Shot Show: Gun Retailers Urged to Get Political, Connect with Grassroots

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In the wake of local, state, and federal pushes to further regulate the firearm industry in the United States, National Shooting Sports Foundation’s (NSSF) Jake McGuigan told attendees at the trade organization’s annual SHOT Show in Las Vegas that it is imperative for more firearm retailers to be politically active.

While the NSSF and National Rifle Association (NRA) have worked together on various issues regarding Second Amendment protections, the NSSF focuses on the business policies of the firearms industry, while the NRA’s focus is on the right to own a firearm.

“Retailers really need to wake up. I can’t tell you how many states I’ve been in where I asked a retailer, ‘Hey, can you put this alert out? Can you do this?’ [The retailer responds,] ‘I don’t want to get political.’ I don’t want to get political?” asked McGuigan, who is NSSF’s Director of Government Relations and State Affairs.

“That unfortunately hurts us, but people that depend on the firearms [for whom it’s their] livelihood, I think, really need to wake up. It’s not getting political. The opponents made it political. It’s not political. It’s your livelihood and it our constitutional right,” he emphasized.

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Anchorage Police Department Getting Military Grade Armored Vehicles

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MRAPAccording to a recent report from KTUU, the Anchorage Police Department (APD) is taking receipt of two mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs). But what a local police department needs mine-resistant vehicles for is anybody’s guess.

According to APD Police Sergeant Shaun Henry, the vehicles are freebies, costing Anchorage nothing save maintenance expenses. He contends that the vehicles would be used sparingly in situations where criminals have barricaded themselves inside buildings.

And just where are these free armored vehicles coming from? Apparently, with the withdrawal of thousands of American troops from the Middle East, the Department of Defense is giving away the MRAPs to qualifying local law enforcement agencies.

Of course, this begs the question as to why civilian law enforcement requires heavily armored military equipment. Across the nation, many are justifiably worried about the increasing militarization of local police forces.

Obama Angers the United Way and Other Charities with Proposed Charitable Deduction Cut

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Leaders of the charitable coalition the United Way swarmed Capitol Hill Tuesday to lobby against the Obama administration’s proposed cap on the charitable deduction in the federal tax code. Lowering the charitable deduction has long been an Obama policy objective.

United Way US CEO Stacey Stewart and 45 local United Way CEOs hit the Hill to urge “Support for the charitable deduction and expanding incentives for charitable giving in the U.S. tax code,” according to a press release issued on United Way’s behalf. The CEOs were also pushing to strengthen the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit.

United Way’s “Hill Day” was marked by predictable bipartisan photo ops but highlighted an uncomfortable rift between Obama and many economic and health charities and organizations that support most of his agenda.

Obama proposed a cap on charitable deductions in his 2014 budget proposal in April, and it is currently being debated in Congress. The proposal would cap charitable deductions with a 28 percent limit, down from its current 39.6 percent limit on high earners. Obama has tried every year since taking office to set a 28 percent cap.

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Student, 12, Used Shotgun to Shoot 2 Students in Roswell, New Mexico

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Photo Credit: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record/AP Photo

Photo Credit: Mark Wilson/Roswell Daily Record/AP Photo

A middle school student opened fire in his gym with a shotgun today and critically wounded two students in Roswell, N.M., according to authorities.

The injured were a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy who were “simply sitting in their gym waiting to go to class,” New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez said. The shooting occurred shortly before class was to begin at Berrendo Middle School.

The Eastern New Mexico Medical Center confirmed it treated two patients, who were then air lifted to the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, located about 175 miles from the middle school.

A spokesperson for UMC said the boy, who the governor said was 12, is out of surgery and is listed in critical condition. The girl, 13, is also being treated at the hospital and is listed in serious condition, according to the spokesperson. A school staff member suffered a minor injury and declined treatment.

The names of the shooting victims have not been released.

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Open Internet Order Loses. Net Neutrality Struck down Again.

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Photo Credit: RedState

Photo Credit: RedState

As many of us predicted all along, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the FCC’s Open Internet order, which attempted to force “Net Neutrality” on the nation. The Open Internet order was part of a plan claimed to oppose “discrimination” but in practice would hinder ISPs from charging people for what bandwidth they use.

The FCC had previously attempted to enforce such rules illegally, but lost in the Comcast v FCC case. This time Verizon took them on, and the FCC lost again.

If we don’t win the next Presidential election, I expect an even more radical attempt next time, though a move called Title II Reclassification.

You see, back in the Clinton years, a bill passed with bipartisan support that freed the Internet from burdensome regulation. It was called the Telecommunications Act, and its specifically separated information services from telecommunications services, disallowing the FCC from imposing the same degree of regulations on Internet services that they can on the Phone company.

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Justice Scalia Slams Obama’s Unconstitutional Power Grab

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Photo Credit: PAUL MORIGI/GETTY IMAGES

Photo Credit: PAUL MORIGI/GETTY IMAGES

On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia slammed President Barack Obama’s interpretation of the U.S. Constitution during oral arguments over Recess appointments.

The case, National Labor Relations Board vs. Noel Canning, is over whether the president acted legally when he made a series of temporary appointments to the National Labor Relations Board while the Senate was not conducting business but still gavelling in and out every day.

Clause three of the Constitution’s section on presidential powers states that, “The president shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.”

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Harry Reid Puts Off Vote on Jobless Benefits, Negotiations with GOP Continue

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Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Monday delayed a key procedural vote on legislation to extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans as Democrats and Republicans continued negotiations on a bipartisan accord.

The measure to aid the long-term jobless still needs about a half-dozen Republican votes to clear a 60-vote threshold and advance to a final vote. But Republicans are withholding those votes to pressure Reid to allow votes on Republican amendments to the bill, a demand Reid on Friday hinted he could accept.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., the chief Republican negotiator, confirmed that progress was being made toward a bipartisan agreement on the extension. Heller said any agreement would have to allow votes on GOP amendments and offset the cost with budget cuts.

“There are multiple issues here and that’s why the negotiations are taking so long,” Heller told reporters Monday evening. “I’m pretty optimistic.”

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Planned Parenthood Did 1 Adoption Referral Per 149 Abortions

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In its latest annual report, released in December, Planned Parenthood says it did 327,166 abortion procedures in the course of one year and 2,197 adoption referrals. That works out to approximately 149 abortions for each adoption referral.

The data comes from an accounting of “patient care” Planned Parenthood says its “affiliate health centers” did in the year that ran from Oct. 1, 2011 to Sept. 30, 2012.

Planned Parenthood says in it new annual report that it received a total of $540.6 million in government grants and reimbursements for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2013. That accounted for almost 45 percent of the organization’s total revenue of $1,210.4.

The 327,166 abortions Planned Parenthood did in the year from Oct. 1, 2011 to Sept, 30, 2012 was down 6,798 abortions from the 333,964 abortions the organization did in the year from Oct. 1, 2010 to Sept. 30 2011.

Still, the 327,166 abortions that Planned Parenthood did from October 2011-September 2012 works out to approximately one abortion every 96 seconds.

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Obama Admin Goes to Court Seeking to Deport German Homeschoolers In U.S. Under Political Asylum

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Photo Credit: national Review

Photo Credit: national Review

Ronald Reagan electrified the world when he demanded that the Berlin Wall be torn down. Barack Obama is helping to build a new one, even as the German government begins rounding up members of a despised religious minority.

The Romeike family was granted asylum in the United States because the German government was intent on wresting away the children and putting the parents in cages for the crime of homeschooling their children, which is verboten in Germany, a legacy of the country’s totalitarian past. The Obama administration, which in other notable areas of immigration law has enacted a policy of “discretion” regarding deportations, took the Romeike family to court to have its asylum protections revoked, and succeeded in doing so. The family has appealed to the Supreme Court, which has ordered the Obama administration to respond to the Romeikes’ petition, but the administration has so far refused to do so.

As the Romeikes’ story unfolds, another German family is being held in the country against their will, also for the crime of homeschooling their children — or intending to do so, at least. The Wunderlich family had their children kidnapped by the German government — the agents of which came crashing through their door with battering rams — as retaliation for their homeschooling. They complied with the government’s demands regarding their children’s education and, understandably enough, began the process of relocating to France, where attitudes toward family life are more civilized. The Germans responded by refusing to reinstate their custody of their children, with a judge determining that the desire to homeschool presents an “endangerment” to the children.

That is the environment into which the Obama administration intends to send the Romeike family.

Why?

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Bailing Out Health Insurers and Helping Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.” How can this be? Because insurance companies won’t bear the cost of their own losses—at least not more than about a quarter of them. The other three-quarters will be borne by American taxpayers.

For some reason, President Obama hasn’t talked about this particular feature of his signature legislation. Indeed, it’s bad enough that Obamacare is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to funnel $1,071,000,000,000.00 (that’s $1.071 trillion) over the next decade (2014 to 2023) from American taxpayers, through Washington, to health insurance companies. It’s even worse that Obamacare is trying to coerce Americans into buying those same insurers’ product (although there are escape routes). It’s almost unbelievable that it will also subsidize those same insurers’ losses.

But that’s exactly what it will do—unless Republicans take action. As Laszewski explains, Obamacare contains a “Reinsurance Program that caps big claim costs for insurers (individual plans only).” He writes that “in 2014, 80% of individual costs between $45,000 and $250,000 are paid by the government [read: by taxpayers], for example.”

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