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It wouldn't be Christmas without 'A Christmas Story,' the 1983 movie that became an instant holiday classic thanks to its winning cast and quotable scenes. The film is as time-honored a tradition as getting your tongue stuck to a pole in freezing weather. Here's a then-and-now look at the gang from fictional Hohman, Indiana, who brought the 'original, traditional, one-hundred-percent, red-blooded, two-fisted, all-American Christmas' tale to life ...

CHICAGO — In the opening minutes of the popular holiday film, "A Christmas Story," little Ralphie Parker is mesmerized by a BB gun in a store window. Not just any BB gun, but "the Holy Grail of Christmas gifts," the Red Ryder 200-shot range model air rifle. That same hypnotic stare made Sarah and Tim Baldwin snicker on a Wednesday afternoon while Christmas shopping at Bass Pro Shops’ Bolingbrook, Ill., store. Their son, Mitchell, 9, was holding the latest Red Ryder, turning it over in his hands, stroking it, trying to free it from its plastic case. "You like that...

Sep 9, 2009 10:40 pm US/Central Air Rifles And BB Guns: Toys Or Weapons? SEND A TIP TO THE 2 INVESTIGATORS Reporting Dave Savini CHICAGO (CBS) ― Just a few hours ago a Naperville high school student was arrested for shooting a BB gun at students from Chrone middle school. Fortunately no one was hurt. Not the same can be said for one Glen Ellyn woman who had a BB pellet pulled out of her heart. That's why there is a growing call to have BB guns and air rifles regulated like handguns. CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini takes a...

A self-described aspiring rapper confessed to robbing a convenience store Friday night and shooting a clerk in the temple with a BB gun in a misguided effort to gain "street credibility" for his career in Gainesville hip-hop, according to police. Steven Gilmore Jr., 21, was arrested in his Gainesville Place Apartment, at 2800 S.W. 35th Place, after a tip led police to his home. Gilmore confessed to the Friday night robbery and to a robbery last week of Hungry Howie's restaurant, police said. Police also arrested Gilmore's accomplice, a 16-year-old who police said served as a lookout for the Friday...

Randolph Elementary School parents and guardians received messages Thursday about a 10-year-old boy who showed off a broken BB gun on his way home from school Wednesday afternoon. According to police, the boy showed the gun to three other students. The students told their parents, who reported the incident to the school. School officials then told police. Capt. Jim Davidsaver said officers contacted the boy at his home Thursday, recovered the BB gun, cited him for disturbing the peace and referred him to the Lancaster County Attorney’s Office. According to an e-mail sent to parents, the school has taken disciplinary...

Why do the weird attacks happen mostly in Europe? Over here, when someone comes unhinged, it's with a high powered rifle and by God they make sure people know they're PO'd. On the Olde Continent, a perpetrator will throw a pie in some government poobah's face or pepper someone with a BB gun, which later gets describes more ominously as a gas-powered ball bearing firearm. Then there's your drunken soccer hooligan mob swarm, 16th century sword attack or butter knife stabbing. The London Daily Mail reports:Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card...when the gunman confronted him and glared...

It is Daisy’s policy to only sell directly, via phone order or internet order, to persons 21 years of age or older who complete and submit this affidavit of age. You must already have an affidavit on file or complete one now in order for us to be able to process your order. State statutes and/or local ordinances prohibit the sale and possession of air guns, CO2 guns and slingshots in some areas. We are unable to ship airguns into Chicago, Morton Grove, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Bronx, Brooklyn, Long Island City, Manhattan, Queens, New York City and Staten Island. Persons in...

A Louisiana National Guardsman shot and killed a New Orleans man who pointed what was thought to be a rifle at a group of police and other guardsmen early Thursday morning. According to Sgt. Joe Narcisse, an NOPD spokesman, the incident happened shortly before 1 a.m. in the 2100 block of Benton Street. The guardsmen were patrolling the area of Benton and North Miro streets when they saw a man riding a bicycle holding a hacksaw and behaving suspiciously. Guardsmen got out of their vehicles and pursued the man, Narcisse said. The man pulled out a knife and then threw...

<p>AUSTIN — A 12-year-old boy died after getting shot, apparently through the eye, with an air rifle, authorities said.</p> <p>The pellet might have entered the boy's head through his eye when he was shot Thursday, but officials won't know for sure until an autopsy is performed, said Travis County Sheriff's Capt. Art Cardenas.</p>

A worker at a Downtown steam plant who brought a pellet rifle to work to shoot pigeons was mistaken for a sniper Wednesday afternoon, prompting police to shut down part of the city for about two hours. Richard Wills, of Dawson, Fayette County, a maintenance worker in the Pittsburgh Allegheny County Thermal building, brought the weapon to work to chase pigeons away from broken windows on the building's roof, said PACT President Robert Fazio. Someone apparently spotted him - and his rifle - when he stepped out onto the roof for a few seconds, Fazio said. At least three witnesses...

