Alaska’s House Subcommittee Of The Select Committee on Legislative Ethics announced on Friday its ruling that a legislative aide for a Republican state representative “violated the Legislative Ethics Act” in her promotion of the anti-Islam group known as Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). The group, founded by noted Islamophobes Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, reportedly had an “operative” work inside a state office for “months.” The legislative aide, a woman named Karen Sawyer, gave David Heckert, the SIOA “operative,” significant access to state resources. Here’s a rundown as described by the Anchorage Daily News:

Sawyer let Heckert use her personal laptop and Internet card, and provided him a cellphone number under her family plan. She herself used state equipment to plan events for the group. She even gave Heckert her key to the Wasilla LIO so he could get in while she was out of town, the report said.

In 2011, Sawyer’s boss at the time, Alaskan state Rep. Carl Gatto (R), sponsored an “anti-Sharia” bill. Apparently, Sawyer’s preoccupation with Sharia became so intense that she reportedly said “my co-workers wonder if I’m getting obsessed with Sharia.” Indeed, she was obsessed. Beyond setting up events for the group, she also created a SIOA checking account and joined the group’s Alaska board. What’s more, the SIOA “operative” held a meeting at a state office.

While it may seem shocking that an anti-Islam group could gain such prominence inside a state office, it shouldn’t be. In 2011, CAP documented the troubling rise of anti-Islam groups like Stop Islamization of America.

Sawyer resigned shortly after the ruling was released. (HT: Alex Kane)

In the wake of the tragic events in Newtown, CT, a renewed debate about gun laws is forthcoming in the United States. With that in mind, the following is a look at the top ten gun exporting countries around the world, to see how the United States compares to them in that and other areas related to guns and gun violence. All of these numbers come together to paint a picture of a country with high ownership and production of guns, with high rates of death related to that ownership, and yet some of the laxest laws on the planet when it comes to regulating them.

Top Arms Exporter

When ranked among the top ten arms exporters, the United States is far and away in the lead in terms of sheer output. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States shipped off a total of $6.6 billion worth of arms in 2009, beating the next closest competitor, Russia, by over a billion dollars. Rounding out the list are Germany, France, the United Kingdom, China, Spain, Israel, the Netherlands and Italy.

The data combines both private sales from arms manufacturers and government authorized arms trades between states. For a better look at how the latter looks, and how the United States still outperforms all other countries, Google has an interactive look at where all these guns go.

Most Gun Owners Per Capita

Not only does the United States ship off the most guns in the world, its people own the most guns among the top ten exporters. The Small Arms Survey in 2007 pulled together a database of several countries’ gun ownership per 100 people, and found that an average of 88 guns per 100 people within the U.S. In comparison, the next highest country, France, had only 33 guns for every 100 citizens.

Most Gun Deaths Per 100K People

Rather than looking at the sheer number of deaths caused by firearms in the top ten exporters, a more accurate way to compare them is by gun deaths per 100,000 citizens. In that ranking, for those who break gun deaths out from their annual murder rate, the United States is again at the top of the list, this per the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.

The United States in 2009 had 3 gun deaths for every 100,000 people over the course of the year, completely eclipsing the next nearest country’s rate of .96, coming from Israel, by a wide margin. When you factor in the .243 rate of France, the second-highest gun owning country, the United States’ gun troubles seem even more problematic. Notable in this context, in the aftermath of mass shootings, other countries have tightened their laws accordingly and seen a drop in gun violence.

Second Highest Percentage Of Homicides With a Firearm

One of the few areas related to gun ownership and violence where the United States does not come in at the top among the biggest arms exporters is the percentage of homicides within the country carried out using a firearm. In that statistic, Italy holds the first position, with the United States in second. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and the Organization of American States, 60 percent of the murders in the U.S. in 2009 involved a firearm.

Neoconservatives don’t want former Republican senator Chuck Hagel to become the next Secretary of Defense. They charge that Hagel isn’t sufficiently militaristic when it comes to Iran and its nuclear program and that the former GOP senator apparently hasn’t properly toed the right-wing line on Israel, which led one unnamed Senate Republican staffer to call Hagel an anti-Semite (the Daily Beast’s Ali Gharib on Friday noted the absurdity of this latter charge).

The anti-Hagel campaign gained steam last week after Bloomberg News reported that “Hagel has emerged as the leading candidate to become President Barack Obama’s next secretary of defense.” Neocon leader and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol — a key figure in getting the United States into war with Iraq — joined in on Friday, first simply publishing anti-Hagel talking points Republicans have been circulating on Capitol Hill and then with a follow up piece of his own in which he criticizes Hagel for being cautious about the United States going to war with Iran:

Anti-Israel propagandists are thrilled. Stephen Walt, junior partner of the better-known Israel-hater John Mearsheimer, writes that if President Obama nominates Hagel, it will be “a smart move.” … Furthermore, Walt writes approvingly, Hagel is “generally thought to be skeptical about the use of military force against Iran.”

Hagel certainly does have anti-Israel, pro-appeasement-of-Iran bona fides. While still a senator, Hagel said that “a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option.”

Got that? Hagel is an Iran appeaser because he thinks that war with Iran might not be the best way to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons. We’ve all seen this movie many times before: Disagree with the neocons on Israel and/or Iran policy? Well then you’re an anti-Semite and an Iran apologist (both smears the Weekly Standard launched at Hagel last week).

So just what has Hagel said about Iran? He’s called for direct talks with the Islamic Republic, warned of the consequences of war and urged “caution, patience, and a focus on multilateral diplomacy.” Here’s his assessment from an event two years ago at the Atlantic Council:

I think talking about going to war with Iran in fairly specific terms should be carefully reviewed. And that’s pretty dangerous talk. It’s easy to get a nation into war; not so easy to get a nation out of war, as we are finding out. I’m not sure that the American people are ready to go into a third war. [...]

We are the mightiest military force on Earth. The world has never seen such military power. But that military power must always be tempered with a purpose. And the military option is always on the table – of course it is – for any sovereign nation. But at the same time we recognize that, that option is there.

That all sounds just like what President Obama and other administration officials have been pushing. “I’m not sure if a Hagel appointment would actually constitute a ‘shift’” in the Obama administration’s Iran policy, Foreign Policy’s Joshua Keating noted last week.

Hagel’s Iran positions also sound a whole lot like those of former Israeli security and intelligence officials, who have been cautious about a military approach on Iran’s nuclear program. Former Israeli intelligence chief Meir Degan said attacking Iran would only delay its nuclear program and “could accelerate the procurement of the bomb,” a point that former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence head Shlomo Gazit agree with.

Just like Hagel and Obama administration officials, former top Israeli officials have promoted diplomacy with Iran as well. “Israel can contribute to the efforts to solve the Iranian issue [via diplomacy] by reaching an understanding with the United States on the time frame for direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran,” said two former high ranking Israeli officials last month. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier this year that “there is enough time to try different avenues of pressure to change the balance of power with Iran without the need for a direct military confrontation with Iran.”

Using Kristol’s own standards, are these former top Israeli officials then “anti-Israel propagandists”?