The dilemma confronting lawyers trying to pick a jury in the George Zimmerman trial was summed up neatly by a member of the pool on the second day of the selection process.

“Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, it’s been pretty hard for people not to have gotten a lot of information,” the woman said after being quizzed on what she knew about Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin and their deadly Feb. 2012 confrontation.

Defense lawyer Don West agreed.

“You’ve shown remarkable insight into our very problem,” he said.

The prosecution and defense need to find six jurors, plus alternates, who say they can hear evidence with an open mind despite what they may have heard about the neighborhood watch volunteer or the unarmed 17-year-old he says he shot in self-defense. Zimmerman, 29, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

On the third day of jury selection in a Florida courthouse, Martin’s family praised those who had been summoned for the trial.

“We are inspired by the honesty of the potential jurors,” they said in a statement. “Their answers have been forthright and we have faith that the justice system and the members of the public who are selected for the jury will perform their civic duty in a fair and impartial manner.”

During the questioning, potential jurors have revealed a range of familiarity with a case that dominated headlines, sparked protests and stirred debate about race and guns.

A college student who said she doesn’t watch television news or read a newspaper gleaned her knowledge of Zimmerman and Martin mainly through friends’ Facebook status updates. Her takeaway: “An African American was wearing a hoodie or something like that."

A mother of three told defense lawyers she first heard of the case when her pastor led the congregation in prayers for Martin and Zimmerman and had not heard much about it since because she doesn’t have cable TV or Internet service.

Others had found it impossible to avoid discussion of the case.

A former financial services worker estimated she had seen 200 news reports, including headlines about a preliminary hearing on technical analysis of 911 calls last week. She called the shooting “a very unfortunate incident” and said she used it to talk to her sons about the dangers of going out at night.

A mother of two college-age boys recalled that her sons had discussed the case and “made fun of the fact of the Skittles” -- a reference to the bag of candy Martin bought at a convenience store before he crossed paths with Zimmerman.

Many of the jurors said that regardless of their exposure to the details, they could keep an open mind.

A woman who lives near the Sanford, Fla., housing complex where Martin was shot said friends had invited her to protests and a majority of them were sympathetic to the prosecution’s version of events.

Nevertheless, she had no doubt she could be impartial until deliberations began.

"You can't speculate without having a trial," she said.

Some were more opinionated, like a man who told the court he had not made up his mind but went on to say that “murder is murder.”

“Even in self-defense, it’s still murder,” he said.

He was dismissed for cause.

The first three days of jury selection have been focused on potential jurors’ pre-trial publicity awareness. Once the defense and prosecutors have a group of 30 who have not been dismissed for cause, they will begin a new round of questioning.

Each side has 10 peremptory challenges they can exercise to boot a juror without giving a reason. The process is expected to last through next week.

Editor’s Note: Zimmerman has sued NBCUniversal for defamation in civil court, and the company has strongly denied his allegations.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 12, 2013 5:17 PM EDT

Pat Sullivan / AP

Dan Blackford, right, shows Rory Strain, 12, how to hold a shotgun at a shooting range in Houston. Strain lives in the northwest Houston community of Oak Forest, the first residential area being trained and equipped by a nonprofit that is giving away free shotguns to single women and people in neighborhoods with high crime rates.

While cities like New York, Los Angeles and Phoenix champion gun buyback events and programs, a gun giveaway group, called The Armed Citizen Project, has launched in Houston.

The founder of the nonprofit organization, Kyle Coplen, 29, said he had a few reasons behind his idea to arm "residents in high crime areas" and especially single mothers with a free pump-action shotgun and training.

He said his first and foremost priority is “to train and arm residents in high crime areas and let criminals know that they’re at risk if they break into their house.”

His secondary goals are to get people more comfortable with guns by providing them with shotguns — what he called a "gateway gun" — and to conduct a study to find out if an increase in guns in an area results in a decrease in crime.

Founded in January, the Armed Citizen Project is currently based in the Houston neighborhood of Oak Forest, which does not have the highest crime rate in Houston but according to Coplen, the community of about 400 houses had 100 home invasions last year.

