Alabama car repossession goes bad: "Alone in his mobile home off a winding dirt road, Jimmy Tanks heard a commotion at 2:30 a.m. just outside his bedroom window: Somebody was messing with his car. The 67-year-old railroad retiree grabbed a gun, walked out the back door and confronted not a thief but a repo man and two helpers trying to tow off the Chrysler Sebring. Shots were fired, and Tanks wound up dead, a bullet in his chest. The man who came to repossess the car, Kenneth Alvin Smith, is awaiting trial on a murder charge in a state considered a Wild West territory even by the standards of an industry that's largely unregulated nationally. Since Tanks' death last June, two other repo men from the same company Smith worked for were shot, one fatally. "It's gotten to where it's a crazy world out there," said Smith, 50, an ex-Marine who preaches part-time and sings gospel music. Smith said Thursday that he fired in self-defense after Tanks fired a shot. Federal law says workers can't "breach the peace" while repossessing items, but it doesn't go further to state just what that means, leaving definitions up to courts. All three Alabama shootings were in the middle of the night, which an industry leader said was a sign of a problem. It was June 26 that the repo man came for Tanks' car in Halsell, a tiny, rural Choctaw County town near the Mississippi line. Tanks already had filed for bankruptcy and was behind on his payments, court documents show. Tanks heard a noise and went outside with a gun, something anybody would do, said Choctaw County Sheriff James Lovette, who knew Tanks for years. Smith was indicted Tuesday, but no charges were filed against a man and his teenage son who accompanied Smith, said Lovette. Smith's defense lawyer, Rusty Wright, said Tanks came out of the trailer and fired, and that Smith "just wanted to stop him." "This is not the gunslinging cowboy that people think about with repo guys," Wright said. "(Smith) wasn't out to kill the guy."


Colorado: Pellet Gun Scares Would-Be Robber: "A suspect armed with a revolver ran away after a Woodland Park store clerk pulled out a pellet gun and told him to leave Thursday. He is considered armed and dangerous by police. The robbery happened at the 99 Auto Detail on 219 South West Street in Woodland Park just before noon. Police say the suspect walked into the business showed a small revolver and demanded all the money. The owner Glenn Kothe went to the area where the money is kept and picked up a pellet gun pointed it at the suspect and told him to leave. The suspect ran from the business. Nothing was taken, no one was hurt. The suspect is described by police as a white male [race mentioned! How surprising!], early 20's, approximately 6 foot, 175 pounds, short brown hair, GI haircut. The suspect was last seen wearing blue jeans and a long sleeve crew neck shirt which was darker than the jeans."


Disarming the poor: "One particularly insidious method employed by the citizen disarmament lobby is banning so-called `Saturday Night Specials,' alternatively referred to as `junk guns' - inexpensive handguns, in other words. Although the term `Saturday Night Special' did not exist in 1879, the first law of this type was Tennessee's `Army and Navy Law' of that year. . The motivation behind such a law is not hard to guess. With laws explicitly prohibiting gun ownership by blacks no longer feasible, because of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the racists had to be (slightly) more subtle in their efforts to keep blacks disarmed, and thus subject to domination."


MD: Bill to deny gun offenders bail advances: "One of Mayor Sheila Dixon's top priorities for the General Assembly advanced yesterday when the House of Delegates gave preliminary approval to a measure to prevent bail commissioners from releasing convicted gun offenders if they are arrested again. The law, which Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III has said will `take guns out of the hands of bad guys,' would require courts to hold convicted gun offenders on a no-bail status if they have a new arrest. The bill still requires final approval by the House and consideration by the Maryland Senate."