 Michael Sullivan, who recently completed his second year as Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), told Alex Kingsbury of
U.S. News & World Report, that “the toughest investigations to conduct at the local and federal level are firearms trafficking cases. To begin with, there are Second Amendment rights, and as a federal law enforcement agency, we’ll zealously guard those rights. Drug investigations, in many ways, are a lot easier because in most instances, from beginning to end, the drugs are illegal. Guns, the vast majority of them, enter commerce legally, are used lawfully, and possessed legally. It’s like that proverbial needle in the haystack trying to identify those folks who put them into commerce illegally – the person who shows up to buy a gun for their brother or boyfriend who is a felon.” “Cab Drivers Should Carry Guns,” say gun rights advocates, according to a headline in
In Eifort, Ohio, a Scioto County man was shot and killed in an early morning confrontation that began when he tried to enter a vehicle on the property of the resident who shot him, according to a report in The Columbus Dispatch based on a release from Sheriff Marty V. Donini. Timothy L. Reese, 21, of South Webster died at the scene. The man who shot him was not identified. He told investigators he caught the victim trying to enter a vehicle on his property, confronted him, and then shot him, the police release stated. Detectives think that is was a case of self-defense, but evidence will be presented to a county grand jury, the sheriff said. A “castle doctrine” law that took effect in September establishes a presumption that a person acts in self-defense when shooting someone who unlawfully enters his or her home or occupied vehicle.
A group of students at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana says students have the right to carry concealed firearms on campus to protect themselves in case of an attack, reports FoxNews.com. Junior criminal justice major Blake Graham heads Ball State Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. “We feel that it’s our right that we need to be able to protect ourselves,” Graham said. The Ball State group is a local branch of the national Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). SCCC wants state legislatures and school administrators to allow concealed handguns on campus for license holders. Paul Chandler, the group’s faculty advisor and an associate professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management, said people with legal permits should be allowed to carry guns on campus.
In Lafayette, Louisiana, area hunters and sportsmen cleaned out their freezers and donated game and fish to support the Hunters for Hungry food drive, reports The Daily Advertiser. Participants donated 6,000 pounds of meat, enough for 18,000 meals, to the annual food drive which supports the Outreach Center’s efforts to provide meals for homeless and impoverished community members. Center Chairman Bob Giles said that each year the donated food is stored in large freezers and usually feeds residents for the remainder of the year.
The Washington Examiner. The newspaper reports that “gun rights advocates say attacks on taxicab drivers in the Washington area call for further changes in D.C. handgun laws. After a Supreme Court decision overturning a ban on handguns, D.C. residents may keep registered weapons in their place of business. But police and city officials say the workplace must be a ‘fixed location,’ making it illegal for taxicab drivers to carry weapons. Nathan Price, Chairman of the D.C. Coalition of Taxicab Drivers, says the city’s 7,000 drivers aren’t sufficiently shielded. He says that if the city fails to protect drivers, then it’s a constitutional right “to carry a gun to protect yourself.’ In addition to one murder, police also investigated at least seven assaults on Washington taxi drivers in January and February.