<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Feinstein</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/tag/feinstein/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:56:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Obama&#8217;s Revolution in America &#8212; on The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/obamas-revolution-in-america-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-revolution-in-america-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/obamas-revolution-in-america-on-the-glazov-gang/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2014 05:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Glazov Gang]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feinstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ferguson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[glazov gang]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247711</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tearing the foundation down from every angle.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/obama2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247720" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/obama2-450x319.jpg" alt="obama2" width="276" height="196" /></a><strong>[</strong><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to <em>The Glazov Gang</em> and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.]</strong></a></p>
<p><span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="hasCaption">This week&#8217;s <em>Glazov Gang</em> was guest-hosted by <strong>Michael Finch</strong>, the president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He was joined by <b>Morgan Brittany</b>, Conservative TV and Movie Star, <b>Nonie Darwish,</b> author of “The Devil We Don’t Know” and <b>Mell Flynn,</b> the president of Hollywood Congress of Republicans.</span></span><span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"></span></p>
<p>The <em>Gang</em> gathered to discuss <strong>Obama&#8217;s Revolution in America</strong>, analyzing how the Radical-in-Chief is tearing the foundations of the country down from every angle (<strong>starts at the 9:30 mark</strong>). The episode also focused on <span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="hasCaption"><em>Feinstein&#8217;s Destructive Torture Charade</em>, </span></span><em>Ferguson and an Arsonist-in-Chief</em>, and much, much more:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DqDUXbeFDmk" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss the<strong> Glazov Gang&#8217;s special episode</strong> with<strong> Geert Wilders</strong> on &#8220;<strong>The West&#8217;s Battle for Freedom</strong>.&#8221;</em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/69-nah7rIOc" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>To watch previous <em>Glazov Gang</em> episodes, </strong><a href="http://jamieglazov.com/"><strong>Click Here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jamie.glazov"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> Jamie Glazov’s </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jamie.glazov"><strong>Fan Page</strong></a><strong> on Facebook.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/obamas-revolution-in-america-on-the-glazov-gang/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Sloppy Thinking About &#8216;Torture&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/sloppy-thinking-about-torture/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sloppy-thinking-about-torture</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/sloppy-thinking-about-torture/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2014 05:46:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feinstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mccain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Noonan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Torture]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247507</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Does the Senate report make America no longer the “city on the hill”?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/mccainfein.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247511" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/mccainfein-450x282.jpg" alt="John McCain, Dianne Feinstein" width="298" height="187" /></a>Torture is one of those topics that often overwhelm sober reason with lurid emotion. Even people who usually are clear-eyed and rational sink into sloppy thinking and incoherent argument when it comes to torture. Peggy Noonan’s recent <em>Wall Street Journal</em> column about the Senate report on the CIA’s interrogation techniques illustrates this phenomenon perfectly.</p>
<p>Noonan is usually an astute analyst, but her column on the report is riddled with received wisdom and unexamined assumptions. For Noonan, the “important lesson” of the report is <em>not</em> that progressives, as usual, are shameful hypocrites and partisan hacks who will damage their country’s interests for ideological or political advantage. It is not that when fighting a brutal enemy who obeys no laws of war, things are done we’d rather not do in order to save lives. No, her “lesson” is that the enhanced interrogation techniques, “torture” in her view, are “not like us” or “part of the American DNA,” and that, quoting John McCain, such techniques damage “our reputation as a force for good in the world.” These assertions, however, are based on simplistic psychology and flawed reasoning.</p>
