January 19. 2013

HUMAN EVENTS
GOP plays small ball (again)
by David Harsanyi
January 18, 2013

So House Republicans will vote next week on a bill that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling for three months. The catch? It will feature a provision that would stop all pay for members of Congress if the Senate doesn’t pass a budget. When we consider that the median wealth for a senator in 2009 was almost $2.38 million; well, this clause isn’t the most effective threat available to snap Harry Reid (worth between $3-$10 million) into action. The chances of the Senate passing it? Zero.

Strategically speaking, this is obviously another attempt to shift the public’s ire from Republicans to Senate Democrats on the ongoing cliff battles. I’m not sure it’s exactly a bad idea, but more than likely it is an ineffective one. The problem with this stuff is that it’s small ball and transparently political. It sounds like a stunt. (UPDATE: Not to mention, probably unconstitutional.)

In a statement released from Republican retreat in Virginia, Eric Cantor said: “The first step to fixing this problem is to pass a budget that reduces spending. The House has done so, and will again. The Democratic Senate has not passed a budget in almost four years, which is unfair to hardworking taxpayers who expect more from their representatives. That ends this year.”
Well, the last time the Senate passed a budget was April of 2009. And the habit is probably not going end this year.

Cantor might be right in substance, but everyone understands: 1 – Republicans were going to vote to raise the debt ceiling. All kinds of Republicans have openly said they’d do it. Whether you agree with taking a stand on the debt ceiling or not, to extract concessions from a president who offers so little, you have to be prepared to take the dive. 2 – Republicans aren’t making compelling big-picture arguments so there’s no way to win the small ones. Even if you believe, like I do, that conservatives are right on these budgetary issues, they’re not very convincing.

As Jonah Goldberg recently argued, the GOP’s problems do not stem from “being insufficiently conservative. Its troubles stem from it being insufficiently persuasive, not to its right flank but to the general public.” Want proof? Most polls – now, and during the debt ceiling showdown in 2011 – show that Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling. As you’ve no doubt heard, this is supposedly the position of the most extremist and radical elements in society. Yet, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey found that 45 percent of those polled say they will blame Republicans if the debt ceiling is not raised and the United States defaults. Only 33 percent would blame Democrats. That means there is a broad problem communicating to average, disinterested Americans a compelling reason to side with them. At some point, Republicans will have to take a stand, and with it the consequences.

Read more: http://goo.gl/FxdX4

PJ MEDIA
Nothing, and Maybe Worse: A President’s Nonsensical Gun Proposals - He knows not what he speaks.
by John Rosenberg
January 18, 2013

As far as I can tell, here is the totality of what President Obama proposed Wednesday to do about “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines. (Actually, regarding those guns and magazines, he didn’t really propose to do anything; what he proposed for was Congress to do something — the same thing it did in 1994). In any event, here is the beginning, middle, and end of what he proposed:

Congress should restore a ban on military-style assault weapons, and a 10-round limit for magazines. (Applause.) The type of assault rifle used in Aurora, for example, when paired with high-capacity magazines, has one purpose — to pump out as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible; to do as much damage, using bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage.

And that’s what allowed the gunman in Aurora to shoot 70 people — 70 people — killing 12 in a matter of minutes. Weapons designed for the theater of war have no place in a movie theater.
Here’s my recommendation: Congress should take the president literally, and do exactly what he says: nothing.

“Weapons designed for the theater of war” have the capability of firing automatically. Such weapons have been prohibited (except to collectors, who pay a very high license fee) since 1934. They are not available to the general public.

They have been used in no mass shootings, and no crime at all, for over 60 years.

Banning them again would ban no weapon currently in production or readily available anywhere. What weapons would the president’s “proposal” ban? Who knows? He certainly doesn’t. The 1994 law dealt with the fact that there really is no such thing as an “assault weapon” by naming a few specific weapons and by listing some required identifying features. For example: a pistol grip or a detachable magazine could qualify a gun as an “assault weapon.” But what would President Obama have Congress do about this rifle?

Note that this Mossberg MVP Varmint Rifle has a very distinctive pistol grip, and it also has a detachable box magazine. Many hunting rifles do, but this one is distinctive: it uses any magazines that will fit AR-15 rifles. It comes with a 10-rounder (of the same caliber, 5.56 NATO/ .223 Remington) that most AR-15s and other scary-looking “military style” weapons fire. Thus, it will accept the 20- and 30-rounders that Obama would like to prohibit.

Yet — since it is a bolt action and not a semi-automatic, this weapon would not be illegal under the terms of the 1994 law, even though it can be fired rapidly enough (as can pump action shotguns, also not banned in 1994) to do extensive damage quite quickly.
Would Obama have it be outlawed? Certainly, he doesn’t know.

The “one purpose” of the weapons used in Aurora (the movie theater in Colorado) and Sandy Hook, according to the president, is “to pump out as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible.” This description does not distinguish those weapons from the millions of other semi-automatics (and high-capacity magazines) currently in the hands of law-abiding Americans.
The Washington Post reports that when the 1994 ban went into effect, “there were roughly 1.5 million assault weapons and more than 24 million high-capacity magazines in private hands” (and that was just “assault weapons” according to the limited definition of the 1994 ban — not all semi-automatics). There are many more now, and none of those weapons or magazines already produced were affected by the ban. Nor are the bullets those “assault weapons” fire — the .223 Remington — different in any way from those widely in use in all those other semi-automatic rifles.

The president’s reference to “bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage” presumably refers to hollow-points, bullets designed to expand on impact. But is the president seriously proposing to ban all hollow-point ammunition? If so, it is not accurate to say that his attempt to restrict “military style” weapons and limit the capacity of magazines would have no effect whatsoever on the likelihood or lethality of mass shootings. Indeed, banning hollow-points would almost certainly make future shootings — at least future shootings conducted with federally approved ammunition — much more lethal.

Solid bullets penetrate walls, doors, bodies, etc.; hollow points do not, or do so rarely.
In fact, limiting magazine size can also be predicted to cause more rather than fewer fatalities. As I argued here:

Indeed, a perfectly predictable but unintended consequence of banning high-capacity magazines would be to decrease the appeal of 9mm handguns and increase the popularity of more the powerful and lethal .40 and .45 caliber and .357 Magnum, since the main appeal of the 9mm has always been its higher-capacity magazines.

