Results tagged “guncontrol”

A sixteen-year-old Queens boy has confessed to firing the the shots that killed thirteen-year-old Kevin Miller just after the end of the school day at nearby Campus Magnet High School. Nnonso Ekwegbalu of Laurelton was arrested on Saturday night and admitted to being the one to pull a gun and fire the two shots that left Miller dead and injured a 17-year-old employee of the car wash where the fight that sparked the gunshots was taking place. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters yesterday that there was an arrest and that Ekwegbalu has "made statements" in regards to the Cambria Heights shooting. Reports did not mention if they found the orange shirt that Ekwegbalu was allegedly wearing that initially led them to arrest and quickly release a Campus Magnet football player soon after the shooting.

The man who once supported federal control of gun ownership is sticking to his most recent attitude toward firearms: let the locals decide. Former mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on CNN's The Situation Room yesterday where he shared his views on the failed federal gun measure that would have legalized concealed weapons in 48 states, including New York. As Politico notes, when asked by Wolf Blitzer whether Rudy is happy the measure failed, Giuliani answered: "I think it's the best situation. I think we're left—by its not passing, we're left with cities and states within constitutional limits, making their own decisions. And I think that's better." Giuliani explained he believes local control of gun laws is necessary because of varying "conditions" around the country. Of course, that's not consistent with the position he had back in the early 1990s—when he helped President Clinton lobby Congress for a national ban on assault weapons and other gun control measures—but it is consistent with his plans to stay in the Republican limelight for a 2012 presidential run.

Senators Schumer and Gillibrand were in town yesterday asking President Obama to eliminate the Tiahrt Amendment, which requires the FBI to destroy records of gun buyer's background checks within 24 hours. Gillibrand had co-sponsored the law while she was in Congress and said, "In my previous district, we didn't have gang violence, and we didn't have the gun violence that we have throughout New York." Schumer supported her change in stance because he said that by representing all of New York, "You meet more people, you grow." But potential primary opponent Carolyn McCarthy still sounds unconvinced, telling the News, "I thought it was strange that she signed on, given she was one of the people who wrote that law." One Democratic operative added, "She could hurt your neck, watching her move."

A few people were wondering why Kirsten Gillibrand didn't make a stop with the mayor when she came through town last week on her statewide roll out tour as senator that ended in NYC. Well yesterday the two met in Washington and seemed to bury any hatchet that may have existed after Bloomberg breathed fire in Gillibrand's direction following the (former?) gun control advocate being named to the Senate by Governor Paterson. The pair was all smiles after their twenty-minute meeting with Gillibrand telling reporters, "There's a number of things that we're going to work on together, trying to keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals by getting law enforcement all the tools they need to keep them off the street." Gillibrand sounds to be "evolving" rapidly—she even told the News that since her background is in fishing, she'd have to take shooting lessons from the mayor.

Today's big Texas primary, the Post has delivered a cover with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as old West gunslingers. And since Obama's hand in on his gun, it makes sense the headline for the story is, "Barack Goes For Hill Kill." (Obama believes in gun control, though he backed a law allowing retired cops to carry concealed weapons).

Ending months of speculation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed he will not run for president in the 2008 election. And he did it with an op-ed in the NY Times, titled, "I'm Not Running for President, but..."

To no one's surprise, Senator-turned- actor-turned- presidential- candidate-wannabe Fred Thompson has dropped out of the hunt for the Republican party nomination. Thompson had not done very well in any of the early caucuses or primaries and his exit may actually mean a bump for Mike Huckabee, who has a similar more-conservative-than-the-others platform.

Mayor Bloomberg still claims he's not running for President, but he's spending thousands of dollars to run a full page ad in The Des Moines Register--Iowa's largest circulation local paper--with his face on it. One can see the full ad here. The Mayor also placed an identical ad in The New Hampshire Union Leader. We're running this ad to the Bat Cave, to see if there are any subliminal "Mike Bloomberg '08" messages!

