American Patriots Should Know About 7 Gun Myths and The Gun Background Check System

American Patriots Should Know About 7 Gun Myths and The Gun Background Check System

With the U.S. Senate having voted to take up legislation to strengthen gun laws, which will likely include a bipartisan proposal to expand federal firearms background checks, Media Matters reviews myths the media has promoted about the background check system.

How do federal background checks work?

Would proposals to strengthen background checks force family members to run checks on each other?

Are sellers at gun shows required to perform a background check on buyers?

Is supporting background checks politically risky?

Could expanding the background check system lead to a national gun registry?

Do background checks violate the Second Amendment?

Do background checks actually stop criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns?

MYTH: The Federal Government Doesn't Currently Perform Background Checks On Gun Purchasers

Mamet In Newsweek On Background Checks: "How Are They Checked? Are They Checked? By What Agency, With What Monies?" In his January Newsweek cover story, playwright David Mamet was seemingly ignorant of the fact that federal law requires individuals who purchase firearms from licensed dealers to undergo a criminal background check:

    Yes, but we should check all applicants for firearms for a criminal record?

    Anyone applying to purchase a handgun has, since 1968, filled out a form certifying he is not a fugitive from justice, a convicted criminal, or mentally deficient. These forms, tens and tens of millions of them, rest, conceivably, somewhere in the vast repository. How are they checked? Are they checked? By what agency, with what monies? The country is broke. Do we actually want another agency staffed by bureaucrats for whom there is no funding? [Newsweek, 1/28/13]

FACT: While There Is No Federal Background Check Requirement For Private Transactions, Sales Through A Licensed Dealer Are Checked

FBI Has Run Instant Background Checks On Purchases From Licensed Dealers For More Than A Decade. From the FBI's website:

    The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, is all about saving lives and protecting people from harm -- by not letting guns and explosives fall into the wrong hands. It also ensures the timely transfer of firearms to eligible gun buyers.

    Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI on November 30, 1998, NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms or explosives. Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn't otherwise ineligible to make a purchase. More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials. [FBI, accessed 4/11/13]

MYTH: Proposals To Expand Background Checks Would Place Onerous Burdens On The Transfer Of Firearms Between Family Members

NRA Past President Marion Hammer: Expanded Background Checks Would Mean "Having To Do A Background Check On Your Own Mom Before You Could Give Her One Of Your Guns For Protection." In a January 23 op-ed published at gun news website AmmoLand, Hammer claimed that expanding background checks would interfere with transfers of firearms between family members and hunting partners:

    Imagine a grandfather who wants to give a family shotgun to his 12-year-old grandson having to do a background check on his grandson before giving him the shotgun.

    Or a friend having to do a background check on his lifetime best buddy before lending him a hunting rifle.

    Or, if your mother had a prowler at her home, having to do a background check on your own Mom before you could give her one of your guns for protection.

    That's what "universal background checks" do. They turn traditional innocent conduct into a criminal offense. They target you, law-abiding gun owners. [AmmoLand.com, 1/23/13]

FACT: Every Major Legislative Proposal To Strengthen Background Checks Has Exempted These Transfers

Manchin-Toomey Proposal Exempts Firearms Transfers to Family, Friends, Neighbors. According to the press release detailing their amendment to expand the background check system, under the legislation developed by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), "Family transfers and some private sales (friends, neighbors, other individuals) are exempt from background checks." [Manchin/Toomey press release, 4/10/13]

Obama Administration Proposal Included "Common-Sense" Exemptions For Family Members, Temporary Transfers. The White House fact sheet on Obama's proposals to strengthen gun laws states:

    Congress should pass legislation that goes beyond just closing the "gun show loophole" to require background checks for all firearm sales, with limited, common-sense exceptions for cases like certain transfers between family members and temporary transfers for hunting and sporting purposes. [The White House, accessed 4/11/13]

The Fix Gun Checks Act Of 2013 (HR 137) Contains Exemptions For Family Gifts And Other Circumstances. The proposed legislation, which was largely included in the latest effort to strengthen the background check system but will likely be replaced by Manchin-Toomey's proposal, would also exempt temporary transfers of weapons for hunters and transfers of weapons to individuals in imminent danger:

    ''(f) EXCEPTIONS.--Unless prohibited by any other provision of law, subsections (b) and (c) shall not apply to any transfer of a firearm between an unlicensed transferor and unlicensed transferee, if--

    (1) the transfer is a bona fide gift between immediate family members, including spouses, parents, children, siblings, grandparents, and grandchildren;

