Australian gun buyback has no effect on murder rate: "Half a billion dollars spent buying back hundreds of thousands of guns after the Port Arthur massacre had no effect on the homicide rate, says a study published in an influential British journal. The report by two Australian academics, published in the British Journal of Criminology, said statistics gathered in the decade since Port Arthur showed gun deaths had been declining well before 1996 and the buyback of more than 600,000 mainly semi-automatic rifles and pump-action shotguns had made no difference in the rate of decline. The only area where the package of Commonwealth and State laws, known as the National Firearms Agreement (NFA) may have had some impact was on the rate of suicide, but the study said the evidence was not clear and any reductions attributable to the new gun rules were slight. "Homicide patterns (firearm and non-firearm) were not influenced by the NFA, the conclusion being that the gun buyback and restrictive legislative changes had no influence on firearm homicide in Australia," the study says."


MI: Store manager cleared in shooting : "No charges will be brought against a Grand Rapids store manager who fatally shot a man during an attempted robbery. Around 10 p.m. Friday, three men walked into Alger Heights Foods at Alger Street and Eastern Avenue and attempted to rob the business. The suspects tied up employees and put them in a back room. The store manager pulled out his gun and shot one of the robbers, Michael Sams of Chicago, who had a gun. The other two men fled the scene and are still on the run. Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth says he reviewed the police report and surveillance video taken inside the store during the incident and made his decision relatively quickly. He told 24 Hour News 8 the store manager was protecting his own life and the lives of his coworkers."