Canada: Liberal gun ban fuels buying binge: "Paul Martin's plan to ban handguns may have backfired. As soon as the Liberals unveiled their promise to ban the weapons earlier this month, Vancouver gun shop owners saw a jump in handgun sales. 'Some customer came in that day and said Paul Martin told him to buy a handgun,' Lever Arms owner Kin Chung told 24 hours yesterday. 'It was meant as a joke but ... the day after he announced it, handgun sales tripled. Normally we sell about two a day. That day we sold eight.' And while he says sales have levelled off since, the store is still selling above average numbers of handguns daily."


South Africa: Gun owners welcome respite: "Firearm owners' associations and opposition parties have welcomed the extension granted for relicensing legal firearms, but have warned that the three months merely delays the crisis created by the new Firearms Control Act. Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula announced last Thursday that the December 31 deadline for renewals for gun owners whose birthdays fall between January and March would be extended to March next year. Crucially, he also announced that all licences would be valid until June 30 2009. This means there will be no prospect of legal action against gun owners who do not reapply until that date. There were mounting fears, based on threats by some police officers, that people who did not meet the December 31 deadline would face prosecution in the new year."