WASHINGTON — A House panel has approved legislation that would greatly curtail when veterans deemed mentally incompetent are reported to the FBI's background check system.

The move to winnow what records get placed into the database comes even as both sides of the gun-control debate have called for strengthening the background-check system.

After looking at the photos of the NRA convention, with all the talk about the sanctity of the Second Amendment, I think I just may revert to being a Justice William O. Douglas First Amendment absolutist. After all, the First Amendment of the Constitution does say:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I learned about the need to balance competing constitutional rights from Fred Friendly at Columbia, a hallmark of his academic teachings. But if the NRA is not going to give an inch on the Second Amendment, then let's invoke our absolute First Amendment rights to speak and assemble without restrictions. I'll take the pen over the gun any day.

WASHINGTON — The Senate rejected an effort Wednesday to expand the use of firearms on some of the nation's most frequently visited federal lands, handing gun control advocates a modest success.

The measure, backed by the National Rifle Association, represented one of two efforts Wednesday by gun rights supporters to take the offensive in Congress. Across the Capitol, a Republican-run House committee voted to make it easier for some veterans with mental difficulties to get firearms.

There's been another child-on-child shooting in America.

A 7-year-old boy was shot in his northeast Houston home on Tuesday -- and the gunman was apparently his younger brother, The Houston Chronicle reported..

According to ABC13.com, the boys were in the bathtub around 9 p.m. when their mother stepped away for a moment. Police say the 5-year-old brother then got out of the tub, found a .22 rifle and shot his older brother.

The injured child was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital. Officials say the bullet went straight through the boy's back, KHOU.com reported. He is expected to recover.

At the time of this writing, no charges have been filed.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday that he could support tighter background checks on gun sales -- something he declined to do last month -- if the senators pushing the proposal change its provision dealing with Internet sales. But it remains to be seen whether his complaints about the provision have merit.

In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Flake said the only reason he voted against the background checks bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) was because he thought it would be too costly and inconvenient to require checks on Internet sales. Flake said that under the proposal, it would be "considered a commercial sale" if a gun owner sent friends a text message or an email, or posted on Facebook, asking if they wanted to buy a gun. That could make things difficult for people in rural areas, he said.

It's unclear, however, whether Flake's complaints are valid. The Manchin-Toomey bill already makes clear that background checks wouldn't be required for gun sales between family members and friends. While it doesn't specifically address text messages, emails or Facebook posts, according to its language, background checks would only be required for Internet gun sales when they involve "an advertisement, posting, display, or other listing."

SEC. 129. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. Nothing in this subtitle, or an amendment made by this subtitle, shall be construed- (1) to extend background check requirements to transfers other than those made at gun shows or on the curtilage thereof, or pursuant to an advertisement, posting, display, or other listing on the Internet or in a publication by the transferor of the intent of the transferor to transfer, or the transferee of the intent of the transferee to acquire, the firearm; or (2) to extend background check requirements to temporary transfers for purposes including lawful hunting or sporting or to temporary possession of a firearm for purposes of examination or evaluation by a prospective transferee.

It would be a very generous reading of the bill to conclude that background checks apply to texts and emails. Whether a Facebook post between friends involving the sale of a gun would require a background check is uncertain. Requests for comment from Manchin's and Toomey's offices were not returned.

That said, Flake's comments do open the door to his reversal on the bill, so long as certain changes are made. He tweeted Tuesday morning that he does support the idea of background checks, just not the Manchin-Toomey bill in its current form. "Cutting thru clutter, I've always supported background checks. I didn't support Manchin-Toomey, and still don't. I voted for Grassley amdt," he wrote.

The Arizona senator conceded to CNN that Manchin, who is now looking for five senators to change their votes from "no" to "yes" on his bill in order to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster, may not be able to change the bill's language to meet his needs. But he said he's hopeful something can be worked out.

Flake has taken some hits since his vote. Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun control PAC run by Flake's close friend and former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), is vowing to run ads against him, and a recent survey ranked him the most unpopular senator in the country. Flake said the poll result puts him somewhere "below pond scum" and attributed his low numbers to his background checks vote.

