NC: Surry man shoots home intruder: "A homeowner shot and injured a man who broke into his house this morning, the Surry County Sheriff's Office said. Greg and Ashley Durham of 2769 Old Highway 52 woke up about 3:30 when they heard their dog barking outside, the sheriff's office said in a statement. They saw a person wearing what looked like a hood walking near the back of their house, and called 911. The man forced open a locked door and came in the front of the house.Greg Durham 'shot the disguised unknown person after the entry into the living quarters of the house, using a .22-caliber rifle,' the statement said. Deputies arrived and found Jason Garrett Chilton, 20, lying on the floor in the front room with a gunshot wound. He was wearing a pillowcase over his face, the statement said."


Guns, gun laws, and liberty: "The heart of virtually every citizen of America went out to the family of little Kayla Rolland after a classmate took her life with a .32 caliber revolver on February 29 in Mt. Morris, Michigan. As with the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado last year, we all feel pained and distraught about such senseless violence, and we wonder what has gone wrong and what can be done to prevent any recurrences. In the wake of these tragedies, legislators in every state are taking up the issue of gun control. The challenge is to express appropriate grief and concern about these things without allowing hyped emotions, rhetorical window-dressing, or futile �quick fixes� to rule the day. Political jockeying to prove who is most outraged by violence must not overwhelm facts, logic, and experience. One superficial but unfortunately popular reaction to school shootings is summarized this way: �Guns are bad; more laws are good.� The facts are more complicated. Guns are not bad when they are not misused, not accessible to people who misuse them, and used harmlessly in sport or recreation; they are good when they thwart crime. Laws are not good when they injure the rights, property, or lives of the innocent; when they are ineffective or unenforceable; or when they act as cheap political substitutes for a problem�s real cure."