As with many “reforms,” the president’s proposals are sure to be ineffectual if implemented, and in some cases are far worse than doing nothing.

Read more: http://goo.gl/8HHve

REDSTATE
An interesting, if mildly depressing, exchange on Obamacare
by Moe Lane
January 18, 2013

Goodness gracious, but check this out. Background: Whole Foods CEO John Mackey called Obamacare first ‘socialist,’ then ‘fascist,’ then regretted calling it fascist because the Left is generally too ill-educated to understand the difference between National Socialism and economic fascism* -so they were thus all getting hung up in their own ignorance, and thus omitting to address Mackey’s point. Cue CNN Carol Costello, who gave a stunning demonstration of same.

So, once Mackey had dumbed it down again for the nice talking head, we get this exchange:

Costello then asked, “But why inject yourself into the debate over ObamaCare in the first place?” 

Mackey responded that he provides health insurance for 73,000 Whole Foods employees and some provisions of Obama’s health care law will raise his company’s costs. “It’s making it more difficult to provide the insurance at affordable rates to our team members, so I’m trying to protect them as well as I can,” he said. 

“I think, though, that many of your customers probably wouldn’t agree with you since, I don’t know, you kind of run a store that appeals to the more liberal in America in some ways,” Costello replied. 

“I don’t understand what your question or your point is,” Mackey said.

I suspect that Mackey was being nice. The question was Why are you publicly disagreeing with your customers on a political issue? and the point was HERETIC! UNBELIEVER! Which Mackey almost certainly knew, although I’m not sure that Carol Costello did.

Read more: http://goo.gl/MYwjH

January 18, 2013

NEWSMAX
Cruz: Obama 'Exploiting The Murder of Children' 
by Stephen Feller
January 17, 2013

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said President Barack Obama is “exploiting the murder of children” to push an extreme anti-gun agenda that much of the country opposes.

Cruz told Laura Ingraham on her radio show that Obama was “high on his own power,” and that Democrats overall would pay a political price for the president’s crackdown on citizens that have not broken laws and are only exercising their constitutional rights.

"He is feeling right now high on his own power, and he is pushing on every front, on guns," Cruz said. "And I think it's really sad to see the president of the United States exploiting the murder of children and using it to push his own extreme, anti-gun agenda.

“I think what the president is proposing and the gun control proposals that are coming from Democrats in the Senate are, number one, unconstitutional, and number two, they don't work. They're bad policy."

Cruz said that the Democrats he has seen on television in recent weeks, “a bunch of rich, northeastern liberals who don’t own guns [and] don’t know anybody who owns guns” are making a big mistake that will be paid for by voters in red states in the 2014 midterm elections.

“There have got to be some Democrats who are up for reelection in 2014 who are very, very nervous right now that President Obama is picking this fight,” Cruz said. “The citizens of their states are not interested in the federal government banning gun ownership for law-abiding citizens. That’s part of what this does, is ban certain categories of weapons being owned by people who have never broken the law.”

Read more: http://goo.gl/oHUSf

TOWNHALL

Shameful: WH Posts Videos of Kids Advocating Gun Control

by Leah Barkoukis 

January 17, 2013

The Obama administration has taken exploiting children to a new low. On Thursday, the White House posted four YouTube videos of children reading letters to the president about finding a solution to the gun violence problem (the same kids sitting behind him on Wednesday). In Hinna’s video, for example, she says, “Can we stop using guns? I think if there are no guns on the street no one could get hurt. Bullets don’t have eyes, it can hurt anyone. I’m really scared of guns and criminals around the world. I love my country and I want everyone to be happy and safe. No guns, no guns, no guns, no guns.” 

Is this shocking? Yes and no. Yes, of course, because the president is exploiting the murder of children to push a gun agenda and he’s using children to do it. But then again, this is the Obama administration, the same folks that brought us the ad that pretty much accused Mitt Romney of killing a man’s wife (Yes, it was a SuperPAC ad, but don’t forget Stephanie Cutter’s involvement). The White House and Jay Carney have also been tweeting images of the kids’ letters. Whether or not we are surprised by this move, however, is beside the point. The administration is trying to push the gun agenda with emotion, not substance, as Chuck Todd even said about the president’s speech on Wednesday--and the use of children in doing so is absolutely disgraceful.

Read more: http://goo.gl/DkOKw

THE BLAZE
The End of Gun Control, or Anarchy? See The Chilling Possibilities Created By 3D Printed Guns
by Mike Opelka
January 18, 2013

“America, is this guy a hero or a villain?”

That was one of the questions asked by Glenn Beck during a fascinating and potentially frightening interview with Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed, The WikiWeapons Project. If you are not familiar with them, Wilson’s group claims to be “A non-profit collaborative project to create freely available plans for printable 3D guns.”

In a segment during Beck’s TV program about The Singularity, a technology-evolutionary jump, Wilson was talking about his success in using 3D printers to actually make plastic guns. (Cody Wilson has actually fired these printed components — see video below.) Beck also showed a functional, high-capacity magazine that was made by the WikiWeapons project using a 3D printer


While it is illegal to print an entire gun, parts can be printed and guns assembled with relative ease. Cody Wilson explained to Beck that the file for the high-capacity magazine has been downloaded more that 150,000 times since President Obama’s announcement of his Executive Orders on limiting guns.

The cost of creating weapons in your own home is coming down very rapidly. Just as with any technology, as it becomes more popular, the price to own it drops exponentially. Both host and guest agree that 3D printers will soon be as cheap to own and operate as ink-jet printers are today.

Is the 3D printer a “game changer” in the gun control debate? Would access to this technology create more bad than good?

Watch the fascinating back and forth between Beck and Wilson on the possibilities (both good and bad) created by the use of 3D printers to make real guns:

The full video showing Defense Distributed’s printed magazine in action can be seen here:

Read more: http://goo.gl/z3auh

January 17, 2013

THE DAILY CALLER
FLASHBACK: In 1999, Obama wouldn’t support tougher prosecution for school shooters
by Vince Coglianese
January 16, 2013

In 1999, State Senator Barack Obama voted “present” on a bill that would require adult prosecution for discharging a gun in or near a school.

That legislation came as a response to the tragic Columbine High School shooting that year.