Still, he told CNN he got some positive feedback after the vote, as well.

"I'm comfortable with where I am, pond scum or not," he said.

Have you heard that the government is buying up billions of bullets in bulk so that when the feds inevitably go to war with the American citizenry, we'll be totally unarmed? If so, you're probably listening to a bit too much right-wing talk radio espousing this theory, which was popularized after the whackadoodle NRA convention in Texas.

The likes of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and Mark Levin have convinced Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) to introduce a bill that would force federal agencies to limit their ammunition purchases -- even though Fox News has debunked the conspiracy theory (the Department of Homeland Security simply buys ammunition in bulk to save money on bullets used for training).

Watch Colbert's new segment, "Stephen Colbert's Batshit Serious," as he both indulges and lampoons the controversy in the video above.

Apparently the GOP and the gun nuts funding them have decided that not being the party of stupid, as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal suggested, is not for them. It's not even on the horizon. In fact, they've served up a whole new flavor of lunacy these days. The Boston Marathon bombing that left three dead and 140 injured is the latest fodder for the right wing lunatics to make obscenely idiotic remarks.

The latest in a long line of these comments was NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, who on Saturday asked, "How many Bostonians wish they had a gun two weeks ago?"

He was, of course referring to the way Bostonians were, as he put it, "frightened citizens... sheltered in place with no means to defend themselves."

I'm not sure that running a marathon with an assault rifle strapped to your back is a good idea. And exactly what does LaPierre think armed runners would be able to do against a bomb?

LaPierre goes on with his ridiculous comments:

Imagine living in a large metropolitan area where lawful firearms ownership is heavily regulated and discouraged. Imagine waking up to a phone call from the police, warning that a terrorist event is occurring outside and ordering you to stay inside your home.

Yeah, imagine that? Then imagine the Boston Police department protecting the people of Boston, like a well-regulated militia, while homemade bombs were thrown at them and over 200 shots were fired.

You can watch his full speech here.

Imagine the bombs exploding during the Marathon and they, along with other first responders, ran towards, not away from the scene.

Brookline police officers brought milk to a family with very young children during the lockdown -- maybe an example of the fascist state LaPierre wants you to believe is inevitable. Boston cops spent hours combing the city of Watertown and managed to take the suspect in without additional loss of life and not one cop lost their life defending public safety.

LaPierre's not the only right-wing loon to insinuate that Bostonians are little more than liberal, hippy, wimps. On April 19, just four days after the bombing, Nate Bell, a state Rep. from Arkansas, thought it was acceptable to insult nearly 381,000 American's from thousands of miles away with this tweet:

I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?

This incredibly idiotic and insensitive tweet came after gun legislation failed in the Senate. Congress threw out a big "eff you" to 90 percent of the people in this country calling for stricter gun regulation and to the parents, whose kids had been riddled with bullets as they stood in Congress and watched the vote.

Bell's tweet went out while Boston was still in lockdown, before the manhunt had ended. A major American city was under attack and a public official chose to accuse its people of "cowering."

As Mike Dillon commented on Facebook:

There is a HUGE buffer zone between Arkansas and Boston that affords Rep. Bell the convenience to allow those utterances to escape his apparently well-exercised pie hole. I can't help but wonder if he'd make it out of Faneuil Hall w/o being significantly bloodied if he made that statement there. If it was made in Southie, he wouldn't be able to get his hand up to hail a cab let alone run for the T.

Boston is not a city that cowers. The doctors, nurses, EMTs didn't cower as they witnessed and faced war-like injuries and amputations. The cops didn't cower. The first responders didn't cower as they ignored instinct and ran towards the blast. The residents of Boston didn't cower. They took required safety precautions and stayed out of the way of the Police who were doing their job.

Bostonians opened their homes to runners who were stranded, donations have come in from all over the world to help with medical bills and the alleged criminals have been caught.

The gun nuts, however, would have preferred a marauding band of gun-toting Bostonians roaming the streets looking for something to shoot.

What these ignorant blowhards and the whack jobs who follow them seem to forget is that if it weren't for all those wimps in Boston there may never have been a United States of America, a Constitution, or a second amendment. There sure as hell wouldn't be a Tea Party.

