Piers Morgan, the resident gun control advocate on CNN, protects his own personal property with signs warning that it is guarded by “Armed Response Security Systems,” according to a new investigation by self-described “guerrilla journalist” James O’Keefe.
Where did all the money go? How $700 million in Katrina relief money went missing
Where did all the money go?
“Your guess is as good as mine,” David Montoya, the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says of $700 million in missing taxpayer money that Louisiana homeowners were given in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to elevate and protect their homes from future storms.
A new report released from the inspector general’s office shows that more than 24,000 homeowners who received grants of up to $30,000 to elevate their homes either misspent or pocketed the money.
“The fact of the matter is that the money they received was for a specific purpose and the specific purpose was to elevate these homes to avoid future catastrophes,” Montoya tells Power Players.
He rates the home elevation program as little more than a complete failure.
“Considering there was just under $1 billion earmarked for this particular program and there's $700 million that wasn't used for that, I’d give it a very low D,” he says.
But the lessons learned from the failed home elevation project provides a useful roadmap as Congress moves to offer recovery funds to victims of Hurricane Sandy.
“Clearly, to give money out on the front end right after a disaster, when many of these people lost everything, with a promise to do something down the road, I think is counterproductive to what the program was designed to do,” says Montoya.
Montoya says his office will recommend that, for future disaster relief programs, funds are disbursed to individuals only after the project has been completed.
Obama’s continued use of the claim that 40 percent of gun sales lack background checks
Why wouldn’t we want to close the loophole that allows as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases to take place without a background check?”
— President Obama, remarks on gun safety, March 28, 2013
“FACT: Nearly 40% of all gun sales don't require a background check under current law. #DemandAction”
— tweet from @BarackObama, March 28
We were away last week and have been catching up on the recent rhetoric. A number of readers asked us about this comment last week by President Obama, and his Twitter account (managed by his campaign spin-off Organizing for Action), given that we had looked closely at this statistic back in January, in two columns, and found it wanting. It ultimately earned a rating of Two Pinocchios. PolitiFact in January also concluded there were serious problems with this particular statistic, giving it a rating of “half true.”
Normally we would expect some adjustment of the language in response to a fact-checker consensus. Alas, it appears to be time for a refresher course — and a new rating.
The Facts
There are two key problems with the president’s use of this statistic: The numbers are about two decades old, yet he acts as if they are fresh, and he refers to “purchases” or “sales” when in fact the original report concerned “gun acquisitions” and “transactions.” Those are much broader categories of data.
As we noted before, the White House said the figure comes from a 1997 Institute of Justice report, written by Philip Cook of Duke University and Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago.
This study was based on data collected from a survey in 1994, the same year that the Brady Act requirements for background checks came into effect. In fact, the questions concerned purchases in 1993 and 1994, and the Brady Act went into effect in early 1994 — meaning that some, if not many, of the guns were bought in a pre-Brady environment.
Digging deeper, we found that the survey sample was just 251 people. (The survey was done by telephone, using a random-digit-dial method, with a response rate of 50 percent.) With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points.
Moreover, when asked whether the respondent bought from a licensed firearms dealer, the possible answers included “probably was/think so” and “probably not,” leaving open the possibility the purchaser was mistaken. (The “probably not” answers were counted as “no.”)
When all of the “yes” and “probably was” answers were added together, that left 35.7 percent of respondents indicating they did not receive the gun from a licensed firearms dealer. Rounding up gets you to 40 percent, although as we noted before, the survey sample is so small it could also be rounded down to 30 percent.
Moreover, when gifts, inheritances and prizes are added in, then the number shrinks to 26.4 percent. (The survey showed that nearly 23.8 percent of the people surveyed obtained their gun either as a gift or inherited it, and about half of them believed a licensed firearms dealer was the source.)
Cook and Ludwig, in a lengthier 1996 study of the data for the Police Foundation, acknowledged the ambiguity in the answers but gave their best estimate as a range of 30 to 40 percent for transactions in the “off-the-books” secondary market. (The shorter 1997 study cited by the White House does not give a range but instead says “approximately 60 percent of gun acquisitions” involved a licensed dealer.)