SB 759 provided that anyone 15 years of age or older charged with aggravated battery with a weapon in school or within 1,000 feet of a school would be charged as an adult.

It passed the Illinois State Senate in a 52-1 vote, with 5 members voting present — including Obama.

That vote followed a trend for the young lawmaker, whose controversial votes on crime legislation often raised eyebrows.

A Chicago Tribune editorial even accused Obama of being a “gutless sheep” for missing a vote on crime legislation in late 1999.

Read more: http://goo.gl/BH2ac

NATIONAL REVIEW
The War Between the Amendments - Expanded ideas of free speech have arguably encouraged mass violence.
by Victor Hanson
January 17, 2013

The horrific Newtown, Conn., mass shooting has unleashed a frenzy to pass new gun-control legislation. But the war over restricting firearms is not just between liberals and conservatives, it also pits the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution against each other.

Apparently, in the sequential thinking of James Madison and the Founding Fathers, the right to free expression and the guarantee to own arms were the two most important personal liberties. But now these two cherished rights seem to be at odds with each other and have caused bitter exchanges between interpreters of the Constitution.

Many liberals believe there is no need to own semiautomatic assault rifles, magazines that hold more than ten bullets, or even semi-automatic handguns. They argue that hunters and sportsmen don’t need such rapid-firing guns to kill their game — and that slower-firing revolvers and pump- or bolt-action rifles are sufficient for home protection.

Implicit in the liberal argument for tighter gun control is the belief that the ability to rapidly fire off lots of bullets empowers — or indeed encourages — mass murderers to butcher the innocent.


Most conservatives offer rebuttals to all those points. Criminals will always break almost any law they choose. Connecticut, for example, has among the tightest gun-control laws in the nation. A murderer can pop in three ten-bullet clips in succession and still spray his targets almost as effectively as a shooter with a single 30-bullet magazine. Like a knife or bomb, a gun is a tool, and the human who misuses it is the only guilty party. An armed school guard might do more to stop a mass shooting on campus than a law outlawing the shooter’s preferred weapon or magazine.
Homeowners should have the right to own weapons comparable to those of criminals, who often pack illicit semi-automatic handguns. If mass murders are the real concern, should ammonium nitrate be outlawed, given that Timothy McVeigh slaughtered 168 innocents in Oklahoma City with fertilizer? Banning semi-automatic weapons marks a slippery slope — each new restriction will soon lead to yet another rationalization to go after yet another type of gun.

Liberals counter that, just as free speech can be curtailed without infringing on the First Amendment (you cannot yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater), the constitutional right to bear arms is not infringed upon by the banning of semi-automatic, large-magazine firearms or by current prohibitions against heavy machine guns.

Conservatives reply that the chief purpose of the Second Amendment was not necessarily just to ensure personal protection from criminals or the freedom to hunt with firearms, but, in fact, to guarantee that a well-armed populace might enjoy some parity to an all-powerful, centralized government. To the Founders, the notion that individual citizens had recourse to weapons comparable to those of federal authorities was a strong deterrent to government infringing upon constitutionally protected freedoms — rights that cannot simply be hacked away by presidential executive orders.

That may be why the brief Second Amendment explicitly cites the desirability of a militia. By intent, it was followed by the Third Amendment, which restricts the rights of the government to quarter federal troops in citizens’ homes.

So which amendment should we begin pruning to deal with monsters like those at Newtown and Columbine?

The Connecticut shooter, Adam Lanza, was known to be mentally unstable. He sat for hours transfixed by violent video games — in a popular culture of cheap Hollywood mayhem where bodies implode on the big screen without anyone worrying over the effect of such gratuitous carnage on the viewer.

Just as semi-automatic weapons mark a technological sea change from the flintlock muskets of the Founders’ era, computer-simulated video dismemberment is a world away from the spirited political pamphleteering of the 18th century. If we talk of restricting the Second Amendment to protect us against modern technological breakthroughs, why not curtail the First Amendment as well?

How about an executive order to stop Hollywood’s graphic depictions of mass killings, perhaps limiting the nature and rationing the number of shootings that can appear in any one film? Can’t we ban violent video games altogether in the same way we forbid child pornography? Isn’t it past time for an executive order to curtail some of the rights of the mentally unstable — given that the gunmen in mass killings usually have a history of psychic disorders and often use mood-altering drugs?

If conservatives have ensured that there are millions of semi-automatic assault weapons in American society, liberals’ unprecedented expansions of free expression have led to an alarming number of unhinged Americans on our streets, nursed on sick games like Grand Theft Auto and hours of watching odious movies such as Natural Born Killers.

Legislating away the evil in men’s heads and hearts can be a tricky — and sometimes unconstitutional — business.

Read more: http://goo.gl/HWelA

HOTAIR
Obama unveils 23 executive actions on guns
by Erika Johnson
January 16, 2013

In full, the White House’s fact sheet and executive summary of the gun-control proposals Obama announced in his presser Wednesday afternoon, with a reinstatement of an assault-weapons ban, universal background checks, and 10-bullet limits on magazine capacities figuring prominently:

Obama's Plan to Reduce Gun Violence 

I don’t know what was harder to stomach about that speech: President Obama’s completely glib suggestion that “this is the land of the free and it always will be,” as if American exceptionalism is somehow a simple given that does not require constant vigilance, or his lamenting all of the divisiveness around gun-control politics but then turning around and blaming groups like the NRA for “ginning up fear” and daring not to abide by progressive notions of safety and security.

The quick reaction from Sen. Marco Rubio:

Rubio, often mentioned as a likely 2016 presidential candidate, said it would have been better if Obama had decided to announce his proposals without being accompanied by children. … 

“I think ultimately he has a right to do that, and I understand he has a right to do that,” Rubio said. “I think most of us would have preferred if it just had been a straightforward address to the country because it implies that somehow those of us who do not agree with his public policy prescriptions don’t equally care about children.” … 

Rubio called Democrats’ interest in pushing a new assault-weapons ban “misplaced.”
“I think it’s completely misplaced. Because here’s the issue in this public policy debate that’s different from others: There is a constitutional right to bear arms,” Rubio said. “I did not create that and he cannot erase that. It is in the Constitution. If they want to change the Constitution, if they want to believe the Second Amendment should not be in there or if they believe it should be rewritten in the 21st century then let them have the guts to stand up and propose that.”