<p>First, with very few isolated exceptions, none of the interrogation techniques meets the U.S. Code’s legal definition of torture, which requires the intent to cause severe suffering “other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions,” in the words of the statute. Noonan may think the EITs are “what I believe must honestly be called torture.” But what Noonan, or I, or anyone else “believes” does not trump what the law actually says, and it is the law (<a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18">Title 18</a>, <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I">Part I</a>, <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-113C">Chapter 113C</a>, § 2340) that our officials must follow, not subjective perception or even international laws that conflict with our own. As I said before, if people disagree with the law, then there is a political process for changing it.</p>
<p>The begged question that the EITs are torture undermines by itself the rest of Noonan’s argument. But it suffers from other problems as well. She also makes the fuzzy but simplistic statement that it “won’t help us fight it [war against jihadism] to become less like ourselves and more like those we oppose.” This is a version of the progressives’ mantra since 9/11 that the “terrorists win” if we do certain things that the critics believe are immoral or contrary to our “values”––as if our crisis of national identity is more important than destroying the enemy, the only way we “win.”</p>
<p>Noonan’s argument, however, falls to pieces on analysis. First, it ignores critical distinctions, such as intent: the reason why we do what we do, and the moral superiority of our reasons compared to those of the enemy. Again, with a few exceptions, the intent of the interrogators was not to inflict pain just to indulge their sadism, but to extract information to save American lives, which they did. Second, there are critical differences between the techniques used by the CIA––which were vetted by the Department of Justice, usually overseen by physicians, and subject to precise rules governing their application––and the horrific torture going on in countries like Iran. It is childish to fail to recognize that being slammed against a wall or deprived of sleep or confined in a coffin is nothing even close to the genuine torture going on all over the world. I haven’t heard any of the journalists who volunteered to be waterboarded asking to have their fingernails wrenched out with pliers, or electrodes attached to their genitals.</p>
<p>Third, ignoring the different purposes of what a country does in war leads to the facile moral equivalence of the naïve pacifist or the anti-American critic. During World War II the Allies’ strategic bombing campaigns destroyed almost all of Germany’s major cities and killed up to half a million people. Some historians today call the strategic bombing campaigns war crimes. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which probably saved a million American and Japanese lives that would have been lost with an invasion of Japan, remain popular bywords for American brutality.</p>
<p>But the noble purpose of all that destruction was to hasten the defeat of two of history’s most brutal regimes, whose triumph would have created a world deprived of freedom and human rights, a world of oppression and misery. Achieving that purpose required the “awful arithmetic,” as Lincoln called it, the tragic but necessary calculus that some must die now so that more don’t die later. Noonan needs to explain why incinerating and blowing up hundreds of thousands of people––including women, children, and the old––during the “good war” is “like ourselves,” while the CIA’s interrogation program––in which a grand total of two terrorists died––isn’t.</p>
<p>Finally, there is the obsession with our country’s “reputation,” and the implication that we should concern ourselves with “the world’s regard.” Just which country in the world has the moral authority and clean enough hands to sit in judgment on what our country does? Russia? Iran? China? The British, who in India strapped rebellious sepoys to cannon and blew them to pieces? The French, who killed a million and a half people during the Algerian War, and used torture to dismantle the National Liberation Front’s terrorist cells? And does Noonan really care what the thug regimes sitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council think? Or even our so-called allies in Europe, who carp and criticize our behavior even as they enjoy the free security ride we provide because we are willing to spend the money and do the dirty work they get to avoid?</p>
<p>As for the brutal men who run most of the world, our concern for their opinion is a sign not of strength, but of weakness. It is a marker of our cultural failure of nerve, and our doubt about the rightness of our motives and purposes, the reasons why we have to do what we’d rather not do. But the fact is, our rivals and enemies don’t hate us or oppose us because of what we do. That canard is psychologically reductive, as if other nations and peoples don’t have their own interests and beliefs and aims that they actively pursue, but just passively sit around until we provoke them to react to our bad behavior.</p>
<p>Of course, our enemies will use our actions as the camouflaging pretext for their own behavior, since they understand that too many Americans are predisposed to believe the worst of their own country and thus will counsel retreat and appeasement, or even damage their own country’s interests and security, as the release of the Senate report has done. Bin Laden was the master of such propaganda, employing a whole specious catalogue of American offenses against Islam as the pretext for terrorist attacks based on his religious beliefs about the divine right of Muslims to dominate the world. But in reality, as the world’s greatest military, economic, and cultural power, we will be envied, resented, and hated no matter what we do or how much we anxiously seek the rest of the world’s high “regard.” Rescuing millions of Muslims from violent oppression in Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan has not cut any ice with the scores of jihadist gangs actively trying to kill us.</p>