    (2) the transfer occurs by operation of law, or because of the death of another person for whom the unlicensed transferor is an executor or administrator of an estate or a trustee of a trust created in a will;

    (3) the transfer is temporary and occurs while in the home of the unlicensed transferee, if--

    (A) the unlicensed transferee is not otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms; and

    (B) the unlicensed transferee believes that possession of the firearm is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to the unlicensed transferee; [H.R. 137, accessed 4/11/13]

MYTH: There Is No Such Thing As The Private Sales Loophole

NRA News Host Cam Edwards: People Prohibited From Owning Firearms Cannot Exploit The Private Sales Loophole. During the January 3 edition of Cam & Company on NRA News, host Cam Edwards first told guest Jim Geraghty, who writes for the National Review Online, that Geragthy was "incorrect" in his assumption that background checks are not required at gun shows. Edwards would later acknowledge that private sellers at gun shows conduct sales without running a background check on customers, but he also claimed that it was impossible for individuals prohibited from owning firearms under federal law from obtaining weapons through this process. [Cam & Company, 1/3/13]
FACT: Private Sales Without A Background Check Are Extremely Common, Including At Gun Shows And Online

Law Center To Prevent Gun Violence: Private Sales Loophole Has Been Exploited By Gun Traffickers And Used To Supply Firearms To Criminals. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence explained how a deficiency in federal law concerning how firearms sellers are licensed allows dangerous individuals to obtain firearms without a background check:

    The Gun Control Act of 1968 provides that persons "engaged in the business" of dealing in firearms must be licensed. Although Congress did not originally define the term "engaged in the business," it did so in 1986 as part of the McClure-Volkmer Act (also known as the "Firearms Owners' Protection Act"). That Act defined the term "engaged in the business," as applied to a firearms dealer, as "a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms."

    Significantly, however, the term was defined to exclude a person who "makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms."

    Consequently, unlicensed sellers may sell firearms without conducting background checks or documenting the transaction in any way. In addition, because federal law does not require private sellers to inspect a buyer's driver's license or any other identification, there is no obligation for such sellers to confirm that a buyer is of legal age to purchase a firearm. As a result, convicted felons, minors and other prohibited purchasers can easily buy guns from unlicensed sellers.

    According to a 1999 report issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the current definition of "engaged in the business" often frustrates the prosecution of "unlicensed dealers masquerading as collectors or hobbyists but who are really trafficking firearms to felons or other prohibited persons." A June 2000 ATF report found that unlicensed sellers were involved in about a fifth of the trafficking investigations and associated with nearly 23,000 diverted guns.  A national survey of firearm ownership conducted in 1994 determined that 60 percent of all firearm sales in the U.S. involved federally licensed dealers, while the remaining 40 percent of firearms were acquired from unlicensed sellers. [Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, accessed 4/11/13]

New York City Undercover Investigation: Most Private Sellers Agreed To Sell Firearm To Someone Who Said They Couldn't Pass A Background Check. In an investigation of 10 websites in 14 states that allow unlicensed sellers to list firearms for sale, undercover investigators working for the City of New York found that 77 out of 125 sellers agreed to go forward with a firearm sale after the purchaser said that he could not pass a background check. [City of New York, December 2011]
MYTH: Supporting Background Check Expansion Is A "Risky" Move For Senators

Fox News: Amendment Is A "Risky Balancing Act" For Manchin, Toomey. Reporting on their compromise amendment to expand the background check system, Fox News correspondent Doug McKelway said that Manchin and Toomey are engaged in a "risky balancing act" because they represent states where "the Second Amendment is considered sacrosanct," suggesting that their legislation is controversial. [Fox News, Special Report, 4/10/13, via Nexis]
FACT: Americans Overwhelmingly Support Expanding The Background Check System

National Polls Show Massive Public Support For Expanding Background Checks. According to an April 10 Huffington Post article:

    Eighty-six percent of Americans support strengthening background checks for guns in some way, according to an ORC/CNN poll released Wednesday.

    Requiring background checks at gun shows was the most popular proposal, with 83 percent of those polled favoring the idea. Seventy percent want checks when gun owners who aren't dealers sell their weapons, and 54 percent support checks when guns are sold or gifted between family members.

    The current laws, which require gun stores and businesses to run background checks, were favored by 89 percent of Americans.