Read more: http://goo.gl/m5Zri

January 16, 2013

NEWSMAX
Texas Lawmaker Seeks to Block New US Gun Restrictions
Stephen Feller
January 15, 2013

Republican Texas legislator Steven Toth plans to introduce a measure that would make it illegal to enforce any new federal firearms restriction within the Lone Star state, according to WOAI radio.

This would be the second such measure in the country after Wyoming state lawmaker Rep. Kendell Kroeker in his state, reported Huffington Post.

Both measures would impose a $50,000 fine and up to five years in prison for any official who attempts to enforce a federal ban on assault weapons or high-capacity gun magazines.

The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution declares that federal law supercedes state law, however Toth sees the potential for new gun control laws as an opportunity to challenge that.

"At some point there needs to be a showdown between the states and the federal government over the Supremacy Clause," he said. "It is our responsibility to push back when those laws are infringed by King Obama."

Read more: http://goo.gl/KQofI

TOWNHALL
It Begins: New York State Passes First Gun Control Law Since Sandy Hook
by Daniel Doherty
January 15, 2013

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) has just passed into law (in the words of the Associated Press) “the nation’s toughest gun restrictions” since the deadly massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School:

Jumping out ahead of Washington, New York state enacted the nation's toughest gun restrictions Tuesday and the first since the Connecticut school massacre, including an expanded assault-weapon ban and background checks for buying ammunition.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the measure into law less than an hour after it won final passage in the Legislature, with supporters hailing it as a model for the nation and gun-rights activists condemning it as a knee-jerk piece of legislation that won't make anyone safer and is too extreme to win support in the rest of the country.

"Common sense can win," Cuomo said. "You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with common sense."

Owners of an estimated 1 million previously legal semiautomatic rifles, such as the Bushmaster model used to kill 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., a month ago, will be allowed to keep their weapons but will have a year to register them with police. The sale of any more such weapons is prohibited.

"When there's a pileup of events, when the federal government does not do it, the state of New York has to lead the way," said state Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, a Brooklyn Democrat and co-sponsor.

Meanwhile, as Katie noted earlier, the White House plans to unveil new federal gun-control "proposals" Wednesday morning:

President Obama will unveil a sweeping set of gun-control proposals at midday Wednesday, including an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and limits on the number of bullets that ammunition clips can hold, according to sources familiar with the plans.

The announcement, which press secretary Jay Carney said is scheduled for about 11:45 a.m. at the White House, is also expected to include a slate of up to 19 executive actions that the Obama administration can take on its own to attempt to limit gun violence.

The White House has invited key lawmakers as well as gun-control advocates to appear at Wednesday’s policy rollout, according to two officials who have been invited to the event.

Joining Obama and Vice President Biden for the announcement will be children from across the country who wrote Obama letters after last month’s elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Carney said.

In typical fashion, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is taking the president’s soon-to-be-released “executive actions” very seriously. How? By accusing him of acting like a “king” -- and vowing to expose his monarchical tendencies in the upper chamber, or something:

Saying President Barack Obama is acting like a "king" by threatening to take executive action on gun laws, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul cautioned the president to be ready for a fight on Capitol Hill.

"I'm against having a king," he said Tuesday in an interview in Jerusalem with the Christian Broadcasting Network. "I think having a monarch is what we fought the American Revolution over and someone who wants to bypass the Constitution, bypass Congress - that's someone who wants to act like a king or a monarch."

Stay tuned. Wednesday's going to get interesting.

Read more: http://goo.gl/3cvkU

THE BLAZE

NRA Blasts ‘Elitist’, ‘Hypocrite’ Obama in Scathing New Video

by Jason Howerton

January 15, 2013

The National Rifle Association on Tuesday provided TheBlaze an exclusive look at its new video, which criticizes President Barack Obama’s opposition to having armed guards in more schools across the United States. The gun rights organization refers to the commander-in-chief as a “hypocrite” and an “elitist” in the scathing production.

Noting that Obama’s children are protected by armed guards at their school, the video asks: “Are the president’s kids more important than yours?”

“Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security,” the video adds.

“Protection for their kids and gun free zones for ours,” the video concludes.

An NRA spokesperson told TheBlaze via email that the organization will also release a series of videos in addition to the one above following a statement later today. Visit NRAStandAndFight.com for more information.

Read more: http://goo.gl/La9bp

January 14, 2013

NEWSMAX

Obama White House to Push for Comprehensive Immigration Plan
by Bloomberg News
January 13, 2013

President Barack Obama plans to push for a comprehensive immigration plan that includes a legislative solution to issues such as undocumented immigrants, according to administration officials.

While no final decision has been made about when the Democratic White House’s proposal will be formally introduced, administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said they will oppose efforts by Republicans to break immigration legislation into smaller bills.

In his first news conference after winning re-election, Obama promised to begin working on a major immigration bill soon after the formal start of his second term.

“I am very confident that we can get immigration reform done,” the president told reporters on Nov. 14. “My expectation is that we get a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration.”

Even as much of Washington has focused on fiscal issues and curbing gun control, the administration has been working on a plan for several months. Their proposal will include a path to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to officials -- an idea opposed as amnesty by Republican critics.

Separately from the White House, a bipartisan group of senators, headed by Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have been working on a parallel bill.

Read more: http://goo.gl/EzbqO

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
ObamaCare's Health-Insurance Sticker Shock
by Merrill Matthews and Mark E. Litow
January 13, 2013

Health-insurance premiums have been rising—and consumers will experience another series of price shocks later this year when some see their premiums skyrocket thanks to the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.

The reason: The congressional Democrats who crafted the legislation ignored virtually every actuarial principle governing rational insurance pricing. Premiums will soon reflect that disregard—indeed, premiums are already reflecting it.

Central to ObamaCare are requirements that health insurers (1) accept everyone who applies (guaranteed issue), (2) cannot charge more based on serious medical conditions (modified community rating), and (3) include numerous coverage mandates that force insurance to pay for many often uncovered medical conditions.

Guaranteed issue incentivizes people to forgo buying a policy until they get sick and need coverage (and then drop the policy after they get well). While ObamaCare imposes a financial penalty—or is it a tax?—to discourage people from gaming the system, it is too low to be a real disincentive. The result will be insurance pools that are smaller and sicker, and therefore more expensive.

