Gun-sale boy is a real pistol

By LORENA MONGELLI, CHRISTINA CARREGA and ERIC LENKOWITZ

Last Updated: 2:07 AM, April 30, 2011

Posted: 2:01 AM, April 30, 2011

Like father, like son.

An 8-year-old Queens boy who brought his dad's illegal, loaded 9mm handgun to school and sold it to a classmate for $3.50 was arrested and faces weapons-possession charges with his father, police said yesterday.

"It just underscored the scourge of guns that we see," Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

"The 8-year-old boy has been arrested . . . Here you have a young boy who sees a gun in his house, and sells it."

Kelly said the unregistered 9mm owned by the boy's dad, Ignacio Galvan, 54, "was on top of the refrigerator" in their Flushing home when the boy spotted it and took it.

The child then brought the gun Thursday to PS 107, where he attends the third grade.
There he agreed to sell the gun with the serial number scratched out to another boy in his grade, according to the other boy's mom.

"He thought he was purchasing a toy. He gave the kid [the money] at the beginning of the day," said the mom, who asked that her name be withheld.

Later in the day, Galvan's child "took the gun out of his backpack and put it in my son's backpack," the mom said.

When the young buyer went home Thursday, he said, " 'Mom, I think it's real.' He pulled it out and hands it to me. Oh, my God! I could see it's a 9mm. I was flipping out," the mom said.

She said she went to PS 107 with her son and the gun and informed a school official, who called cops.

Kelly said the gun contained three live rounds, and another live round was found on the floor at the school.

"My son is traumatized," the mom said. "He was hysterical, crying, thinking he's going to jail."

Her son was suspended from school.

When Galvan was arrested, he told police he had bought the gun from a friend for about $350, prosecutor Richard Gioardano said.

"I can't belive my son took it to school. I just thank God no one was hurt," Galvan allegedly told cops, according to Gioardano.

Galvan, who faces charges of weapons possession, reckless endangerment and child endangerment, pleaded guilty in 2002 to misdemeanor criminal possession of a forged instrument for having a fake green card.

He was remanded on $3,000 bail and is due back in court on June 3.

His attorney George Welsh said Galvan is cooperating with the police.

Meanwhile, his son, who faces weapons charges, may appear Monday in Queens Family Court.

Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese and Kevin Sheehan
lorena.mongelli@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/queens/gun_sale_boy_is_real_pistol_kupe8wBzKFQoJy5tYGdAzJ

People on the FBI terrorist watch list were unhampered in buying guns in US

By Mike Lillis - 04/28/11 04:09 PM ET

 

Hundreds of people on the FBI's terrorist watch list were cleared to purchase firearms in 2010, prompting at least one lawmaker and Capitol Hill gun-reformer to reiterate a call for tougher rules.

Of the 272 individuals on the terrorist watch list who attempted to buy firearms last year, 247 were allowed to make the purchase, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported Wednesday.

The findings were not overlooked by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who slammed the current law as too lenient and urged Congress to close what gun reformers call the "terror gap."

"It defies common sense that people on the terror watch list continue to be cleared to buy weapons legally in the United States,” Lautenberg, who requested the GAO report, said Thursday in a statement. "This is a homeland-security issue, not a gun issue, and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to stop a terrorist from buying a dangerous weapon in the United States."

Under current law, licensed gun dealers must perform background checks on all potential buyers to screen for those ineligible to possess firearms, including felons, illegal immigrants, spousal abusers and the severely mentally ill.

The list of ineligibles, however, does not include those on the FBI's terrorist watch list, which houses data on people "known or appropriately suspected to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of, or related to terrorism."

The 25 individuals on the terrorist list who were denied approval last year were disqualified for reasons that included felony conviction and domestic violence.

"There is no basis to automatically prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives because they appear on the terrorist watch list," the GAO reported. 

In January, Lautenberg introduced legislation empowering state attorneys general to deny gun sales to those on the terrorist watch list if state officials suspect they would use the weapons for terrorist attacks.

The legislation is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.).

