South Carolina: Combining shooting, living spaces: "Bang, bang! Champion shooter John Stillwagon hits the target and pulls down his gun. 'I smoked 'em,' he says. Stillwagon has been a Myrtle Beach developer for 20 years and champion trapshooter for more than 30 years, winning at least 40 state titles. A few years ago, he decided to combine his two loves and develop the first shooting-range residential community along the Grand Strand -- one of the first in the nation. ... Although some people might question who would want to live on a shooting range, Stillwagon says he knows exactly what he's doing. He says there are plenty of people who don't like golf and don't want to live on a golf course. Instead, they want to live where they can do what they love: trapshoot."


Michigan: Gun charge dropped over suspicion of bias: "A weapons charge against a 29-year-old Detroit man was dropped Wednesday after prosecutors refused to submit enough information to help a federal judge decide whether an antigun program unfairly targets black people. U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood dismissed the charge -- being a felon in possession of a firearm -- against James Thorpe, who was arrested by Detroit police in 2003 while sleeping in a car. They found a pistol in the vehicle. Thorpe, who had a prior criminal conviction and wasn't permitted to have a firearm, was prosecuted federally under the Project Safe Neighborhoods program, which has stiffer sentences than state law. His lawyer, David Steingold of Detroit, asked prosecutors to produce information including statistics showing how many cases are accepted or rejected for the program by race to determine whether the project discriminates against blacks, as several criminal defense lawyers contend. Prosecutors declined, saying the information either doesn't exist or that Thorpe failed to meet the legal threshold to obtain it."