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, a stabbing at Ft. Hamilton H.S. in Brooklyn, and a fall victim on 88th St. in Queens.
• Hillary and Rudy initially attempted to settle things by seeing who would yell "uncle" first as they tried to crush each other's hand.
• A 31-year-old NJ man says that he throttled his mother with his bare hands after she criticized him for his messy housekeeping, but it was an accident that he actually killed her.
• The NYPD gets serious about gun control when maintenance workers find two missing service pistols stashed in the ceiling of the 90th Precinct.
• A new venue for identity theft: cloning license plates for congestion pricing. It's happening in London and is one more potential headache for NYers.
• A college senior badly injured in a car accident saved the lives of at least four people through the donation of his organs.
• The "The Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition" is demanding that the woman they drummed out of a job apologize for accusing them of making "anti-Muslim and anti-Arab comments."
• Save yourself a trip to the mall. Design your own holiday sweater online!

Who knew thousands, if not millions, of New Yorkers would agree with presidential hopeful Fred Thompson on something? In this case, the former Senator and former Law & Order District Attorney was talking about Rudy Giuliani's reliance on touting his New York City credentials during a campaign stop in New Hampshire today. Thompson told a crowd at a gun store, Giuliani "relates everything to New York City. Well, New York City is not emblematic of...

WNYC's Brian Lehrer recently spoke to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly about Giuliani's stance on gun control, as well as his own views on a national gun control policy.

While they certainly spent time criticizing each other, the Republican presidential hopefuls devoted much time to criticize the Democratic frontrunner Senator Hillary Clinton. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said, "she hasn't run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She has never run anything. And the idea that she could learn to be President, you know, as an internship just doesn't make any sense." And Senator John McCain got a big round of applause for blasting Clinton and Senator Chuck Schumer's $1 million funding of a Woodstock memorial:

"Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. (LAUGHTER) I was tied up at the time."

Omesh Hiraman, the 22-year-old St. John's University student who caused panic when he brought a .50 cailber rifle on campus, will be arraigned today in his hospital room at Bellevue. Queens DA Richard Brown said that Hiraman was being "held on two counts of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon (with intent to use said weapon unlawfully against another and possession of a rifle in a building or grounds used for educational purposes) and several violations of the New York City Administrative Code (possession of a rifle without a permit or a certificate of registration)." He will face up to one year in prison if convicted.

In a city whose mayor has made gun control one of his signature issues, it's no surprise that the number of registered gun owners has gone down. The Post reports that there are now 36,169, versus 38,000 last year. Permits that allow one to wear a gun on a holster (concealed) also dropped to 2,555, which the Sun says is almost 50% less than the 2004 number. Of course, there's now way to estimate illegal gun ownership.

That's the first paragraph of the new Time magazine's investigation into Giuliani's record. While pollster Frank Luntz says, "You cannot underestimate the impact of having seen him on television hour after hour dealing with the tragedy. That gives him a level of credibility that nobody else has," to explain how Giuliani's September 11, 2001 demeanor can shape his 2008 presidential bid, that doesn't mean his NYC record is sacred.

Dan Rather may have retired from the CBS Evening News, but he's still breaking stories while at HDNet. On his upcoming Thursday night Dan Rather Reports, he will air an "rare sit-down interview" with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where Bloomberg makes it "categorically clear that he will not run for President of the United States, nor will he seek a Vice Presidential bid nor any cabinet position for that matter, something he's never done before." Wow, we think we just heard candidates from both the Democratic and Republican parties sigh with relief!