<p>Contrary to Noonan and McCain, and despite the dishonest rhetoric from our resentful allies, rivals, and enemies, the Senate report does not diminish America as a “force for good in the world,” a beacon of freedom, tolerance, and opportunity. That is why the U.S. is the emigrant’s favorite destination, why the U.S. is the go-to power for those countries in need when stricken by natural disasters or violent aggressors, and why the basic attitude of most of the world’s peoples is “Yankee go home, and take me with you.” The United States is in fact the “city on the hill,” the only world power in history that has used its power more for good than for ill. To think that reports of interrogation techniques used to save lives challenge the reality of American exceptionalism bespeaks a lack of confidence and faith not in our perfection, but in the fundamental goodness of America and its aims despite our occasional imperfections.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/sloppy-thinking-about-torture/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>13</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Feinstein&#8217;s Torture Charade &#8212; on The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/feinsteins-torture-charade-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=feinsteins-torture-charade-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/feinsteins-torture-charade-on-the-glazov-gang/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feinstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[glazov gang]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Torture]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247376</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the Democratic Senator chose to humiliate her country and endanger its citizens' lives. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/feinstein.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247382" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/feinstein-450x244.jpg" alt="Former CIA Director Petraeus Testifies At Congressional Hearings On Benghazi Attack" width="291" height="158" /></a><strong>[</strong><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to <em>The Glazov Gang</em> and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.]</strong></a></p>
<p><span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="hasCaption">This week&#8217;s <em>Glazov Gang</em> was guest-hosted by <strong>Michael Finch</strong>, the president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He was joined by <b>Morgan Brittany</b>, Conservative TV and Movie Star, <b>Nonie Darwish,</b> author of “The Devil We Don’t Know” and <b>Mell Flynn,</b> the president of Hollywood Congress of Republicans.</span></span><span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"></span></p>
<p>The <em>Gang</em> gathered to discuss <span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="hasCaption"><strong>Feinstein&#8217;s Destructive Torture Charade</strong>, analyzing the reasons the Democratic Senator chose to humiliate her country and endanger its citizens&#8217; lives. </span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DqDUXbeFDmk" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>To watch previous <em>Glazov Gang</em> episodes, </strong><a href="http://jamieglazov.com/"><strong>Click Here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jamie.glazov"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> Jamie Glazov’s </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/jamie.glazov"><strong>Fan Page</strong></a><strong> on Facebook.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/feinsteins-torture-charade-on-the-glazov-gang/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Exploiting Tragedy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/exploiting-tragedy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=exploiting-tragedy</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/exploiting-tragedy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Sep 2013 04:55:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron Alexis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feinstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Navy Yard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shooting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[washington dc]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=204489</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Gun-control advocates waste no time twisting the Navy Yard shooting. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/navy-yard-shooting-2-cropped-proto-custom_24.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-204490" alt="US Shooting Military Building" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/navy-yard-shooting-2-cropped-proto-custom_24.jpg" width="304" height="241" /></a>After a gunman calmly murdered 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard yesterday, the Left began trying to exploit the Navy employees’ deaths to advance its never-ending campaign to disarm law-abiding citizens.</p>
<p>The FBI identified the shooter, who was killed in a gun battle with police, as Aaron Alexis, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas. A civilian military contractor who was reportedly a practicing Buddhist at one time, Alexis received a general discharge from the Navy Reserve in 2011 after a shooting incident in his home. A general discharge usually indicates a problem in a serviceman&#8217;s record. He was previously arrested in Seattle 2004 after shooting out the tires of a vehicle.</p>
<p>During the assault around Building 197 in the military installation near the Washington, D.C. Nationals ballpark, Alexis used a shotgun, handgun, and an AR-15, the same kind of rifle used by Adam Lanza in the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre in December.</p>
