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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Headlines



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Signs of a troubled America from today’s New York Times. Click on the headline to read the story.







Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children.

The industry’s strategies include giving firearms, ammunition and cash to youth groups; weakening state restrictions on hunting by young children; marketing an affordable military-style rifle for “junior shooters” and sponsoring semiautomatic-handgun competitions for youths; and developing a target-shooting video game that promotes brand-name weapons, with links to the Web sites of their makers.

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Conservative groups financed by anonymous donors are running television advertisements against Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense.


The media campaign to scuttle Mr. Hagel’s appointment, unmatched in the annals of modern presidential cabinet appointments, reflects the continuing effects of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which loosened campaign finance restrictions and was a major reason for the record spending by outside groups in the 2012 election. All told, these independent and largely secretly financed groups spent well over $500 million in an attempt to defeat Mr. Obama and the Democrats, a failure that seemed all the greater given the huge amounts spent.

[For a discussion of Citizens United, see “Court Puts America Up for Sale – http://aboutnothing-doug.blogspot.com/2010/01/court-puts-america-up-for-sale.html]

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NEWPORT, N.H. — When the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police was looking to raise money for an annual cadet training program, it sold raffle tickets for $30 apiece. The drawing was scheduled for May, but by Jan. 12 all 1,000 tickets had been sold.

The prize: 31 guns, with a new winner drawn each day of the month.

The fund-raiser, sponsored by the association in partnership with two New Hampshire gun makers, Sig Sauer and Sturm, Ruger & Company, has prompted a chorus of protests from lawmakers and gun-control advocates questioning why the police are giving away guns, even in the name of a good cause.

Some in law enforcement have also raised questions. When Chief Nicholas J. Giaccone Jr. of Hanover pulled up information about the raffle on the Internet, he said, he was flabbergasted.

“I looked at the first weapon and Googled that one,” said Chief Giaccone, who recalled using an expletive when he pulled up information about the Ruger SR-556C, a semiautomatic weapon. “It’s an assault rifle.”

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