The lead story in Thursday morning’s dead-tree New York Times was about women in combat. Big news, for sure. Here’s the three-deck, three-column headline:

EQUALITY AT THE FRONT LINE:

PENTAGON IS SET TO LIFT BAN

ON WOMEN IN COMBAT ROLES

(Here’s the web version, with a different headline.) The second and third decks are straight news, but “Equality at the Front Line”? Really? Maybe I’m being naïve, but it doesn’t seem appropriate for the nation’s newspaper of record to be publishing headlines more suited to an advocacy group press release crowing about a victory over patriarchy. (Now who’s being naïve, Kay?)

Donald Trump is exploring how he might purchase the New York Times. Just the thought of it makes me giddy with anticipation.

Exhibit A why Rich won’t let me test drive a Fisker for Planet Gore:

A hapless motorist is facing bankruptcy after he blew up a $2 million Porsche during a test drive, The Sun reports.

Mark Hales was at the wheel of a replica Porsche 917 owned by veteran Formula One ace David Piper, when he over-revved it causing the engine to explode.

Hales, 62, claims he made a gentleman’s agreement with Piper that the 81-year-old would cover the cost of any mechanical damage caused during the session.

But the multi-millionaire denied making the deal, sued Hales for $76,000 in damages – and the High Court has ruled in his favor.

Hales, who writes for Octane and Auto Italia magazines, has been left with a bill of $76,000 to cover repairs to the car, plus $100,000 in legal costs.

Life News fisks the latest NBC/WSJ poll on abortion:

On the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the supporters of abortion in the mainstream media are working overtime to push their dishonest message to the public. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing alleged public support for Roe v. Wade – the headline screams “Majority, for first time, want abortion to be legal” – is a prime example of how the mainstream media often manipulates facts, data, and people.

The most objectionable point of the poll is found in its depiction on NBC News’ website. According to Mark Murray, NBC News’ Senior Political Editor, “[t]he 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy.”

The poll itself depicted the Supreme Court decision the same way: “The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe versus Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy.”

This is a gross depiction of the real facts of Roe v. Wade. As James Agresti, President of Just Facts, pointed out just days ago in taking down the recent Pew poll on public support for Roe. . .

The rest here.

Via her Twitter feed:

Odd that those who hated George Bush sit mute on things like Obama’s “kill list.” Maybe those libs — other than Kirsten Powers — will find their voice in the second term?

Beyoncé, the public face of Mayor Bloomberg’s celebrity “Demand A Plan” anti-gun violence campaign, lip-synched the National Anthem at President Obama’s inauguration yesterday.

Seriously? It’s The Star Spangled Banner at the inauguration and you can’t do it live? (I guess we should be thankful she didn’t also need a teleprompter.)

Of note, Beyoncé is married to hip-hop mogul Jay Z. And for some reason, Jay Z’s past gun problems or the glorification of firearms in his music did not prevent his warm embrace by Team Obama at the inauguration. Note the assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine in the Jay Z video:

Fake singing from a hypocritical gun advocate. What a great way to start out this president’s second term.

What a bunch of misogynistic pigs!

There’s Only 1 Female Film Director For Every 15.24 Male Ones, and Things Aren’t Getting Any Better

The gun debate in today’s MSM isn’t a debate at all, as the so called discussion is only one-sided. The media confuses its ratings-driven shouting contests between one side that wants to ban guns and the other that does not as an actual debate. Lost in the shouting is that we’re not talking about what might actually reduce gun violence while not infringing on the Second Amendment:. To put it in terms that Democrats can understand, “it’s the policing, stupid.”

Consider New York City and Chicago. Similar gun laws, but totally different results in terms of fighting crime. Why aren’t we debating this? What is gun-control New York doing that gun-control Chicago is not? That’s the key.