    Most polls since the shooting in Newtown, Conn., have shown upwards of 80 percent support for some form of enhanced background checks. A HuffPost/YouGov poll found that nearly three quarters of the public supported universal background checks. [Huffington Post, 4/10/13]

Poll: 88 Percent In Toomey's Home State Of Pennsylvania Support Background Checks On Every Gun Purchase. [MAIG release, 3/5/13]

Recent Polling Demonstrates Strong State-Level Support For Expanded Background Checks, Even In Red States. According to a series of polls for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), which supports expanding the background check system, a proposal to expand the system to include all gun buyers is supported by:

    83 Percent Of Utahns. [MAIG release, 3/5/13]
    94 Percent Of Floridians. [MAIG release, 3/5/13]
    94 Percent Of North Dakotans. [MAIG release, 3/5/13]
    87 Percent Of Oklahomans. [MAIG release, 3/5/13]
    90 Percent Of Arizonans. [MAIG release, 3/5/13]
    85 Percent Of Louisianans. [MAIG release, 3/5/13]

MYTH: Background Check Expansion Could Lead To A National Gun Registry

Fox Host Bolling: Proposal Is "Knocking On The Door To A National Registry." On Fox News' The Five, co-host Eric Bolling said of the Manchin-Toomey proposal: "We're so close to this background check in this form being a national registry. It is knocking on the door to a national registry." [Fox News, The Five, 4/10/13, via Nexis]
FACT: Proposal Reaffirms That A Federal Registry Is Illegal

Manchin-Toomey Legislation Includes 15-Year Prison Term For Attempting To Create A Federal Registry. The Huffington Post reported:

    The background check compromise set to be introduced on Thursday will explicitly bar public officials from creating a national gun registry, penalizing those who do with a felony charge carrying a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

    That language of the bill is still being crafted. But multiple Senate aides briefed The Huffington Post on that specific provision, which was included to alleviate the concerns of pro-gun advocates who have warned that any expansion of background checks would pave the way for a registry.

    In actuality, a federal registry of gun ownership is already prohibited under law. But the lawmakers crafting a compromise -- Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) -- wanted to ensure a smoother passage for their bill, so they made the punishment more severe. In addition to a potential jail sentence of 15 years, officials who create a gun registry or misuse federal records on gun sales or ownership would face a monetary fine. [Huffington Post, 4/10/13]

MYTH: Expanding Background Checks Violates The Second Amendment

Fox News: Legislation Could Constitute An "Infringement Of The Second Amendment." McKelway reported that Republicans may oppose the Manchin-Toomey proposal because they "are under tremendous pressure not to cave on any infringement of the Second Amendment." [Fox News, Special Report, 4/10/13, via Nexis]
FACT: Supreme Court Has Stated That Background Checks Do Not Violate The Second Amendment

Highest Court Reaffirmed That Efforts To Prevent Felons And The Mentally Ill From Obtaining Firearms Is Permissible Under The Second Amendment. In the 2008 Supreme Court case, District Of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority that the Second Amendment is "not unlimited" as "commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." Justice Scalia continued:

    [N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

    We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. [United States v.] Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those "in common use at the time." We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of "dangerous and unusual weapons." [District of Columbia v. Heller, 6/26/08, via Google Scholar, emphasis added]

MYTH: The Background Check System Doesn't Prevent Criminals From Obtaining Weapons

WaPo's Parker: Criminals Won't Submit To Background Checks, So System Has "No Real Practical Purpose." In her Washington Post column, Kathleen Parker wrote that while she supports expanding the background check system, she thought the system had little impact:

    Universal background checks are a perfectly good idea, except that they won't stop the burglar who recently cleaned out our house of all our legally purchased rifles and shotguns, including an antique that had belonged to my great-grandfather, who, as sheriff of Barnwell County, S.C., confiscated the gun from the triple murderer he tracked for three days and finally killed. (I want that gun back, please.)

    Those guns are now in circulation among an element of society that has no intention of submitting to a background check or any other well-intentioned effort to ensure that only good guys have guns. [The Washington Post, 4/9/13]

FACT: Background Checks Prevented The Sale Almost 2 Million Firearms In System's First 15 Years, Largely To Criminals And The Mentally Ill

Between 1994 And 2009, Nearly 1.8 Million Applications For Firearms Transfers Were Denied. NBC News reported:

    The numbers show that background checks do keep guns out of the hands of at least some people who are not supposed to have them. Nearly 1.8 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were denied between the passage of the law in March 1994 and December 2008, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The FBI and state law enforcement denied firearm purchases to 153,000 people in 2010 alone, the most recent year for which data is available. [NBCNews.com, 4/10/13]

Not a single Democrat has proposed banning the ownership of guns. The expanded background check and going back to the assault weapons ban are simply two common sense gun safety measures - like requiring people to use seat-belts. Why are the anti-American zealots at the NRA - The National Right to Kill Children Association,  lying and exaggerating about these modest changes in the laws already regulating guns? That is just what lunatics do.

