WASHINGTON – Even as the pathologist’s report stated that 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui fired more than 100 times at his 32 defenceless victims, the call for arms is gaining currency in the United States. The powerful gun lobby, far from being weakened by the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16, has actually emerged stronger, advocates said, stepping up their calls for a better-armed citizenry to prevent future attacks.

“This is a huge nail in the coffin of gun control,” said Mr Philip Van Cleave, president of the gun rights group Virginia Citizens Defence League. “They had gun control on campus and it got all those people killed, because nobody could defend themselves.”

 

TODAY 24 April 2007

ARIZONA – A MAN who shot at firefighters after they refused to get his cat out of a tree has been sentenced to five months in jail. Jeffrey Francis Cullen, 59, of Kingman, reported a tree fire on Aug. 17. Once the three-person crew arrived, Cullen told them he wanted his cat rescued from the tree.

Hualapai Valley Fire Department spokeswoman Sandy Edwards said a battalion chief told Cullen to call animal control or to wait for the cat to get hungry and come down.

The response apparently incensed Cullen, who retrieved a small handgun from his home and came out shooting.

Straits Times 18 April 2007

Did someone say blood bath?