TX: Homeowner shoots, kills intruder : "A homeowner fatally wounded a man who tried to break into a home early Monday on the far North Side. ... The homeowner told police that two pickup trucks carrying three men pulled up to his home, and the trio immediately tried to kick in the front door to his home. From a second-floor landing, the homeowner fired eight shots down the stairs. Police said the suspected intruder who died ran at least one block before collapsing on Summit Crest and Summit Creek. There was a manhunt for the two other men, who may have also been wounded, police said. The homeowner is not expected to be charged because he was in fear of his life and was defending himself and his home, police said."


UN conference ending, freedom winning! "As of 6 p.m. eastern time, the word from the United Nations small arms conference is that the conference is concluding with NO final document, and NO plans for any follow-up conference. It was the latter issue that prevented an agreement about a final document. The officials who had been charged by the conference chair with drafting the conference document presented a final take-it-or-leave it document a little while ago; that draft document eliminated various provisions that the U.S. delegation had found objectionable, but also declared that there would be at least two more conferences. The U.S. delegation refused to assent, and so the conference ended with no consensus agreement, and no plans for future conferences. The back-up plan of the international gun prohibition movement, and their many allies within the U.N. and national U.N. delegations, was to give up on significant progress in 2006, but to keep the game going with future conferences, when a more pliant U.S. administration might welcome an international gun control program."


UN victim disarmament confab: "Total meltdown": "A U.N. meeting meant to expand a five-year-old crackdown on the illicit global trade in small arms ended in chaos on Friday as delegates ran out of time without reaching agreement on a plan for future action. 'There was a total meltdown at the end. You don't know if it was a conspiracy or just a screw-up,' said one delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity. ... The meeting was dogged from the start by zealous members of the U.S. National Rifle Association, who flooded the United Nations with letters falsely [sic] accusing it of secretly plotting to take away Americans' guns on July 4, a U.N. holiday marking U.S. Independence Day when delegates did not meet."