Republicans Want America To Have The Same Values as 17th Century Witch Burners

Republicans Want America To Have The Same Values as 17th Century Witch Burners

The right-wing Family Research Council — which uses its advocacy muscle to try to block comprehensive sexual health programs in public schools — is now going a step further, suggesting the young Americans who have premarital sex should be punished because they don’t deserve the right to engage in sexual intercourse.

According to senior FRC fellow Pat Fagan, the Supreme Court’s “first assault on marriage” was a 1972 case that overturned a state law banning unmarried people from purchasing birth control. Fagan claims that court decision effectively sanctioned premarital sex, “brushing aside thousands and thousands of years of wisdom, tradition, [and] culture.” Appearing on a radio show with Tony Perkins, the head of the organization, Fagan asserted that “society never gave young people that right,” and instead has an obligation to stop, punish, and shame that type of sexual behavior:

    FAGAN: The court decided that single people have the right to contraceptives. What’s that got to do with marriage? Everything, because what the Supreme Court essentially said is single people have the right to engage in sexual intercourse. Well, societies have always forbidden that, there were laws against it. [...]

    It’s not the contraception, everybody thinks it’s about contraception, but what this court case said was young people have the right to engage in sex outside of marriage. Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.

In fact, a full 80 percent of unmarried evangelical Christians report that they are having sex. Despite the emphasis on abstinence within the evangelical community — a misguided approach to sexuality that typically shames young adults about their bodies, ignores the existence of the LGBT community, and fails to equip adolescents with the resources they need to effectively manage their sexual health — it’s clear that premarital sex is the norm, not something that threatens the very fabric of modern society.

And ignoring the reality that teens are having sex has had serious consequences across the country. The states that push ineffective abstinence-only health classes have higher rates of teen pregnancy, higher rates of STDs, and higher concentrations of HIV infections. Even the evangelical community itself has started to realize that denying teens sexual health resources isn’t working, and has begun to move in the direction of supporting contraception and sex education.

Conservatives should be embarrassed to ever utter the word freedom. If given the power they would have the government entwined into every aspect of every American's personal life. Our jails would be filled with people who committed the awful crime of having sex. Sure we'd all like for everyone to make responsible personal decisions, but enacting laws and public policy that mirror the fundamentalist tyranny of the 17th century is not the way to accomplish that.

Why Does Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Hate America and Sympathize With Terrorists

Why Does Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Hate America and Sympathize With Terrorists

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced on Wednesday that he will delay the committee’s vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Secretary of Defense. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a committee member, wants Hagel to hand over the texts of private speeches and to disclose the financial dealings of private companies he’s associated with. There’s one problem, however, Hagel says he doesn’t have complete records of the speeches and, as he told Cruz and the committee Republicans regarding the companies’ business dealings, “the information you seek is legally controlled by the individual entities and not mine to disclose.”

Norman Ornstein, an expert on congressional procedure at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called Cruz’s tactics “unprecedented.” “You could say that there’s been requests for detailed information [in the past],” Ornstein told the Daily Beast, “but this goes even beyond the intrusive questionnaires candidates fill out during the vetting process.” Ornstein also specifically called out Cruz. “That a Freshman senator would ask for that level of information says more about Ted Cruz than about anything else,” he said. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before,” adding, “but you could say that Ted Cruz in the Senate is unprecedented too.”

Cruz would prefer that America not have a qualified Secretary of Defense because he would rather give America's enemies the upper hand while he pursues his wacky conspiracy theories.

How Conservatism is Diminishing Freedom in America

How Conservatism is Diminishing Freedom in America

If asked why we live in a great country, an American is likely to respond: "Because we are free." Fortunately for the respondent, explanation is rarely required. Freedom is difficult to define, and today it seems to exist more in our minds than in reality.

In a 1941 Message to Congress Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to explain what it means to be free. He outlined the "four essential human freedoms":

    The first is freedom of speech and expression...
    The second is freedom of every person to worship...
    The third is freedom from want...
    The fourth is freedom from fear.

The 2013 version shows how our freedoms have been diminished, or corrupted into totally different forms.

Freedom from Want? Poverty Keeps Getting Worse.

For every three people in poverty in the year 2000, there are now four. Almost 50 million people were impoverished in 2011. Over 20 percent of our children live in poverty, including almost half of young black children. Among industrialized countries only Romania has a higher child poverty rate than the United States.

