By Ben Romans

Despite the growing popularity of gun buyback programs throughout the country as a way to cut down on violent crime and get illegal guns off the street, a new grassroots program in Texas is trying a different approach—giving single women in small, high-crime areas a shotgun and showing them how to use it.
 
The Armed Citizen Project, a Houston-based nonprofit, was founded on the principle that providing guns to responsible owners is a better way to deter crime.
 
USA Today recently interviewed Kyle Coplen, the project founder, at a shooting range where he and other volunteers were helping train north Houston residents on how to use a shotgun. Coplen says he plans to expand the program in at least 15 other cities, including Chicago and New York, by the end of the year.
 
"When we have a crime wave, we don't just say let's just increase police and that's all we do. We do multiple things. I see this as one aspect of what we can do," said Coplen.
 

By Ben Romans

Earlier this month, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed a law that bans over 40 different firearms considered assault weapons (like the popular AR-15), prohibits the sale of magazines capable of carrying more than 10 rounds, and requires handgun buyers to undergo fingerprint licensing.

Of all the voices opposing the law, the Beretta USA factory in Accokeek, Maryland, has been one of the most vocal. The company recently released a statement stating, “The resulting law that passed is not acceptable, even with the improvements we were able to obtain. In short, the law that finally passed went from being atrocious to simply being bad.”

While the company hasn’t announced any definite plans for the future, in a recent story by the Baltimore Sun, representatives of the company said the current Beretta facility will not be relocated. However, the Sun also reported the company is considering alternate locations for three planed expansion operations.

By David Maccar

The National Shooting Sports Foundation recently launched a "Modern Sporting Rifle Online Study." For the purposes of the study, the NSSF is using the "modern sporting rifle" term to refer to "semi-automatic AR and AK-platform rifles...or other semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines."

The results of the survey will help the NSSF get a better understanding of current consumer wants, needs, and uses of these types of rifles.

The results will also be used to help gun manufactures and accessory companies improve their product mix.

By Chad Love

California will most likely be a totally lead-free hunting environment by 2016 if a bill recently introduced in the California Assembly is eventually passed, according to this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune: 
On Tuesday, the California Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife will hear AB 711, a bill introduced in February by Assemblymember Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood). If passed and signed by Gov. Brown, AB 711 will take AB 821, which banned the use of lead ammo in the state’s condor range, and extend the lead-free zone to the entire state. The ban on lead ammunition for hunters likely will happen, probably as soon as the 2016 hunting season following a two-year grace period to allow California hunters to use their remaining lead. All of us who hunt may as well get used to paying 40 to 50 percent more or higher for quality, non-lead ammunition.