The answer lies over 20 years ago when Ray Kelly became commissioner of the NYPD under then mayor David Dinkins, and then continued after Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor of New York City and named William Bratton as the new head of the department. Out with the old liberal ideas on crime, and in with new, conservative ideas. In case you missed it, there was a great interview with former NYPD commissioner William Bratton in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal where he discussed how he helped make New York City safe. As the MSM discusses guns, sorely lacking from the debate is the voice of William Bratton, and other police professionals, who didn’t just talk about reducing gun violence, they did it. Here’s an excerpt:

But the gun reform that truly gets Mr. Bratton fired up is one you don’t hear much about these days. It is what he calls “certainty of punishment,” or stricter gun-crime sentences.

“People are out on the streets who should be in jail. Jail is appropriate for anyone who uses a gun in the commission of an act of violence. Some cities have a deplorable lack of attention to this issue,” he says, citing Philadelphia.

In Chicago, where the murder rate rose 16% last year, “to try to put someone in jail for gun-related activity you really have to go the extra mile,” he says. “If there’s one crime for which there has to be a certainty of punishment, it is gun violence.” He ticks off other places where help is needed: “Oakland, Chicago, D.C., Baltimore—all have gangs whose members have no capacity for caring about life and respect for life. Someone like that? Put ‘em in jail. Get ‘em off the streets. Keep people safe.”

Have we heard anything about building more prisons to combat gun deaths? Not even a, “if it will safe one child” as an excuse?

More from Bratton:

Another part of the anti-violence solution was the 1968 Supreme Court ruling Terry v. Ohio, which held that a police officer is allowed to stop, question and frisk a person on the street if the officer has “reasonable suspicion” that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. “Stop-and-frisk” became a central feature of policing—and now, in a transformed New York two decades later, it has become a matter of controversy. Liberals want it banned.

Critics of stop-and-frisk argue that it discriminates against blacks and Hispanics, who are the subjects of a majority of stops. Proponents say this simply reflects the demographic realities of crime. Although blacks make up only 23% of New York’s population, for example, they accounted for more than 60% of all murder victims in 2011 and committed some 80% of all shootings. The issue is now in the federal courts, where for the first time a judge last week ruled a part of the program unconstitutional.

“Stop-and-frisk is not something that you can stop. It is an absolutely basic tool of American policing,” Mr. Bratton says. “It would be like asking a doctor to give an examination to you without using his stethoscope.” Critics, he complains, “always leave out the middle term—stop, question and frisk. About 60 to 70 percent of the stops don’t result in a frisk in New York.” As for Judge Shira Scheindlin’s recent ruling, he predicts a reversal “when it goes to the Supreme Court.”

NYC has nearly identical laws to Chicago, DC, Baltimore, etc., yet those cities suffer from gun violence at levels not seen in NYC in years. A major component of the solution to the majority of gun violence is better policing, as the WSJ interview with former NYPD commissioner William Bratton I posted the other day commented on. As we remember MLK Jr. today, do remember there was a time that he applied for and was denied a permit for a concealed weapon. And to be honest, the NRA, Gov. Reagan, etc. all were in favor of gun control when it applied to groups like the Black Panthers. I know we read a lot from the pro-gun side about how guns protect us from the tyranny of government and the Left like to say this is a myth, but it’s not. The tryanny of the state is what kept MLK Jr. from having the ability to defend his family using the same means as those who wished to do him arm.

The police matter. City government matters. Corruption matters. Keeping people in jail that should be in jail matters. Stop-question-and-frisk matters. Embracing conservative ideas over failed liberal ones matters. (Of note, Ray Kelly, who did get his start with Dinkins, is the current NYPD commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg and a major proponent of stop-and-frisk, to the chagrin of liberals everywhere.)

But what to do when the police don’t do their job?

Since we honor Martin Luther King Jr. this week, I think it’s appropriate to mention his contribution to our current gun debate and the role of guns used for self defense. Adam Winkler, author of, Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America, had a  piece in The Atlantic on the history of both gun rights and gun control in America. He wrote this on MLK Jr.:

Civil-rights activists, even those committed to nonviolent resistance, had long appreciated the value of guns for self-protection. Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in 1956, after his house was bombed. His application was denied, but from then on, armed supporters guarded his home. One adviser, Glenn Smiley, described the King home as “an arsenal.” William Worthy, a black reporter who covered the civil-rights movement, almost sat on a loaded gun in a living-room armchair during a visit to King’s parsonage.

