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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.
^^^
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]
^^^
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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