The National Rifle Association did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday, but the nation's largest gun lobby has opposed past efforts to disqualify those on the government's terrorist list from buying firearms. The group argues that such a rule would violate the Second Amendment rights of those put on the list by mistake.

Source:
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/158235-suspected-terorists-unhampered-in-buying-guns-

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/158235-suspected-terorists-unhampered-in-buying-guns-?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=

Gun Ownership Hits New Low as NRA Meets in Pittsburgh

Posted: 04/2Sugarmann

Executive director, Violence Policy Center

7/11 04:18 PM ET

Household gun ownership has continued its decades-long decline, hitting a new low in 2010 according to new national survey data from the General Social Survey (GSS).

 

The GSS data is analyzed in a new Violence Policy Center report, A Shrinking Minority: The Continuing Decline of Gun Ownership in America.
The VPC has also issued a companion video to the report.

The GSS has tracked household and personal gun ownership since the early 1970s and, except for the U.S. Census, is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences.

So what is the GSS? Conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago:

The GSS is the largest project funded by the Sociology Program of the National Science Foundation. Except for the U.S. Census, the GSS is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences...It is the only survey that has tracked the opinions of Americans over an extended period of time. The GSS is also a major teaching tool. We know of over 14,000 research uses such as articles in academic journals, books, and Ph.D. dissertations based on the GSS and about 250,000 students annually who use it in their classes.

Essentially it's the gold standard of survey data.
According to the GSS data analyzed in the VPC report:

• Household gun ownership peaked in 1977, when more than half (54 percent) of American households reported having any guns. By 2010, this number had dropped more than 20 percentage points to 32.3 percent of American households reporting having any guns in the home--the lowest level ever recorded by the GSS. In 2010, fewer than a third of America households reported having a gun in the home.
• Personal gun ownership peaked in 1985, when 30.7 percent of Americans reported personally owning a gun. By 2010, this number had dropped nearly 10 percentage points to 20.8 percent--the lowest level ever recorded by the GSS. In 2010, slightly more than one out of five Americans reported personally owning a gun.
• Male gun ownership peaked in 1990, when 52.4 percent of males reported personally owning a gun. By 2010, this number had dropped more than 19 percentage points to 33.2 percent--the lowest level ever recorded by the GSS. In 2010, only one out of three American males reported personally owning a gun.
• Female gun ownership has fluctuated within a narrow range with no recent signs of increase. Relatively rare, female gun ownership peaked in 1982 at 14.3 percent. In 2010 the female personal gun ownership rate was 9.9 percent. Only one out of 10 American females reported personally owning a gun in 2010.

Looking at these numbers another way, a clear majority of American households are gun-free and most Americans do not personally own a gun.
And, despite the NRA and gun industry's decades-long efforts to market firearms to women--and the willingness of an all-too-often gullible news media to accept these claims on mere assertion, misleading statistics, and frequently unfounded claims--nine out of 10 women don't personally own a gun.

The continued decline of gun ownership is one reason why the NRA has institutionalized its efforts seeking financial support from the gun industry, receiving millions of dollars from "corporate partners" that include manufacturers and vendors of handguns, assault weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines, and other firearm-related items. It has even received between $500,000 and $999,999 from Xe, the new name for the now-infamous Blackwater Worldwide, known for its abuses in the Iraq war.

The NRA, however, barges on, thumping its chest and acting as if the country as a whole has bought into its vision of Fortress America (unless, of course, the organization needs to raise a little extra money from its non-corporate supporters). Yet imagine if any other industry and its de facto trade association faced the future represented by the GSS numbers on gun ownership. What if the number of households with television sets, cars, or computers saw similar declines? They wouldn't try to dimiss the numbers, but would make changes in their products and their marketing to try and address the crisis. The NRA and the gun industry have attempted to follow this model--but with little success (see household and women's gun ownership figures above). As a result, their most common public response to this new reality is to deny it. In industry publications and meetings, however, the trends against gun ownership are openly acknowledged--and feared.