<p>As with elementary schools and other &#8220;gun-free&#8221; zones, perpetrators know they can carry out mass shootings at military bases because the personnel there have been disarmed.</p>
<p>As the <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/11/end-clinton-era-military-base-gun-ban/"><i>Washington Times</i></a> previously reported,</p>
<blockquote><p>Among President Clinton’s first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases. In March 1993, the Army imposed regulations forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection. For the most part, only military police regularly carry firearms on base, and their presence is stretched thin by high demand for MPs in war zones.</p></blockquote>
<p>Aaron Alexis, who was reportedly not even a good shot, still managed to pick off two dozen human targets, aided by President Clinton&#8217;s inexplicable weapons ban. Similarly, a few years ago Major Nidal Malik Hasan mowed down military personnel at Fort Hood, killing 13 people.</p>
<p>But common sense is lost on leftists who don&#8217;t seem to understand that taking away guns makes Americans less safe.</p>
<p>U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), author of the now-expired 1994 assault weapons ban, <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/dianne-feinstein-congress-guns-96880.html">said</a> the Navy Yard shootings that took place about a mile from the U.S. Capitol constituted proof that Congress is “shirking its responsibility” in the gun control debate.</p>
<p>“This is one more event to add to the litany of massacres that occur when a deranged person or grievance killer is able to obtain multiple weapons — including a military-style assault rifle — and kill many people in a short amount of time. When will enough be enough?” Feinstein asked.</p>
<p>Earlier this year the Senate killed a plan to expand background checks on firearms buyers, along with a fresh assault weapons ban sponsored by Feinstein.</p>
<p>Other left-wing ambulance chasers were quick off the mark.</p>
<p>Before the facts were known President Obama <a href="http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/16/miller-obama-uses-naval-yard-shooting-inflame-fear/">weighed in</a> on the atrocities, hoping to use the deaths to push more unconstitutional gun control schemes. “We’re confronting — yet another — mass shooting,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And today it happened on a military installation in our nation’s capital.”</p>
<p>Obama, of course, is a devout ideologue who doesn’t believe Americans should be allowed to own guns. He’s a longtime supporter of gun confiscation but when he started running for president he began claiming to be a supporter of the Second Amendment in order not to scare away moderate voters. He has Freudian-slipped from time to time. In his first presidential campaign he mocked small-town Americans as “bitter” people who “cling to guns or religion,” paraphrasing Saul Alinsky’s ugly attacks on ordinary Americans.</p>
<p>Emily Miller argues in the <i>Washington Times</i> that Obama is scare-mongering. Although any loss of life is a tragedy, mass shootings &#8220;are not a cause for increased alarm.&#8221; Many more Americans are killed in non-mass shootings and in gun accidents.</p>
<p>A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) stated that &#8220;there have been 78 public mass shootings in the last 30 years that claimed 547 lives.&#8221; This works out to 18 victims per year or a tiny fraction of all murders by firearms in America.</p>
<p>According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the U.S. does not even have a particularly high murder rate compared to other nations. In 2011, the U.S. had an intentional homicide rate of 4.7 per 100,000 population, placing it roughly in the middle on the list of nations of the world.</p>
<p>Honduras had the highest intentional homicide rate (91.6) and Monaco the lowest (0.0). The rates for a sample of other countries are as follows: Jamaica (40.9); Mexico (23.7);</p>
<p>Russia (10.2); Philippines (5.4); India (3.5); Finland (2.2); Canada (1.6); Australia (1.0); and Singapore (0.3).</p>
<p>But Obama is nothing if not a salesman. Instead of focusing on the 8,583 murders committed using firearms (in 2011), the president &#8220;focuses on the rare mass shootings because the uncontrollable and random nature of them are more frightening to the public, which is politically helpful for him to push his gun-control agenda,&#8221; writes Miller, author of the new book, <i>Emily Gets Her Gun</i>.</p>
<p>Within hours of the massacre, erstwhile conservative David Frum <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/16/let-s-not-wait-to-talk-about-gun-control.html">wrote</a> a tasteless screed urging more gun control. After lamenting the successful recall by voters of two gun-grabbing state lawmakers in Colorado last week, Frum pontificated that, &#8220;America&#8217;s uniquely grisly record of gun death cannot be addressed without addressing guns.&#8221; He also ascribed sinister motives to gun owners, accusing them of working to maximize future body counts.</p>
<p>In Frum&#8217;s view there is no reason to wait to discuss &#8220;mass casualty shootings, such as that which just occurred in the Washington Navy Yard.&#8221;</p>
<p>The historic military facility, he writes,</p>
<blockquote><p>now joins the long roll of place names indelibly associated with massacre and grief: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown. I write on the day of the killing. Gun enthusiasts say it is inappropriate to talk about gun violence at the time it occurs. Better to wait … and wait … and wait … until time has passed, and the weeping next of kin have vanished from TV, and it’s safe to return to business as usual. The idea of the gun enthusiasts is that the way to show respect for the victims of gun violence is to do everything possible to multiply their number.</p></blockquote>
