor in 2002, every gun homicide in the city has been committed with an illegal gun, police say.

More than 300 people were killed in New York City by illegal guns last year, with nearly all of the guns coming from out of state, said Bloomberg, who has made the campaign against illegal guns a centerpiece of his second term in office.

"Where is the outrage in this country? Well, mayors see it," Bloomberg has said. "We're the ones who have to go to the funerals. We're the ones that have to look somebody in the eye and say your spouse or your parent or your child is not going to come home."

In 2006, Bloomberg co-founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that has grown to some 321 mayors.

(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Vicki Allen)

    Gun dealer takes on New York City in court, R, 27.5.2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2328478220080527

Eight Wounded in Harlem Shootings

May 27, 2008
The New York Times
By ERIC KONIGSBERG and CHRISTINE HAUSER

Eight people were shot late Monday night along a stretch of Lenox Avenue north of 125th Street in Harlem, the police said.

The police said they believed that the shootings stemmed from a disturbance nearby at Marcus Garvey Park, where gunshots rang out in a large crowd.

According to an Emergency Medical Services spokesman, the first shooting was reported to authorities at 10:14 p.m., with another at 10:17, two more at 10:19, and two more still at 10:24.

The spokesman said the reports appeared to have come from different locations in the vicinity, including one at 131st Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.

The victims were picked up along Lenox Avenue at 125th, 126th and 128th Streets.

Officers were checking with hospitals in the area to see if anyone else sought treatment.

The police said that one of the victims, an 18-year-old, had been shot in the chest and was in critical condition.

The other seven appeared to be in stable condition, the authorities said.

The police said that all of the victims were male, one of them appeared to be 13 and another appeared to be 16. Another 18-year-old man was either shot or stabbed in the back and was found lying on a bench, the authorities said.

They said that they did not know what prompted the shootings, and had not captured anyone as of early Tuesday.

The Police Department ordered scores of officers into the area to hunt for any assailants and to control crowds that had formed on the streets.
 

Andrew Tangel contributed reporting.

    Eight Wounded in Harlem Shootings, NYT, 27.5.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/nyregion/27shoot.html

11 Years of Police Gunfire, in Painstaking Detail

May 8, 2008
The New York Times
By AL BAKER

New York City police officers fire their weapons far less often than they did a decade ago, a statistic that has dropped along with the crime rate. But when they do fire, even at an armed suspect, there is often no one returning fire at the officers. Officers hit their targets roughly 34 percent of the time.

When they fire at dogs, roughly 55 percent of shots hit home. Most of their targets are pit bulls, with a smattering of Rottweilers and German shepherds.

Officers’ guns go off unintentionally or by accident for a variety of reasons: wrestling with suspects, cleaning the weapons, leaning on holsters — even once, in 1996, when a gun was put in an oven for safekeeping.

While the drop in police shootings was already clear, the details were among the myriad facts included in 11 years’ worth of annual New York Police Department firearms-discharge reports that were, without fanfare, handed over to the City Council this week and earlier to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Both groups have been examining the department’s methods of stopping and arresting suspects, sometimes for possession of illegal guns.

The reports cover the years 1996 to 2006, and are used as a training tool and to help officials develop “lesson plans.”

“Patterns and possible hazards are identified” from the statistics, the report adds.

Over all, the numbers show that the department’s use of deadly force has decreased along with the city’s historic drop in crime, and the drop in threats against police officers.

Picked apart closely, the reports provide a remarkable portrait of how the nation’s largest police force, with 36,000 officers, uses its guns. Every shot, from gunfight to accident to suicide, both on and off-duty, is accounted for.

The findings include:

¶The number of bullets fired by officers dropped to 540 in 2006 from 1,292 in 1996 — the first year that the city’s housing, transit and regular patrol forces were merged — with a few years of even lower numbers in between. Police officers opened fire 60 times at people in 2006, down from 147 in 1996.

¶The police fatally shot 13 people in 2006, compared with 30 people a decade before.

¶In 77 percent of all shootings since 1998 when civilians were the targets, police officers were not fired upon, although in some of those cases, the suspects were acting violently: displaying a gun or pointing it at officers, firing at civilians, stabbing or beating someone or hitting officers with autos, the police said. No one fired at officers in two notable cases — the 1999 shooting of Amadou Diallo and the 2006 shooting of Sean Bell.

¶In such shootings, the total number of shots fired in each situation edged up to 4.7 in 2006. However, the figure is skewed by the 50 shots fired in the Bell case. Excluding that case, the average would be 3.6 shots.

¶The average number of bullets fired by each officer involved in a shooting remained about the same over those 11 years even with a switch to guns that hold more bullets — as did officers’ accuracy, roughly 34 percent. This figure is known in police parlance as the “hit ratio.”

“The data shows that the New York City Police Department is the most restrained in the country,” said Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman. “What these reports don’t show are the thousands of incidents where police were confronted with armed criminals, and they did not return fire.”

