Free Republic

The state Senate and House, after short debates, voted overwhelmingly early Wednesday to approve a bill blocking public disclosure of photos of homicide victims and some other records in reaction to the Newtown school massacre. The Senate took up the bill at 1:17 a.m. and voted 33-2 to approve it at about 1:35 a.m. Voting no were Democratic Sens. Edward Meyer of Guilford and Anthony Musto of Trumbull.

Guns are Tightly Controlled, but The U.S. Virgin Islands has one of the Highest Homicide Rates in the WorldNot counted as a state or a city, the U.S. Virgin Islands is often missed in statistics about gun control in the United States. Gun ownership is tightly regulated, with permission to own a gun only granted by the Police Commissioner upon application, and subject to the Commissioner's discretion. Even antique firearms, which are not regulated under U.S. Federal law, are not allowed unless they are inspected and "rendered useless". 476. Collections of antique firearms; certificates of uselessness. No provision hereof...

Dead Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and another man — who was killed by the FBI on Wednesday — murdered three people in Massachusetts after a drug deal went wrong in 2011, law enforcement sources tell NBC News. Sources say that what began as a drug ripoff ended in a triple homicide when Tsarnaev and friend Ibragim Todashev realized their victims would later be able to identify them. Todashev was killed by a federal agent while giving a statement on his role on Wednesday in Orlando, Fla. The man who was shot, Todashev, 27, allegedly attacked an agent with a...

An off-duty officer opened fire this morning, killing her husband and 1-year-old son in an apparent murder-suicide in Brooklyn this morning, sources said. Police and EMS responded to a 911 call of a man shot inside of a building at East 56th Street and Farragut Road about 8:30 a.m., the FDNY said.

Someone did an excellent job of annotating our homicide rate chart from 1885 to 2011. Since every thing here is intended to be taken for use against the gun control nuts, I am glad they left a link so I could enjoy their good work. Here is the same chart, with just a bit greater detail than dropping keywords on the graphic allow. The easiest way to do this is to put key numbers referencing the notes, below: 1.) The SodbustersThe United States was pretty well settled by 1885, with homicide rates that generally reflected the country of origin of...

Suicides and Homicides in Patients Taking Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft: Why They Keep Happening -- And Why They Will Continue Underlying Causes That Continue to Be Ignored by Mainstream Medicine and the Media From almost the day that they were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, sudden, unexpected suicides and homicides have been reported in patients taking serotonin-enhancing antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft. I'm not surprised this problem hasn't disappeared, nor will it unless we look deeper. I never hesitate to say that these drugs -- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) -- help millions of people....

The Bay Fair BART Station in San Leandro was shut down for more than five hours Saturday after a midday shooting killed a man and wounded a woman, authorities said. The deceased victim, described only as a 40-year-old black man, died at the scene of the 12:20 p.m. shooting at the bus stop outside the station, BART officials said. The station was shut down at 12:50 p.m. while authorities collected evidence and searched for suspects. The station did not completely reopen until after 7 p.m. The second shooting victim was rushed to a nearby hospital. Her injuries are not believed...

There have been calls for an inquiry after minister disclosed that birth rates for girls and boys vary noticeably according to where their mothers were born. It was the first official statistical evidence potentially backing up concerns that sex-selection abortions are being carried out in Britain. Fiona Bruce, the Conservative MP for Congleton, has tabled an early day motion which calls on the Department of Health to ensure the data of aborted foetuses is reported “so that statistical evidence of crime cannot be hidden”. The early day motion was also signed by Jim Dobbin, the Labour MP for Heywood...

It's no surprise to LaTanya Lozano that homicides are up in the Bay Area's biggest cities. She moved to Hayward in late 2011 to try to protect her four sons, only to see two of them shot dead last year back where she used to live, Oakland. First her 15-year-old, Shonte Daniels Jr., was shot by a 14-year-old friend in a park, apparently after teasing him. Six months later, in October, 21-year-old Rashad Meredith was caught in the middle of a gunfight between rival groups outside his aunt's apartment. "This tore down my whole life," said Lozano, who was hospitalized...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was crowing. "The number of murders this year will be lower than any time in recorded city history," Bloomberg said Friday in a statement announcing that homicides in the city this year had fallen to 414 — the fewest since it started keeping such statistics in 1963. About the same time Friday, Chicago police were trying to get the message out that their city hadn't actually recorded its 500th homicide this year, as was being reported. A few hours later, they had to backtrack and acknowledge that, yes, in fact, "the city has seen its...

