Penny Dean and Your Rights

Quote of the day by Dianne Feinstein..........

<blockquote>Dianne Feinstein: "All vets are mentally ill in some way and government should prevent them from owning firearms."</blockquote>

Yep, - she really said it on Thursday in a meeting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee...

and the quote below from the LA Times is priceless. Sometimes even the L.A. Times gets it right.

Acknowledging that it underestimated the Obama administration's expectations about its involvement in gun control talks, Walmart said Wednesday company representatives would attend a meeting at The White House on Thursday to discuss firearms.

Walmart initially declined to have a representative attend the White House meeting, citing scheduling conflicts in a statement given to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

On January 27, ABC World News aired a segment on kids and guns in which they placed two unloaded handguns on a table and drew children to them by telling them there was candy where the weapons were.

Diane Sawyer introduced the video as part of a report on "groundbreaking news" based on a Yale University study on "American children and guns" that claims every hour one child in America ends up in the hospital as a result of gunshot wounds.

<img src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/trulia/files/2013/11/matt-drudge-sells-home-mug... height="240" align="right">His web site may consist of just a single page, but Matt Drudge is arguably the most influential media personality in the world. Garnering nearly one billion readers monthly, the Drudge Report is able to literally shift public sentiment, making it an essential read for D.C.

IF you think that protests about overzealous law enforcement are over the top, listen to what unfolded when the police suspected that David Eckert, 54, was hiding drugs in his rectum.

Eckert is a shy junk dealer struggling to get by in Hidalgo County, N.M. He lives a working-class life, drives a 16-year-old pickup and was convicted in 2008 of methamphetamine possession.

DUBLIN, Calif. (AP) A sheriff's official says the Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer who was fatally shot Tuesday was accidentally killed by a fellow officer.

BART officials say the officers were conducting a probation search at a home in the East Bay city of Dublin when the shooting happened just after 1 p.m.

The officer who was shot was transported to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries. Alameda County Sheriff's Sgt. J.D. Nelson confirmed to The Associated Press that another BART officer was the shooter and that the shooting was accidental.

The United States Supreme Court seems poised to smack down the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for attempting to create laws on it’s own in a case known as Bruce J. Abramski v. United States, or simply Abramski.

Former Marcus Hook, Pa. mayor James Schiliro — once a member of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns — was sentenced this week for a crime involving firing a gun. Some pretty twisted stuff here, actually:

<blockquote>The FBI claims that ‘‘malicious misuse is not commonly discovered.’’ Both the instructor testifying at the Valle trial and an Internal Affairs Bureau investigator who took the witness stand in an earlier case have conceded that officers can easily circumvent safeguards.</blockquote>

The investigator testified as a government witness at the 2010 trial of an NYPD officer accused of using the database to conduct surveillance of a perfume warehouse in New Jersey before an armed robbery there. He told jurors that officers often do searches while logged in under another officer’s name — either out of neglect or, in this case, intent.

‘‘Unfortunately ... it’s not unusual that it happens,’’ the investigator said.

Are mass shootings really on the rise in America? Will an increased focus on mental health help prevent mass murders? Would expanded background checks really make a difference? The answer to all of these questions, according to author and Northeastern University criminology professor James Alan Fox, is no.