The NRA's New Year's Resolutions

Epoch Times

1. We will stop referring to ourselves as a “civil rights” organization that defends “human rights.” It is a sacrilege to people actually killed or harmed by civil and human rights abuses.

2. We will stop pointing at Chicago and saying gun laws don’t work. We will admit the majority of Chicago crime guns are trafficked from states and counties with loose laws.

3. We will stop saying “the government is going to take your guns” to block federal laws. The confiscation we announced 7 years ago never happened.

4. We will stop blaming “mental health” problems for U.S. gun violence. We admit every country in the world has mental health problems but they don’t have Newtowns and Virginia Techs.

5. We admit fighting universal background checks arms criminals and that armed criminals sells more guns to “good guys.” Ka-ching.

6. We acknowledge that “outlaws” don’t have guns in the 28 EU countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and other countries with strict gun regulations. We also admit, grudgingly, they are not “tyrannies.”

7. We will stop our insulting comparison of guns to knives, hammers, cars and swimming pools–none of which kill when used as directed. On the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre, 20 Chinese school children were attacked with a knife and none died.

8. We accept responsibility for the armed vigilante movement popularized by George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn. We admit “concealed carry” laws are the biggest revenue infusion since “Obama is going to take your guns.”

9. We will stop defending sales to civilians of non-defensive weapons like TrackingPoint’s “can’t miss” sniper rifle. We admit they are ready-made for insurrectionists, terrorists and hate groups.

10. We regret our work to help suspected domestic abusers keep their guns while under orders of protection. We admit this costs many women’s lives and that our sleazy sales pitch to tell women to arm themselves too just makes things worse.

Salon Interview with Shannon Watts

Salon

In the more than two years that have passed since Adam Lanza murdered 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the politics of guns in America has changed dramatically. Or at least that’s been conventional wisdom since President Obama decided to buck a decade-plus of Democratic Party strategy and make gun safety legislation a major issue once again. But the bill Obama endorsed didn’t pass, and according to the FBI, we’re now seeing more mass shootings than ever.

Another, more recent setback for the gun-safety movement was a poll from the Pew Research Center released in early December that found support for “protecting right of Americans to own guns” at an all-time high, besting “controlling gun ownership” by 52 to 46 percent. But as Bryan Schatz of Mother Jones recently reported, gun-safety advocates — not just professional activists, but researchers and academics, too — believe that the Pew poll’s phrasing is deeply flawed, pitting rights against each other that in reality need not be in conflict.

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America, about the Pew poll, how the gun-safety movement is like the fight for same-sex marriage, and the recent local and state-level victories by reformers that the media has missed. Our conversation is below and has been edited for clarity and length.

Were you surprised by the Pew poll’s results?

No, they didn’t surprise me, because Pew keeps using this old and poorly crafted poll question — and it really perpetuates this outdated idea that we have to choose as a country between protecting gun rights and supporting public safety. But that’s a false choice.

We don’t have to choose between protecting the Second Amendment and measures that have been proven to prevent gun violence. Ultimately, there are responsibilities that go along with gun rights. And measures like background checks, keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people, like domestic abusers, all of these save lives. Pew asks you to choose between the two, and you don’t [have to].

Most Americans don’t know where we’re starting on this issue. The Pew question assumes that people understand that there are background check loopholes and that, every year, 40 percent of gun purchases are made without background checks (because you can avoid having to do a background check by buying from a private seller). So if Americans are going into these questions and answering them without that … context, then the answers are going to be skewed.

Is the belief that it’s an either/or choice something you come up against often when talking with and reaching out to regular people?

That certainly exists, the idea that it’s an either/or [choice], because the NRA and the gun lobby in general has sort of said, Gun ownership should be completely unfettered! It should not be subjected to the same limits as other Constitutional rights like, for example, freedom of speech. (I can’t go yell fire in a crowded theater, for example.) And there’s this idea that because it’s in the Constitution, there should be absolutely no responsibilities written into law that protect other Americans…

Lawful Gun Owners Need to be Reminded to Behave

Poll: Hillary Clinton Most Admired Woman, Obama Most Admired Man

CNN

Hillary Clinton takes the top spot on a list of admired living women for the 13th year in a row, according to an annual survey released by Gallup on Monday.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, is considered the most admired living man in any part of the world.