Coplen, who has a master’s degree in public administration, is testing whether the crime rate will change if the gun handout works by "manipulating certainty of punishment and increasing severity" of consequences  for criminals.

Karen Clarke, 67, lives alone in Oak Forest and expressed that while she’s had a "healthy fear of guns" all her life, she went out and bought one last year after her 92-year-old neighbor’s house was broken into.

She practices shooting once a week at Shiloh Shooting Range, where the Armed Citizen Project conducts most of their lessons. She said she watches the people who are involved with the project go through training while she is there.

Clarke observed that they are watched as they learn, and that the volunteers that work for the Armed Citizen project “have pretty good intuition ... they are not going to turn these things loose to just anyone," but added, "This is a good idea if some nutcase doesn't get hold of one."

Pat Sullivan / AP

Kyle Coplen, founder of the nonprofit Armed Citizens Project, talks at a shooting range, in Houston about the program to give free shotguns and training to neighborhood residents.

Coplen is not worried about a nutcase getting a hold of a gun through his program since every applicant is background checked and trained. The training takes one day. He said most are able to pick up a gun from the dealer within two to three weeks of applying.

Coplen also is not worried about lawsuits because, he said, “that is their weapon, we’re simply removing the cost barrier. There is no liability on our behalf.”

Sanford Levinson, an expert in constitutional law and professor of government at the University of Texas Law School said in an email that "efforts to promote 'armed citizens' are in no way illegal."

But, he noted, “even if one concedes that it (probably) deters some crime, that has to be weighted against the (probable) consequence that it also increases the number of suicides or gun accidents."

While Coplen may not have concerns about the legalities of handing out guns in Texas, he does have plans to expand the project to other cities including New York and Chicago, where gun laws are considerably stricter.

Pat Sullivan / AP

In this Sunday, May 19, 2013, photo, Cheryl Strain, right, watches as instructor Scott Stevens, center, shows her son Rory, 12, how to properly hold a shotgun at a shooting range in Houston. The Strains live in the first residential area being trained and equipped by a nonprofit that is giving away free shotguns to single women and neighborhoods with high crime rates.

A professor of constitutional law and the courts at NYU School of Law, James Jacobs said that Coplen “might run into some problems as a straw purchaser in some states."

He added, "In New York, the law is written that you have to prove to the police that you are qualified to have a gun in your house,” and explained that in Texas the opposite is true, because people have to prove they are not qualified to handle a gun before the firearm is taken away.

Coplen called the New York and Chicago gun laws “problems on paper."

He said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly “said they are going to use the permitting process to single us out. If they’re going to deny folks their second amendment rights, that’s a challenge I’m willing to go up against.”

Besides, Coplen said his initiative “transcends politics” since he describes it as "Joe Biden’s love of shotguns [mixed] with Obama’s love of redistribution."

A half-dozen people were gunned down in Chicago over Memorial Day weekend as the summer got off to its unofficial start, adding to the 134 people who were killed as of May 26 in the city that became a focal point earlier this year as the nation debated ways to address gun violence.

Experts and activists say those numbers highlight a downward trend in the city’s gun fatalities this year, but also underscore the challenges officers face headed into what are usually some of the most violent months in urban centers across the country. More than two hundred people had been killed in the city by the same time a year ago.

Despite the lower number of homicides year over year, Chicago and gun violence have basically been synonymous over the last six months. The city saw a number of high-profile gun fatalities as the nation debated the prospect of new state and federal gun legislation in the wake of the school shooting deaths of 20 young children and six adults in Newtown, Conn.

In January, Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old Chicagoan who performed at President Obama’s inauguration, was killed by a gunman who ran down an alley and fled in a white car, according to police.

In another incident, 6-month-old baby Jonylah Watkins died in March after being shot five times while she was sitting in her family’s parked minivan in the city’s Woodlawn neighborhood. Koman Willis, 33, turned himself in on May 25 in connection with the shooting. He has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held without bond.

