Gunfire rattles Italians' New Year

NAPLES, Italy, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Wild West-style gun play during New Year's celebrations is symptomatic of a growing gun culture in Italy, authorities said.

Gunshots rang in the new year in several cities, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Wednesday.

A 30-year-old father in Naples was killed when a stray bullet went through a window and struck him in the chest as he played cards with his family. A 10-year-old Naples boy clung to life after a bullet ricocheted and lodged in his brain, while a Sicilian woman was critically wounded by a bullet that struck her as she watched a street party from her balcony, ANSA said.

Five people in Caserta were shot, a woman in Puglia was grazed by a bullet, a teenage girl in Catania was awakened by a gunshot in her arm and a couple near Turin escaped injury when gunfire shattered their living-room window.

''There are too many firearms on the streets,'' said Naples prosecutor Franco Roberti.

National Anti-Mafia Commission chief Francesco Forgione blamed the problem on easier access to guns.

''There's a new security culture, which is following American logic," Forgione said.

The older brother of the wounded Naples boy said: ''It was crazy out there. You'd expect things like that in Iraq. I felt like I was in Baghdad."