The Second Amendment is often referred to by us on the right as a defense against the tyranny of the state. The Left likes to tell us that this is an outdated concept, but it’s not. King wanted to carry a gun to protect himself and his family. The racist state then denied him — tyrannically — that right of self defense.

The self-defense argument for owning a gun to protect yourself because the state can’t or won’t is as strong today as it was for Dr. King in 1956.

Today’s threats to blacks are different than 1956, however, but they are just as deadly. Rather than racist whites as the perpetrator, it’s black-on-black crime. As recently reported in the Philadelphia Tribune:

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between the thirty-five year period of 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims in the United States. Almost all of those murder victims were killed by other African Americans.

But the MSM doesn’t really pay attention to this. Instead we have Piers Morgan and his ilk blasting the airwaves with the moronic idea that banning some guns because of cosmetic features will magically solve the problem of guns and violence.

So, if banning the AR-15 and limiting a magazine to seven rounds won’t stop the killings, what will? Again, William Bratton provides some thoughts in this 2012 piece on Chicago’s gang problems:

Even compared to last year, Chicago has seen a 10% reduction in its overall crime index, including not just murders but also burglary, theft, assault and more. Still, the reality is that if shootings and murders are increasing, it’s hard to convince the public that other statistics really matter. In a democracy, the first obligation of government is public safety. Without it, all the other pillars of our free society—schools, health care, economic viability, the sense of security and optimism—will suffer. Chicago’s summer has created an image of a great American city held hostage to violence.

According to a study completed in May by Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, Chicago boasts 59 gangs that divide into 625 factions (and include, according to Chicago magazine, some 70,000-125,000 members and associates). This in a city of 2.5 million residents. The gangs have largely dispensed with any pretense of “protecting” a neighborhood or ethnicity. This is not the Sharks and the Jets. Some are corporate entities that control drug-dealing enterprises. Turf means protecting lucrative corners for dealing drugs, and competitors or interlopers are dealt with violently.

And. . .

Add to this that in Illinois’s Cook County, being arrested for a serious crime—even with a gun—often doesn’t mean going to prison. In an April study, the Police Executive Research Forum found a simple truth when it examined violent crime in six cities (Chicago was not one): Where criminals caught in a violent crime with a gun can expect to serve significant time in state prison (as in San Diego), rates of gun violence are lower. Cities where many gun arrests do not result in any prison time, including Philadelphia and Chicago, have higher rates of violence. This is a no-brainer.

I have yet to hear “build more jails” as a solution. Maybe if the new prisons were powered with “green” solar panels and created union construction jobs, Dems would vote for it? [insert if it only saves one child]

If the “first obligation of government is public safety” and if a city like Chicago is not meeting those obligations, what are the citizens to do? Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago, wants more gun control but we can’t get him to put people in prison who use guns in crimes? This makes no sense. To have the media ignore the problem of gangs in Chicago — which make up an estimated 4% of the city’s — is complete insanity.

The MSM likes to frame the gun argument as one about gun safety and gun deaths pitted against extremists who defend an outdated 2nd Amendment, but it’s much more than that. [Insert stat on crimes prevented] Review these crime statistics from around the country. Pay particular attention to New York City and Los Angeles, where William Bratton was commissioner of police and Chicago where Garry McCarthy is the top cop and Newark, McCarthy’s previous job before Chicago:

It’s not just homicides that are down in Bratton-led cities, it’s all crime. And the idea that crime is so high in the backyard of our politicians is disgraceful. This is numerical proof that gun control isn’t what affects gun violence, it’s the application of the conservative policing principles that Bratton proved can work.

And let’s forget about gun homicides which get all of the attention for just a second and look at rape. The numbers reported in Newark, DC and Baltimore are disgusting. As a matter of fact, rape in our nation’s capital is so bad that Human Rights Watch has taken notice:

Police in Washington DC frequently fail to investigate reports of rape, and treat victims so dismissively at times, that they experience fresh trauma while the chances of the perpetrator being caught are undermined, according to a comprehensive report due out next week.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch is expected to uncover “disturbing evidence of police failure” in a 200-plus page report after a two-year investigation into law enforcement practices in the US capital.