December 14th is a date that will forever be associated with one of our nation's most tragic gun massacres. It also happens to be my birthday. But not just in the literal sense. Though December 14, 2012 began as a day to celebrate my birth, it ended with another birth of sorts. Dawn Slegona McDonald, the gun reform advocate was born. A few weeks ago I wrote about why I decided to take up this issue in an article entitled "Why This Mom Became An Activist" and I received an overwhelming number of responses from people who said that they too felt they must speak out after the Sandy Hook school shooting. I was in fact not the only gun reform advocate born that day. Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, refers to people like us as "accidental activists." We are moms and dads and other average citizens who were just living our lives until that December day when our eyes were opened - much too late - to the epidemic of gun violence that exists in this country. Our new awareness of this threat to public safety compels us to act and to satisfy an instinct to do something. And though we might not know exactly how to go about it, we are committed to the decision to advocate for stricter gun laws. No matter how long it takes, we plan to see it through to the end.

The end, however, seems very far away right now. The government's failure to make any significant changes in the wake of Sandy Hook has been a major wake-up call. It is a hard pill to swallow to realize that not even the brutal massacre of twenty innocent children can influence our leaders to take action. In the days following the Senate's vote on gun safety measures, including one that would strengthen our loophole ridden background check system, gun reform advocates poured their anger into the shaming of senators through phone calls, emails, tweets and Facebook posts. There was a sense not of defeat, but of a renewed passion for what we know is true and just. But now as the dust settles we are faced with the reality that the struggle for gun reform is most likely going to last for many, many years. It will take multiple election cycles to get legislators who are against gun safety voted out of office. It will take gradual changes to our culture of violent video games, films and toy assault weapons. It will take a major overhaul of our mental health system. And sadly, it will take thousands or even millions of Americans killed by guns -- approximately 33,000 per year and rising. Any major civil rights movement that achieved success took decades of tectonic shifts in public opinion to see real change. It is clear now that making our citizens safer from gun violence is not going to happen immediately. We knew this would be a long haul, and the reality of just how long it will be is finally sinking in.

What does this mean for my fellow accidental activists? For many of us this new foray into political advocacy has not been without its negative consequences. Friends have been lost over differences of opinion. Family lives have been upturned because Mom has a new "job." We've had to learn how to hold space for our activism without allowing it to damage us emotionally - something that is a constant challenge. On a daily basis we willingly and necessarily expose ourselves to information that is very difficult to bear: The gun deaths that are now so common they are not even reported on the news. The new lows the NRA leadership stoops to in order to protect weapons manufacturers - all at the expense of public safety. The disrespect and condescension politicians continue to show families of gun victims. The fear tactics of gun extremists who threaten moms and children at peaceful rallies by showing up with AK-47s strapped to their chests. And of course, the knowledge that while all of this is happening our own children are no safer than they were on December 14, 2012. We were not prepared for the effects our activism would have on our lives. And now it has become our task to determine how we will permanently incorporate this new responsibility into our lives for the next several months, years or even decades.

Some might ask, why not just stop? You gave a good fight, but why not just return to your old lives and leave this gun business alone? The reality is we don't have a choice. We must keep talking, keep demanding, keep pleading for our government to take steps to reduce gun violence. We recognize a gross injustice in our society and we know that turning our back on it would make us as shameful and as culpable as those who have turned a blind eye to discrimination or genocide or domestic abuse. To put it simply, once you are aware, there is no going back. And so we look to the future with trepidation, but also with hope and resolve. We are already on the right side of history. Now history just has to be made.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden wants pastors, rabbis and nuns to tell their flocks that enacting gun control is the moral thing to do. But another vote may have to wait until Congress wraps up work on an immigration overhaul.

Biden met for two-and-a-half hours Monday with more than a dozen leaders from various faith communities — Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh, to name a few. Both Biden and the faith leaders encouraged each other not to give up on what has been an arduous and thus far fruitless effort by Biden and President Barack Obama to pass new gun laws in the wake of December's schoolhouse shooting in Connecticut.

