Republicans Blame Video Games, Not Guns, For Gun Violence

Republicans are more likely to place the blame for gun violence on video games, not guns, according to a recent poll from Public Policy Polling. Sixty seven percent of Republicans believe that such games are a “bigger safety threat” than firearms — only 14 percent think the reverse.

The only problem? There’s no data to support that position. There is evidence that limiting access to guns can help limit violence wrought by those machines. In particular, there’s evidence to show that the Assault Weapons Ban helped to limit gun violence on the Mexican-American border. And in states where gun ownership is high and gun laws are lax, violence rates are higher.

On the other hand, there’s absolutely no conclusive evidence showing that video games are the root cause of violence. There are countries with much lower rates of violence that have much higher consumption of video games.

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AHCA CEO: No Solutions From Government

 Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript:  Print  |  Email Go  Click text to jump within videoThu 07 Feb 13 | 05:30 AM ET Gov. Mark Parkinson, CEO of The American Health Care Association, tells CNBC that thanks to ever-increasing political partisanship, solutions to America's economic problems won't come from Washington.

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California Democrats Propose Strictest Gun Regulations In The Nation

California Democrats present gun violence prevention plan.

Thursday afternoon, a group of California Senate Democrats rolled out a legislative package that would create what would likely be the tightest gun regulation system in the nation, ranging from sweeping prohibitions on semi-automatic rifles to restrictions on guns in the home. The proposal consists of ten points:

1. Ban all semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines. California’s assault weapons ban only restricts the possession of semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines if they have an additional, “military-style” feature like flash suppressors. The new laws would tighten this law by banning all such rifles regardless of external features.

2. Ban possession of high-capacity magazines. California law bans the transfer, not possession, of magazines that can hold over ten bullets. This allows people wanting to skirt the law to buy the constituent parts and make the magazines themselves. The new law would close that loophole.

3. Ban “bullet button” conversion kits. State law defines “detachable magazines” as, in part, magazines that can be released “without the use of a tool.” Bullet button kits allow magazines to be released quickly by pressing a bullet into them, thus creating an end-around the intent of the assault weapons ban. The new provisions would ban such kits.

4. Bans shotgun-rifle combinations. It would ban this class of class of weapon.

5. Universal registration of all guns. The law would create “ownership records consistently across-the-board, ensuring all firearms are recorded” so that the background check system can prevent criminals from getting guns.

6. Background checks on ammunition. This provision requires a “full and complete” background check on ammunition sales, “building on” laws existing in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

7. Regulating gun loans. The legislators propose setting up an as-yet undefined regulatory system for the loan, as opposed to sale, of guns.

8. Prevent prohibited individuals from living in homes with guns. California’s Armed Persons Prohibition (APP) database lists people who can’t legally own weapons (as a consequence of criminal or mental health records) under state law. This addition would prevent people on the list from living in a house that has a gun.

9. Cracking down on people who can’t own guns legally but do anyway. Currently, 19,700 people who are on the APP list own guns. Police estimate that these people own roughly 39,000 firearms. This new law would authorize additional funding to enforce the law in this area.

10. Required safety training for handgun owners. People with concealed carry permits are required under California (and many other) state laws to pass a mandatory safety and firearm instruction course. This provision would require all handgun owners, regardless of permit status, to undergo a similar process.

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Hey Fairfax County, High School Seniors Can Handle ‘Beloved,’ And Learn About Racism and Sexism

Laura Murphy, whose son is a senior in high school in Fairfax County, Virginia, doesn’t think he—or anyone else—should be reading Beloved in their English classes, and she’s on a quest to get it bumped from the curriculum. Per Raw Story:

“I’m not some crazy book burner,” Murphy, a mother of four, insisted to the Post. “I have great respect and admiration for our Fairfax County educators. The school system is second to none. But I disagree with the administration at a policy level.”

In spite of the awards and accolades won by Beloved and its author, who won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, Murphy feels that the book’s theme of the brutality of slavery and scenes depicting gang rape, infant murder and violence are too intense for high school seniors. She said her son had nightmares when he had to read the book for his senior English course.

“It’s not about the author or the awards,” said Murphy. “It’s about the content.” On Thursday, the Fairfax County School Board voted not to hear Murphy’s challenge to the book. She now plans to take her fight to the Virginia Board of Education.

The thing about sending your children to public school is that you’re consenting to give up a certain amount of control over what they’re exposed to, because one of the major points of public schools is to make sure students have a pre-established set of skills and cultural references in common. And that often means teaching children things that their parents don’t know, or giving them access to literature and history that their parents might not have at home, or frankly, might not want them to read or learn about. It also, on an emotional level, means letting your children come into contact with ideas and art that will expand their sense of the world.

An associated risk of that is that they might be upset by some of the things they learn about the world. Racism is frightening. So is sexual assault. But both of those things have happened in the United States, and for many people, continue to be major factors that affect their day-to-day life. And I think high school seniors, especially those who will be going off to colleges where they have much more sexual autonomy, and will be dealing with larger and more diverse peer groups, not only are old enough to understand the reality of those facts and to be confronted with the emotional impacts they have, but really ought to be confronted by them. I’m not a parent yet, but my understanding is that parenting is a balance between protecting children from things they genuinely don’t have the capacity to process—Wu-Tang may be for the children, but I’m not sure Toni Morrison is—and helping them process the difficult things they have the moral and emotional ability to confront, even if that involves hard work on your, and their parts.

