California is the only U.S. state where law enforcement officials confiscate guns from the homes of individuals not legally permitted to own them. The program, which takes guns away from criminals and the mentally ill, is being heralded as a model for the nation.

Individuals who legally purchased guns but are now disqualified are identified by analysts who match gun sales back to 1996 with databases listing criminal convictions, restraining orders and mental health detentions, UPI reports. Over the past five years, agents conducting twice-weekly sweeps have confiscated more than 10,000 guns.

However, there are still more than 19,700 individuals on the state's Armed Prohibited Persons list, and it would cost the state up to $50 million to hire more agents to catch up with the backlog, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Because gun-confiscating agents do not obtain search warrants, their job involves convincing people to let them into their homes and hand over their guns, the Los Angeles Times reports. If an individual does turn over a gun, he can be arrested on suspicion of illegally owning a firearm.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/california-gun-confiscation_n_2717809.html

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It was after 2 a.m. when David Aller was thrown out of the Klub Cirok Nightclub & VIP Lounge for fighting. That's when police say the 26-year-old man retrieved a loaded handgun from his car in the club parking lot and returned to threaten patrons.

Aller, who was charged with aggravated assault for the Nov. 11 incident, was also a handgun carry permit holder.

Ever since lawmakers opened serious consideration of a bill to allow permit holders to store firearms in their vehicles — no matter where they are parked — backers have maintained security won't be threatened because gun permit holders are law-abiding citizens and unlikely to commit crimes.

Public records reviewed by AP show, however, that some incidents, like the one at Klub Cirok, have the potential to become violent when guns are drawn by permit holders in parking lots. And club promoter Joe Savage said the bill is misguided.

http://www.tricities.com/news/local/article_0033d896-813e-11e2-861a-001a4bcf6878.html

Williamson, 37, was showing the Taurus .45-caliber revolver to a co-worker at the KUAF radio station. The station is in Fayetteville next to the city library but is considered a campus facility.

Williamson said he didn’t touch the gun and did nothing to jar the handgun into firing. He said he has since done research that he said showed the revolver was prone to accidental firings.

He said he brought the gun because he had planned to take the revolver to a gun range after work to shoot it for the first time. He said he was a hurry that morning and didn’t check the gun thoroughly for a round before tossing it into his bag.

Williamson said he owns several guns but will sell them now, and was able to joke that he would need the money to pay for his medical bills. He said his accident shows that guns shouldn’t be allowed on campus.

http://5newsonline.com/2013/02/26/arrest-warrant-issued-for-ua-student-who-shot-himself/

Twenty years ago this Thursday, the federal government took a step that remains a call to arms for guns rights hardliners. Many Americans remember the Waco siege as a federal raid against the compound of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect whose leader, David Koresh, was physically and sexually abusing adults and children. But for pro-gun absolutists, the Waco siege was something else. The kind of government tyranny they expect more of during the second Obama administration, and the kind of repression they are already preparing to resist.

“#USA>> Do you want *NAZI #Democrats TELLING you What you can EAT or How many Bullets you can DEFEND YOUR CHILDREN WITH? #STANDandFIGHT #tcot,” tweeted @johnmatthew19 this week using the hashtag #StandandFight encouraged by the National Rifle Association, and the hashtag #tcot or TopConservativesonTwitter favored by the organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference being held in Washington in two weeks.

At the same time that the gun lobby is helping to fuel threatening language on the Internet, it is trying to keep secret its financial backing for key witnesses testifying about gun violence before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

One witness, David Kopel, who testified on January 30, identified at the hearing as a law school adjunct professor, received more than $108,000 in grants from the NRA’s Civil Rights Defense Fund in 2011. Another witness, David T. Hardy, testifying Wednesday as a private attorney in Tucson, Arizona, received $67,500 in grants from the same NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund in 2011. Another witness testifying Wednesday, Nicholas Johnson, a Fordham Law School professor, spoke a year ago at an NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund scholars’ seminar.

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/02/27/senate-witness-on-weapons-ban-funded-by-gun-lobby/

Detroit — Police say a 29-year-old woman accidentally shot herself in the leg inside the MotorCity Casino-Hotel early Tuesday morning, causing quite a commotion among gamblers.

The woman, a concealed pistol license owner, apparently had the gun in her purse and it discharged, sending a bullet into her right thigh, according to police.

--snip--

It is unclear whether charges will be pressed against the woman, police say.

"Although she has a CPL (concealed pistol license) to carry it, it is against the law to enter a casino with any firearm. As a result, the police are investigating this matter and we are cooperating fully," said MotorCity spokeswoman Jacci Woods

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130219/METRO01/302190398#ixzz2M1y0TEV5

Many of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s gun proposals allow gun owners to keep their current firearms, so long as they register them. However, one recommendation could have some current gun owners turning over their weapons.

The change would come as a result the governor’s efforts to make background checks more comprehensive and broaden the list of convictions that could make someone ineligible to possess a firearm.

