TN: Robber shot: "Ashley Brannon, 22, has been charged with facilitation of attempted aggravated robbery. Brannon, boyfriend Calvin Jefferson, Mitchell, and another man, Edgar Smith, 24, spent the early morning hours Thursday gambling, and Smith was seen with "a large amount of money." Brannon later drove Mitchell and Smith to the Exxon, ostensibly to get money Brannon's boyfriend owed Smith. Brannon went inside the Exxon, then came out holding money she'd pretended to withdraw from the ATM. Mitchell then pulled a gun and turned to rob Smith, who was sitting in the rear seat. But Smith pulled his own gun and shot Mitchell. Brannon then drove south on Third, stopping briefly after Smith, who was trapped in the back seat by the child safety locks, told her to let him out. He ran away. Brannon then turned west on Raines and drove to Westmont, about a mile and a half from the Exxon, where she stopped the car and called Jefferson, who came to the scene. Jefferson has not been charged in the case. Mitchell died on Westmont from his gunshot wounds. The shooting has been ruled self-defense"


FL: Gun permits jump 67%: “Florida is seeing a huge increase in applications for concealed weapon permits. The state is on pace to handle 150,000 requests — a 67 percent increase over 2008. The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services was so overwhelmed that Commissioner Charles Bronson petitioned the Legislature for 61 temporary employees, giving him 202 workers to wade through a spring backlog of 90,000 requests. That amount alone represents as many petitions as the state received in all of 2008.”


Legal ignorance of Second Amendment not new: “I just got done sharing the current issue of Guns Magazine with Gun Rights Examiner readers. They’re the folks who publish my monthly ‘Rights Watch’ column. They also do something each month I’ve talked about before, and that I think is very cool: They post the corresponding monthly issue of their magazine from 50 years ago on their website. It’s amazing going through it and seeing the guns, the prices … like opening up a time capsule. But it’s more than just entertainment — we get recent history that allows us to understand today’s climate and how it got that way.”


Gun buybacks miss the bullseye: “Gun buyback programs are based on the belief that some ill defined ‘excess’ of handguns can be taken out of the hands of criminals if only enough legal tender is tendered for them. Like other buyback schemes in other cities, the Guns for Groceries gimmick hopes to get people to turn in a working weapon for a gift card worth $50 in groceries. It’s generally understood by all involved — city officials, police officials, gun owners — that these buyback programs never accomplish their stated goal.”