If Murphy’s son is having nightmares about slavery and gang rape, that actually seems to suggest that he’s pretty attuned to the emotional horror of racial and sexual violence. Maybe, instead of trying to protect him from those feelings, she could find some way for him to channel them into productive anti-racist or anti-sexist work. That would be much better college prep (and resume-building) for him than trying to save him, and other seniors, from being upset. I doubt Murphy is going to have much luck with the Virginia Board of Education. And she’ll have much less with whatever institution of higher learning he heads off to.

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Oncolytics rises on new cancer drug data

NEW YORK -- Shares of Oncolytics Biotech Inc. jumped Friday after the company said its drug Reolysin shrunk the tumors of almost all the patients in a small clinical trial.

The company said 20 patients were treated with Reolysin and two chemotherapy drugs, and 19 of them had smaller tumors after treatment. On average their tumors shrank by about a third. The patients in the mid-stage trial had squamous cell carcinoma, a type of lung cancer, and their disease had metastasized or returned after previous treatment.

Oncolytics shares rose $1.28, or 35.9 percent, to $4.85 in morning trading.

Reolysin is based on a common virus called the respiratory enteric orphan virus, or reovirus. Oncolytics says most adults have been exposed to the virus and it usually has no symptoms. Reolysin is designed to infect and destroy cancer cells. The company says the body's immune response stops the reovirus from replicating in healthy cells, but in cancer cells with specific mutations, the antiviral response is not effective. The virus multiplies and the cell dies.

On Dec. 13, the Canadian drugmaker said Reolysin met its goal in a late-stage trial that evaluated the drug as a treatment for head and neck cancers. In January the company reported positive results for Reolysin as a treatment for colorectal cancer. Shares of Oncolytics are up 64.5 percent since then.

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World Famous Neurosurgeon Calls for Market-Oriented Health Care Reform In Front of Obama; Will Media Report?

At his keynote speech at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson laid out some ideas he had for improving health care in the United States of America. Seated to his right was the president of the United States, who appeared to not care much for the good doctor's market-oriented idea of tax-free Health Savings Accounts. [h/t email tipster Brian Plunkett for bringing this to my attention]

The Insurance & Financial Advisor website has more details (emphases mine; video embedded below):

During his remarks, Carson came up with several solutions to some of America’s most pressing problems, including focusing on the importance of education.

Carson also touched on the economy, saying that he thinks about the issue frequently. “We don’t want to go down the path of many failed nations,” he said, pointing out what he says is “fiscal irresponsibility” in our government.

He seemed to offer the idea of a flat 10% income tax, which would prevent many successful people from taxing their money oversees [sic]. He cited “602 banks in the Cayman Islands” created as havens for those seeking to escape high taxes.

“That money needs to be back here building our infrastructure and creating jobs,” he said.

Carson’s remarks regarding what appeared to be his alternative to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) appeared to make the president uncomfortable at times, with Obama looking down and away as Carson began to describe specific suggestions.

ACA is President Obama’s landmark health reform legislation that was passed in 2010. Carson has spoken openly in the past about alternatives to the law.

“We spend a lot of money on health care, twice as much per capita as anyone else in the world, and yet not very efficient. What can we do?” Carson asked rhetorically. “Here’s my solution. When a person is born, give them a birth certificate, an electronic medical record and a health savings account [HSA] to which money can be contributed pre-tax from the time you’re born to the time you die.”

Carson went on to say that accounts should be passed on to family members, so “there’s nobody talking about death panels,” in an obvious reference to the much debated “panels” discussed during negotiations and after passage of ACA.

Regarding those who cannot afford health insurance, Carson suggested, “We can make contributions to their HSA each month,” he said, adding, “we already have this huge pot of money; instead of sending it to some bureaucracy let’s put it in their HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care.”

Although Dr. Carson is a devout Christian, it appears there were no remarks made by Dr. Carson that were critical of the president's contraception mandate. That being said, it is gutsy to offer comments in a public forum which don't square with the president's left-wing agenda on health care, even though Carson did so respectfully and without any partisan invective.

All the same, don't expect the media to note Carson's ideas, which are fundamentally about empowering the individual and not the government.

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Major Networks Ignore News of Increased Costs of ObamaCare

For two nights in a row, NBC, ABC, and CBS have ignored a story that would damage the liberal narrative they are helping the White House to push. Two days ago, the Congressional Budget Office reported that it has revised its projections of the cost of ObamaCare’s insurance subsidies. The CBO now estimates that the subsidies, which are to be offered through exchanges beginning in 2014, will cost 29 percent more than the CBO initially projected in 2010. The projected 10-year cost has increased by $233 billion.

In addition, the report estimates that 7 million workers will lose their employer-sponsored health insurance due to ObamaCare, almost twice as many as the CBO previously estimated. Monetary penalties on those who don’t buy insurance are now expected to be $36 billion higher from 2014 to 2019 than was originally thought.

Ominous news, to be sure. But the three major networks could not be bothered to mention it at all on the Tuesday or Wednesday editions of their evening news programs. NBC Nightly News had more important things to discuss, like Chris Christie’s weight, the new Monopoly game piece, and the 2014 Winter Olympics, which are still a year away, but will be telecast on the networks of NBC Universal. Of course, they also found time to talk about the continuing effort to coerce the Boy Scouts into accepting gay members.

ABC World News also covered Chris Christie’s weight, the new Monopoly piece, and the crusade to allow openly-gay Boy Scouts and scout leaders. In addition, they found time for an update on Barbara Walters’ recovery from chicken pox and a story on the youngest female billionaire in the U.S. (she owns In-N-Out Burger).

Why let the image of ObamaCare, hailed in the media as the president’s crowning achievement, be tarnished with critical news about its negative consequences?

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