The bottom line is that a clear majority of Americans have no place for guns in their lives. And recognizing the factors that have led to this continued decline--the aging of the current-gun owning population and a lack of interest in guns by youth, the end of military conscription, the decreasing popularity of hunting, land-use issues that limit hunting and other shooting activities, environmental and zoning issues that force shooting ranges to close and limit new range construction, and the increase in single-parent homes headed by women--it doesn't look like most Americans are going to be changing their minds anytime soon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-sugarmann/gun-ownership-hits-new-lo_b_854564.html?view=print

As gun battle shows, every right has limits

Even in the Arizona desert, moderation survives.

By Steve Frank

 

It can't be the water. So it must be the sun's glare on the parched landscape that helps Arizona illuminate our country's most contentious debates - immigration, health care, abortion, and more.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's veto last week of the so-called birther bill overshadowed her rejection of another piece of hot-button legislation: a bill to allow gun owners to carry their weapons on public university and community-college campuses.

Like the bill requiring presidential candidates to prove their nationality, which was motivated by conspiracy theories about President Obama's place of birth, the campus gun bill was sharply divisive. It cast a clear light on fundamental differences between advocates of gun rights and gun control.

However unintentionally, its veto by the Republican governor and tea-party favorite highlighted something else equally fundamental: In politics - and even in a political gunfight - there are always opportunities for moderation.

 

Pushing boundaries

 

Under current law, Arizona's public colleges and universities are each allowed to decide whether to allow guns on campus. None of them do.

 

The failed bill would have lifted those bans to permit the carrying of guns within public rights of way on campuses. That restriction to campus streets and byways was something of a compromise; an earlier version of the legislation would have permitted the carrying of concealed weapons in campus buildings, including classrooms.

Legislation similar to the Arizona bill has been pushed by gun-rights advocates, and opposed by gun-control proponents, in many states since the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. So far, 45 attempts to lift campus gun bans have failed in 24 states.

The argument turns on whether you think arming students and professors will make campuses safer, or turn the groves of academe into brainier versions of the Wild West. Gun-rights advocates argue that people should be able to arm themselves against killers on campus, and elsewhere. Their opponents say the presence of weapons would lead to more violence.

Frankly, the jury is out on this question. In Utah, where the law was changed to permit guns on campus in 2006, there has been no increase in campus gun violence. Gun-rights advocates say that shows fears of mayhem are unfounded.

On the other hand, colleges and universities tend to be gun-free zones, and homicides on campus are rare, typically numbering fewer than 20 a year. Gun-control proponents say that shows there's no need for guns on campus.

Under federal law, anyone under 21 - which includes most college freshmen, sophomores, and juniors - cannot buy handguns from a dealer. So lifting gun bans on campus would facilitate the arming mostly of seniors, graduate students, and professors. And in most states, they would also need a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The practical impact of lifting campus gun bans, then, might be slight.

But the issue isn't really about whether professors packing heat would deter mass murder. It's about whether there should be any limits on the right to bear arms.

As Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, observed in the New York Times last week, "The true motivation is to remove the stigma attached to guns. Many in the gun-rights movement believe there should be no gun-free zones and seek to make the public possession of firearms a matter of course." Along those lines, a bill that would allow guns to be carried in Maine's State House was narrowly endorsed by a legislative committee in Augusta last week.

 

Drawing lines

 

Gov. Brewer said in her veto message that the Arizona bill was "poorly written," in that it didn't define public rights of way and could have been interpreted to apply to K-12 schools, not just universities and colleges. Sadly, school shootings can occur not only at universities, but also at K-12 schools - where Brewer drew a line. And therein lies a principle of moderation for those who wish to seize it.

 

In landmark decisions in 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own a gun for personal use, and the court specifically stated that individuals have a right to keep a loaded gun at home for self-defense.

But no right is unlimited, and where to draw the limits is exactly the question highlighted in Arizona. Even in the Wild West, gunslingers checked their weapons at the saloon door. Should they also check them at the schoolhouse door?

Steve Frank is chief interpretive officer of the National Constitution Center. He blogs at http://blog.constitutioncenter.org.