Currently the state does not allow convicted felons to possess guns. It also prohibits people convicted of a handful of other misdemeanor crimes from owning firearms. Negligent homicide, low-level assault convictions, inciting riots, and possessing drugs can also prevent one from getting a gun permit.

Malloy would like to see that expanded to include people convicted of drunk driving or driving under the influence of drugs during the past five years. It would also include any offense involving a gun as well as any conviction involving the use or threat of force.

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/malloy_proposes_confiscating_guns_from_owners_with_dui_convictions

Those concerned about the $32 billion firearm industry–gun owners, investors, whatever–should shift their attention from Capital Hill to courtrooms around the country. Potentially damaging gun-control measures seem more likely to come from the country’s justices than from its 535 lawmakers.

Two federal appeals courts last week reviewed the legality behind concealed carry laws. In Denver, the court decided that concealed-carry firearms aren’t protected by the Second Amendment. A thousand miles away in Chicago, the court reached a different decision. It declined to reconsider a ruling that found that state’s ban on concealed carry unconstitutional.

These two courts aren’t the first to mull this issue. A New York federal appeals court last November upheld a state law that required concealed-carry applicants to prove “proper cause” to obtain concealed-carry licenses. Looking ahead, appeals courts in California and Virginia are set to review the issue.

Concealed carry laws have been on the rise for the greater part of three decades. They could very well soon stretch nationwide, if Illinois completes its about-face on concealed carry. Not too surprisingly, it’s most prevalent in red states, especially so in Georgia, Utah and Florida; in the Peach State, for example, more than 12% of adults 20 and older have an active permit. All told, more than 8 million Americans have one. And not only has the number of licensing states increased in the past ten years (in 2002, seven states including Illinois banned concealed carry), but more and more states are recognizing others’ permits, making it practical to become licensed and purchase a weapon.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2013/02/25/a-gun-control-battle-that-could-actually-damage-the-industry-is-escaping-public-attention/

A growing number of shooting enthusiasts are creating legal trusts to acquire fully automatic guns, silencers or other firearms whose sale is restricted by federal law — a mechanism that bypasses the need to obtain law enforcement approval or even criminal background checks.

The trusts, called gun trusts, are intended to allow owners of the firearms to share them legally with family members and to pass them down responsibly. They have gained in popularity, gun owners say, in part because they may offer protection from future legislation intended to prohibit the possession or sale of the firearms.

But because of a loophole in federal regulations, buying restricted firearms through a trust also exempts the trust’s members from requirements that apply to individual buyers, including being fingerprinted, obtaining the approval of a chief local law enforcement officer and undergoing a background check.

Lawyers who handle the trusts and gun owners who have used them say that the majority of customers who buy restricted firearms through trusts do not do so to avoid such requirements. And most gun dealers continue to require background checks for the representative of the trust who picks up the firearm. But not all do. Christopher J. Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer who embarked on a weeklong assault on law enforcement officers this month that ended with his death on Feb. 12, said in a rambling 11,000-word manifesto that he had used a gun trust to buy silencers and a short-barreled rifle from a gun store in Nevada without a background check.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/us/in-gun-trusts-a-legal-loophole-for-restricted-firearms.html?hp

WASHINGTON -- In the insular world of gun rights groups, Alan Gottlieb is a man on the make. Over the past five years, his Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), has raced to expand gun rights, building on one of the most significant court rulings in decades. Now, Gottlieb is hoping to open the legal floodgates by litigating dozens of cases nationwide.

The December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., galvanized the public in support of gun control measures, but so far, the national conversation has revolved almost entirely around legislation. Many of the most significant changes to U.S. firearms law today are happening not in Congress, however, but in the courts.

Much of the SAF's reputation in the courtroom can be attributed to a Northern Virginia-based litigator, Alan Gura, who is best known for successfully arguing District of Columbia v. Heller before the Supreme Court. That landmark 2008 decision held that the Second Amendment protects the right of the individual, not just the state militia, to possess a gun.

Gura and Gottlieb teamed up after the Heller victory and filed more than 40 lawsuits, quickly establishing the SAF as a prolific player in Second Amendment litigation. In 2010, the duo scored a major win with a case they had initiated, McDonald v. Chicago, which extended the Heller decision to cover the states. In doing so, the Supreme Court overturned the Windy City's handgun ban, on the books for 28 years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/second-amendment-foundation_n_2745038.html

RENO, Nev. — California has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but that doesn't stop some gun buyers from finding a way around those laws when shopping for weapons.

Nevada has seen its share of boom and bust. Though there's one export, besides lady luck, that Californians can't seem to get enough of -- handguns, shotguns and semi-automatic rifles.

"Probably half of the illegal weapons that are coming into San Francisco and the Bay Area are coming out of different states, such as Nevada, Texas, Arizona," said Lt. Bobby Guzman from the San Francisco District Attorney's Office. "I believe that Reno is one of the hot spots where all these weapons are coming just because they're in very close proximity to the San Francisco Bay Area."

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/special-reports/nevadas-lax-gun-laws-make-it-popular-californians-/nWW2B/