In addition to the six people killed over the Memorial Day holiday, at least 17 more were injured, NBC Chicago reported. The weekend’s victims included an 18-year-old man who was killed in an alley and a 17-year-old man who died after having two bullets fired into his head.

Despite the headline-grabbing senselessness of the crimes, shootings in the city are actually down 28 percent compared to 2012 and 18 percent compared to 2011, said Chicago Police Department spokesman Adam Collins.

But the summer will bring new challenges as people gather outdoors in parks and other public spaces, said Roseanna Ander, executive director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab.

“Gun violence or violent crime increases during the summer months, and some of the reasons include that you just have more people with unstructured time,” Ander said. “When you have more people like you do in the summer months outdoors in public places, you just have a lot more potential for violent crime to happen.”

“The city could actually reach the lowest number of homicides since the 1960s, but the biggest tests will be June, July, and August,” said Tio Hardiman, director of community anti-violence group CeaseFire Illinois.

On Patrol
Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed to crack down on trouble areas in the aftermath of 2012’s Memorial Day violence, when eleven people were killed and more than 40 were hurt over a four-day period.

“Whether you are a problem business, a violent street corner, or a known drug market, we will go after you,” Emanuel said at the time, according to the Associated Press.

Police have taken a renewed approach to suppressing gun violence since then, placing more cops on patrol in impact zones, Chicago Police Superintendent Gary McCarthy said in an interview with NBC Chicago at the beginning of May. The city saw a 42 percent drop in homicides between January and the end of April this year, officials said.

“We’re going to have good days, we’re going to have bad days, but what’s the overall trend line?” McCarthy said. “In the first four months of this year, we’re in a position that we haven’t been in since the mid-Sixties, as far as the murder rate goes.”

“We are seeing real progress with a significant drop in murders, shootings and overall crime throughout Chicago,” Collins said in an email. “This is progress, not a victory, and it’s a result of our comprehensive policing strategy that includes our gang violence reduction initiative, targeted narcotics initiatives, a return to community policing and a close partnership between CPD and the community.”

Hardiman said that his group, which works with at-risk 16-to-25 year olds to keep them out of conflicts, plans to increase its presence on the streets over the summer months. There are encouraging signs, he said, that the city may see a continued decline in gun deaths even as the weather heats up.

“We usually have a spike during the months of March and April, and we didn’t have those spikes this year,” Hardiman said. “We’re going to have some good days and some bad days.”

But a comparison of crime statistics year-over-year can be misleading, Ander said. A decline in crime rates can rarely be traced back to a single cause, she said, and other factors like a relatively chilly spring may also have contributed to the city’s decrease in gun violence so far this year.

So a decline in gun-related violence this summer would be a positive sign, Ander said, that preventive efforts are taking hold.

“I think it’s too soon to tell or say anything definitive about what’s happening,” Ander said. “It’s certainly encouraging that we’re seeing numbers decrease, and I think a lot of the strategies that the police department are employing do seem like the right things to do.”

Scott Olson / Getty Images

A Chicago Police investigator tries to see the caliber of a shell casing left in the street at the scene of a shooting in the South Shore neighborhood on May 14, 2013, in Chicago.

Related:

• Murders fall 42 percent in America's deadliest city: Chicago
• 'Walking angel': Girl who performed at Obama's inauguration shot dead in Chicago
• 'Totally lost': Chicago woman loses fourth child to gun violence

A 4-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his father Friday afternoon at a residence in Prescott, Ariz., police said.

The Prescott Valley Police Department responded to a report of gunshots at 12:36 p.m. and found an adult male who had sustained a gunshot wound in a residence, said Police Sgt. Brandon Bonney. The man was transported to the nearby Yavapai Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Bonney said that the boy found a handgun and was apparently "making inquisitive statements to his father regarding the firearm and, while we he was doing so, shot his father in the chest."

Bonney said the father and son were from Phoenix and were visiting the male resident of a duplex apartment where the shooting occurred. He said the man they were visiting is the owner of the gun and was the only witness.

Police did not immediately identify the victim, pending notification of next of kin.