<p>But why are there so many mass shootings at public institutions such as the schools Frum names? Because they&#8217;re so-called gun-free zones. They&#8217;re magnets for psychotic mass murderers who know they get the most bang for the buck by preying on the defenseless. The way to give students and teachers a fighting chance against aspiring homicidal maniacs is to give teachers, or at least school security guards, guns.</p>
<p>The shooting spree yesterday came the week after al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri called for Muslims to carry out small-scale attacks &#8220;here and there&#8221; inside the U.S. &#8220;We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue in its massive expenditure on its security,&#8221; he said, &#8220;for the weak point of America is its economy, which has already begun to stagger due to the military and security expenditure.&#8221;</p>
<p>At press time, it was unclear what motivated Aaron Alexis to carry out the attack. Washington, D.C., mayor Vincent Gray said there was no evidence that what transpired yesterday was a terrorist attack but that investigators are not ruling out the possibility.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/exploiting-tragedy/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>117</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Senate Assault Weapons Ban Dies</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/senate-assault-weapons-ban-dies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=senate-assault-weapons-ban-dies</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/senate-assault-weapons-ban-dies/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Mar 2013 04:55:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assault weapons ban]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feinstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harry Reid]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=182262</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[But Obama's gun control effort marches on. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/senate-assault-weapons-ban-dies/159978467_image_606w/" rel="attachment wp-att-182285"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-182285" title="159978467_image_606w" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/159978467_image_606w-416x350.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="210" /></a>Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/19/reid-cuts-assault-weapons-ban-from-senate-gun-control-bill-amid-waning-support/">dropped</a> the assault weapons ban from that chamber&#8217;s gun control bill. The bill&#8217;s sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), announced the change, but indicated that she would still be able to offer it as an amendment later on. Reid&#8217;s change of heart indicates that he lacks congressional support to get the measure passed, despite the fact that the ban was approved last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It also signals that Reid is concerned about the ban&#8217;s impact on the 2014 election. By making it a separate issue, moderate Democrats facing reelection in red or red-leaning states can vote against the ban, yet still support the remaining parts of the Democratic agenda on gun control.</p>
<p>The Senate will begin debate on the rest of the bill next month.</p>
<p>Even with the ban as a separate issue, Feinstein faces an uphill battle in getting her measure passed. The Senate has 53 Democrats and two Independents who vote with them most of the time. Yet an assault weapons ban, stronger than the one enacted in 1994 that expired a decade later, will more than likely need 60 votes to prevail. Republicans are solidly against the measure, along with some moderate Democrats who would likely join them.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Reid assured Feinstein there would be two separate votes. One would be on the assault weapons ban, which also prohibits magazines with a capacity greater than ten bullets. The other would be a vote solely prohibiting the ammo clips.</p>
<p>In addition to approving the assault weapons ban, the Senate Judiciary Committee <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2013/03/19/assault-weapons-ban-wont-be-in-dems-gun-bill">approved</a> three other measures: expanding the required federal background checks for firearms buyers; increasing federal penalties for illegal weapons trafficking; and boosting funds for school safety programs.</p>
<p>When Reid was asked why the ban was dropped he <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/US-Gun-Control-Congress/2013/03/19/id/495370">revealed</a> that &#8220;using the most optimistic numbers,&#8221; Feinstein&#8217;s ban garnered less than 40 votes. Since 60 votes are necessary to begin debate on gun control legislation, Reid was fearful that the controversial measure might derail the entire process. &#8220;I&#8217;m not going to try to put something on the floor that won&#8217;t succeed. I want something that will succeed. I think the worst of all worlds would be to bring something to the floor and it dies there,&#8221; Reid explained.</p>
<p>The real reason Feinstein&#8217;s ban died is because it&#8217;s not only worthless, it&#8217;s counterproductive. That reality was best <a href="http://www.independentfirearmowners.org/2013/node/40">illuminated</a> in February by Independent Firearm Owners Association (IFOA) president Richard Feldman. “Senator Feinstein makes a mockery of the President’s efforts and good intentions,&#8221; said Feldman. He continued:</p>
