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| NRA: Guns in schools would protect students - CBS News Posted: 21 Dec 2012 09:03 AM PST Updated: 12:01 p.m. ET In a press conference reflecting on last week's massacre in Newtown, Conn., the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre today insisted that increased gun laws would not have prevented the violence that felled 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School -- and instead called on Congress to put armed police officers in every school in America. LaPierre, whose remarks were interrupted twice by pro-gun control protesters, disdained the notion that stricter gun laws could have prevented "monsters" like Adam Lanza from committing mass shootings, and wondered why schools, unlike banks, don't have the protection of armed forces. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he said. Rolling out a proposal to help governments train and provide security at schools, LaPierre argued that children should benefit from the same protection Congress members enjoy. "We must speak for the safety of our nation's children," said LaPierre. "We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses, even sports stadiums, are all protected by armed security. We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress works in offices surrounded by Capitol police officers, yet when it comes to our most beloved innocent and vulnerable members of the American family -- our children -- we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless. And the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it." "That must change now," argued LaPierre, moments before being interrupted by a protester carrying a large pink sign proclaiming that the "NRA is killing our kids." "The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters -- people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment?" Alternately criticizing politicians, the media, and the entertainment industry, LaPierre argued that "the press and political class here in Washington [are] so consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and America's gun owners" that they overlook what he claims is the real solution to the nation's recent surge in mass shootings -- and what, he said, could have saved lives last week. "What if, when Adam Lanza started shooting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he had been confronted by qualified, armed security?" he asked. "Will you at least admit it's possible that 26 innocent lives might have been spared? Is that so abhorrent to you that you would rather continue to risk the alternative?" LaPierre called on Congress to put a police officer in every school across the nation, which according to a Slate analysis would cost the nation at least $5.4 billion. LaPierre recognized that local budgets are "strained," but urged Congress to"to act immediately, to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school." He offered up the NRA's unique "knowledge, dedication, and resources" to assist in efforts to train those forces, but made no mention of a fiscal contribution. In a statement announcing the press conference earlier this week, the NRA broke its post-Newtown silence to say it was "prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again." President Obama announced the creation of a task force aimed at providing actionable policy ideas to prevent or reduce gun violence in America. Vice President Joe Biden, a key author of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, will helm the task force, and cabinet members and outside groups will be called on for ideas and contributions. Many believe that in the wake of the tragedy, the political will to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, will increase. The president long has supported a ban, but exerted little effort to get it passed during his first term. According to White House spokesman Jay Carney, Mr. Obama also would support closing a "gun show loophole" allowing people to buy arms from private dealers without background checks, and would be interested in legislation limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines. Even while the president has acknowledged the political difficulties associated with gun laws, he said this week that the complexity of the problem "can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing." Unlike in the cases of previous mass murders, new evidence suggests Americans increasingly support tougher gun control in the wake of the Newtown massacres. According to a recent CBS News poll, support for stricter gun laws is the highest it's been in a decade, surging 18 points since the spring of this year. According to that poll, conducted Dec. 14 - 16, 57 percent of Americans now say gun control laws should be made more strict. That's up 10 points from January 2011 -- following the shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona -- when a CBS News poll found that 47 percent of Americans backed stricter gun laws. In April of this year, just 39 percent of Americans supported stricter gun laws. In a statement today, Daniel Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, urged NRA members to "join us" in fighting to end gun violence. "To the 74 percent of NRA members who support requiring a criminal background check of anyone purchasing a gun...To the 87 percent of NRA members who believe that the 2nd Amendment can coexist with efforts to keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals... To all NRA members who believe like we do, that we are better than this, we send this message... Join us," he wrote. "Join us in making sure the gun violence ends now. We are all Americans and we all agree we are better than this." |
| Kerry Is Pick for Secretary of State, Official Says - New York Times Posted: 21 Dec 2012 08:58 AM PST By MARK LANDLERPublished: December 21, 2012WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to nominate Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts as secretary of state, a senior administration official said. He would succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton and become the first member of Mr. Obama's second-term national security team. The appointment of Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and his party's former presidential nominee in 2004, has been widely expected since last week, when Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, asked Mr. Obama to withdraw her candidacy for the post. Ms. Rice had come under weeks of attack from Republicans in Congress over her role in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the United States mission in Benghazi, Libya. Mr. Kerry, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, oversaw a hearing on Benghazi on Thursday, at which the State Department came under renewed criticism for its failure to respond to requests for additional security in Libya. The decision by Mr. Obama, expected to be announced early Friday afternoon, comes at a time when Mrs. Clinton has been recovering from a concussion suffered earlier this month. Mrs. Clinton, who has long said she would leave the post after Mr. Obama's first term, is not expected to attend the announcement. An elder of the Democratic foreign-policy establishment, Mr. Kerry, 69, has long coveted the job of secretary of state. He built close ties to Mr. Obama, giving him the keynote speech assignment that helped begin his national political career at the Democratic convention in 2004 and becoming an early Senate supporter of Mr. Obama's presidential run. Mr. Kerry has carried out several diplomatic missions for the Obama administration, helping to persuade President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to agree to a runoff election in 2009. Early in the administration, he also tried to engage President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who has waged a brutal crackdown on his own people as he fights to cling to power. President Obama does not intend to name a new secretary of defense or director of the Central Intelligence Agency on Friday, an official said. One of the front-runners for the Pentagon post, former Senator Chuck Hagel, is fighting off a series of criticisms of his record, not unlike the campaign that dogged Ms. Rice. The White House has defended Mr. Hagel, though officials said on Thursday that Mr. Obama had not yet decided whom to nominate for that post. The contest for C.I.A. has come down to two names: Michael J. Morrell, the current acting director, and John O. Brennan, the president's counterterrorism adviser. |
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