But although shocking, the situation in Washington is far from isolated. There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims.

“This is a national crisis requiring federal action. We need a paradigm shift in police culture, because rapes and sexual assaults are being swept under the rug, and too many victims are being bullied,” said Carol Tracy of the Women’s Law Project, a legal advocacy group that specialises in sexual violence cases.

Human Rights Watch began looking into the situation in Washington after discovering evidence that the city’s Metropolitan police department (MPD) were refusing even to document a significant number of reports of sexual assaults coming in from the central hospital where victims are treated.

Every woman in DC should carry a handgun. Or two.

Crime isn’t just a problem in Chicago or DC. The list of the 100 most dangerous cities in America does not discriminate by region. Holyoke, Massachusetts is No. 85. Orlando, Florida is No. 67. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is No. 27. Crime is national. It’s everywhere. And it’s not the NRA using “scare tactics” as Dems would have you believe that’s prompting a record number of gun purchases. It’s the local news delivered daily that fuels this legitimate fear.

Tyranny comes in many forms, but it’s the tyrannical liberal ideology that the state has a monopoly on the use of force to defend our individual liberty, be that protecting our lives or our property, that the 2nd Amendment protects us from today. We will not give up the right to defend ourselves, bet that from a tyrannical king in 1776 or a thug who has no other way to support himself than through the use of violence against others.

 But if they continue to ignore the real problems of poor policing in America and our citiznery’s genuine fear of and desire to protect itself from violent crime, then citizens will continue to embrace their 2nd Amendment rights, as they should.

We constantly read and hear about the influence the NRA has over members of Congress. Almost as if the NRA was the puppeteer and members of Congress a bunch of wooden toys that dance to their whim.

Well, if you measure influence by money, it’s just not so.

The website Open Secrets keeps tabs on direct contributions to candidates, lobbying, and outside spending.

Where do you think the NRA ranks on direct contributions to candidates from 1998 through 2012? They’re at No. 50 with $19,153,139 donated, a tad behind the ever-powerful Sheet Metal Workers Union at No. 46 with $20,430,978. Pro-abortion Emily’s List is No. 22 with $27,036,897. And 14 out of the top 20 are groups that fund liberal causes.

The Left will, however, point us to “outside spending” in the latest election.

The NRA did rank at No. 17 with $18,896,442 in outside spending in 2012. Planned Parenthood, however? No. 23 with $14,344,130.

Keep these numbers in mind the next time you see the president gathered with a bunch of kids to make a political point. We on the right might not be so cynical if our friends on the left didn’t spend so much money encouraging the abortion of babies the president holds so dear.

The takeaway here is that the NRA’s power is not financial in nature, it’s that they have the support of actual voters who think the Second Amendment is still valid today.

Even for Larry O’Donnell, this is over-the-top and a disgusting piece where he first somehow links Tom Selleck and his prior ads for the NRA and current position on the NRA’s board for every mass shooting since Columbine, and then goes on to question Selleck’s “humanity”:

I think O’Donnell’s past role in Hollywood is giving a little to much credit to Tom Selleck, or any celebrity endorser for that matter, when it comes to advocating a position. Yes, it’s nice to have Selleck on the board if you’re the NRA and he’s been generous to the organization, but the real power of the NRA comes from politicians that support the NRA’s views. Politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Here’s an excerpt from a December 2012 op-ed on Reid and the NRA written by CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin:

In the past, Reid has touted the rights of gun owners and eagerly sought the NRA’s endorsements, contributions and praise. In 2004, Reid was one of the rare Democrats to be endorsed by the NRA. In 2009 he sought to please the powerful lobby by supporting a controversial bill to allow gun owners with concealed weapon permits to cross state lines. The legislation, which was vehemently opposed by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, fell just two votes short of the 60 votes needed. The NRA, however, was delighted that Reid had supported the bill and allowed it to be brought to the floor for a
vote.

