Yesterday, local news reported that a 13 year old NE Baltimore girl was missing. She had gone off to a skating barn, but hadn't come back. Her family turned out to search the neighborhood, and her older brother found her body under some trash in an alley. That sounded fishy, and I wondered to myself if he knew where to look, but today the case took another turn.

The headline Police: Girl Found Dead Was Playing With Gun makes it sound like she shot herself, but her family said she was afraid of guns:

A 13-year-old girl reported missing in northeast Baltimore over the weekend was playing with a gun with a friend when it fired, killing her, police said Monday afternoon.

Family members identified the victim as Monae Turnage. Police said the teenager was accidentally shot by a .22-caliber rifle that she and her friends were playing with.

Two boys, ages 12 and 13, were charged with involuntary manslaughter. ...

The family said the juveniles pretended to be upset over Monae's disappearance, joining in the search for her and eventually guiding her 16-year-old brother to her body, which was found under some plastic trash bags on Sunday in the 1600 block of Cliftview Avenue.

In Baltimore it is next to impossible to legally own a firearm, so po-lice are trying to find out where the boys got the rifle. If they can find the owner, he'll be in serious trouble.

Update: Suspected weapon in child shooting found in city officer's vehicle

A Baltimore police officer has been suspended after the suspected weapon used in the shooting of a 13-year-old girl was found in his vehicle, according to sources. The victim's mother and aunt say they are outraged by the new allegations, calling for the officer to be fired.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the officer has been suspended for his "conduct" in the aftermath of the shooting but declined to provide more details.

According to law enforcement sources, investigators believe the off-duty officer, whose name could not be immediately confirmed, was in a relationship with a relative of one of the juvenile suspects charged Monday with involuntary manslaughter. Investigators are trying to determine whether he advised the juveniles after the shooting occurred.

It may be easier for kids to run across legal rifles and handguns soon because another big story this morning was Md. Gun Law Found Unconstitutional

States can channel the way their residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but because Maryland’s goal was to minimize the number of firearms carried outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate “good reason,” it had turned into a rationing system, infringing upon residents’ rights, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote.

“A citizen may not be required to offer a `good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” he wrote. “The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”

There's a lot worth reading about Shall-Issue, May-Issue and No-Issue but essentially it's relatively straightforward to get a firearm permit in a rural or light suburban area with a lot of white residents, and very difficult, or impossible in a dense city with a lot of ethnic minorities. I wouldn't even bother to try getting through the paperwork, and application process towards a firearm permit in Baltimore, but I could walk into a gun dealer in central PA tomorrow, show my driver's license, sign a few papers and walk out with a firearm, as long as I brought it directly to my home there. Concealed carry in PA involves paperwork and a waiting period, but I know ordinary people in PA that legally carry guns under their shirts.

Gun rights advocates were certain that President Obama would take away their rights to buy guns, so there was a big run just before he took office. After the Tucson shootings, the President did ask AG Eric Holder to look into common sense measures that did not violate the Second Amendment, but otherwise the anticipated presidential assault on gun rights did not materialize. As his reelection looks more and more likely, there seems to be another run on firearms and ammunition.  

In Some say [which really means, our editors say] re-election fear is driving gun sales in Fort Worth, elsewhere, the Star-Telegram lists both speculation and disclaimers:

"We're at the top of the roller coaster and we're about to plummet down the side," said DeWayne Irwin, owner of the Cheaper Than Dirt gun store in north Fort Worth, which set a sales record for the month of February. "It's fixing to happen again. I don't know if it will be to the same extent it was before, but I see it coming.

"Look who the Republicans are trying to put against Obama," he said. "It's the Keystone Kops and people are getting scared. People are terrified he's going to get re-elected and then he won't care about getting votes next time. He'll just pass whatever legislation he wants."

Some say [there it is again] the uptick in sales at gun stores could also be linked to anything from the arrival of tax refunds to a spending spree by fans of the National Geographic Channel's Doomsday Preppers show, which chronicles people preparing for the end of the world.

February was a big month for car purchases, too, so I was thinking that maybe people finally have money to buy guns. But The Star-Telegram notes that sales haven't really slowed down:

January was the 20th straight month of increases in firearm background checks. States such as Utah saw a 161 percent increase in the number of concealed-weapon permits from March 2008 to March 2011. And Glock sales in the U.S. grew 71 percent in the first quarter of fiscal 2010, according to the ad.

In Texas, the number of concealed-handgun permits has gone up every year, nearly doubling since 2006.

Some say More Guns, Less Crime, and some say More Guns, More Crime, but more guns also means more suicides and more accidental shootings of little girls like Monae.