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/120758999.html

Record U.S. Gun Checks Show Economic Doubts: Chart of the Day

By David Wilson - Apr 25, 2011 11:26 AM ET
Americans are telling a “less upbeat story” about the economy’s prospects as they attempt to buy guns in record numbers, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at BNY ConvergEx Group LLC.

Doubts: Chart of the DayThe CHART OF THE DAY shows the average monthly number of background-check applications increased to 1.25 million in the 12-month period that ended in March, according to data compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The figure has been setting records since January.

Spending on guns, ammunition and other sporting equipment rose 9.9 percent in the 12-month period that ended in February after adjusting for inflation, according to U.S. Commerce Department data. The increase was almost four times faster than the 2.5 percent rise in all personal consumption expenditures.

In this year’s first quarter, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 4.25 million requests on prospective gun buyers. The total increased 16 percent from a year earlier. The law-enforcement agency started its current tracking system in 1998.

The FBI is likely to carry out more than 15 million checks in all of 2011, Colas wrote. The projection is at least 4 percent higher than last year’s 14.4 million, and would amount to the seventh straight annual record.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Wilson in New York at dwilson@bloomberg.net
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-25/record-u-s-gun-checks-show-economic-doubts-chart-of-the-day.html

Opposing view: Restricting firearms makes us less safe

Eric Pratt

Several states are passing Stand Your Ground laws and loosening their concealed carry laws, making it easier for people to defend themselves … and that’s a good thing.

Consider what happens when decent people can’t protect themselves.

Amanda Collins was a student at University of Nevada’s Reno campus in 2007. Even though she had a concealed carry permit, she was unarmed the night she was brutally raped by James Biela. She had left her gun at home because she was scared of what could happen to her if she was caught disobeying the laws prohibiting firearms on campus.

Amanda feels certain she could have used her gun successfully that night. “I would have at some point during my rape been able to stop James Biela,” she said.

Amanda has reason to be confident. There are women today who have escaped the ugliness of rape because a gun was nearby. Take the Missouri teenager who was rescued by her handgun-wielding mother one night last year. Craig Kizer jumped on the sleeping teenager but was forced to flee the house after the teen grabbed a knife and the mom entered the room with a firearm, police said.

Stand Your Ground laws have passed in many states, giving homeowners added legal protection when they use guns defensively. These laws, coupled with those recognizing the right of people to defend themselves with firearms outside the home, are saving lives.

Anti-gun extremists always claim that allowing citizens to carry guns will result in random shootouts. But the truth is that these Chicken Little predictions never materialize.

Take El Paso, which was ranked by CQ Press as America’s safest city in 2010. El Paso is situated in a very pro-gun state where people can easily carry concealed firearms. Residents there live quite peacefully, despite being located across from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico— a town with very stringent gun control laws and one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Restricting firearms only makes us less safe. So let’s applaud the almost 7,000 Americans a day who use firearms in self-defense to deter criminals.

Erich Pratt is the director of communications for Gun Owners of America, a grassroots lobbying group with more than 300,000 members.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-04-24-guns-save-lives.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Up from Mexico Way:  A Lawsuit Against U.S. Gunmaker

Up from Mexico Way: A Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Manufacturers

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Written by Selwyn Duke

Up from Mexico Way: A Lawsuit Against U.S. Gun Manufacturers

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Written by Selwyn Duke

In the early days it was Pancho Villa, then it was undocumented Democrats and drug runners, and now we have the latest incursion across our southern border: The Mexican government is poised to file a lawsuit against our domestic firearms manufacturers because U.S.-made guns find their way into Mexico. Writes CBS News:

"Sources say Mexico's frustration with U.S. efforts to stop the flow of weapons has pushed them into this novel approach. The law firm [that has been retained] is looking at charges that may include civil RICO. The contract was signed on November 2, 2010 by a representative of Mexico's Attorney General, at their Washington embassy.