<blockquote><p>Whether she does it intentionally or as an unintended consequence of her so-called ‘assault weapons ban, makes no difference. She is sabotaging the possibility of respectful and responsible dialogue. Her way polarizes the public into two warring camps. Worse, she is attempting to  divert the attention of Congress and the nation from the real problem at hand. That problem, as President Obama so correctly pointed out, is keeping firearms, all firearms, out of the hands of prohibited persons.</p></blockquote>
<p>The effort to get gun control legislation through Congress was engendered by the slaughter of 20 schoolchildren and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CN, a horrific crime that shocked the nation. Yet the most recent news released about killer Adam Lanza reveals an unprecedented level of psychological illness, coupled with what law enforcement officials believe was an insane desire to be the greatest mass murderer of all time. Investigators <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/lupica-lanza-plotted-massacre-years-article-1.1291408?print">discovered</a> a spreadsheet 7 feet long and 4 feet wide containing research about other mass murders and attempted murders so detailed, one law enforcement official likened it to a doctoral thesis. “We were told he had around 500 people on this sheet,” a law enforcement veteran told Mike Lupica of the <em>New York Daily News.</em> “Names and the number of people killed and the weapons that were used, even the precise make and model of the weapons. It had to have taken years. It sounded like a doctoral thesis, that was the quality of the research.”</p>
<p>The official continued. “[The police] don’t believe this was just a spreadsheet. They believe it was a score sheet,” he revealed.</p>
<blockquote><p>This was the work of a video gamer, and that it was his intent to put his own name at the very top of that list. They believe that he picked an elementary school because he felt it was a point of least resistance, where he could rack up the greatest number of kills&#8230;They have pictures from two years before, with the guy all strapped with weapons, posing with a pistol to his head. That’s the thing you have to understand: He had this laid out for years before.</p></blockquote>
<p>Feinstein&#8217;s assault weapons ban would not have prevented this tragedy.</p>
<p>In reality, the Newtown atrocity highlights the fatal flaw of such a policy as Feinstein&#8217;s, in that <em>any</em> restrictions on guns will only apply to those willing to obey the law. That explains why a city like Chicago, which has one of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/us/strict-chicago-gun-laws-cant-stem-fatal-shots.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0">toughest</a> gun control laws in the nation, recorded more than 500 murders last year, mostly committed <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/chicagos-gun-violence-role-national-gun-debate/story?id=18365373">using</a> handguns. None of this matters to Feinstein or any of the other staunch congressional supporters of gun control &#8212; all of whom have armed security personnel. Feldman reminded Americans of Feinstein&#8217;s overbearing hypocrisy. “When she was Mayor of San Francisco and banned handguns there, Ms. Feinstein surrendered her snub-nose .38, but neglected to announce that she chose to keep her .357 magnum pistol,” he revealed.</p>
<p>Yet what is one to make of the Obama administration&#8217;s no-so-secret effort to <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/17/Feds-Buy-2-Billion-Rounds-Of-Ammunition">purchase</a> two billion of rounds of ammunition? Conspiracy theorists believe the government is anticipating societal collapse, resulting in nationwide insurrection. Far more likely, progressives are doing what they do best, namely, driving the cost of ammunition prohibitively high in order to impose de facto gun control.</p>
<p>Which brings us to the ultimate reason why an assault ban will likely remain on the sidelines permanently: people are fearful of government overreach. Despite the Newtown tragedy, 2012 was a banner year for gun sales, and the FBI <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/gun-sales-2012_n_2303513.html">conducted</a> 16.8 million background checks, the highest number recorded since they began publishing such statistics in 1998.</p>
<p>Moreover, no matter what efforts are made to stuff the proverbial genie back in the bottle, it&#8217;s too late. There are more than <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/OTUS/controlling-gun-violence-obstacles-effective-policy/story?id=18008013">300 million</a> guns in circulation in America.</p>
<p>Removing Feinstein&#8217;s ban from gun control legislation makes sense, even if it&#8217;s done mostly for the politically cynical reason of protecting the Senate from Republican inroads, or even a takeover, in 2014. Far better to concentrate on measures such as universal background checks, and making illegal guns sales a federal crime, both of which are <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/03/some-gun-measures-broadly-backed-but-the-politics-show-an-even-split/">overwhelmingly supported</a> by the public. Boosting safety measures for schools is likely popular as well.</p>
<p>All of this assumes the point is to actually get a bill of some sort passed&#8211;which means anything that gets through the Democratically-controlled Senate has to be at least somewhat palatable to the Republican-controlled House. There is no doubt the assault weapons ban was dead on arrival in that chamber. On the other hand, perhaps compromise on the rest of these measures is alive and well.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/senate-assault-weapons-ban-dies/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>34</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 567/602 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 04:40:55 by W3 Total Cache -->