Jim Cole / AP

Family and friends arrive for a memorial service for Nancy Lanza on Saturday in Kingston, N.H. Lanza's 20-year-old son, Adam Lanza, killed her at their home in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14 and then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed the children and six school employees before committing suicide.

KINGSTON, N.H. -- More than a hundred family and friends gathered at a church in a small New Hampshire town Saturday to remember the woman whose son massacred 20 first-graders and six educators in a Connecticut elementary school last year. 

The mourners and a few musicians filed into the white clapboarded First Congregational Church in Kingston for the memorial of Nancy Lanza, the first victim of her 20-year-old son Adam's rampage. She was shot dead in their home before he blasted his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on Dec. 14. He killed himself as police closed in. 

More than a dozen uniformed police officers from several agencies blocked off the street and guarded the church door, ensuring only friends and family were allowed into the service. Nancy Lanza grew up in New Hampshire and lived there before moving to Newtown in 1998. 

Lanza's brother, James Champion, is a Kingston police officer and still lives in the town. 

A lone police bagpiper played as the processional arrived and lined up outside the church to enter together. Media outlets were kept 60 yards back across the street and behind yellow tape, and mourners declined to talk to reporters. 

A few people wiped their eyes as they left the church. 

Friends have said Nancy Lanza loved the Red Sox and gardening and talked of a growing enthusiasm for target shooting. The rifle and two handguns Adam Lanza took into Sandy Hook were registered to her. 

But they also said she never talked about her home life, keeping details about her son private. She occasionally said she was concerned about the future, but she didn't complain. 

Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

Nancy Lanza told a divorce mediator in 2009 that she didn't like to leave her son alone. People who met him described him as shy and introverted. The mediator recalled that Nancy and Peter, who had married in June 1981 in Kingston but divorced several years ago, were respectful of each other and concerned about Adam's needs. He'd switched schools several times and Nancy had tried home schooling. 

The head of security for the district where Adam Lanza attended high school said Nancy Lanza often had to come to school to deal with him when he had episodes of anxiety or withdrawing from others. 

The motive for her son's killing spree is still unclear. Investigators have said mother and son visited shooting ranges together, and the victims killed at the school were all shot with a Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that Adam Lanza took from the house he and his mother shared. That gun and the handgun he used to shoot himself had been legally purchased by his mother. 

The massacre has revived the national gun control debate and led to proposals for universal background checks on gun buyers and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. 

The Newtown massacre was the second-worst school shooting in U.S. history after the 2007 Virginia Tech rampage, which left 33 people dead. 

Adam Lanza's father claimed his remains and a family spokesman said there were private arrangements, but the burial location was not made public. 

A private funeral attended by about 25 people was held for Nancy Lanza in Kingston on Dec. 20. 

Related stories:

New details emerge in private lives of Adam Lanza and his mother

Adam Lanza surrounded by weapons at home

Task force recommends building new school at site of Sandy Hook massacre

Timothy Clary / AFP - Getty Images

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg arrives for a speech in Manhattan on Thursday.

The Secret Service has intercepted a letter to President Obama containing threats similar to those made in poison-laced letters sent to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his gun-control group, law enforcement sources said Thursday.

The letter to Obama was intercepted at a mail screening facility and did not reach the White House, the sources said. It was being tested for ricin, the poison detected in early tests in the other two letters.

The text of the Obama letter was identical to the text in the other two letters, which warned that anyone who comes to the sender’s house will “get shot in the face” and vows to protect a constitutional and God-given right to bear arms.

The text also warned: “What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you.”

The first two letters were sent to Bloomberg and to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a Bloomberg-financed organization that lobbies and advertises on television for tougher gun laws. Both were postmarked May 20 from Shreveport, La.

Law enforcement sources disclosed the existence of those two letters Wednesday.

Members of a New York police emergency unit who came in contact with the Bloomberg letter late last week are being examined for minor symptoms from ricin exposure that have since abated.

The FBI and New York police are investigating the threats.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, founded by Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, lobbies state and federal lawmakers. It aired TV ads earlier this year encouraging Congress to expand background checks for gun purchases and to toughen other gun laws.