How do we know these requirements will have such a negative impact on premiums? Eight states—New Jersey, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Washington, Kentucky, Vermont and Massachusetts—enacted guaranteed issue and community rating in the mid-1990s and wrecked their individual (i.e., non-group) health-insurance markets. Premiums increased so much that Kentucky largely repealed its law in 2000 and some of the other states eventually modified their community-rating provisions.

States won't experience equal increases in their premiums under ObamaCare. Ironically, citizens in states that have acted responsibly over the years by adhering to standard actuarial principles and limiting the (often politically motivated) mandates will see the biggest increases, because their premiums have typically been the lowest.

Many actuaries, such as those in the international consulting firm Oliver Wyman, are now predicting an average increase of roughly 50% in premiums for some in the individual market for the same coverage. But that is an average. Large employer groups will be less affected, at least initially, because the law grandfathers in employers that self-insure. Small employers will likely see a significant increase, though not as large as the individual market, which will be the hardest hit.

We compared the average premiums in states that already have ObamaCare-like provisions in their laws and found that consumers in New Jersey, New York and Vermont already pay well over twice what citizens in many other states pay. Consumers in Maine and Massachusetts aren't far behind. Those states will likely see a small increase.

By contrast, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming and Virginia will likely see the largest increases—somewhere between 65% and 100%. Another 18 states, including Texas and Michigan, could see their rates rise between 35% and 65%.

Read more: http://goo.gl/jrCXq

THE BLAZE
Armed Good Samaritans Rescue Man After Gunpoint Robbery: They ‘Protected Me When I Couldn’t Protect Myself’
by Jason Howerton
January 14, 2013

A Houston man was robbed at gunpoint as he made his way to his car after leaving a bar on Thursday. But in addition to the man’s wallet and phone, the robber ended up with bullet wounds and bite marks from a German Shepherd, thanks to a pair of quick-thinking good Samaritans.

Police say the armed thug was canvassing a local neighborhood when he thought he had found an easy mark. The victim, Kevin Dorsey, told KHOU that he hadn’t even closed his car door before a man, dressed in all black and wearing a ski mask, put a gun to his chest and demanded his wallet, cell phone and car keys.

Dorsey took off on foot after being robbed, prompting two men in a Mercedes to ask him what had happened.

“As soon as they pass me, they see the guy has a gun to me,” Dorsey told KPRC. “They stopped right there. The guys in the gray Mercedes asked me, ‘Did you just get jacked?’ I said yes.”

The two unidentified vigilantes went after the suspect and reportedly exchanged fire with the criminal. The good guys eventually won the gun fight and wounded the thief.

In a twist of irony, the robber jumped a fence after being shot in an attempt to escape — only to find a German Shepherd waiting for him on the other side. The dog attacked him and prevented him from escaping before police arrived.

“I don’t own a gun. I’m totally at the mercy of my saviors. They obviously sent two angels to help me. These people protected me when I couldn’t protect myself.”

The robbery suspect, later identified by police as Christopher Hutchins, was being treated at Ben Taub Hospital for a gunshot to his abdomen. He is expected to recover.

It’s unclear whether the two men who came to Dorsey’s rescue were concealed carry permit holders, however, reports do not indicate that police took any action against the men.

Read more: http://goo.gl/P7KRp

January 11, 2013

NEWSMAX
NRA Calls Biden Meeting ‘Attack on Second Amendment’
by Todd Beamon
January 10, 2013

The president of the National Rifle Association said on Thursday that there was no negotiation with the Obama administration on gun rights in an effort to stem violence in the wake of the shootings at a Connecticut elementary school last month.


“There isn’t on guns,” NRA President David Keene told CNN. “There is not on guns, not that I can see.”

Keene’s remarks came as Vice President Joseph Biden said on Thursday that he saw a growing consensus for the federal government to seek universal background checks for gun buyers and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

But the NRA president did tell CNN that the association could work with the White House in trying to get those who have been determined by law to be mentally ill into a national registry of those who are barred from purchasing firearms.

“That would make a difference, because the people who have been involved in these shootings have been people who are severely mentally ill,” Keene said, referring to the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults died.

“We don’t think you should demonize everybody who’s got a mental problem, but the fact is that there are people who are not in the gray area,” Keene told CNN. “They should not be allowed to buy firearms.”

Earlier on Thursday, the nation’s largest gun lobby said it was “disappointed” at a meeting a representative attended with Biden’s task force seeking solutions to end gun violence in the nation.

The NRA said the session, which included five other gun-rights organizations and other Obama administration officials, amounted to a strategy session on how to thwart the Second Amendment.

“We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment,” the NRA said in a statement after the session.

“While claiming that no policy proposals would be ‘prejudged,’ this task force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners — honest, taxpaying, hard-working Americans.”

Read more: http://goo.gl/Z1K0S

TOWNHALL
EBT Abuse: The Cash-for-Drunkards Program
by Michelle Malkin
January 11, 2013


From New York to New Mexico and across the dependent plains, welfare recipients are getting sauced on the public dime. Drunk, besotted, bombed. But while politicians pay lip service to cutting government waste, fraud and abuse, they're doing very little in practice to stop the EBT party excesses. Where's the compassion for taxpayers?

You see the signs everywhere: "We accept EBT." Fast-food restaurants do. Clothing retailers do. Auto repair shops, liquor stores and even sushi joints are joining the club. "EBT" stands for the federal government's electronic benefits transfer card, which is intended to provide poor people with food stamps and cash assistance for basic necessities. The two separate programs were combined into one ATM-like card designed to reduce the "stigma" attached to Nanny State dependency, and -- voila! -- an entirely new method of mooching was born.

If the idea was to eliminate the embarrassment of life on the dole, the social justice crowd succeeded phenomenally. Last weekend, the New York Post blew the lid off scammers who brazenly swiped their EBT cards "inside Hank's Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx." Out: Cash for clunkers. In: Cash for drunkards!

My home state of Colorado has seen similar abuse. Last year, local TV station 9NEWS reported that more than $40,000 was withdrawn from ATMs in metro-area liquor stores despite prohibitions against such spending. Colorado EBT users also splurged at Denver's Elitch Gardens amusement part, Disneyland, Universal Studios in Los Angeles and on the Las Vegas strip.