Food writing has changed a lot in the last few years. Its focus has shifted to an almost philosophical arena where any recipe can be dissected for the broader, global meaning of its constituent ingredients. The source of every carrot or celery stalk we eat is inexorably combined with issues of nutrition and environmental sustainability. It’s the Omnivore’s Dilemma effect - people are suddenly grappling with the repercussions of a country that runs on 200 million acres of corn, wheat, soy, and rice. Within the restaurant industry, and for the foreseeable future, it’s far less expensive to source and cook mass-produced vegetables and meat from immense, industrialized farms. This not only comes with a huge environmental cost, but consequently buries the flavors of food.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian was struck at Neptune Ave. and Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, a shooting on Bivona St. in the Bronx, and a burn victim at East 20th St. and the FDR in Manhattan.
• An assistant DA for Staten Island is considering possible charges against relatives who may have aided in the fugitive status of Rebekah Johnson, who is accused of attempting to murder a commune leader by shooting him several times.
• A Queens inventor is selling a eucalyptus-scented trash bags that repel rats and raccoons. They're so effective that most of the 2,000 residential buildings his company sells janitorial supplies to have made the switch, and they are being used in Central Park.
• The TB patient who travelled against doctors' advice to Europe and then snuck back into the US when told he should check into an Italian healthcare facility, is stunned that the CDC resorted to subterfuge to lure him to a NYC hospital for forced quarantine.
• In the first five days since a new noise ordinance took effect, New Yorkers have flooded 311 with complaints. The number of noise-related calls is up 36% from last year.
• WNBC is reporting that a helicopter equipped with pontoons crashed into the Hudson River just 50 yards north of the Lincoln Tunnel entrance this evening.
• Onetime gun control supporter Rudolph Giuliani espoused his strong belief in the 2nd Amendment and gun rights before a town hall audience in Georgia yesterday.
• NY1 is reporting that when EMS workers arrived at an accident scene in Brooklyn, the injured driver pulled a gun on them. Passing police stopped and the man was killed in a shootout. It's suspected that he has taken part in multiple recent carjackings.

The Post has button fever as it notices Bloomberg for President pins on eBay already! (Their headline is "Bloomy Looks Cute As a Button" - is that an underhanded way of saying he's short?) Some of the offerings include the stylized portrait and a straight up photograph. And there's always the classic all-type "I Like Mike" style. We expect anti-Bloomberg pins to go up this week - you know, the ones that mention how he's a New Yorker, divorced, Jewish, an advocate of gun control, supporter of a right to choose and immigration, etc.

But, the NY Times says ahem, reporting Bloomberg aides have working on a possible 2008 bid for the past two years. And the Sun pointed out how he "indulged" questions about national issues at the press conference yesterday. Then again, when asked if there were a situation when he would run, he said, "If everyone in the world was dead and I was the only one alive? Yeah, sure. I mean, come on."

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on.

Democrat Micah Kellner won the special election to fill the Upper East Side Assembly seat vacated by Pete Grannis (who was appointed the Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner by Governor Spitzer). Kellner received about two-thirds of the vote over Republican opponent Gregory Camp.

WCBS 2 reporter Andrew Kirtzman takes up rumors of Mayor Bloomberg wanting to run for Governor (which the mayor denies) by way of looking at how everyone wants to talk about him. Given that he's frequently cited in national publications (writing about gun control in Newsweek, named a Time 100 influential), political consultant Norman Adler says, "Mike Bloomberg is kind of the Paris Hilton of politics. People want to report about him and want to conjecture about him." Phew, that's what the Paris Hilton comparison is about -- for a second we were worried he'd start toting around a Chihuahua and expose himself in paparazzi pictures. Besides, only one of them deserves to be famous.

The man who shot 32 people at Virginia Tech yesterday morning was identified by authorities as Cho Seung Hui. He is described as a 23-year-old student, a senior majoring in English, who lived in one of the dorms. He is also a legal resident from South Korea.

