Special Interests

This is a startling admission from the New York Times:

 There’s an attractive logic to this argument, except that, in practice, it runs into some nettlesome inconsistencies. For instance, the National Rifle Association is also a dues-paying group that aggregates the power of its members, as is the National Federation of Independent Businesses, and I doubt very much that Edwards or other Democrats would describe these as anything other than special interests. Just like the N.R.A., Big Labor tries to manipulate elections to gain access and favor for its members. That doesn’t make unions a corrupting influence; as Andrew Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, always says, unions have been the greatest antipoverty program in American history. But it does make labor a special interest, whether Democrats like it or not.

Is it just me, or is that the first time you’ve ever seem anyone at the New York Times state that the NRA represents its members interests, rather than being a toady of the firearms industry?

Muffling Chelsea?

According to this AP article, Hillary Clinton doesn’t want the media talking to her kid:

But onstage, Chelsea never speaks; she stands next to her mother and applauds but utters not a single sentence and doesn’t even say hello. And reporters covering the campaign have been put on notice that Chelsea is not available to speak to them. An aide follows the former first daughter as she works the crowd, shushing reporters who approach her and try to ask any questions.

Seems kind of odd to me to have your child show up and campaign for you to just be a pretty face.

BBC Article

Both War on Guns and Armed and Safe have offered their takes on this BBC article.   I have one as well:

Police commander Michael Anzallo says the capital has seen an influx of handguns from neighbouring states where there are fewer controls.

“The police department recovers more than 1,000 guns a year,” he says.

“The problem is easy access to firearms. Most of the motives for homicides are arguments or robbery related and the quick pull of the trigger means somebody’s life.”

This seems to be a common tactic; blaming the neighboring states.  The way this is always presented suggests the gun law of the controlling jurisdictions are strict, and effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, but that criminals can just cross over into another state and buy a firearm because of the lax laws there.

Given that most people aren’t aware of what current gun control laws actually are, this is an effective tactic to deflect the criticism that gun control will never work.  Most people don’t know that it’s illegal to buy a handgun out of state, or that someone with a criminal history will fail a background check, and aren’t aware of the current laws about straw purchasing.

It’s effective to evoke images of a criminal heading to a Maryland gun store and picking up a gun because of the “lax” gun laws there, rather than explain the existing laws, or the black market networks through which criminals obtain firearms.