David Murdter '12 examines the need for handgun control in the wake of the tragedy is Tucson.

The Binghamton shooting tragedy on April 3 — in which Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong left 13 dead, four injured and eventually took his own life with a handgun — forced lawmakers to rethink the current handgun license laws.

Two New York state lawmakers, Sen. Eric Schneiderman (D-N.Y.) and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-N.Y.), have pushed to reform the state’s current handgun license system, which Paulin described as a “dangerous lifetime permit system,” according to The Journal News.

Under the current law, every county north of Westchester gives lifetime permit licenses to any handgun owner. The bill, which is expected to be passed by the state assembly in Albany today, will provide for a five-year statewide renewal system.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Silent on central questions of gun control for two centuries, the Supreme Court found its voice Thursday in a decision affirming the right to have guns for self-defense in the home and addressing a constitutional riddle almost as old as the republic over what it means to say the people may keep and bear arms.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and imperiled similar prohibitions in other cities, Chicago and San Francisco among them. Federal gun restrictions, however, were expected to remain largely intact.

The court's historic awakening on the meaning of the Second Amendment brought a curiously mixed response, muted in some unexpected places.

This is the third and final part of a series of articles examining gun control at Cornell, in the United States and in countries around the world.

Cornell is a safe place to be — at least it appears that way. Isolated in Upstate New York, it is removed from the violence typically associated with cities. But how safe is Cornell?

Isolation does not necessarily guarantee safety. In 1983, a gunman murdered two students in their dormitory room, slipping into the dormitory unnoticed with a rifle. Two years ago, a white Cornell student stabbed a black student from Union College in a racially motivated hate crime.