Bloomberg said on Wednesday that he did not know what motivated the letters but pledged that his gun-control efforts would not be deterred.

“There’s 12,000 people that are going to get killed this year with guns and 19,000 that are going to commit suicide with guns, and we’re not going to walk away from those efforts,” he said.

He added that he did not feel threatened.

This story was originally published on Thu May 30, 2013 10:45 AM EDT

The TSA announced a dubious record this week, reporting that it had seized 65 firearms at airport security checkpoints.

The seizures buried the previous mark of 50 guns, the TSA reported, and included 54 loaded weapons -- 19 of which at rounds chambered.

Among the seizures was a firearm strapped to the prosthetic leg of a male passenger at Salt Lake City International Airport.

Authorities said the passenger received a pat-down after an anomaly was detected during advanced imaging technology screening.

During the pat-down, officers discovered a fully loaded .22 caliber firearm inside the passenger's boot and strapped to his prosthetic leg.

The man was arrested by Salt Lake City Airport Police on a state charge of "carrying a concealed weapon in a secure area."

The transportation lobbying group AAA estimates that 2.3 million travelers were expected to fly during the Memorial Day weekend.

Courtesy Jeff Taylor

Lebanon High School senior Jeff Taylor, 18, with the water gun he uses to play "Assassin," a game that has been banned at New York City's Hunter College High School and others across the country.

An elite New York City high school is warning seniors it could ban them from prom or graduation — or even snitch to college admission officers — if they're caught playing a popular toy-gun game in or near the school building.

The game is called "Assassin" or "Killer," and it's played at schools across the country, usually in May after exams end. Rules vary, but it generally involves students stalking and shooting human targets with water pistols, Nerf darts or plastic disks until only one remains.

Players say it's a fun way to blow off steam, but some school administrators and police officials fear it could turn deadly serious.

"Parents and students should know that we consider this a dangerous game and prohibit playing it on campus," Hunter College High School Principal Tony Fisher wrote in an email to parents last week.

"You should be aware that any students found playing the game within the school or in the immediate vicinity of the building will receive disciplinary consequences."

Fisher declined comment to NBC News but his email details the potential penalties: banning a player from senior events, suspending them, or reporting the incident to colleges if it's not their first serious transgression.

"At least one Senior has been excluded from Prom as a consequence of getting caught playing Killer for each of the last five years,” Fisher wrote.

His concern, echoed by other administrators who have cracked down on the game in recent years, is that the popular diversion is riskier than it seems on the surface.

A student being pursued by an "assassin" could dart into traffic, or a water pistol could be mistaken for a real gun. Teens could be tempted to break laws while they hunt their prey.

Police in Stoughton, Mass., said the dangers aren't purely hypothetical.

"Some of them really do take it too far," said Deputy Chief Robert Devine, recalling a scary incident two years ago.

"It was six in the morning and this kid was proned out [laying on the ground], wearing camouflage, behind a fence, waiting for his target to walk by. A neighbor saw it and the water gun looked like a real firearm and before you knew it, this kid had two officers pointing firearms at him," Devine said.

"And it wasn't the first time we've had calls like that," said Devine, who worked with the local high school to discourage kids from playing the game.

A game in West Jefferson, Pa., was squelched this year after police got reports of teens in high-speed, reckless chases, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. A Hillsborough, N.J., school was locked down in 2011 after a report of someone pointing a gun out a car window; it was later determined to be a player with a water pistol, the Hillsborough Patch reported.

The NYPD told Hunter that the students' annual "Killer" session overlaps with a gang-initiation period in the city, and that gang members could paint their real guns to look like toys — creating a confusing, dangerous situation for police, Fisher's email said.

At Lebanon High School in New Hampshire, a round of "Senior Assassin" is in its third week after starting with scores of players.

Senior Jeff Taylor, 18, who made it to the semifinals, said he doesn't see anything wrong with it.

"I just have fun doing it," he said. "It's a friendly rivalry and I'm a competitive person."

He said no one could mistake his water weapon for a real gun: "I'm using a super soaker. It's bright orange, blue and green."

