GUN

Accused in gun sales, man is ordered held A man accused of illegally selling guns from his potato chip stall at Lexington Market must remain in custody while awaiting trial, U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake ruled Thursday during a detention-review hearing. Michael Papantonakis, 53, was arrested last week, accused of selling 13 firearms to undercover federal operatives he believed were gang members. He is also accused of trying to have a Lexington Market manager beaten. His attorney said the guns were from a personal collection that his client was trying to deplete and called any statements about harming the manager or dealing with gang members "venting," "silliness" and "stupid comments" that weren't meant or true.

The state's top federal prosecutor is paying three Baltimore television stations more than $41,000 to air a new public service announcement starting today about the potential perils faced by felons charged with federal gun crimes. With a voice-over by Emmy award-winning actor Andre Braugher, who starred in Homicide: Life on the Street, the new ad warns criminals about the consequences of carrying a gun in Maryland. A man sits on a couch in the ad when his cell phone rings. "Yo," he says.

The Howard County sheriff is investigating whether the mistake that allowed Richard Wayne Spicknall to obtain a handgun -- despite a domestic violence restraining order -- is indicative of a larger problem with the way his office handles judicial restraining orders.Sheriff Charles M. Cave acknowledged yesterday that "there was a mix-up" in his office, and the restraining order against Spicknall issued Dec. 2 in Howard County Circuit Court was "inadvertently removed" from computer records in January.

Tough enforcement of current gun laws can curtail crimeI join The Sun in applauding U.S. Attorney Lynn A. Battaglia for Project Disarm ("Federal prosecutor taken aim at criminals," editorial Oct. 29).The program shows that successfully combating illegal guns, and criminals who use them, requires passing and enforcing good laws. Doing one without the other is doomed to failure.Congress has made it illegal for a convicted felon to possess a gun and imposed severe penalties. Ms. Battaglia has emphasized strict enforcement of these very tough federal laws.

WASHINGTON -- Not even the marble walls of the U.S. Senate's fortress were invulnerable to the gunfire of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.It just took a while for tone-deaf Republicans to hear the gunshots.Actually, 24 hours.When the two teen-age psychos shot up Columbine High in Littleton, Colo., killing a dozen students and a teacher, the country was shocked. Why did it happen in an affluent suburban school? What to do?Nothing, yawned cynics.Puppet polsOh, there'd be the usual flapdoodle over violent movies, video games, a sick culture.

Opinion * Commentary trol activists, believing that the Littleton, Colo., school shooting tragedy might at last arouse Congress to toughen gun laws, have been knocked back on their heels in the wake of the Senate's vote to reject tightened procedures for sales at gun shows.The 51-47 vote against the Democratic proposal, and the subsequent passage by 53-45 of a Republican version making background checks on buyers from unlicensed gun dealers merely voluntary, jolted the anti-gun lobby at a time its leaders hoped the clout of the National Rifle Association and its allies might at last be slipping on Capitol Hill.

A 3-year-old boy playing in the basement of his East Baltimore rowhouse with his father upstairs found a handgun hidden in bedding and accidentally shot himself in the head yesterday afternoon, police said.Jordan Garris, who lives in the first block of N. Ellwood Ave. with his parents and two sisters, ages 2 and 1, was in critical condition last night in the pediatric intensive care unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said a spokeswoman there.Police said they were investigating whether charges should be filed because the Ruger 9 mm semiautomatic handgun was not locked up.Baltimore law requires parents who keep weapons at home to have them unloaded and locked away so children can't get to them, said Sgt. Frederick H. Bealefeld III of the homicide unit.

An Anne Arundel County Circuit Court jury will resume deliberating today whether John Thomas Logan is guilty in the slaying of an acquaintance outside a grocery store in Annapolis' Eastport community.Logan, 22, of the 1000 block of Monroe St., is charged with first-degree murder and two handgun violations in the death Jan. 22 of Wayne Dwight Addison, 21, of the 100 block of Bright-water Drive.The charges could bring a sentence of life in prison.Logan, who testified this week that he shot Addison in self-defense, argued that Addison had previously made so many threats against him, including pulling a gun on him, that he feared for his life.

Thirteen Carroll County citizens got a crash course last night in the laws on gun possession and self-defense from the man who enforces them locally, county State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes."

ON THE SAME afternoon that Colorado high-school kids were dying at the hands of classmates who were paint-ball freaks, my high-school kid called to say his new paint-ball gear had arrived via UPS. He was heading to the woods to try it out.My heart froze. "Oh God, Joe. Do you have to?"He had paid dearly with his hard-earned savings for a new laser scope and an extension for the barrel of his gun, and I knew without being there that he was probably dressed in his Army surplus cammo, boots and the sinister-looking black goggles and face mask that are regulation paint-ball safety equipment.

