Son Of A Gun.

I hate guns, which I know infuriates the musket-lovers and animal killers who worship the 2nd Amendment. 

Oh well. 

The Best-Looking Man In Show Business Today--straight-shooter that he is--passes along this item from Michael Levinson in the Boston Globe. Remember it the next time your local John Wayne tries to convince you that all gun nuts are trained and thereby "safe":   

A small-town Massachusetts police chief who authorities say promoted, organized and profited from a firearms exposition where children were encouraged to shoot machine guns and where an 8-year-old killed himself with a Micro Uzi was charged Thursday with involuntary manslaughter.

Although the event was promoted as an opportunity for children to fire machine guns under the supervision of certified instructors, 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj had been supervised by a 15-year-old boy who was "knowledgeable about guns" but not certified as a firearms instructor, Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett said in outlining charges against Pelham Police Chief Edward B. Fleury and two others.

The Oct. 26 death at the Machine Gun Shoot and Firearms Expo at the Westfield Sportsman's Club horrified the region and provoked outcry from parents, lawmakers and some gun enthusiasts who condemned it as a senseless tragedy.

In the event, the 8-year-old's father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, stood 10-feet behind his son while the boy aimed at a pumpkin with an automatic weapon that fires 1,700 rounds a minute and is notoriously difficult to handle. When Christopher squeezed the trigger, the gun jerked out of control and fired a bullet into the right side of his head.

(The boy's father was not charged.)

Bennett said Fleury took a portion of the proceeds from the event. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Meanwhile, this report today from UPI:

U.S. states with lax firearm laws suffer higher rates of firearm-related deaths than those with stricter regulations, a study says.

The Mayors Against Illegal Guns study found that 10 U.S. states sold 57 percent of all firearms used in crimes in other states last year, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) said Friday.

Among those 10 states were Virginia and West Virginia, the study underwritten by 300 U.S. mayors said.

Those 10 states with the highest crime-gun export rates in the nation last year also had higher gun homicide rates than the 10 states with the lowest export rates.

The study, which was based on Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives data, found that those top 10 states saw nearly 70 percent more gun homicides than their bookend counterparts in 2007.

The study found that in those states that require background checks for all handgun sales at gun shows the export rate was less than half the national average.