It goes well beyond economics. Not long after the FDR era, in 1960, the U.S. ranked near the top among 34 OECD countries in Life Expectancy and Infant Mortality. By 2008 we were close to the bottom. A 2007 UNICEF report ranked us last among 21 OECD nations in an assessment of child health and safety.

Freedom from Want has been least attainable for people of color. For every $100 owned by a white family, a black family has $2. For every $100 owned by a single white woman, a single black or Hispanic woman has 25 cents.


Freedom from Fear? The New Jim Crow.

In the decades before FDR young black men were under constant threat of arrest for 'vagrancy,' and the resulting slave-like conditions of forced labor. Today vagrancy has been replaced by petty drug offenses. In "The New Jim Crow," Michelle Alexander documents the explosion of the prison population for drug offenses, with blacks and Hispanics the main targets even though they use drugs at about the same -- or lesser -- rate as white Americans. In Colorado and Washington and New York City and Seattle the patterns are disturbingly similar: minority arrests are vastly out of proportion to their percentages of the population.

Freedom of Worship? Distorted by Visions of The Rapture.

In 2005 Bill Moyers wrote about the far-right evangelical beliefs that dominate much of conservative American thinking, and which impact social and environmental policies. He repeats a theology professor's summary of the Rapture credo: "The world cannot be saved." Believers are not responsible for the environment, and should focus only on personal salvation. Droughts and floods, which have been occurring with greater regularity as the earth warms, are simply signs of the apocalypse as foretold in the Bible, and thus should be welcomed.

With this attitude, freedom of worship is twisted into a radical dogma that threatens the health and safety of our entire population. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), like many on the conservative right, favors the Bible over science. "My point is," notes Inhofe with reference to a verse from Genesis, "God's still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

Also to be welcomed by extremists is war with Islam in the Middle East, for it is an "essential conflagration on the road to redemption." At a Florida conference on "Biblical Prophecy about End Times," diatribes poured forth with a vengeance: "Islam is an intolerant religion...Islam is a Satanic religion." A reporter came away convinced that "A terrible, final war in the [Middle East] is inevitable."

Freedom of Speech? No, Surveillance and Harassment.

In De Jonge v. Oregon, 1937, the Supreme Court decided that the right of peaceable assembly is "cognate to those of free speech and free press and is equally fundamental."

Recently released FBI documents reveal that the agency repeatedly monitored Occupy Wall Street activities, viewing them as possible terrorism.

Peaceable assembly and free speech might also describe the act of young men gathering on the streets of New York City. But their First Amendment rights, along with the Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal search, are constantly violated by Stop & Frisk abuses by the police, which at times border on sexual assault.

In addition, our freedom of expression is increasingly compromised by advanced surveillance technologies. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act gives the government license to spy on us. New techniques such as Iris Scans, License Plate Recognition, GPS devices in pharmaceutical products, and Facial Recognition Technology invade our privacy. Drones are flying over our homes. The National Security Agency is building a data center big enough to store every email, text, phone call, web search, and video in the United States. With the Electronic Communications Privacy Act on its side, government is authorized to take anything it can get.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, "True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security." As inequality destroys our economic security, and the prison population grows, and religion continues to impact public policy, and our privacy is invaded, our precious freedoms become more and more a failed American dream.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org)

The conservative Republican base are a laugh. They fight for the right of a few zealots to have more and more power to take away the rights and economic security they claim to care so much about.

Average Fortune 500 CEO Now Paid 380 Times As Much As The Average Worker

The NRA is Betraying America With It's Lies About Obama Gun Safety Proposals

The NRA is Betraying America With It's Lies About Obama Gun Safety Proposals

In a press conference on Wednesday, President Obama outlined a sweeping effort to prevent gun violence in the United States. Surrounded by children who had written him letters voicing their desire to see gun laws passed, Obama announced that he will sign 23 executive orders and bring a set of proposals to Congress.

The President referenced one child’s letter that read, “I know that laws have to be passed by Congress, but I beg you to try very hard.”

“I promise that I will try very hard,” he said.

Obama also condemned lawmakers who vocally resist any new gun measures, pointing out that the gun policies of Ronald Reagan were more reasonable.

The initiatives cover everything from mental heath, to gun safety, to blocking the most deadly firearms from making it to market. Here are some of the most important efforts the President introduced today:

    1. Making background checks universal. Obama wants every single gun owner to go through a proper background check, so it can be determined whether they have a criminal history or diagnosed mental illness. He wants Congress to close the gun show loophole that allows people at gun shows, and private buyers of used weapons, to avoid getting checked. He will also, through executive action, urge private sellers to conduct background checks, even if they aren’t mandatory.