In New Mexico, Jim Scarantino of Watchdog.org reported that in just a three-month period, EBT cards were used at multiple liquor stores, girly bars, smoke shops and casinos both inside and outside the state. Californians are notorious EBT fraud artists; some $70 million in EBT funds were withdrawn from outside the state's borders over the past several years, including nearly $12 million taken out in Las Vegas. Watchdog.org kept tabs on government workers in Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin nabbed in EBT fraud rings and schemes.

Several state legislatures have barred EBT spending on these vices, along with tattoo parlors, lottery tickets and cigarettes. Last February, President Obama signed GOP-backed welfare reform measures into law aimed at closing the so-called "strip club loophole" and preventing welfare recipients from blowing their cash benefits on booze, porn and gambling. But that law doesn't go into effect until next year. And many politicians are just shrugging their shoulders, muttering "Whaddya gonna do?"

Read more: http://goo.gl/GS6xA

HOT AIR

Biden: My task force will have some gun-control recommendations on Obama’s desk by Tuesday

by Allahpundit

January 10, 2013

The task force was supposed to have suggestions for O by the end of the month but that plan was kiboshed when the political reality of attention spans after mass shootings began to set in. So, new plan: The national lecture “conversation” on gun control will begin officially on Tuesday.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told sports shooting groups Thursday he would send his recommendations on preventing gun violence to President Barack Obama by Jan. 15, according to a White House pool report. 

Biden mentioned several measures that he said he has heard supported repeatedly — universal background checks, limits on high capacity magazines, and the government’s ability to do research on gun violence. Biden clarified that background checks would go beyond closing the so-called gun show loophole. 

He compared the current limits on federal data gathering with the 1970s restrictions on federal research over the cause of traffic fatalities. He said there is a need to study which weapons are used most to kill and which tend to be trafficked.

The One will issue some sort of executive order too, likely tightening reporting requirements for federal agencies related to gun ownership and mental health and directing the DOJ to bump up prosecutions of gun traffickers. Eric Holder himself will be sitting in on Biden’s meeting today with major gun retailers like Wal-Mart, during which the veep will remind them that requiring universal background checks means fewer sales for private sellers and therefore more sales for them. Corporate buy-offs: They worked for ObamaCare with the pharmaceutical industry, why couldn’t they work for this?

Just one question: Whither the new assault-weapons ban? That’s a glaring omission from Biden’s list of new measures on which he senses a consensus. There’s no doubt they’re going to propose one but there’s also no doubt that the House will sink it. I think the AWB is really more of a negotiating tactic than an earnest demand: They’ll put it out there next week as their unrealistic opening offer so that they can drop it later in favor of more “reasonable” feasible measures like universal background checks and banning high-capacity magazines. Background checks, in particular, enjoy massive support, with one recent poll showing 92% in favor of requiring them at gun shows and a CNN poll taken last year finding 94% support for checks on all potential gun buyers. That’d be a very tough vote for congressional Republicans and of course Biden knows it, which is why he’s talking it up today. If you can’t get your policies passed, you might as well use them as a way to make the opposition squirm.

Read more: http://goo.gl/UbEAB

January 10, 2013

NEWSMAX
Gingrich: Use Debt Ceiling Fight to Stop Obama Gun Ban
by Todd Beamon
January 9, 2013

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Republicans should use the upcoming debt-ceiling talks to craft legislation that would block Obama from doing anything that is unconstitutional in light of the administration’s suggestion they may bypass Congress to craft laws banning certain types of guns.

“Iin March, the Congress has a continuing resolution,” Gingrich told Newsmax. “The government is going to run out of money. The Congress has to pass the continuing resolution.

“They should put in a prohibition on spending to block anything that the president does that is illegal,” Gingrich said. “Congress has absolute authority to control spending. The House Republicans should craft into the continuing resolution a rule that the president is blocked from doing anything unconstitutional.”

Gingrich, who ran for the 2012 Republican nomination and lost to Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, has been vocal in his support for Americans’ rights to bear arms.

Read more: http://goo.gl/kwva8

TOWNHALL
White House Pretends Taxes Haven't Gone Up on Middle Class After Fiscal Cliff Deal
Katie Pavlich
January 10, 2013

Despite Americans seeing a two percent jump in their Social Security taxes and less money in their bank accounts after the fiscal cliff deal was signed via auto pen on behalf of President Obama last week, the White House is pretending rates stayed the same. In an email to supporters yesterday, White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe wrote:

Hello -- 

I'll tell you what keeps driving me every day: the knowledge that people like you have our backs. 

When President Obama asked you to make your voices heard to keep taxes from going up on the middle class, people from all over the country, folks in every state spoke out. More than 130,000 of you sent in stories to the White House website. There were times these past few weeks when our Twitter feeds were positively overwhelmed by people joining the debate using the #My2k hashtag. 

So we put your stories on the front page of the White House website. We asked you to stand behind the President when he laid out his position on this debate at the White House. The President went and met with one family who had shared their story. The Vice President sat down with another for lunch. 

And people took notice. Reporters wrote stories about the way that you were adding your voices to this debate, and it became impossible to ignore your perspective.

The White House also released the following video which like Plouffe's email,  says middle class taxes haven't gone up and points out that the fiscal cliff requires "the wealthy to pay their fair share."

The stories Plouffe won't be putting on the front page of WhiteHouse.gov are those of angry voters wondering why their paychecks are less, after all, the President promised he'd take care of them by only soaking the rich. More from Twitchy:

On another note, notice Plouffe's use of the media to push the White House agenda, "Reporters wrote stories about the way that you were adding your voices to this debate." Still wondering how Obama got re-elected? This is one reason why. Notice how the same reporters aren't talking or writing about the latest tax increase and broken White House promise of helping the middle class.

Read more: http://goo.gl/fd6v1

HUMAN EVENTS
Walmart, Biden to discuss restricting gun rights

by Neil W. McCabe
January 9, 2013 

A spokesman for the world’s largest retailer, and the country’s largest seller of guns and ammunition said Jan. 9 the company will meet Jan. 10 with Vice-President Joseph R. Biden Jr., regarding his efforts to restrict gun rights after first declining the invitation.

“Knowing our senior leaders could not be in Washington this week, we spoke in advance with the vice president’s office to share our perspective,” said David Tovar, the vice-president for corporate communications at Walmart, based in Bentonville, Ark. That message found its way into the press.

