Miscellaneous news stories.

[arnisador]

PBSO chaplains training in firearms, self-defense (http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-02-28/news/fl-pbso-chaplains-20100228_1_chaplains-self-defense-deputies)



It's a new plan by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office to train its volunteer chaplains in self-defense and firearms in case the darker elements of their ministries are upon them.

"Self defense is important," said sheriff's lead chaplain Jim Shackelford, who started the initiative last year. "It's better to know what to do."

Shackelford, a former Ohio state trooper, said it's during the 15 chaplains' required monthly ride-alongs with deputies that things can get sticky. Chaplains have seen deputies get into scuffles with suspects, Shackelford said, and the question came up: "If I was needed to help a deputy what would I do?"
[...]
During the self-defense course in February, the men and one woman of the cloth suited up in sweats and sneakers and learned how to throw devastating blows and kicks
[...]
[A Rabbi said:] "The most odd was doing firearm training," Silvers said. "To have a gun in my hand and shoot it at a target. The last thing I want to do is take a life."

[arnisador]

Edward G. Uhl dies at 92; co-inventor of the bazooka (http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-edward-uhl-20100515-19,0,2750193.story)



Edward G. Uhl, former president of Fairchild Industries who was co-inventor of the M1 bazooka during World War II, died Sunday of heart failure at an assisted living facility in Easton, Md. He was 92.

Uhl, pronounced "Yule," served as a regular officer in the Army's Ordnance Corps from 1941 until 1946. In 1942, while assigned to Ordnance Corps headquarters at the Pentagon in Washington, he helped develop the first U.S. shoulder-launched bazooka, which was originally named the M1 Rocket Launcher, with Col. Leslie A. Skinner.

[arnisador]

Exclusive: Airline Flight-Crew Members Expelled From Federal Gun-In-Cockpit Program (http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/05/24/exclusive-airline-flight-crew-members-expelled-from-federal-gun-in-cockpit-program.aspx)



Approximately 50 airline pilots and other cockpit crew members have been thrown out of a post-9/11 federal program that allowed them to carry loaded guns in flight, according to information provided to Declassified by a Homeland Security spokesperson. The spokesperson did not disclose the specific reasons that the pilots were ejected from the armed-pilot corps, officially called the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) program, beyond saying they had committed "violations" of the program's "standard operating procedures."

[arnisador]

Man shot after loaded gun in stove explodes (http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/man-shot-after-loaded-563722.html?cxtype=rss_news)


Antoine Boutte used to keep a loaded gun at the bottom of his gas stove.

That is, until he forgot it was there early Saturday and he and another man decided to cook some food, Fulton County police said
Boutte fired up the stove at his College Park home around 3:30 a.m. Saturday -- heating up the .40 caliber Smith & Wesson along with it, a police report said.


While the food was cooking, the weapon’s magazine started to melt in the gun well, the police report said.


This caused the spring – and bullets – to come out of the magazine.


The bullets started going off like popcorn.


Boutte’s friend, Christopher Henderson, opened the stove “to see what was happening,” the police report said.


That’s when part of a bullet casing flew out of the stove, hitting Henderson in the stomach, police said.