NRA rejects gun controls, blames violent video games and movies
National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre defiantly blamed violent video games and movies, the media, gun-free zones in schools and other factors during the organization’s first public statement following the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn. last week.
NBC News reports:
LaPierre, who was interrupted by Code Pink protesters twice during a statement (during which he refused to answer questions), said that the students in Newtown might have been better protected had officials at Sandy Hook Elementary been armed. He said that putting a police officer in every single school in America might make schools safer.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said, asking Congress to immediately appropriate the money to put a police officer in every single school in the country.
Photo via NBCNews.com
(via brooklynmutt)
Gunman opens fire at Colorado movie theater, killing 14
NBC News: Fourteen people were killed and at least 50 others wounded early Friday when a gunman opened fire at a midnight screening of the summer blockbuster ”The Dark Knight Rises” near Denver, authorities and witnesses said.
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told reporters that 10 people died at the scene and four others died after being taken to local hospitals. A three-month-old and a six-year-old girl were among those treated, according to reports.
More updates on BreakingNews.com.
Photo: Police responded to a shooting at the Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, early this morning. (Karl Gehring / The Denver Post via nbcnews.com)
It’s the same reason that media elites and others are so opposed to these investigations as well: elites obviously benefit from elite immunity, and so have an interest in not subverting it when other elites commit crimes. I have no doubt that part of Obama’s reluctance was political - a belief that applying the rule of law to Bush, Cheney and others would create political turbulence for him - but a significant motivating factor was undoubtedly the desire not to have his own actions investigated once he leaves office if the GOP controls the Executive Branch (and, thus, the Justice Department).
This is what I think about when law enforcement asks for help finding bank robbers who hurt no one during the commission of their withdrawal.
A former New York detective admitted in court that it was common practice to plant drugs on innocent people in order to meet arrest quotas. Stephen Anderson, one of eight cops arrested in the scandal, admitted he planted cocaine on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 in order to help his coworker improve his arrest numbers. “It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators,” said Anderson. The city paid $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by two men falsely arrested by Anderson and his partner.
James Verini looks at the growing number of criminologists who believe that the election of President Obama, as the country’s first black president, has led to a continued reduction in the crime rate.
“Until recently, almost all criminologists could agree on one factor: the good economy… The higher are employment and wages, the thinking goes, the less crime people commit — and vice versa. But then, unexpectedly, the crime decline of the last two decades did not end with the economic collapse of 2008…
One unlikely explanation that is gaining credence among experts, including some of the biggest names in the field, is a phenomenon tentatively dubbed ‘the Obama Effect.’ Simply put, it holds that the election of the first black president has provided such collective inspiration that it has changed the thinking or behavior of would-be or one-time criminals… Generally referred to as the ‘legitimacy’ theory, it posits that the greater people’s belief in the legitimacy of social institutions and government, the greater their inclination to obey laws.”
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
(via kileyrae)
Video: a segment from the documentary Freakonomics, which finds a causal relation between the legalization of abortion on a national level in 1973 and the drastic reduction of crime rates in the early 1990’s.
