BOISE • If guns come to Idaho’s college campuses, Jim Ellington is buying at least eight bullet-proof vests.

The purchase will take a large chunk out of Ellington’s budget, but as director of the College of Southern Idaho’s security, Ellington said he doesn’t have a choice. His security officers have demanded they be provided with protection in case they come across a violent student with a gun.

It’s a hypothetical situation that’s quickly nearing reality, and as such it has created more questions than answers as the possibility grows.

Permitting guns on college campuses has become one of most controversial bills Idaho lawmakers debated during this year’s legislative session.

http://magicvalley.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/csi-battles-unknowns-in-allowing-guns-on-campus/article_2c8cfc79-d94f-55ab-8644-55907652350d.html?comment_form=true

How safe does this make you feel? Twelve people certified as concealed carry trainers under Illinois’ new gun law have such extensive criminal backgrounds that Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart wants them banned from carrying hidden firearms altogether. One of them was the subject of an order of protection, and police say another threatened to kill a law enforcement officer.

That’s just part of the problem with the new law, approved by the Legislature last summer. There’s no longer any debate that concealed carry is the law of the land, but there’s an excellent argument that it is being carried out in an excessively permissive manner. Combing through a list of 9,349 Cook County residents who have applied since Jan. 5 for five-year concealed carry permits , Sheriff Dart’s office found 300 applicants who have records for domestic violence, gang activity, gun crimes, sex crimes, burglary and other criminal activity. All but five of those applicants were cleared for concealed carry by the Illinois State Police, however, and the grounds for rejection for the five might have been something as benign as not including payment.

We see two problems here. The first is that Dart’s office is the source of most of the objections filed statewide, which suggests that other sheriffs and municipal police departments — who were provided no extra funding to pay for criminal background checks — are failing to dig as deeply as Dart into the background of people applying for concealed carry permits.

The second problem is that even Dart can’t do a truly thorough job because he is prohibited from checking a police database called the Law Enforcement Agencies Data System, the nation’s most comprehensive listing of arrest records. According to the State Police, that’s because LEADS is to be used only for criminal justice purposes, and the FBI considers concealed carry permits to be an administrative matter.

http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/25507823-474/vetting-of-concealed-carry-applicants-too-weak-to-trust.html

A man apparently shot himself in the leg while shopping at the Walmart store in Antioch, police said.

Officers on Friday responded to reports of a shooting at Walmart, located at 4893 Lone Tree Way, around 10:10 p.m. Friday, according to police.

Police said officers arriving on the scene found a 27-year-old Stockton man suffering from a gunshot wound.

He told officers that he had been walking with a relative when he heard a shot and felt a pain in his leg and that "he had no idea who shot him," police said in a statement.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/california/SD-Antioch-Walmart-Customer-Accidentally-Shoots-Self-in-Leg-247275621.html#ixzz2utxshpWc

Though lawmakers took an additional step to weed out convicted batterers in a concealed carry law passed by the General Assembly last year, some critics have said it leaves a loophole that could allow some violent abusers to slip under the radar.

Under the law, a person can be arrested for any offense, including domestic battery, up to five times within a seven-year period before being denied a permit to carry a firearm in public.

Those who work with domestic violence victims said that by the time someone has had multiple arrests, it may be too late. They fear that women will be placed in grave danger because domestic violence often goes unreported. When there is an arrest, charges often are dropped because the victim chooses not to pursue the case, they said.

"What the research shows is that when there are firearms in the home of a domestic violence relationship, the potential for homicide increases by 500 percent," said Dawn Dalton, executive director of the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network, citing a 2003 study published in the American Journal of Public Health. "Why would we want people who are choosing to break the law to have a firearm?"

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-03-02/news/ct-concealed-carry-domestic-violence-20140302_1_gun-rights-firearms-ban-domestic-violence

LANCASTER, Ohio — A special prosecutor recommended yesterday that no felony charges be filed against a firearms instructor who accidentally shot a student who was taking his concealed-carry class last year.

Jeff Hunter, a former assistant prosecutor in Greene County who was appointed special prosecutor to look into the shooting, said he concluded the shooting was, indeed, accidental.

He also concluded that Terry J. Dunlap Sr. was not acting recklessly at the time of the shooting. That is, he was not playing with the gun or “goofing around,” Hunter said.

Dunlap, 74, is a Violet Township trustee who was re-elected last year.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/02/24/special-prosecutor-report-concealed-carry-class-shooting.html

AUSTIN -- The Saxet Gun Show will not sign a new contract with Travis County. Show organizers said they would never agree to anything that goes above and beyond what is required by state and federal law.

After an ongoing debate between Saxet Gun Show owner Gus Cargile and commissioners at the end of last month ended without a vote on whether or not to continue the show's contract, it seemed the show would have to find a new location. The issue is over background checks.

Criticism of gun shows and the lack of checks mandated for individual sellers who attend rose nationwide following mass shootings like the ones at the Colorado movie theater and the Connecticut elementary school.

http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news?fId=243476881&fPath=/news/local/&fDomain=10232