Ben Bova says: "Florida passed a law recently liberalizing the permitted use of deadly force in self-defense. Now we will begin to see lawsuits over who shot whom and why, I'm sure. Meanwhile, conventional gun-control activists are aghast. They believe that the way to control gunshot violence is to outlaw guns. However, as the old saw points out, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. What to do? Defend ourselves or try to eliminate guns from the landscape? The nation's judges are making decisions about this. Not legal decisions they hand down to settle criminal cases or civil suits. Judges are demanding the right to bear arms in their courtrooms. Several judges have been shot and killed, and many more threatened by hotheaded defendants. Judges, both liberal and conservative, have reacted quite naturally by starting to pack guns under their robes. If somebody's gonna shoot at me, they are saying, I'm want to be able to shoot back. That's the kind of gun control we should all aim for. If all citizens were armed and took regular firing-range practice, I believe crimes committed with guns would dwindle. We'd have some shootings, yes. There will be accidents and a certain degree of mayhem, especially at first. But in the long run, crime would decrease, I firmly believe."


British cops great at finding toy guns: "Armed officers swooped on a gang of gun-toting teenagers who were holding a bloody T-shirt in a dark alleyway. But they found eight petrified Media Studies students filming coursework. The guns were toys from a sweetshop. Members of Scotland Yard's SO19 firearms unit pounced on the students just after 2am in Barkingside, Essex, where the A-level students were finishing a film about gangsters. They were today set to visit a London police station to be interviewed. Their tape has been confiscated".


Low types with illegal guns park in police parking lot! "Four people, including two with previous felony convictions, have been sentenced to state prison for illegally possessing weapons in Spring Valley.... County Judge William Kelly sentenced Harvey and Ayers on Thursday to the maximum prison term of seven years each.... Harvey and Ayers were repeat felony offenders, gaining them longer prison terms. Harvey, a former Spring Valley resident who had been living in the Bronx, previously had been convicted of selling drugs and possessing a weapon, District Attorney Michael Bongiorno said. Bongiorno said Ayers, who lived at Highview Court in Nyack, previously had been convicted of possessing a gun and harassing a correction officer. Remy, a former Spring Valley resident who was living on Old Route 202 in Pomona, was sentenced to three years in prison on her conviction for third-degree criminal possession of a weapon.... All five defendants were arrested Aug. 7 while they were sitting in a van parked outside the Caribbean Restaurant on North Main Street. The restaurant shares a parking lot with the Spring Valley Police Department and Village Hall".