Nikayla Cartier, 18, who also attends Lebanon High, said she can "totally understand" why some grown-ups are aghast, "but in all honesty, there's never really been a serious problem."

Cartier, who was eliminated on the first day when someone ambushed her at home, admitted some classmates go overboard. One staked out a spot on a friend's roof like a sniper, waiting for his target to walk by.

"It's extremely stressful because you're watching your back 24-7," she said. "But it’s a good kind of stressful."

Hundreds of guns are being swapped for gift cards in Phoenix, where two anonymous donors have given $100,000 apiece to help fund what some say may be the city’s last series of gun buybacks.

It’s the third buyback the city has held in May, racing to take unwanted guns off the hands of residents before a new state law goes into effect that would require police to resell any lost, forfeited or abandoned firearms they receive.

“Recently I received a phone call from an individual who was motivated by the success of the Phoenix gun buyback program,” city Mayor Greg Stanton said on Tuesday. “That donor has made a donation also in the amount of $100,000.”

“These are people that are motivated by Newtown that wanted to do something positive for the community,” Stanton said of the anonymous donors, referring to the December shooting that left 26 people, most of them children, dead in a Connecticut elementary school.

Residents who want to get rid of their guns are asked to bring unloaded firearms to one of three neighborhood churches on Saturday, according to the Phoenix Police Department. Handguns, shotguns and rifles can be exchanged for a $100 grocery store gift card. Assault weapons get a $200 gift card.

The buybacks were organized in conjunction with Arizonans for Gun Safety and the Phoenix Police Department. Police say they collected 803 guns on the first weekend, and bought back 176 more a week later before running out of money.

That first round of buybacks held on May 5 also was funded by an anonymous donation to Arizonans for Gun Safety.

“That first day that we did it was unbelievably successful, we almost exhausted our gift cards on the first day,” city police spokesman Sgt. Steve Martos told NBC News.

While critics have said the buybacks will do little to reduce gun crimes in the city, the mayor has said the program is intended to be just one step toward preventing violence on Phoenix’s streets.

“I respect the Second Amendment,” Stanton said when he announced the buybacks in his State of the City address in February. “This buyback will take steps to make Phoenix safer without curtailing the rights of responsible gun owners.”

Guns collected will be assessed for historical value and to determine whether they were lost or stolen, according to Phoenix police. After that, the guns will be turned over to a company that melts them down, said Martos.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed the law in April requiring police to resell any firearms they collect to a federally licensed firearms dealer. That law will go into effect 90 days after the current legislative session ends, Martos said, and would make it “counterproductive” for the city to carry out buybacks in the future.

“The whole intent is to take unwanted guns off the street, process them, and then ultimately destroy them,” Martos said.

The law was supported by pro-gun groups.

The National Rifle Association said in a letter to Brewer before the bill was signed that reselling seized guns “would maintain their value, and their sale to the public would help recover public funds,” the Associated Press reported.

“However, this measure would ensure that taxpayer resources are not utilized to pursue a political agenda of destroying firearms,” the NRA’s Brent Gardner said in the letter supporting the bill, according to the AP.

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• Rubio-aligned group goes on air to defend Ayotte on guns

Gun violence in America has fallen dramatically over the past two decades, and the number of murders committed with a firearm is down too, though guns are still by far the leading type of crime weapon, according to a new report from the Justice Department.

As for where crime guns came from, the study notes that less than two percent of convicted inmates reported buying their weapons at gun shows or flea markets. The highest number, 40 percent, said the guns came from a family member or a friend. About 37 percent said the weapons were stolen or obtained from an illegal source. The rest say the guns were bought at a retail store or pawn shop.

Murders committed with a gun dropped 39 percent to 11,101 in 2011, from a high of 18,253 in 1993, according to the report. 

Other crimes committed with guns were down even more sharply — from 1.53 million in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011, a drop of 70 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Around 70 percent of murders were committed with a firearm, and of those, the vast majority involved a handgun -- fluctuating between 70-80 percent.

The report is strictly factual and offers no analysis about the reasons for the decline in gun violence.