    2. Improving state reporting of criminals and the mentally ill. While all states are required to report to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) people who should not have access to guns, some states are sluggish about putting the data into the system. Obama will put more money into the hands of the states so that they can improve their reporting systems, and issue stronger guidelines to let states know when they should report people. Obama will also, through Presidential Memorandum, work to make sure agencies are regularly entering data into NICS.

    3. Banning assault weapons. This is likely the most difficult battle Obama will undertake. He wants to reinstate the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which outlaws military-grade weapons, like the AR-15 used by Newtown gunman Adam Lanza and by Aurora Theater gunman James Holmes. Obama wants Congress to pass the ban, and close some of the loopholes identified in its 1994 iteration.

    4. Capping magazine clip capacity at 10 bullets. A military-grade weapon is dangerous, but so are its accessories: Obama proposes banning all extended magazine clips that hold over 10 bullets. Huge magazine clips allow a gunman to fire off hundreds of rounds without having to stop, even once, to reload. The high-capacity magazine ban was also part of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

    5. Purging armor-piercing bullets. The sale of armor piercing ammunition has been banned for quite some time, but is still legal to posess such bullets. Obama is calling on Congress to outlaw ownership and transfer of these bullets, instead of just the sale. Those who oppose any gun laws try to spin a ban on armor piercing bullets as a ban on deer hunting ammunition, but such ammo has the ability to penetrate bullet-proof vests, and is more colloquially known as “cop killer bullets.”

    6. Funding police officers. Obama wants Congress to reverse its course of austerity for public employees by approving $4 billion to fund police enforcement around the country.

    7. Strengthening gun tracking. In order to track weapons that are used for crimes, Obama will issue a memorandum mandating that all agencies trace back firearms. This means that any agency in the country must trace guns used in crimes back to their original owners, as a way to help collect data on where criminal weapons are coming from. Obama will also ask Congress to allow law enforcement to do background checks on guns seized during investigations.

    8. Supporting research on gun violence. Obama hopes to be able to gather more information on gun violence and misuse of firearms, and use that data to inform the work of law enforcement. He also wants to restart research, which has been long blocked by the National Rifle Association, on how video games, the media, and violence affect violent gun crimes. The Centers for Disease Control will immediately begin these efforts, but Obama also is calling on Congress to add $10 million to the pot of funding for such research.

    9. Encouraging mental health providers to get involved. In order to make sure that those with homicidal thoughts are unable to access the weapons with which to kill, Obama seeks to encourage mental health professionals to alert authorities to such people. He will clarify that doing so is not in violation of patient privacy laws. He also wants to dispel the idea that Obamacare prevents doctors from talking to patients about guns.

    10. Promoting safe gun ownership. The administration will start a “responsible gun ownership” campaign to encourage gun owners to lock up their firearms. He will also work with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to make sure safes and gun locks on the market are effective. He’s also calling on the justice department to help him come up with new gun safety technology.

    11. Funding school counseling. Obama is calling on Congress to fund the positions of 1,000 news school counselors. The funding will come both through the already-existent COPS Hiring Grant, and through a new Comprehensive School Safety program that Congress will need to sign off on. The latter would put #150 million into funding for new counselors and social workers in schools.

    12. Encouraging safe, anti-bullying school environments. Over 8,000 schools could receive new funding — $50 million — under Obama’s plan to encourage safer school environments. Obama wants to help at-risk students by creating a “school climate survey” that will collect data on what services students need, and to remedy any problems by putting professionals into schools. The administration will also issue guidelines on school discipline policies.

    13. Recognizing the mental health needs of low-income Americans. Medicaid recipients already qualify for some mental health services, but Obama would like to expand that service so that low-income Americans have the same access to professional help as those who have money to pay for it on their own. Obama will issue a directive to heads of state health programs, enforcing “mental health parity” — the idea that mental health should be treated as a priority as important as physical health.

The NRA and gun manufacturers are stepping up the paranoid based lie machine. The President believes in preserving America's 2nd Amendment rights. Like Reagan and Bush 41, President Obama believes in some sensible gun safety measures. Both the NRA and gun makers make huge profits off this shameless parade of lies about banning guns outright. That proves they do not have America's best interests at heart, they certainly not acting like true patriots.