HOUSTON – Investigators are searching for answers after a suspected drunken driver was found shot dead after he allegedly slammed into a family's truck on a rural Houston-area road, killing two young brothers. 12-year-old David Barajas and his 11-year-old brother, Caleb, were helping their father push his disabled truck down the road when 21-year-old Jose Banda allegedly slammed into them from behind, MyFoxHouston.com reports. Neighbors say they heard gun shots minutes after the crash. Police responding to the crash found Banda shot in the head, but no gun at the scene. Banda and both boys died.

BEAVER FALLS (KDKA/AP) – Police are searching for two 14-year-old boys, and reported a 13-year-old who are charged as adults with fatally shooting a Beaver Falls woman. Beaver Falls police have charged Todavia Cleckley and Marcus Velasquez with criminal homicide and other charges in Saturday’s shooting of 22-year-old Kayla Peterson. She was shot at a house about 3:30 p.m. that day and died at Allegheny General Hospital two hours later. Cleckley’s Facebook page shows a young man posing with a revolver in one hand and a pistol in the other. The photo was posted less than 12 hours after Peterson’s...

Whenever international comparisons of homicide rates are studied, it is mandatory to consider Switzerland. Not only does Switzerland have very low homicide rates, it has one of the highest levels of gun ownership in the world. As I attempted to find out what the gun homicide rate for Switzerland was, I ran into a curious phenomena. The most commonly quoted figures for gun homicides were for both gun homicides and attempted gun homicides. In one source, this led to the startling conclusion that gun homicides for a given year were greater than total homicides. At the site gunpolicy.org, the total...

Joseph E. Baldwin Jr., 23, of 26 Lathrop St., was sentenced to the Illinois State Penal Farm for 11 months and placed on three years probation Friday after he pleaded guilty to a charge of reckless homicide. Baldwin, a novelty salesman, pleaded guilty to the charge in July after the car he was driving crashed into a semi-trailer near Danville, Ill., killing his passenger, Robert M. Clark, 19, of Champaign, Ill. The court granted 60 days reduction in the jail sentence to compensate for time has has already spent in the Vermillion County Jail.

CITY OF NEWBURGH — A Newburgh cop and three others were stabbed early Saturday at a party honoring a recent homicide victim. City police said the officer was stabbed multiple times around 2:35 a.m. at a Dry Dock nightclub event honoring Justin “J-Doc” Doctor, 23, who was killed Oct. 14. The officer was trying to arrest somebody involved in a fight. The cop received a stab wound to the neck, and was treated at St. Luke’s Hospital. The officer is now in stable condition at a trauma center, police said. Some 200 friends and relatives came out to 90 Broadway...

An extraordinary poll published by the British Humanist Association (BHA) highlights the public ambivalence about assisted suicide and euthanasia. In conjunction with other recent surveys, it shows that more people are in favour of the law allowing the killing of relatively healthy patients like Tony Nicklinson than of those who are terminally ill. The "respectable" wing of the assisted dying movement, Dignity in Dying, wants a very limited right to medically assisted suicide: only people who are terminally ill and in full possession of their faculties would qualify. Even this limited position is hugely controversial. But the BHA believes that...

(Reuters) - In the Philippines, they vote with their trigger fingers. Elections mean big business for illegal gunsmiths, who are looking forward to 2013 mid-term polls. With election-related violence commonplace, the Philippines imposes a ban on the carrying of guns for six months, from campaigning to the proclamation of winners. With legal access denied, Filipinos simply turn to the many illegal gunsmiths who ply their trade in back alleys and on the edge of rice fields despite government crackdowns. -----------------------------cut--------------------- According to www.gunpolicy.org, a site hosted by the University of Sydney's School of Public Health in Australia, there are about...

In Houston early Friday, a 19-year-old convenience store clerk shot and killed a 52-year-old man who stole beer, according to police. The matter remains under investigation, but the clerk was not arrested. In Texas and elsewhere, each time someone is shot dead with a claim of self-defense, a grand jury must decide if an indictment is warranted. However, deliberations by grand juries are secret and the basis of their decisions is seldom public. The Chronicle also examined times of death, gender and race of both the shooters and the dead. Citizen shootings most often happen after dark, and involve a...

Does anyone remember the murder of a nun by a priest back in 1980?

How's the strictest gun control laws in America working out for ya there, Chi-town? New York Times: ____________________________ Mr. Emanuel listed safer streets among his top three priorities when he became mayor a year ago, but Chicago, the nation's third-largest city, is now testing that promise. Homicides are up by 38 percent from a year ago, and shootings have increased as well, even as killings have held steady or dropped in New York, Los Angeles and some other cities. As of June 17, 240 people had been killed here this year, mostly in shootings, 66 more deaths than occurred in...