Meanwhile, note the phrasing in the original report — “acquisitions” and “transactions,” which included trades, gifts and the like. But Obama spoke of “gun purchases,” and his tweet referred to “gun sales.”
Why is it important to make a distinction between purchases and transactions? For one thing, the Senate bill that would expand background checks — supported by the White House — specifically makes an exception for “a bona fide gift between immediate family members, including spouses, parents, children, siblings” as well as “the death of another person for whom the unlicensed transferor is an executor or administrator of an estate or a trustee of a trust created in a will.” As noted above, such transactions can change the results.
The Police Foundation report did not break out gun purchases, so in January we asked Ludwig to rerun the data, just looking at guns purchased in the secondary market. The result, depending on the definition, was 14 percent to 22 percent. That's at least half the percentage repeatedly cited by Obama. (In a recent article for National Review, Cook and Ludwig wrote “we don’t know the current percentage — nor does anyone else.” But they say if the percentage is lower it actually strengthens the case for expanding background checks because it would be less expensive to implement.)
Since our initial report on this statistic appeared, The Washington Post in February included a question on background checks on a survey of Maryland residents, asking whether they went through a background check during a gun purchase in the past 10 years. The result? Twenty-one percent say they did not.
Coincidentally or not, 21 percent falls within the 14-to-22 percent range for gun purchases without background checks in the 1994 survey. (Note: Because so few Marylanders buy guns, there is a large potential margin of error with this result.)
A White House spokesman declined to comment on why the president keeps using the “up to 40 percent” statistic.
The Pinocchio Test
When we first looked at this issue, we noted that congressional foes of gun control had made it difficult for the federal government to conduct research on guns. But, as shown by the Washington Post survey of Maryland gun buyers, there is nothing stopping private pollsters from producing a more up-to-date survey.
In the meantime, we have documented that (a) the survey numbers are about two decades old, so they include purchases that predate any background checks; (b) the survey sample is rather small; and (c) the results are significantly different when adjusted for “purchases” or “sales” — the phrasing used by the president.
Two months ago, we were willing to cut the White House some slack, given the paucity of recent data. But the president’s failure to acknowledge the significant questions about these old data, or his slippery phrasing, leaves us little choice but to downgrade this claim to Three Pinocchios.
City Touts Lower Homicide Stats, But Context Reveals Return To Normal
Teen Mob Action Takes Over Chicago’s Gold Coast
(CBS) — The warmest day of the year so far brings hundreds of mischievous teens to Michigan Avenue.
Police are calling it ‘mob action’.
CBS 2 is learning about multiple incidents in at least four different locations along the Magnificent Mile and in the Gold Coast, yielding a slew of arrests.
Things got pretty bad, very quickly with many innocent shoppers and tourists caught in the middle of a very chaotic situation.
Hundreds of teens littered Michigan Avenue and State Street near Chicago.
Things started to go bad around 6:00 p.m. Saturday, with teens purposely bumping into people, and causing fights among themselves.
Fifteen juveniles and two adults were arrested and charged with Reckless Conduct— a misdemeanor.
Community activist, Andrew Holmes witnessed some of the problems, while shopping with his family.
“You had a group of teens, close to maybe 500. They assaulted a Chicago police officer that was on a mounted on a horse and all of a sudden they assaulted a citizen walking the streets, just a normal citizen shopping and enjoying the weather,” said Holmes.
Later that night, a man was attacked around 10:45 p.m. while walking near Chicago and Dearborn. Sources tell us he was jumped and punched in the face by a group of teens. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
In a separate incident, a group of woman say they were attacked by a mob of girls on the CTA Red Line. The women reported a robbery once they got off the train at the State and Monroe station. Eleven females were arrested—10 juveniles and one adult—and charged with battery. Two of the teens were charged with strong- armed robbery.
“I caution those parents if their child has been arrested which numerous teenagers have been arrested tonight, that you need to think about your child. Just don’t say the Chicago police picked on your child, when we were watching all the assault going on, especially by teen women,” said Holmes.
A total of 28 arrests were made last night surrounding downtown disturbances involving teens. Of those arrests, 25 were juveniles.