Scientists, Democrats Shut Out Of Sunday Show Discussions On Climate Change

Scientists, Democrats Shut Out Of Sunday Show Discussions On Climate Change

A Media Matters analysis finds that news coverage of climate change on ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX remained low in 2012 despite record temperatures and a series of extreme weather events in the U.S. When the Sunday shows did discuss climate change, scientists were shut out of the debate while Republican politicians were given a platform to question the science.

Broadcast Networks Continued To Overlook Climate Change In 2012

Even In Record-Breaking Year, Broadcast Climate Coverage Remained Minimal. In 2012, the U.S. experienced record-breaking heat, a historic drought, massive wildfires in the West, and Hurricane Sandy. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice extent shattered the previous record low and the Greenland ice sheet saw the greatest melt in recorded history. According to the National Climatic Data Center, 2012 was the warmest year in recorded history for the contiguous U.S. Yet despite these illustrations of climate change, the broadcast news outlets devoted very little time to climate change in 2012, following a downward trend since 2009:

Sunday Show Coverage Continued To Decline. Since 2009, climate coverage on the Sunday shows has declined every year. In 2012, the Sunday shows spent less than 8 minutes on climate change, down from 9 minutes in 2011, 21 minutes in 2010, and over an hour in 2009. The vast majority of coverage -- 89 percent -- was driven by politics, and none was driven by scientific findings.

    ABC's This Week covered it the most, at just over 5 minutes.
    NBC's Meet the Press covered it the least, in just one 6 second mention.

Nightly News Coverage Increased Slightly From 2011, Driven By Extreme Weather. The nightly news shows devoted just under an hour to climate change in 2012, up from 38 minutes in 2011 but significantly less than in 2009. Coverage was largely driven -- 69 percent -- by the extreme weather the U.S. experienced this year; 17 percent of coverage was driven by scientific findings and 12 percent was driven by political stories related to climate change.

    CBS Evening News covered climate change the most for a total of 22 minutes -- a reversal from 2011, when the show covered climate change far less than ABC or NBC. [Media Matters, 4/16/12]
    NBC Nightly News covered climate change the least at 17 minutes.

Scientists, Democrats Shut Out Of Sunday Show Discussions On Climate Change

Sunday Shows Quoted No Democratic Politicians On Climate Change.  In 2012, the Sunday shows did not quote a single Democratic politician on climate change. Most of the politicians quoted were Republican presidential candidates, including Rick Santorum, who went unchallenged when he called global warming "junk science" on ABC's This Week. More than half of climate mentions on the Sunday shows were Republicans criticizing those who support efforts to address climate change. This imbalance was also present, though less dramatic, on the nightly news programs, which quoted 60 percent Republicans and 40 percent Democrats on climate change.

In Four Years, Sunday Shows Have Not Quoted A Single Scientist On Climate Change. Of those who were asked about climate change on the Sunday shows, 54 percent were media figures, 31 percent were politicians and not one was a scientist or climate expert. This is consistent with a previous Media Matters analysis which found that none of the Sunday shows quoted any scientists on climate change between 2009 and 2011. By contrast, two-thirds of those interviewed or quoted on the nightly news programs in 2012 were scientists. [Media Matters, 4/16/12]

Kind of tough to have an honest debate about something when the corporate media excludes dissenting opinions and experts.

Florida's Criminal Governor Rick Scott (R) Inflates Cost Of Medicaid Expansion By 2,500% To Avoid Implementing Obamacare

Conservative columnist George Will states that making it easier for people to vote is like Nazism

Conservative columnist George Will states that making it easier for people to vote  is like Nazism

George Will argues in his Washington Post column today that what he terms the Justice Department's "drive to federalize voter registration" is an unnecessarily complex answer to "the non-problem of people choosing not to vote," and that high voter turnout isn't all it's cracked up to be, citing the German elections of the early 1930s that resulted in Nazi dictatorship.

Describing "obvious reasons for non-voting," he writes:

    [T]he stakes of politics are agreeably low because constitutional rights and other essential elements of happiness are not menaced by elections. Those who think high voter turnout indicates civic health should note that in three German elections, 1932-33, turnout averaged more than 86 percent, reflecting the terrible stakes: The elections decided which mobs would rule the streets and who would inhabit concentration camps.

There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll try to keep it brief. Germany in the early 1930s was reeling from the global depression, increasingly bitter over the outcome of World War I and the punitive terms of the Treaty of Versailles, and overrun by extremist parties with their own paramilitary wings brawling in the streets and shooting at each other outside political rallies. Anti-Semitism was widespread, everyone hated the Weimar government, and nostalgia for the heady days of the Kaiser led most people to actually yearn for a dictatorship of some form. And in this toxic political environment, the Nazis managed to prevail over the other extremist groups -- largely due to popular support, but also through conspiracy and outright intimidation.

