Gun

They were standing next to each other in the pouring rain in Morrisville's Williamson Park, but they didn't exactly see eye to eye. Onstage, an anti-gun violence rally was in full swing, with preachers, parents and former Gov. Ed Rendell advocating for universal background checks on guns. In the crowd, anti-gun violence advocates intermingled with pro-gun rights protesters who had finished up a rally of their own an hour earlier. Men toting rifles and handguns stood at the front of the crowd and shouted at speakers on-stage while anti-gun violence protesters tried to drown them out with cheers and chants.

Police fatally shot a 21-year-old man who allegedly pointed a gun at officers Thursday night in Southwest Philadelphia. Shortly before 9 p.m., two 12th District officers on patrol in the 7000 block of Saybrook Avenue attempted to stop a man on the street when he ran off, said Chief Inspector Scott Small. One officer jumped out of the cruiser to chase the man while the other continued driving the vehicle, Small said. When they confronted the man in the 7000 block of Paschall Street, he allegedly pulled a loaded 9mm Ruger from his waistband and aimed at them, Small said.

TRENTON - A Senate committee advanced six gun-control measures Thursday but did not take up the most contentious one being debated in the Legislature: limiting ammunition magazines to 10 bullets. The Senate is moving more deliberately than the Assembly, which adopted 22 gun-control measures in February, just two months after the slayings of 20 children and six adults in a Newtown, Conn., school reignited debate across the country on gun laws. The bills adopted Thursday would bar firearms of .50 caliber or greater, force state-run pensions to divest from companies that make military-style guns for consumers, and require people applying for permission to buy guns to submit some mental-health records to a national background-check system.

Morrisville, a Bucks County borough of 8,000 residents perched along the Delaware River, is a baseball town. More than 500 children play Little League there, according to league president Dan O'Connell, and in 1955, its squad of preteens won the Little League World Series. "You hear about that in this town with the same pride that people talk about the Phils," said Jim Martin, a Morrisville resident and parent of two Little Leaguers. So it comes with little surprise that some residents are up in arms about a disturbance to the baseball schedule Saturday.

KUTZTOWN University has dropped its blanket prohibition on guns and will now allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry them onto campus under certain conditions, officials said yesterday. The Berks County university's new policy says that a gun owner with a "compelling reason" related to personal safety may bring a weapon onto campus with permission from the university police chief. Weapons will still be banned from campus buildings and athletic events. Kutztown, one of 14 state-owned universities in Pennsylvania, made the change after lawyers concluded that an outright ban was legally unenforceable, according to Kenn Marshall, a spokesman for the State System of Higher Education.

TRENTON - New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey S. Chiesa gave a spirited defense Tuesday of the state's gun-buyback program, asserting that thousands of potential crime weapons have been taken off the street. Chiesa, in testimony before the Assembly budget committee, acknowledged criticism from some quarters that the program had little impact on crime, but insisted that "gun buybacks are helping to make New Jersey safer, and because they're paid for with criminal forfeiture funds, they don't cost the taxpayers a penny.

Hundreds of Bucks County Little League players have unwittingly been caught in the midst of the national gun-rights debate. With competing gun-related rallies scheduled Saturday at Williamson Park in Morrisville, used by the town's Little League, league officials, at the urging of state police, are moving, rescheduling, or canceling more than 20 games to avoid any potential conflict that might erupt over the emotional issue. The matter is of particular urgency, since supporters of gun rights say they plan to legally carry guns as part of their rally.

WASHINGTON - Gun homicides have dropped steeply in the United States since their 1993 peak, a pair of reports released Tuesday showed, adding fuel to Congress' battle over whether to tighten firearm restrictions. A study released Tuesday by the government's Bureau of Justice Statistics found that gun-related homicides dropped from 18,253 in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011 - a 39 percent reduction. A report by the private Pew Research Center found a similar decline by looking at the rate of gun homicides, which compares the number of killings to the size of the country's population.

TRENTON - In a Capitol where Democrats rule both legislative chambers, it's not unusual to see Senate President Stephen Sweeney, whose South Jersey district trends more conservative than some of its North Jersey counterparts, clash with the more left-leaning Assembly leadership. Yet political observers say they're stumped by Sweeney's opposition to a gun-control bill most of the state Democratic Party supports. Sweeney is refusing to let the Senate vote on a bill that would decrease magazine capacity limit in New Jersey to 10 bullets from the current 15. The Assembly passed a bill in February lowering the limit, but it wasn't among the dozen gun-control bills heard in Senate committee last week.

HOUSTON - National Rifle Association leaders told members Saturday that the fight against gun control legislation was far from over, with battles yet to come in Congress and next year's midterm elections, but they vowed that none in the organization would ever have to surrender their weapons. Proponents of gun control also asserted that they are in their fight for the long haul and have not been disheartened by last month's defeat of a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales.