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The 5 Gun Safety Regulations That Even NRA Members Support

By Igor Volsky on Dec 15, 2012 at 9:43 am

As the nation grieves over the tragic massacre in Newtown, Connecticut and policy makers try to understand what can be done to prevent mass shootings, sensible gun safety should be part of the answer. A majority of Americans — including gun-owning Americans and National Rifle Association (NRA) members — back sensible gun regulation. In fact, new research released in July by Republican pollster Frank Luntz for Mayors against Illegal Guns, finds that gun advocates overwhelmingly support common-sense measures typically described as “gun control.” These include:

1. Requiring criminal background checks on gun owners and gun shop employees. 82 percent of all gun owners and 74 percent of NRA gun owners support the former, and 80 percent and 79 percent, respectively, endorse the latter.

2. Prohibiting terrorist watch list members from acquiring guns. Support ranges from 80 percent among non-NRA gun-owners to 71 percent among NRA members.

3. Mandating that gun-owners tell the police when their gun is stolen. 71 percent non-NRA gun-owners support this measure, as do 64 percent of NRA members.

4. Concealed carry permits should only be restricted to individuals who have completed a safety training course and are 21 and older. 84 percent of non-NRA and 74 percent of NRA member gun-owners support the safety training restriction, and the numbers are 74 percent and 63 percent for the age restriction.

5.Concealed carry permits shouldn’t be given to perpetrators of violent misdemeanors or individuals arrested for domestic violence. The NRA/non-NRA gun-owner split on these issues is 81 percent and 75 percent in favor of the violent misdemeanors provision and 78 percent/68 percent in favor of the domestic violence restriction.

The poll, which sampled 945 gun owners around the country and had a margin of error of +/- 3, also found broad support gun-owners for the principle that “support for 2nd Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping illegal guns out of the hands of criminals.” In fact, more NRA members (87 percent) supported the statement than non-NRA members (83 percent).

In the aftermath of the tragedy, gun safety advocates have called for Congress to vote on banning assault weapons and high capacity clips, closing terrorism loopholes, and requiring background checks for all gun sales. Yet the NRA has yet to issue a public statement about the elementary school shooting. One wonders if will listen to the views of its supporters, or continue to represent the business interests of gun manufacturers, once it does.

Climate Progress

Open Thread And Cartoon Of The Week: ‘Blind Faith Of Climate Change Deniers Endangers Us All’

By Joe Romm on Dec 15, 2012 at 9:37 am

Opine away!

Two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner David Horsey had a cartoon and column in the L. A. Times this week, “Blind faith of climate change deniers endangers us all.” Here’s an excerpt:

Great harm is what comes from denying scientific facts about 21st century issues. That is the concern of the second Newsweek article. Written by Mark Hertsgaard, author of “Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth,” it documents a stark threat to mankind’s food supply:

“By 2050, scientists project, the world’s leading wheat belts — the U.S. and Canadian Midwest, northern China, India, Russia, and Australia — on average will experience, every other year, a hotter summer than the hottest summer now on record. Wheat production in that period could decline between 23 and 27 percent, reports the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), unless swift action is taken to limit temperature rise and develop crop varieties that can tolerate a hotter world.”

Hertsgaard takes the reader to North Dakota, where climate change has forced production of durum wheat from the east into the west of the state. Ironically, farmers are now bumping up against the oil boom in western North Dakota that is gobbling up farmland, sucking up vast quantities of water and flaring huge amounts of natural gas into the atmosphere, thereby exacerbating the ongoing rise in global temperatures that are threatening not only wheat crops, but rice and corn as well.

Yet, even though the consequences of climate change are becoming frighteningly obvious and, as Hertsgaard writes, “scientists at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency linked the record heat and drought of summer of 2012 with man-made climate change,” far too many conservatives cling to a blind faith that climate science is a hoax. Doug Goehring, North Dakota’s Republican agriculture commissioner, is typical of them all. Rather than believe the science, he says, “I believe an agenda is being pushed.”

Yes, it is — but it is the agenda of oil companies and other extracting industries that will not let a looming peril to humanity get in the way of their profits. And it is the climate change deniers in Congress and in state governments who faithfully push that agenda and will not be dissuaded, even by a host of angels.

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Economy

CHART: Democrats And Republicans Both Propose An Exceedingly Small Estate Tax

By Pat Garofalo on Dec 15, 2012 at 9:30 am

As part of the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the estate tax will revert to its Clinton-era level of of 55 percent with a $1 million exemption per person. (The exemption is the amount of an estate that can be passed on tax-free.) Neither Democrats nor Republicans are interested in seeing that occur. Democrats have proposed setting the rate at 45 percent with a $3.5 million exemption, while Republicans want a 35 percent rate and a $5 million exemption, which is the current level.

Former White House economist Jared Bernstein noted that neither of these plans entails applying the estate tax to even the richest 0.5 percent of estates:

My point here is that in neither case, and in no year from 2011 to 2022, does either plan reach even 0.5% (that’s half a percent!) of estates. The D’s plan starts out hitting about 0.25% of estates and climbs to 0.35%; the R plan goes from about 0.15% to about 0.2%.

So, let’s be clear—under either side’s plan, the estate tax ain’t biting hardly anyone. Death may be certain, but taxes—at least this one—is much more discerning.

The Center for American Progress tax plan includes an estate tax of 48 percent with a $2 million exemption. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former President Jimmy Carter, and Bill Gates Sr. all recently signed a letter calling for a higher estate tax than that proposed by President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

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