In 2010, when Reid was engaged in a bitter re-election campaign against Republican Sharron Angle, the NRA refrained from endorsing, but contributed to Reid’s campaign and reminded voters of his pro-gun record. An NRA letter to its Nevada members touted that Reid “opposed the Obama administration’s interest in reinstating the assault weapons ban, halting momentum; helped pass a law that allows gun owners to carry firearms in national parks; voted against the District of Columbia’s gun ban; voted for legislation to allow pilots in commercial airline cockpits to be armed.” It also noted that Reid was instrumental in passing legislation halting lawsuits that were attempting to hold gun manufacturers and dealers responsible for weapons used in criminal acts.

NRA head Wayne LaPierre called Senator Reid “a true champion of the Second Amendment” and said “no one has been a stronger advocate for responsible gun ownership than him.”

After the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shootings in July 2012, Senator Reid blocked any debate about gun control, insisting that the Senate schedule was “too packed” to spend time on it.

If just being a board member of the NRA is enough for O’Donnell to question Selleck’s humanity, then what should O’Donnell question regarding Harry Reid who takes NRA money and votes to further the NRA agenda?

I get that O’Donnell needs ratings and playing the Selleck card does so, but if O’Donnell really wants gun control in America he should 1. go after President Obama and the cupcake “executive actions” he announced this week and 2. treat Senate Democrats who favor gun rights with the same lunatic rantings he has reserved for Republicans and Tom Selleck. O’Donnell can blame the NRA all he wants, but they’re not the ones who are going to vote.

It’s no secret that, to pass his gun reforms, Obama needs the votes of Democratic Senators who are from states where gun ownership is not something considered extreme. Let’s take a look at how the local media in these crucial states is covering the president’s proposals. . .

In Montana, Sen. Max Baucus and Jon Tester are reading about how “difficult” it will be:

In South Dakota, Sen. Tim Johnson has John Thune and the debt ceiling as a top story of the day, as well as a proposal for armed guards at schools:

In Alaska, Sen. Mark Begich is reading how federal agents should be arrested if they try to enforce the president’s new proposals:

In Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu has a “split” community to deal with:

New Mexico’s Sen. Tom Udall is reading about “booming” gun sales:

Maybe some good news for the president in Colorado where Sen. Michael Bennet is reading about “optimism” that state Dems will approve of the new measures:

And finally, Sen Harry Reid of Nevada is reading about the Republican governor’s plans for the state, with guns as second-fiddle:

In all, there are 12 or so vulnerable Democrats the Left is worried about and how they’ll vote. Stay tuned.

For the record, not one of the 23 “executive actions” issues by the president yesterday is an actual “executive order.” However, the White House did issue three “presidential memoranda” yesterday. They are:

Improving Availability of Relevant Executive Branch Records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System

Tracing of Firearms in Connection with Criminal Investigations

Engaging in Public Health Research on the Causes and Prevention of Gun Violence

The MSM, however, is using “executive order” as a replacement for “executive action,” which gives the reader the impression that the president has done more than he really has. The reality is President Obama hasn’t done much of anything. The headline “Obama To Fight Gun Industry with Three Presidential Memoranda” just doesn’t carry the same oomph as “23 Executive Orders.” Words matter, as the president has lectured previously.

If you’re curious, the last executive order issued by the president was to raise the pay of federal workers, which the House will vote to reverse next week. Raising pay for Congress merited an executive order, but not a single one to address the gun issue? Maybe the president can ask kids to write him some letters asking why he didn’t do more.

In fact, as we pointed out in this post linking to a Rolling Stone piece on Obama’s actions yesterday, an executive order President Obama could have signed that would have banned the import of certain weapons, magazines, and other accessories — one signed by President George H. W. Bush — was ignored.

