Penny Dean and Your Rights

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency over gun violence in the state.

The nation has seen a spike in crime in many places during the pandemic, but New York’s increase in violence has garnered heightened attention from viral videos of sudden sidewalk attacks, brutal subway abuse, and random gunfire in Times Square. New York’s increase in gun crimes does indeed outpace many other states. New York City experienced a 73 percent increase in shooting incidents between May of 2020 and May of 2021. In comparison, Washington DC, which also experienced a spike in gun crimes, reported a 23 percent increase during the first five months of 2021.

And yet, New York has long employed some of the strictest gun laws in the country. In the city, where most of the violence is concentrated, it is virtually impossible for anyone outside of law enforcement to obtain a gun permit—they often can’t even have them in their homes, much less on their person.

San Jose officials have passed a new gun law that requires retailers to video-record all firearm purchases, becoming the largest city in California with such a rule.

The City Council unanimously approved the new law Tuesday, less than a month after a disgruntled employee fatally shot nine of his co-workers and then himself at a rail yard in San Jose, according to police.

Dogs, no matter how well trained, can not tell if a gun has a serial number engraved into it or not.

That is not the impression you would get if you listened to KSBY’s report on Santa Barbara, California’s new police dogs, though. The NBC affiliate chose to frame their story on the dogs through the lens of their ability to detect so-called ghost guns.

“The [ghost] gun might look similar to any regular weapon; however, it’s missing one major piece: registration to make it legally owned,” KSBY reporter Melissa Newman said. “Today, I got a first-hand look at the only K9 in the county trained to detect them.”

Fernando Barrios faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of 32-year-old Humberto Guzman and an attempted murder charge for allegedly stabbing another man during the incident that started at Valle’s Produce, Berwyn police announced Saturday.

Barrios became irate Friday morning when he believed a teenage girl cut in line to buy a bottle of water at the store, located at 6323 W. Cermak Road, Berwyn Police Chief Michael Cimaglia said.

The girl was actually just asking the cashier — who is her mother — how much the water cost, police said.

Barrios repeatedly punched the teen in her in the head, and then attacked the girl’s mother when she tried to step in, prosecutors said in court.

Court records show the charges were filed in 2000, saying she “feloniously embezzled” the video cassette tape “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” from a store called “Movie Place” in 1999. The store was on Lindsey Street in Norman. According to the county assessor, that business has been closed since 2009.

McBride says she doesn’t remember renting the tape.

“It’s very possible the young man that I lived with at the time did, but I did not,” she said.

She says over the years, she’s been rejected from five jobs, and now suspects the charge was following her.

“In August 2015, 68-year-old Edward Caniglia joked to Kim, his wife of 22 years, that he didn’t use a certain coffee mug after his brother-in-law had used it because he “might catch a case of dishonesty.” That quip quickly spiraled into an hour-long argument. Growing exhausted from the bickering, Edward stormed into his bedroom, grabbed an unloaded handgun, and put it on the kitchen table in front of his wife. With a flair for the dramatic, he then asked: “Why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery?”

Please note that the interview took place before the novel coronavirus reached American shores; as you’ll see in the accompanying photos, the conversation occurred before the need for masks or social distancing.

A man who shot five staff members at a Minnesota health clinic this week shot two of them in the reception area before heading back to where patients are treated and shooting three others, including a medical assistant and mother of two who died of her wounds, authorities say in criminal charges filed Thursday.

The government should toughen the lockdown by giving officers the right to force entry into homes of suspected law breakers, a policing leader has said.

David Jamieson, the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands police, England’s second biggest force, said: “For the small minority of people who refuse entry to police officers and obstruct their work, the power of entry would seem to be a useful tool.

NYPD officers acting on a tip last December raided the home of Elizaveta Zlatkis and found a cache of guns scattered around her Forest Hills apartment. The next day, cops from the 112th Precinct arranged the 22 seized weapons on a table and posed for a Twitter photo commemorating the bust.

Queens prosecutors charged Zlatkis, 31, with first-degree criminal possession of a weapon — a charge that carries a possible 25-year prison sentence — and a few local news outlets covered the case.

There was just one problem with the narrative and the charges: 21 of the 22 supposed firearms were airsoft rifles, toy replicas or starter pistols — the kind used at track meets — incapable of firing ammunition, according to the NYPD’s own laboratory reports.

The one actual firearm was rendered “inoperable” because the trigger, hand grip and internal components were all missing, according to the NYPD’s firearms analysis.