It finally happened: Rudy Giuliani has set up the "Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee, Inc." to consider a 2008 bid for the White House. While his aides say it's "not a declaration, it is not an announcement" - just "legal back-room stuff that you have to do" - it certainly makes things interesting given the possible presence of Hillary Clinton looking for the Democratic nomination. The Daily News' Michael Goodwin writes, "Hil vs. Giuliani: The race we've dreamed of", recalling the 2000 Senate race that Giuliani dropped out of after discovering he had prostate cancer. Ah, remember those days? Remember Rick Lazio?

As he stumps for various Repubican candidates vying for win durings the 2006 elections, Rudy Giulaini is, more than ever, bandied about as a possible 2008 presidential candidate. The NY Times has a big article about Giuliani - and the GOP - riding his September 11 coattails. Given that Giuliani is a difficult hybrid of stances - pro-gay rights, pro-gun control, pro-choice, very divorced (and Italian, to boot!) - focusing on September 11 is all there is, and supporters do seem to love Rudy because of "9/11" and, uh, fighting crime. But beyond that, they don't know much about him - one of Iowa's leading Republicans said he didn't know anything about Bernard Kerik or toxic dust at Ground Zero.

The Queens sniper has been revealed to be Matthew Colletta, a Woodhaven bricklayer, with a history of mental illness and drug dealing, and one of the victims from his Friday shooting spree has died. He apparently was high on "a cocktail of vodka and cocaine" that made him think he was being followed by the Bloods. While it seems that Colletta was shooting at random, five of the seven cars were red. Six people were injured, and Todd Upton, a UPS driver, was died from his injuries. And Colletta told police he thought the dog of Andrzej Leonik, who was simply walking in Maspeth, was injuring a mother and baby, so he tried to shoot at the dog, but hit Leonik instead. An ex-girlfriend told the Daily News that Colletta was a nice guy, but the News points out that he tried to strangle her last Sunday - and chased her with a hammer - requiring an emergency protection order. A friend told the NY Times that Colletta had been taking lithium for paranoid schizophrenia and his defense attorney said, "Mental capacity will play a significant role in his defense." Watch out for the Mayor and Police Commissioner to use this tragic case as an example of why gun control is important.

As Democrats abandon Joe Lieberman in the wake of his defeat in Connecticut's Democratic Senate primary and announcement that he would run as an independent, Lieberman has picked up one possibly very important ally: Our mayor, Michael Bloomberg. The Democrat-turned-Republican who may or may not have ambitions that include residing in the White House put his considerable weight (well, it's weight when you measure his net worth - we're not sure what kind of political pizazz he has) behind Lieberman and said, "This country needs nonpartisan elected officials who think that doing the right thing for the public is more important than supporting some party. I plan to support him if he wants that help."

Yesterday, the Children's Defense Fund New York released a report showing that more children "died as a result of gun violence in 2003 – more than the number of American fighting men and women killed in hostile action in Iraq from 2003 to April 2006." New York had the fourth highest number of children dying from firearms, and in New York City, one child is killed a week. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was on hand for the report's release, as the City Council looks to pass a couple gun control laws next week, and said, "The report provides further evidence that gun violence is a serious threat to kids across New York City." The gun control bills on the table includes the Gun Offender Registration Act and bans on gun coloration kits. The Mayor will sign the gun control bills, as he's been aggressive, through stings and calling for a coalition of mayors, about beefing up gun control in the city.

...but what does that really mean? Sure, the Mayor announced that if NY State's Court of Appeal decides that gay marriages are legal, then NYC will perform them, but the Mayor has always felt that way. Back in 2004, when the issue got hot with gay marriages being performed in San Franciso and New Paltz, NY, Mayor Bloomberg refused to go along, saying that he would follow NY State law. (Attorney General Eliot Spitzer didn't stop the New Paltz marriages, saying he had "no problem with gay marriage.") However, that was before his 2005 election, so who knows what he would have done if the issue came up during his second term; just yesterday, he said on his radio program, "The U.S. Constitution should be something that unites, rather than divides Americans. I do not believe that government should be in the business of telling people who they can and can't marry."