None of that, however, is an argument against the high voter turnout as a sign of "civic health." It's an argument against war, depression, anti-Semitism, Nazis, Communists, and political violence. Will could just as easily have argued that representative government, or elections themselves, aren't a sign of "civic health," given how they were misused and perverted by Hitler and his associates.

But that's not the only bit of illogic Will brings to bear. Federalized voter registration, Will argues, is "a step toward making voting mandatory." Here's his vision for how that comes to pass:

    Notice the perverse dialectic by which Washington aggrandizes its power: It promises to ameliorate problems exacerbated by its supposedly ameliorative policies. Notice, too, the logic of [Assistant Attorney General Thomas] Perez's thesis that "our democracy is stronger when more people have a say in electing their leaders." Therefore the public good would be served by penalizing nonvoting, as Australia, Belgium and at least 10 other countries do. Liberals love mandates (e.g., health insurance). Why not mandatory voting?

Keep in mind that the only argument the Justice Department has made is that it should be easier for people who want to vote to cast their ballot. From this, Will has divined an intention on the part of the government to impel people to vote, based on the obvious truth that "liberals love mandates," as demonstrated by the health care law that, notably, has precisely nothing to do with elections, voting, or anything remotely related to the topic at hand.

Will's take on and ignorance of history is typical of conservatives. Up becomes down, losing equals winning and taking away individual freedom is the ideal of the conservative movement's concept of freedom.

Wisconsin's Anti-American Governor Scott Walker (R) Wants To Give Teachers Guns, But Make Them Powerless Wage Slaves

Wisconsin's Anti-American Governor Scott Walker (R) Wants To Give Teachers Guns, But Make Them Powerless Wage Slaves

Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, who became nationally known for severely limiting the union rights of teachers and other public employees, has indicated support for arming those same school officials who apparently cannot be trusted to collectively bargain.

As Americans search for answers and policy solutions in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Gov. Walker has apparently decided that the problem is not too many guns -- it is that there are not enough.

Giving guns to teachers should be "part of the discussion," he said [3] on December 19. Walker refused to endorse an assault weapons ban or other limits on the types of guns or ammunition that can be sold.

Teachers Need Guns, Not Unions?

Walker's infamous Act 10 legislation drastically curtailed the collective bargaining rights of most public employees in the state, prompting months of historic protests and a recall effort. The governor justified the harsh legislation -- which he never mentioned during the campaign that installed him in office -- largely by demonizing unionized teachers [4] as overpaid and underperforming.

The six teachers killed in the Newtown massacre, all members of an American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union chapter, have been widely praised [5] for their heroism, with many shot while trying to shield their students.

I don't know why Walker (R) hates America. He is lazy, dumb as a rock, hates working class America and has never done an honest day's work in his life, yet he now lives high on the hog on the tax dollars of the public he treats like a Iranian mullah treats the Iranian people.

Fox News Thug Steven Crowder is Lying About Not Provoking a Fight With Patriotic Michigan Union Protester

Fox News Thug Steven Crowder is Lying About Not Provoking a Fight With Patriotic Michigan Union Protester

A video of Fox News contributor Steven Crowder getting punched by a Michigan union protester was selectively edited, and that editing was revealed during Crowder’s appearance on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News.

The original video shows Crowder getting punched by a protester on Tuesday while Crowder was trying to stop an Americans For Prosperity tent from being torn down. The video, which is appraching a million views on YouTube, was picked up by the right as evidence of “union thuggery”:

...Unfortunately for Mr. Crowder, a look at the video broadcast on the Sean Hannity show appears to show quite clearly that he left out an important section of the footage when he put together his edit. A section of the Fox News broadcast preserved by the Web site Mediaite shows that Mr. Hannity’s producers at Fox News started the clip five seconds earlier than Mr. Crowder did. What the extra footage reveals is the man who punched Mr. Crowder being knocked to the ground seconds before and then getting up and taking a swing at the comedian.

How did the patriotic union protester end up on the ground if Crowder did not push or punch him first. It seems that Crowder is lying. At the very least in the sense that he claims to be nothing but a poor innocent victim. More here, Fox News' Conservative Thug Steve Crowder Absurdly Challenges MI Protester To Duel In The Octagon. Crowders' mission from Fox news and the anti-American Koch brothers was to create violence so they would have something to smear unions with.