WAUKEGAN — The sale of air guns will have to be reported to police under a new law being considered by the City Council. The council voted Monday to have a law drafted requiring stores in the city to provide police with the names and addresses of buyers of air rifles, air guns, BB guns, pellet guns and carbon dioxide (C02)-powered weapons. The measure is supported by police, said Waukegan Police Chief William Biang. "We've had people shot with them. We've had some serious injuries," said Biang, speaking at the council meeting. "We just arrested three kids shooting out windows...

Chinese facilities attacked with metal balls Vandals fired metal balls through air guns into China-related friendship centers in and near Tokyo early Monday, possibly in reprisal for anti-Japanese demonstrations across China over the weekend, police said.The makeshift bullets burst through a glass panel at the Nitchu Gakuin, a language center affiliated with the Japan-China Friendship Center in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo.The balls resemble ball bearings and are similar to those that were fired into a Bank of China branch in Yokohama on April 10. The Bank of China is a state-owned bank in China.Police said a cleaner arrived at the Nitchu...

A sassy classic Ralphie, the lamp, the BB gun and why we love them Every year at this time we get to unwrap a gift package filled with red cabbage, BBs and fishnet stockings. It's the movie "A Christmas Story," arguably America's favorite holiday film. The 90-minute picture celebrates its 21st anniversary this year, happily planted in the middle of our pop traditions. In 2003, more than 38.4 million viewers tuned into the 24-hour "A Christmas Story" TV marathon, said the film's director, Bob Clark, by phone as he sat next to a special lamp in his Los Angeles office....

Alexander shows the scar (above) that he still bears after his open-heart surgery that was performed to remove the pellet from his chest. For the Barlow family, an afternoon and a near tragedy changed their lives forever. On July 30, William and Cynthia Barlow of Kingwood received a call that their son, Alexander, who was 6 at the time, had been shot in the chest with a pellet gun. The nearly fatal injury required open heart surgery. The episode brought a new sense of gun safety awareness to the Barlow family and garnered the family on a spot on...

BENTONVILLE -- A 12-year-old home-schooled boy choked back emotion Monday as he apologized to three school bus drivers for shooting out windows of their buses with a BB gun on Aug. 19 in Siloam Springs. Circuit Judge Jay Finch told the boy to apologize to each driver after Finch convicted him of a felony terroristic act, shooting objects at moving vehicles with passengers, which is a Class B felony. The boy, whose name is being withheld because of his age, will spend the next six months on supervised probation, Finch decided. The boy admitted to shooting only one of the...

(West Haven-WTNH, Apr. 30, 2003 Updated 3:55 PM) _ A middle school student is facing criminal charges and may be expelled from school after witnesses say they saw him waving a weapon at a school bus stop. The unidentified 15-year-old boy was found carrying a BB gun that resembles a .45 caliber handgun. The teen was charged with carrying a weapon and breach of peace. The boy's grandmother says the boy was walking to the bus stop with his girlfriend at the time. She says he should have known better, that weapons are not allowed in the house. The boy's...

**PLEASE READ, THIS IS A CONTINUANCE OF THE BB GUN AND THE SOLDIER FROM THE SPRING!!** BEVIDERE- An Army sergeant was sentenced to five years in prison Friday for shooting a 15-year-old Phillipsburg girl with a BB gun in 1999.. Sgt. Jeffery Mott, 30, of Phillipsburg, will be eligible for parole after serving three years in state prison, said sate superior court Judge John J. Pursel. Defense attorney Paul M. Aaroe II said he intends to file an appeal. The jury wrongly convicted Mott, Aaroe said. Mott was found guilty in April of possession of a weapon for an unlawful...

BELVIDERE - A U.S. Army sergeant convicted last month of shooting a 15 year old girl with a BB gun is seeking a new trial. Jeffrey Mott, 30, shot the girl on Oct. 30, 1999, as she and her friends fled the scene of a mischief night prank in Phillipsburg. The incident began after someone threw something at Mott's front door and broke the screen, authorities said. A jury last month convicted Mott of possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and aggravated assault. The jury aquitted him of a lesser aggravated assault charge. The weapons offense carries a...