"On November 5, 2010 President Felipe Calderon expressed his frustration to CBS News correspondent Peter Greenberg: 'We seized more than 90,000 weapons.... I am talking like 50,000 assault weapons, AR-15 machine guns, more than 8,000 grenades and almost 10 million bullets. Amazing figures and according to all those cases, the ones we are able to track, most of these are American weapons.'"

Frustration with efforts to stop a cross-border flow....

Wow, we wouldn’t know anything about that.

It is true that the United States is teeming with weapons. In fact, the next time I visit my local gun shop, I’ll not only replenish my supply of machine guns and grenades, I intend to update my arsenal of sarin gas and tactical nuclear weapons.

If I seem flippant, at least my nonsense is rendered in jest. But it appears that Calderon doesn’t know any more about firearms than our typical anti-Second Amendment politicians. Either that, or it was some rapid-fire propaganda. Because “machine” guns — that is, fully-automatic weapons — aren’t available in gun stores and neither are grenades. As for an “AR-15 machine gun,” perhaps he was talking about an M-16A2; it is our military’s standard-issue rifle and isn’t available to civies. And if an AR-15 is full-auto, it was illegally converted after purchase.

But if Calderon really is upset about this problem, he might want to talk to Barack Obama, whose ATF was shipping guns into Mexico via operation Gunwalker. Really, though, the Mexicans’ chutzpah knows no bounds. First I’ll mention that drugs and the related violence have been pouring across our border for quite some time now, and the trade is sometimes facilitated by corrupt Mexican law enforcement. Oh, the drug business is driven by American demand, some retort?

Yeah, sort of like the gun trade, huh?

Besides, why are the Mexicans troubling over these firearms, anyway?
Aren’t they just undocumented compression-operated projectile-propulsion instruments?

Worse still, the Mexican government teaches its people that American territory is rightfully part of “Greater Mexico” (and 58 percent of Mexicans now believe this according to one poll) and has actually distributed pamphlets on how to better sneak into our country and evade the authorities while squatting here. So, when Eric “Americans are Cowards” Holder is done pressuring localities into hiring stupid people as police officers, he might want to consider some lawsuits against Mexico over the drugs, illegals, and criminals pouring into our country. And don’t forget to cite the Mexican nationals who’ve murdered and raped our citizens (sometimes after being released by the kind of police Holder would give us).

Then again, it may be a good idea to just avoid the whole lawyer-enriching mess. So how about this deal: 

We go to Mexico and pick up our guns and the Mexicans come here and pick up their illegals?

This, unfortunately, won’t happen, and the aforementioned lawsuits really are no laughing matter. Not only are they used by rapacious, gold-digging governments to try to extract private-sector money not yet seized through taxation, but there is often something even more insidious at work: It is a way that left-wing activists can harm politically incorrect businesses through the courts.

Of course, the lawsuits against the tobacco companies come to mind, but the tactic has also been used against more sympathetic entities. For example, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) were sued by an atheist who didn’t like their religious bent, by groups that didn’t like their prohibition against openly homosexual members, and by a girl who wanted to be a Boy Scout (she finally decided to be the next Rachel Maddow instead). The BSA eventually prevailed in court, but at what expense? Those who file these activist-harassment lawsuits know that, even if their victim prevails, it may be a coffer-draining Pyrrhic victory for the victim. And it harms society, too. After all, how many poor boys were hurt because funds that could have helped them escape the concrete jungle for the country instead went to BSA’s lawyer fees? 

This is why we need the tort reform of a loser-pays law. As it stands now, it’s simply too easy for the avaricious and activist-minded to harass, and attempt to steal from, others through the legal system. Groups with deep pockets and their own teams of lawyers, such as the ACLU and SPLC, can roll the dice with nothing to lose because, at worst, they will intensify a fear of lawsuits that causes others to conform to their agenda. That’s their real goal, anyway, and it is why they need their wings clipped. Honestly, a mugger on the corner is less to be feared.

Speaking of which, as far as the kleptocracy called Mexico goes, where is General Blackjack Pershing when you need him?

Related article:
ATF Linked to Border Agent's Murder