John C. Cerar, a retired deputy inspector who was the commander of the Police Department’s firearms training section from 1985 to 1994, said the accuracy rate is comparable to that of many other major police departments. In some cases, it is better.

In Los Angeles, which has 9,699 officers, the police fired 283 rounds in 2006, hitting their target 77 times, for a hit ratio of 27 percent, said Officer Ana Aguirre, a spokeswoman. Last year, they fired 264 rounds, hitting 76 times, for a 29 percent hit ratio, she said.

So far this year the hit ratio in Los Angeles is 31 percent, with 74 of 237 bullets fired by officers hitting the target.

In the New York reports, the hit ratio of officers who committed suicide with a firearm — and, therefore, hit their target 100 percent of the time — is included when the overall average is calculated, bringing it up.

Forty-six police officers committed suicide in the 11 years from 1996 through 2006, an average of four a year. The highest number came in 2003, when seven officers committed suicide.

Inspector Cerar credited the department for studying its shootings.

“Everything is down, the number of shots fired by officers is down, the number of subjects that we shot is way down,” said Inspector Cerar. “The number of total times when a police officer fires his weapon is down. Statistically, anecdotally, in any way you put it, the New York City Police Department is not a cowboy department.”

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “we are human beings who do make mistakes. We make them. There were mistakes in the Diallo and Bell shootings. But that doesn’t make the department murderous.”

He added: “We have to make split-second life-and-death decisions and sometimes we make the wrong ones.”

As the numbers have changed, so have the reports that have categorized and collected them. Inspector Cerar said that firearms statistics were first seriously compiled by the department beginning in 1971.

There is a marked shift in the way the data is presented, beginning in 1998. For instance, the reports in 1996 and 1997 include the race of the officer and the person who was shot, facts that do not appear in the 1998 report.

The 1996 and 1997 reports said that 89.4 percent of those shot by the police were black or Hispanic. The racial information has not been included since then.

Testifying before the City Council’s Public Safety Committee on Monday, Deputy Chief John P. Gerrish downplayed how much understanding could come from releasing details on race.

“Every firearms discharge must be judged in light of the unique circumstances in which it occurs, and any conclusion drawn from the purely demographic data involved is fatally flawed,” he said.

The individual reports also used to contain information on civilian bystanders unintentionally shot and killed or injured by the police, but that, too, disappeared. In 1996, no civilians were killed by police but five were injured, including one hit by a ricochet.

While officers hit their targets about a third of the time over all, far fewer bullets generally found their mark during gunfights. In 1999, only 13 percent of bullets fired during a gunfight were hits.

By contrast, in 2006, 30 percent of the shots fired during gunfights were hits, an unusually high percentage. That year, a total of 19 officers fired their weapons in 13 separate gunfights.

The 2006 report made it clear that even when officers did all the firing, they often faced a threat. In that year, in 47 shootings when only officers fired, a gun was pointed at them in 26 instances, and in 21 others “subjects were armed with weapons other than firearms.”

A parenthetical note breaks those 21 down: 6 cutting instruments, 6 motor vehicles, 4 miscellaneous weapons. Five others used “physical force/furtive movement,” the report said.

Christopher T. Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that he considered the five cases citing “physical force/furtive movement” as the police shooting at an unarmed person. He said he counted about five similar cases in every year since 2002.

“That the number of shooting incidents is down since 1996 is good for everyone,” Mr. Dunn said. “At the same time, the likelihood that nearly everyone being shot at is black or Latino, and the fact that in most incidents only the police are shooting, raise serious concerns that were highlighted by the Bell and Diallo shootings.”

A year after the Bell shooting, the civil liberties group filed a request under the freedom of information law seeking the department’s annual discharge reports, as well as documents on the race of everyone the police fired upon. The department turned over the discharge reports in February, but denied the other request last month.

The civil liberties group said it wanted the data to better understand the role of race in police shootings, not as information to back up any lawsuit.

The report used to be called the “Firearms Discharge Assault Report.” In 1996, it noted that 76 officers were fired upon, in 42 shootings, and did not return fire. In 1999, the title changed to “Firearms Discharge Report,” and the “assault against officers” category was eliminated.

Inspector Cerar said that that data should have continued to be reported.

In the 1996 report, there were 22 reasons given for the accidental discharges, including: struggling with a perpetrator (13); tripping, falling, slipping or running (10); unloading or cleaning a gun (7); removing a weapon from its holster (2); attempting to clear a jam (1); an officer startled (1). Officer Aguirre, the spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said it produces an annual Officer Involved Shooting Report that is similar to the one in New York. “We do all the analyses,” she said, “It is quite extensive.”

She said that parts of the report are not made public. She said that the chief, William J. Bratton — a former New York police commissioner — instituted a policy under which he receives a report within 72 hours of each shooting about what occurred, with an eye toward making tactical improvements or modifying training.

Jo Craven McGinty contributed reporting.

    11 Years of Police Gunfire, in Painstaking Detail, NYT, 8.5.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/08/nyregion/08nypd.html