Charges range from Battery and Strong Armed Robbery to Reckless Conduct.
CBS 2 has learned since these charges are misdemeanors, many of those arrested have already been released on I-bonds.
Sources tell CBS 2 that much of this activity was planned weeks ago through social media.This type of pre-planned mob violence has become a regular happening in Chicago for the past few years, which the media has failed to adequately report under threat from city hall. God forbid we scare away any tourists.
Why doesn’t media cover Chicago’s poor enforcement of gun laws?
Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president and CEO, who appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning, asked host David Gregory why the network doesn’t focus on the poor enforcement of federal gun laws in Chicago.
“I mean, let me give you the real sad thing, though. Let me hold up a mirror right now to the whole national news media and the White House,” the NRA official began. “I just got the track data from Syracuse University on enforcement of federal gun laws. Last time I was here, I brought it from 2011; it just came out from 2012.”
“Do you know where Chicago ranks in terms of enforcement of the federal gun laws? Out of 90 jurisdictions in the country, they ranked 90th,” Mr. LaPierre continued.
“Why doesn’t NBC News start with: ‘Shocking news on Chicago. Of all the jurisdictions in the country, Chicago’s dead last on enforcement of the federal gun laws?’” he asked. “Why doesn’t the national press corps, when they’re sitting down there with Jay Carney and the president and the vice president, why don’t they say, ‘Why is Chicago dead last in enforcement of the gun laws against gangs with guns, felons with guns, drug dealers with guns?’”
Mr. Gregory then asked Mr. Pierre the peculiar question about whether he supports those criminals being charged with felonies.
“Absolutely,” Mr. Pierre affirmed. “And we want them taken off the street. I mean, if you’re the president and the vice president, and the attorney general, and your job is to enforce these laws against the — I’m talking about drug dealers, gangs and felons that are walking around with guns in the street, and you don’t do it? You bear some responsibility. It is a tragedy.”As the kids like to say, "EPIC FAIL."
Gun store rescinds Mark Kelly's rifle purchase, questions his 'intent'
A Tucson gun store owner has decided to rescind the sale of a military-style rifle to Mark Kelly, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, after Kelly said he had intended the purchase to make a political point about how easy it is to obtain the kind of firearms he's lobbying Congress to ban.
Kelly's March 5 purchase of an AR-15-style rifle and a 45.-caliber handgun at Diamondback Police Supply sparked a frenzy of reaction from both sides of the debate after he posted to Facebook a photo of himself shopping.
A background check took only a matter of minutes to complete, Kelly said in the Facebook post, adding that it's scary to think people can buy similar guns without background checks at gun shows or on the Internet.
But Kelly couldn't immediately take possession of the rifle because the shop had bought it from a customer. As a result, the store is required by a Tucson ordinance to hold the gun for 20 days to give the city enough time to make sure the weapon wasn't used in a crime.
Store owner Doug MacKinlay said Monday in a Facebook post of his ow that he "determined that was in my company's best interest to terminate this transaction prior to his returning to my store."
"While I support and respect Mark Kelly's 2nd Amendment rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms in a safe and responsible manner, his recent statements to the media made it clear that his intent in purchasing the Sig Sauer M400 5.56mm rifle from us was for reasons other then for his personal use," MacKinlay said in the statement.
He added that the store will return Kelly's money, donate the rifle to the Arizona Tactical Officers Association to be raffled as a fundraiser and make an additional contribution of $1,295 -- the value of the rifle -- to the Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program.
Kelly's purchase of the guns sparked accusations of hypocrisy from gun-rights supporters, with many on Facebook focusing on his motivations and the rules for purchasing such guns. Kelly, a former astronaut, said he intended to eventually hand in the rifle to Tucson police but planned to keep the handgun.
Kelly and Giffords started a gun control advocacy group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, amid the wave of recent mass shootings. They have been touring the country in recent months in support of expanded background checks for gun purchases.
Kelly bought the guns at a Tucson shop the day before he appeared with his wife at the supermarket where she was wounded during a shooting rampage that left six dead and 12 others injured two years ago. Giffords resigned from Congress last year as she continues to recover from her injuries.
