NATIONAL
May 13, 2013 | By Melanie Mason, Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - First came the letter-writing campaigns, then the protests at town hall meetings and now the television ads. The last several weeks in New Hampshire have had the feel of a heated electoral season - but the target of this siege, first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, isn't on the ballot until 2016. Welcome to Round 2 in the battle over gun control. The first round ended last month, when a proposal to expand the background check system to cover most commercial gun sales fizzled in the Senate.
OPINION
May 12, 2013
Re "Another kind of gun control," Opinion, May 5 David M. Kennedy's Op-Ed article saying that efforts to curtail gun violence should be focused on "hot" groups and areas, instead of on doomed legislation, was a refreshing moment of clarity in this debate. The recent massacres certainly demand a focused, spirited response, but current gun control measures being pushed do nothing to address the root causes of these horrible events. Rather than infringing on the rights of law-abiding citizens, the focus should be on enforcing current laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, implementing a robust overhaul of mental health services to recognize and treat those who may have the potential to carry out mass murder, and targeting the inner-city gangs that are responsible for an outsized proportion of gun violence.
OPINION
May 11, 2013
Re "Beliefs on gun crime way off," May 8 How can The Times manage to mention that "some researchers" attribute the significant reduction in gun crime in the United States to the reduced use of lead in gasoline (other causes mentioned were the decline in crack cocaine use and high incarceration rates), but not the fact that the number of violent crimes involving guns has decreased coincidentally with the increase in the rate of gun ownership in this country? Crimes committed with guns become less common as more people are armed, especially in places allowing open and concealed carry of firearms by law-abiding citizens.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 8, 2013 | By Andrew Blankstein and Robert J. Lopez, Los Angeles Times
Four people who provided crucial information in the hunt for former Los Angeles Police Officer Christopher Dorner will split what is expected to be a $1-million reward in the case, authorities announced Tuesday afternoon. The division of the highly anticipated reward, sought by at least 12 people after a February gun battle that led to Dorner's death, was overseen by three retired judges and made public in a 12-page report released by the Los Angeles Police Department. The money will be paid in installments to a couple held captive by Dorner, a ski resort employee and a tow truck driver.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 7, 2013 | By Emily Alpert, Los Angeles Times
The number of violent crimes involving guns has plummeted in the last two decades, but more than half of Americans think the opposite is true, according to reports released Tuesday. Killings, assaults, robberies and other crimes involving guns have dropped since their peak in the mid-1990s, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reported. The rate of killings by gun has been cut nearly in half, according to another analysis of the same data by the Pew Research Center. The rate of other violent gun crimes fell even more sharply, by 75%, paralleling a broader drop in violent crimes committed with or without guns.
SCIENCE
May 6, 2013 | By Melissa Healy
More than 17% of children considered to be at risk of committing suicide have guns in the home that could make a passing destructive impulse deadly, and between 15% and 30% of those adolescents told researchers they had access to those guns, to bullets, or to both. Those figures, presented over the weekend at the American Academy of Pediatrics' annual meeting, underscore a growing interest in pediatricians in weighing in on gun violence and its toll on children. The new research was unveiled during a session of the physicians' confab devoted to understanding the role of violence in media, the challenge of recognizing which kids are potentially violent, and what role guns play in the death and injury of children.