“We underestimated the expectation to attend the meeting on Thursday in person, so we are sending an appropriate representative to participate,” he said. “Walmart, like the rest of the country, has been engaged in a national dialogue about the responsible sale and regulation of firearms.” Walmart does not report its firearms sales separately.

“We take this issue very seriously and are committed to staying engaged in this discussion as the administration and Congress work toward a consensus on the right path forward,” he said.

Biden, the author of the 1994 crime law that banned so-called assault rifles for 10 years, was tasked by President Barack Obama to fashion a response the gun violence in America that curtails gun rights now in place.

Tovar said the retail giant, whose founder Sam. M. Walton opened his first store opened in 1962 in Rogers, Ark., is also working with New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who leads the gun control advocacy groups called Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

“We have had ongoing conversations with the administration, Congress, Mayor Bloomberg’s office, sportsmen groups, suppliers and others to listen and share our thoughts and experiences,” he said.

“Over the years we have been very purposeful about striking the right balance between serving hunters and sportsmen and ensuring that we sell firearms responsibly,” he said.

“In fact, we became a charter member of Mayor Bloomberg’s coalition against illegal guns and adopted the 10-point code established by the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership that goes beyond what the law requires,” the Walmart spokesman said.

Read more: http://goo.gl/ZPJZe

December 17, 2012

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Town United by Grief Searches for Answers
by Tamer El-Ghobashy, Matthew Dolan and Josh Dawsey
December 16, 2012

SANDY HOOK, Conn.—President Barack Obama spoke of every parent's grief and singled out the bravery of teachers who tried to save children from a gunman's attack on a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

"I am very mindful that mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts. I can only hope that it helps for you to know, that you're not alone in your grief. That our world, too, has been torn apart," Mr. Obama said at an emotional interfaith prayer service Sunday evening. "Newtown, you are not alone."

Before the speech, the president met with victims' families and first responders in six classrooms set aside in Newtown High School.

The president said the nation was failing to protect its children and that he would commit to an effort to prevent such shootings. He concluded the 19-minute address by reading the first names of each child who was killed.

Earlier on Sunday, authorities said the gunman who killed his mother at home and then fatally shot 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School had hundreds of rounds of unspent ammunition when he apparently heard the approach of police sirens and shot himself.

Authorities investigating how 20-year-old Adam Lanza allegedly carried out the killings Friday morning said it could take weeks to draw a clear picture of what motivated the reclusive man to target two first-grade classrooms in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

As parents and local townspeople mourned the loss Sunday of the gunman's 27 victims, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy suggested in an interview on ABC the toll could have been even greater. "We surmise that it was during the second classroom episode that he heard responders coming and apparently at that, decided to take his own life," he said.

Some residents seeking comfort in church services Sunday at St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church were evacuated around 12:30 p.m. after "a menacing call that threatened to disrupt the Mass in a violent way," said Brian Wallace, a spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport. The church campus was closed for the rest of the day without incident.

Police investigators, meanwhile, worked to reconstruct the movements of the suspected attacker, beginning with interviews of two adults who were shot and wounded at the elementary school, said a spokesman for the Connecticut State Police. Detectives next move to the task of interviewing the rest of the many witnesses from the school, which enrolled about 600 students and employed approximately 40 teachers.

"Our goal is to answer every single question," state police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said. "It's a huge case, we're using every single resource and our goal is to paint a complete picture so that we all know…exactly what happened here."

Mr. Lanza emptied multiple high-capacity magazines from an assault rifle that was registered to his mother, 52-year-old Nancy Lanza, Lt. Vance said. Each magazine was capable of carrying 30 rounds, he said.

Churches in and around Newtown, Conn., held vigils and special services to help comfort those affected by the shootings that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Video by WSJ's Evan Simon.

A law-enforcement official said the rifle used in the campus attack was a Bushmaster XM-15 model, an assault rifle popular for its light weight and reliability. A similar model was used in the July mass shooting at a Colorado theater that killed 12 people.

Police also found two handguns, a Glock 10mm and a Sig Sauer 9mm, and additional magazines for each weapon containing hundreds more bullets at the school, Lt. Vance said. Ms. Lanza was shot several times in the head at her home before the school attack, authorities said. A shotgun was recovered in a car the gunman used to drive to the school, he said.

Authorities said it would be weeks before they issue a final report, involving about 250 investigators. But interviews with eyewitnesses, police reports and a 40-minute, chaos-filled recording of one of the emergency response calls outlined how the attack unfolded.

At approximately 9:30 a.m. Newtown Police received a 911 phone call.

"Call indicates she thinks someone is shooting in the building," a public safety official said at the start of the recording. Another voice chimed in: "Units responding to the Sandy Hook school. The front glass has been broken, and they're unsure why."

Mr. Lanza had shot his way into the school through a plate-glass partition next to a locked front door, Mr. Malloy said. Soon, the halls were filled with the sound of children screaming. Then the voices fell quiet, "and all you could hear was the shooting," said school therapist Diane Day.

Principal Dawn Hochsprung and psychologist Mary Sherlach, who were in a meeting with Ms. Day and others, left to investigate. Both were shot dead.

Someone turned on a campus loudspeaker system, which broadcast cries and screams that warned others, one teacher said.

First-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig, whose classroom was located near the school's entrance, said in a TV interview that she put a bookshelf in front of her classroom door and hustled her students into the bathroom.

Mr. Lanza moved past her room to two nearby first-grade classrooms, killing 20 children, two teachers, an aide and a therapist with the assault rifle. He used one of the handguns to kill himself with a single bullet to the head, according to a spokeswoman for the state medical examiner.

Asked about Mr. Lanza's mental state, Mr. Malloy said to NBC that "this is not a person who maintained normal relationships."

Mr. Lanza's mother was the first victim in the shooting spree in the sprawling home she shared with the suspected shooter in Newtown, which includes the village of Sandy Hook. Authorities discovered her death after the school killings.

Authorities, meanwhile, said Sunday they have begun returning the bodies of victims to their families.

Daniel Honan, whose Honan Funeral Home is on Main Street in Newtown, said he was handling the arrangements for 11 of the children killed. The company's online memory book shows 12 services were conducted in 2012.

