Fat old lady fixes robber: "Janet Grammer decided in an instant: Thursday wasn't her day to die. So when a would-be robber burst into a Jacksonville convenience store shortly before 1 p.m. and fired two shots while demanding she clean out the cash register, the 64-year-old clerk and mother of 10 knew one thing. "I figured either I was going to have to pull the trigger or I'd be dead," said Grammer. So she did. Faking a moment's hesitation, Grammer reached under the counter for a .38 special and came up firing, her first shot hitting the man in the chest at point-blank range. The force knocked him down and jolted the gun from his hand, she said. As the man staggered for the door of Apple Gate Food Store at Wesconnett Boulevard and 105th Street, she fired two more rounds, police said. The suspect left a trail of blood before running into nearby woods.... A man fitting the robber's description went to the Orange Park Medical Center a short time after the robbery attempt as a police helicopter and canine units scoured the neighborhood for the robber. The man told doctors he shot himself. He was taken by helicopter to Shands Jacksonville, according to police, who did not identify the man but confirmed he was in custody. The incident would have been the store's third robbery in two weeks without Grammer's quick thinking, said store owner George Rubboz. "I'm telling you, she is the lady," he said. Grammer said she's handled guns before, during a 10-year stint as a security guard years ago in Charleston, S.C."


Illinois: Daley defeated: "Following the Illinois Supreme Court's lead, the Senate last night rejected Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's proposals to allow lawsuits against the gun industry. Another key measure to Daley's efforts to reduce violence on his city's streets -- limiting handgun purchases to one a month -- also failed 20-to-34. Both the House and Senate did approve proposals that would require criminal background checks of purchasers at shows as well as in gun shops. Daley -- who went to Springfield this year seeking that legislative action -- has sought tougher gun laws for years. But opponents say the measures Daley wanted would be used to harass dealers and drive them out of business".


Slip slidin' away "Leaders in the civilian disarmament movement ridicule the notion that gun control laws are intended to result in, uh, civilian disarmament. There is no 'slippery slope,' they say, and suggestions to the contrary are unfounded. ... In other words, the 'slippery slope' argument is a myth. There is no hidden agenda. There is no proof that success in some gun control measures leads to other attempts at restrictions. The whole argument is a fiction. If you believe in it, you're living in a paranoid world where you think people are trying to take away your rights.Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."