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The bullet-proof backpack industry is a real thing—and it’s booming, post-Newtown.
This should not exist.
Today is Monday, the first school day since the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that claimed so many young lives last week. Like millions of other American parents, I sent my kids off to school today knowing that the difficult family discussions we had over the weekend will continue in the classroom, as educators and students address yet another tragic outburst of violence in our schools. Today, the first of many funerals will take place in Newtown, after a weekend of vigils and mourning. President Obama visited Newtown on Sunday, speaking before an auditorium of grieving parents. “We can’t accept events like this as routine,” he said, “These tragedies must end, and to end them, we must change.”
See more. [Images: Reuters, Getty, AP]
Maybe not the best place for a HUGE gun ad, directly next to your story on the Newtown shooting. They did apologize — read it here.
::headdesk::
Should churches be training people to shoot guns?
In an effort to reach out to men and increase membership, some U.S. churches have started offering concealed weapons training.
“Church has done a good job with coffee klatsches or whatever, but we haven’t really reached out to guys,” said Jeff Copley, a preacher at the church. “And guys in Morrow Country, they shoot and they hunt.”
Hundreds of students have enrolled in the 10-hour course, which meets the state requirements for earning a concealed weapons permit. The training includes two hours on a church member’s private shooting range.
3-D printers can make custom action figures, fast prototypes, and even (some) replacement body parts. But a few do-it-yourselfers have used 3-D printers to create gun parts, raising troubling legal concerns.
On July 22nd a member of the AR15.com gun owners’ forum from Florida reported that he had successfully downloaded 3-D plans for the lower receiver of an AR-15 assault rifle and then printed them. The amateur gunsmith — known in the forum by handle “HaveBlue” — stated he was able to fit the part into the rifle and fire it without having it “blow up into a bazillion tiny plastic shards and maim me for life.”
What HaveBlue did — creating the lower receiver for an AR-15 with a 3-D printer — is not illegal in most states. The same part can easily be purchased online from a vast array of commercial websites. However, when one goes online and purchases a part for a gun, that transaction is usually monitored, tracked, and stored. That sort of oversight does not exist with 3-D printing. If HaveBlue wanted, he could have fabricated the components for the AR-15 that could have turned it into a fully automatic (and highly illegal) weapon. And no law enforcement agency would have known.
A new rule at the U. of Colorado places students who own guns and those who don’t into separate buildings. Some are up in arms, accusing the school of discrimination.
The decision is the outgrowth of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that struck down the university’s campuswide gun ban. University policy under the ruling still allows students with concealed firearm permits to carry guns.
To obtain a concealed carry permit in Colorado, you must be 21 or older, pass a federal background check and demonstrate competence with a firearm, either by completing a course or through military or police service.
School officials estimate only about 400, or 1 percent, of its students and faculty members — 30,000 in Boulder and 10,000 in Colorado Springs — have concealed carry permits.
“We believe this approach balances the right of the concealed carry permit holders with the need for the campus to have a safe learning environment,” university spokesman Bronson Hilliard told The Daily.
These are some seriously scary stats — 44% of teens say they could get a handgun if they wanted to, according to a national survey released this week by the Chicago-based Uhlich Children’s Advantage Network.
Holiday gun sales shot to an all-time high this year, thanks to marketing that targets kids, women, the elderly and everyone in between.
“Basically, the idea is to get the ladies out of the mall and into my shop,” said Randy Glauber, owner of Glauber’s Sports in Carrollton, Ky.
In November, licensed gun dealers requested 1.53 million federal background checks for prospective gun buyers, breaking the record for the month set in 2008.
So, this happened.