Now, if I were an honest member of the Left and thought gun control was a major issue, I would be angry at what little was done yesterday. Piers Morgan, for example, has been trashing anyone on the right who dares to support the Second Amendment. If he had a shred of honesty, at the very least he should bring someone on from the administration and ask why, out of the 23 actions proposed yesterday, one of them was nearly identical to the proposal by the NRA to find a way to put armed guards in schools and study overall school safety and preparation plans.

We’ll see what happens.

And that’s not a misprint.

Rolling Stone is not happy with the president for failing to use his presidential power to ban the importation of certain weapons:

In his renewed push for gun control, President Obama released 23 executive orders to reduce gun violence this morning. It’s a good start. But Obama left his biggest regulatory weapon in the holster.

The president has, under existing law, the authority to block the import of weapons that aren’t “generally recognized as particularly suitable for, or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.” In the wake of the Stockton school massacre in 1989, President George H.W. Bush — who was backed to the hilt by the NRA at the time — used this authority to block the import of many semiautomatic weapons.

Those restrictions were relaxed under the George W. Bush administration. But as Tom Diaz, a former policy analyst for the Violence Policy Center, told NPR in the immediate wake of the Newtown massacre, the authority remains on the books [. . .]

The rest here.

The HuffPo is not happy with Ann Coulter — again — this time for daring to say that gun violence in the United States is a “demographic problem.”

But Ann Coulter is correct and why we’re not talking more about stopping black-on-black crime is one of the reasons conservatives see so much hypocrisy with the Left’s push for more gun-control legislation. Why did it take Newtown to get Democrats to move on gun violence when there’s a Newtown-a-month is the president’s hometown of Chicago?

Let’s look at gun violence in Chicago. Via The Guardian:

A disturbing contrast between two great American cities – one seen as a capital of violence, the other as a model of urban safety in the US – was driven home Friday by a pair of year-end reports on homicides.

New York City announced that 2012 was the safest on record, with 414 homicides beating the previous low of 471 in 2009.

Chicago, meanwhile, at about a third the size of NYC proper, drew near its 500th homicide of the year. It was the first time the city had approached the mark since 2008, when 512 were killed.

Both cities have tough gun-control laws, but only one city is safe. Why? There’s something other than gun legislation that makes New York City safer than Chicago, but Democrats, the MSM, and everyone else who claims to be trying to end gun violence won’t expand the conversation to such potentially controversial subjects as police tactics, municipal corruption, poor governance, and yes, race.

David Frum, countering Coulter, writes on CNN.com, “America’s gun problem is not a race problem“:

Yet the urge to subdivide runs strong among Americans. Monday on Fox News, the popular conservative commentator Ann Coulter claimed that the murder rate among white Americans is as low as the murder rate in Belgium. “So perhaps it’s not a gun problem,” she concluded. “Perhaps it’s a demographic problem.”

But countries cannot dismiss the sufferings of great blocks of their people by dismissing some “demographics” as unworthy of attention.

Frum is missing the point. We are not dismissing the demographics, we are pointing out — rightly — that there’s a problem with “thug on thug” crime that’s not being addressed, especially in big cities run by liberals.

Frum does point out — rightly I think — that there are multiple gun issues in America. I classify them as 1) the maniac (Newton, Aurora); 2) crime; and 3) suicides and accidents.

Different steps need to be taken to address the three issues above, but liberals like to tie all three together when they make their case as this inflates the number of gun incidents.

Liberals are hailing Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new restrictions on assault weapons, but in 2011 there were just five murders in all of New York state with a rifle. A fact the media won’t point out.

And how will Cuomo’s new law affect my three classes of gun issues?

Well, with No. 1, not much. A maniac is a maniac. Adam Lanza somehow got his hands on his mother’s guns. If you steal your gun to commit a crime, there’s not much any new law will do. Or take James Holmes in Aurora who had his apartment booby-trapped with homemade explosives. Who needs a gun when you can make a bomb?

As for No. 2, the idea of a background check for all private sales sounds good, but it still doesn’t stop someone who buys guns legally and then sells them illegally out of his trunk to criminals. To stop gun crime, you need better policing. Laws alone won’t do it.