When asked to name a woman they've heard or read about and admire, 12% mentioned Clinton, the former secretary of state, New York senator and first lady. Eight percent said Oprah Winfrey, 5% said Nobel Peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and 4% said first lady Michelle Obama.

Other names mentioned included actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie (2%), former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (2%), Princess Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge (2%), Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts (1%), and former first lady Laura Bush (1%).

Clinton, who's considered the Democratic frontrunner if she runs for president in 2016, has also held the top spot in 17 of the past 18 years. Laura Bush was considered the most admired woman in 2001, not long after the 9/11 attacks. In the seven decades that Gallup has been asking the question, Clinton has won the designation more than any other woman, including six times more than former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Obama is also continuing a streak, with this year marking his seventh year in a row as the most frequently mentioned man who people admire most. He was given the designation in 2008 shortly after winning election to his first term. According to Gallup, the U.S. president is almost always mentioned as the most admired man, with only 12 exceptions in the past 68 years.

This year 19% said the president's name, while 6% said Pope Francis. Also on the list was former President Bill Clinton (3%), Rev. Billy Graham (2%), former President George W. Bush (2%), renowned neurosurgeon and conservative activist Ben Carson (1%), Stephen Hawking (1%), Bill Gates (1%), Fox News host Bill O'Reilly (1%), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (1%) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (1%).

2014 Tennessee #GunFAIL In Review

Southern Beale posted the top ten.  Here's one example:

In August, a Kingsport woman showing her daughter her new Ruger via Skype accidentally shot her husband in the thigh. Ta da.

I'm jealous. I have to scour the entire internet to find stories to post.  Southern Beale just has to look in her local news reports - Tennessee is so rich.

Reminder: We Still Have No Idea How Often Children Accidentally Shoot and Kill People

Washington Post

What we do not know is just how often a child accidentally shoots and kills someone. We looked into the subject earlier this year after a 9-year-old girl in Arizona accidentally shot and killed her shooting range instructor with an Uzi, another shooting death that was so unusual — involving a child, an Uzi and a dead adult — that it was able to break through the noise and actually demand more attention, something that does not happen most of the time with gun deaths. And we were told at the time that the people and agencies who keep an eye on shooting deaths did not know for sure how often it happens.

It is a strange gap, this lack of information on accidental shootings involving children. This data is out there, of course, but the various agencies that compile statistics regarding shooting deaths said it has not been pulled together nationwide. There are media reports after these things happen, story after story after story of such unintentional shootings. And there are some systems that try to pull together the relevant numbers. The National Violent Death Reporting System, for example, combines information from death certificates, medical examiners and law enforcement reports to try to produce such data, but it operates in just 18 states.

The gap here is also accompanied by a larger one: uncertainty regarding the number of accidental shootings overall. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were 32,351 shooting deaths in 2011. Of those, 591 were deemed accidental, the CDC said. But these records rely on causes of death as determined by medical examiners, coroners and attending physicians, which may not be foolproof. A New York Times investigation last year found wildly inconsistent rulings from medical examiner rulings in several states.

Mississippi 14-Year-old Shot and Killed by his Twin Brother

Local news

Authorities say a 14-year-old Walthall County boy died after being accidentally shot by his twin brother.

Coroner Shannon Hartzog tells the Enterprise-Journal that Devin Bergeron died of a single gunshot wound to the chest after being shot at his home on Kirklin Road.

Hartzog call it a tragic accident.

He says sheriff's deputies have recovered the gun used in the shooting.

Hartzog says Bergeron, a student at Salem Attendance Center, went to Walthall County General Hospital by private vehicle, where he was pronounced dead by emergency room physicians.

How is it possible that in a gun-friendly state like Mississippi, a 14-year-old has a complete lack of gun safety? Who's fault is that? Is no one responsible for this outrageous incident?