"Basically we're going to be doing two a day," Mr. Honan said. "We're doing what we do, helping families to bury their dead and follow their wishes. This is great tragedy."

Read more: http://goo.gl/vOvEM

NEWSMAX
Gun Expert Lott: Let Teachers Carry Arms, Ban Gun-Free Zones to Halt Mass Shootings
by David A. Patten
December 15, 2012

Banning gun-free zones and allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons could help eliminate mass shootings at schools, John R. Lott, one of the nation's leading gun experts, tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview Saturday.

Lott, an author and college professor, told Newsmax that gun-free zones become “a magnet” for deranged killers who hope to burn their names into the history books by running up a big body count.

Lott’s landmark book "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" is in its 3rd edition. He told Newsmax there is a “very good chance” the Connecticut school shooting could have been averted, if teachers there were permitted to carry concealed handguns.

It is no accident, he said, that mass shootings repeatedly have occurred in designated gun-free zones, which attract lunatics looking to murder as many souls as possible before they turn their guns on themselves.

Newsmax: Dr. Lott, your work suggests people are more secure, rather than less so, when firearms are readily available in society.

Dr. Lott: Simply telling them to behave passively turns out to be pretty bad advice . . . By far the safest course of action for people to take, when they are confronting a criminal, is to have a gun. This is particularly true for the people in our society who are the most vulnerable.

Newsmax: The media typically spins these mass shootings as an American phenomenon. They suggest we ought to be more like Europe, with strong gun control, because then we would not have these problems. Is that true?

Dr. Lott: No. Europe has a lot of multiple victim shootings. If you look at a per capita rate, the rate of multiple-victim public shootings in Europe and the United States over the last 10 years have been fairly similar to each other. A couple of years ago you had a couple of big shootings in Finland. About two-and-a-half years ago you had a big shooting in the U.K., 12 people were killed.

You had Norway last year [where 77 died]. Two years ago, you had the shooting in Austria at a Sikh Temple. There have been several multiple-victim public shootings in France over the last couple of years. Over the last decade, you’ve had a couple of big school shootings in Germany. Germany in terms of modern incidents has two of the four worst public-school shootings, and they have very strict gun-control laws. The one common feature of all of those shootings in Europe is that they all take place in gun-free zones, in places where guns are supposed to be banned.

Newsmax: Can you give readers an example of an incident where a teacher or authority-figure with a gun was able to thwart a violent shooting?

Dr. Lott: There was the university case in the Appalachian law school. You had the K through 12 in Mississippi and the one in Edinboro, Pa. You had New Life Church [in December 2007] — you had 7,000 parishioners there when the person broke into the church with about a thousand rounds of ammunition.

But there was a woman there, a former Chicago police officer who had gotten a concealed handgun permit because she was being stalked by her ex-husband. She had asked permission from the minister there to be able to carry a concealed handgun. She was worried if she couldn’t carry it at the church there, that she would be vulnerable going to and from the church. She shot at him 10 times, wounding him, and he committed suicide . . . These types of cases occur all around us, and they usually don’t get much attention, especially if they are stopped before people are injured or killed.

Newsmax: How can society prevent such mass shootings, or are they avoidable at all?

Dr. Lott: About 75 percent of the time when these attacks occur, the killers themselves die at the scene. Even the times when they don’t die, it seems pretty clear their intent was to die, but they just couldn’t bring themselves to commit suicide, pull the trigger, and shoot themselves at the last moment.

But in their warped mind, what they want to do is commit suicide in a way that will get them attention, so people know who they were when they were here. I’s a pretty sick idea, but if you read the documents that they leave, the diaries and the video tapes, it is pretty clear that these guys know that they get more attention the more people they can kill.

Read more: http://goo.gl/aJ3El

TOWNHALL
Rep. Louie Gohmert: I Wish to God that the Principal Would Have Had an M4
by Leah Barkoukis 
November 16, 2012

Many people are insisting we all sit down and have a thoughtful, calm reflection on the Second Amendment after the Connecticut massacre. Others, particularly on the Left, are more forthright and are demanding more gun control. If we are to engage in the former, however, I want to share some of the arguments Rep. Louie Gohmert made today on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

The segment with Gohmert began with footage of Eric Holder saying we need to discuss who we are as a nation, talk about the freedom and rights we have, and how they can be used in a responsible way. In other words, he wants to talk about gun control. Rep. Gohmert’s response, which brought up Fast and Furious, was priceless:

“Well I think coming from him that’s really important to note coming from a man who’s in a department that forced the sale of guns to people that would bring about the death of people like Brian Terry and there should be national outrage about Mexicans, our neighbors, 200 or more that have been killed by the guns his department have forced to be sold, so he’s right. And Sen. Durbin is right but the conversation we’ve got to have has got to have everybody open-minded. I mean, we all react emotionally that’s why we’ve all shed tears…”

Wallace then brought up the Aurora movie theater massacre and Gohmert making the argument in its aftermath for more people to carry weapons to prevent a similar situation from happening. Wallace asks: “Do we really want folks in movie theaters, and shopping malls, and schools, armed?

Gohmert responds: “Once we have this actually open dialogue about the situation you find out…every mass killing of more than three people in recent history has been in a place where guns were prohibited, except for one. They choose this place. They know no one will be armed. You know, having been a judge, having reviewed photographs of these horrific scenes and knowing that children have these defensive wounds, gun shots through their arms and hands as they try to protect themselves and hearing the heroic stories of the principal lunging trying to protect…Chris, I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office locked up so when she heard gun fire she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, but she takes him out, takes his head off before he could kill those precious kids.”

Then the obligatory question by the media: Why do people need semi-automatic weapons? Wallace says these are weapons created for law enforcement, for the military, but why does the average person need these “weapons of mass destruction”?

Gohmert: Well, for the reason that George Washington said: A free people should be an armed people. It ensures against the tyranny of the government if they know that the biggest army is the American people, then you don’t have the tyranny that came from King George. That’s why it was put in there. Once you start drawing the line, where do you stop? And that’s why it is important to not just look emotionally – emotionally our reaction is to immediately say lets get rid of all guns…you do it as a judge. You react emotionally but you use your head and you look at the facts and the facts are that every time guns have been allowed, concealed carry have been allowed, the crime rate has gone down.

Read more: http://goo.gl/B9T6g