The mother of a 14-year-old boy shot Wednesday night by city police as authorities say he attempted to rob a University of Maryland medical student at gunpoint said her son had dropped his gun before the officer discharged his weapon. Police are not identifying the 14-year-old, but the mother said the boy's name is Charles Henry Kelly III and that he was following the officer's orders at the time he was shot. Shawn Stokes, the boy's mother, said she got an account of what happened from two other boys at the scene who are friends with her son. A city Police Department spokesman confirmed that there were other boys present at the time of the shooting who have not been charged.

Accused in gun sales, man is ordered held A man accused of illegally selling guns from his potato chip stall at Lexington Market must remain in custody while awaiting trial, U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake ruled Thursday during a detention-review hearing. Michael Papantonakis, 53, was arrested last week, accused of selling 13 firearms to undercover federal operatives he believed were gang members. He is also accused of trying to have a Lexington Market manager beaten. His attorney said the guns were from a personal collection that his client was trying to deplete and called any statements about harming the manager or dealing with gang members "venting," "silliness" and "stupid comments" that weren't meant or true.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: Firearms and domestic violence don't mix. So why is the Maryland Senate trying to wreck a bill intended to protect victims of abuse by tacking on an amendment that would keep guns on the table in domestic violence cases? This is cynical politics at its worst. The bill, sponsored by Gov. Martin O'Malley, would require judges to confiscate firearms from partners who are under final restraining orders as a result of domestic violence. The rationale is obvious: Given the explosive nature of abusive relationships, the presence of any firearm can quickly turn deadly.

A 33-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a handgun, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Cortez Fisher also will have to serve three years of supervised probation when he is released, prosecutors said in a statement. The prosecutors said he had been convicted in federal court of unlawful gun possession in 2005, meaning the gun police found in his home earlier this year was illegal.

The Supreme Court has upheld an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment ("Justices back gun owners," June 27). And I am thankful that five justices are capable of reading the plain meaning of the Constitution and enforcing its freedoms. Guns are merely tools. By themselves, they do nothing. The person using the gun dictates whether it is used for good or bad purposes. Gun restrictions such as the Washington law that the court struck down have the primary effect of removing guns from the hands of law-abiding citizens.

If Mayor Sheila Dixon's goal is to get guns off the streets of Baltimore, she should look to the past and reintroduce a gun bounty program similar to the one initiated by Police Commissioner Donald D. Pomerleau in 1974. During its brief existence, the program, called Operation PASS (People Against Senseless Shootings), had two components: a $50 bounty for every weapon voluntarily turned in to the Police Department, and a $100 bounty for an anonymous tip that resulted in a handgun being confiscated and the person arrested.

WASHINGTON -- The Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" finally had its day in the Supreme Court yesterday, and the long-held view that it protects the rights of gun owners appeared poised to win a historic victory. Five justices, a bare majority, signaled that they believe the amendment gives individuals a right to have a gun for self-defense. It is not limited to arms for "a well-regulated militia" for the common defense, they said. By adopting that view, the justices probably will strike down the nation's strictest gun-control law, a ban on handguns in the District of Columbia.

A Smith & Wesson handgun used over the weekend in an 88-round shootout between a man and five Baltimore police officers was last legally owned by a man who told detectives that the weapon had been stolen a month ago from his truck in a city housing project. But police say they don't believe his story. They are investigating whether the Anne Arundel County man sold the gun and three other weapons he owned on the black market. He didn't report the apparent theft until police confronted him after the gunbattle in North Baltimore that left two officers wounded, police said.

A great deal is not yet known about the horrific quadruple murders in Cockeysville that have led police to charge a 15-year-old honor student with murdering his parents and two younger brothers. But this much is clear: The presence of a gun in the house did not protect the Browning family; it put them at a greater risk of violence. Baltimore County police say Nicholas W. Browning used his father's handgun to kill his family on Friday night. While such familicide is hardly common, numerous studies have shown that having a gun in the home can be exceedingly dangerous.

Picture this. You're headed off on a hunting trip, driving your pickup with the gun rack on back through the wide-open spaces of the West. Mostly it's federal property, but under the management of a variety of different agencies that have different rules for permissible activities. At some point, you pass from open range, under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, into a national park, and get busted by a ranger for carrying a loaded firearm. Oh, the inconvenience! Nearly half the Senate considers the idea that a hunter might alternatively travel around with guns unloaded to be unacceptably burdensome and a violation of Second Amendment rights.