Finally, for No. 3, if you’re suicidal and get entered into this new mental-health database that prevents you from buying a gun, you’ll end up killing yourself some other way. Even worse, the idea that if you seek mental-health treatment and the result is you get entered into some giant database has the potential of scaring off people from seeking help in the first place.

Accidents and personal responsibility were not addressed at all by Cuomo, and this is one area where I think the NRA should be front and center. Guns need to be secured to prevent theft and gun owners need to do a much better job of treating their weapons with the respect and care the deserve.

If you think guns in America are a problem, then step one is honesty. That includes talking about the third-rail issue of race.

Here are the latest developments.

The alleged shooter — Bryan Oliver — has been charged as an adult with “two counts of premeditated attempted murder and three counts of assault with a firearm.” Reports are that Oliver was targeting bullies who “called him a `ginger’ and said gingers don’t have souls.”

Will South Park take the fall? The synopsis of the episode titled “Ginger Kids“:

Cartman suffers from a mysterious and sudden onset of Gingervitus. Sick and tired of being ridiculed for his red hair, light skin, and freckles, he rallies all the ginger kids everywhere to fight against discrimination and rise up and become the master race they are intended to be.

There are still some open questions. Was Oliver suspended for making threats?

Investigators have declined to comment on allegations made by many students that Oliver had been suspended from the school last year for allegedly making a hit list of students he wished to harm.

And where did Oliver get the shotgun? Early reports are that Oliver used his brother’s shotgun, but I haven’t seen any new reporting on how old the brother was and how Oliver was able to access it.

This is all very troubling as a) schools across the country are supposed to be on the lookout for bullying, b) if threats were made prior to the shooting, this again raises question about what the school was or was not doing and c) it sounds like another example — like Adam Lanza in Newtown — of a troubled young man getting his hands on a weapon that wasn’t completely secured.

But the MSM, the president, Governor Cuomo, etc. won’t focus on that real and undiscussed problem.

A long overdue commentary on reckless Washington spending? Nope. This is about personal debt. Debt at the federal level is still hunky-dory:

The Washington Post’s Eric Wemple called the booking of the controversial Alex Jones on the Piers Morgan show “a brilliant booking move.“

How so? Morgan and CNN took the very real issue of guns, the 2nd Amendment, and gun control and turned it into a circus to spike ratings. Rather than Alex Jones, maybe Morgan should book Rahm Emanuel and ask him why gun control in Chicago has failed? Maybe Morgan should book someone from the NYPD to defend how stop-and-frisk reduces gun crime?

But, no. Morgan, who is undoubtedly passionate about this issue, is more passionate about his ratings.

And ICYMI, do check out the video of Bob Costa over on the homepage saying it was ridiculous to have a 9/11 truther on CNN to talk guns.

The list isn’t as odious as you would think, and many of the items are things the government should be doing anyway like “Actually prosecute people who try to buy guns illegally.”

Others are quite stupid. For example, “Add a second serial number to new guns or improve placement of the first one.” Because no criminal can ever find the “secret” serial number.

The entire list here.

NY Newsday reports:

Journal News gun permit map used by burglars to target White Plains home?

A White Plains residence pinpointed on a controversial handgun permit database was burglarized Saturday, and the burglars’ target was the homeowner’s gun safe.

At least two burglars broke into a home on Davis Avenue at 9:30 p.m. Saturday but were unsuccessful in an attempt to open the safe, which contained legally owned weapons, according to a law enforcement source. One suspect was taken into custody, the source said.

The gun owner was not home when the burglary occurred, the source said. The victim, who is in his 70s, told Newsday on Sunday that he did not want to comment while the police investigation continues.

“The police are doing a full investigation,” the man saidthrough a partially opened front door.

There was broken glass in the backyard Sunday and a ladder leading up to a second-story window. Neighbors on the street of modest, Colonial homes said they had heard about the burglary.

The homeowner’s name and address were included recently on the controversial interactive map of gun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties published on The Journal News’ website.

The rest here.

But please note the homeowner’s responsible securing of his weapons. Guns in your home must be secured — from risks such a burglary or from unstable family members, like Adam Lanza.