Around a large, circular table in a conference room on the White House grounds, Biden waxed optimistic about prospects for passing a bill, according to four participants who spoke to The Associated Press after the meeting. Biden's chief of staff, Bruce Reed, joined the group, as did a handful of Obama aides who work on faith-based outreach. The meeting closed with a meditation and a prayer for action.

But don't expect a vote any time soon.

"The conversation presumed the vote would happen first on immigration," said Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. "That seemed to be the back-and-forth on both sides — that immigration was a key priority right now. When that vote took place, it would be an opportunity to refocus on this."

A far-reaching immigration overhaul is in the early stages of advancing through the Senate. Obama said last week he's optimistic it can be completed this year.

Although momentum on gun control stalled in the Senate last month, Biden has insisted the issue is very much alive, and has been meeting regularly with gun violence victims and law enforcement to build support for a second go at legislation to expand background checks, improve mental health care and take other steps to reduce gun violence. Monday's session reflects an attempt to broaden the coalition calling for new gun laws to include a wide array of religious groups — including evangelicals and conservative faith communities.

Without naming names, Biden alluded to senators who opposed background checks — the centerpiece of the Obama administration's push — who have faced a backlash in the weeks since and could possibly be picked off if the issue comes back for a vote.

Lingering concerns from some participants illustrated the ongoing challenge the administration faces in winning support for the proposals, even though Biden and Obama regularly tout polls suggesting they enjoy broad support. Some participants raised questions about whether background checks could lead to a national gun registry or whether mental health provisions would be used to create a list of individuals permanently banned from obtaining guns.

"There were some very powerful evangelical leaders in the room who needed to be reassured," said Pastor Michael McBride of the PICO National Network, a faith-based organizing network.

Citing what he described as misinformation from the National Rifle Association and others, Biden said the renewed push for gun control must correct misconceptions about what the proposals do and don't do, participants said. He asked clergy to keep up the pressure and to reframe the debate for their followers in moral terms.

A spokeswoman for Biden declined to comment on the meeting. But Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, said a diverse spectrum of denominations and religious orders were represented. She said they included evangelical leaders Richard Cizik and Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, as well as Sister Marge Clark of Network, a Catholic group.

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Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.

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Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

This is not a piece about gun control. It is a piece about common sense, good parenting, and responsible marketing.

This week a two-year-old girl in Kentucky was accidentally shot and killed by her five-year-old brother with a Crickett, which is a 'kid's rifle.' When I saw the headlines, I thought it must have been some freak accident involving an airsoft gun, the kind which fires pellets that are not usually lethal, but I was wrong.

The Crickett, you see, is nothing like an airsoft gun but is a mini-rifle for children with a .22 caliber. Think of a pickup truck with all its trimmings but only half the size of a regular pickup truck and you get the idea behind a kid's rifle. It may be smaller but it is just as effective (or in this case, deadly).

I understand that there is a rich culture of guns in the United States and that weapons are often passed on proudly from parents to children as heirlooms. Also understandably, those parents want to teach their children how to use those guns safely and responsibly. American parents teach their children how to drive, how to court the opposite sex, even how to drink responsibly when they get older, and all of this training is crucial for a child's development.

But none of this training needs to start at the age of five, or six, or seven, or anywhere near there!

In response to the shooting in Kentucky, Cumberland County Judge Executive John Phelps said, "It's a normal way of life, and it's not just rural Kentucky, it's rural America -- hunting and shooting and sport fishing. It starts at an early age."

It may be a way of life, but that doesn't mean it's sensible or right. I am glad that parents in rural America want to educate their children about guns so that they can grow up to be responsible gun owners, but would those same parents show their son or daughter how to drive and then let them loose on the road before they are in their mid-teens? Of course not, and that's because it's unsafe for children and it's unsafe for everyone else.

Then what exactly were the parents of a five-year-old doing buying him a .22 caliber rifle (even if it's a smaller version), and what exactly is the company who makes Cricketts, Keystone Sporting Arms, doing marketing rifles to children as if they were toys?

Watch the following ad for Crickett rifles:

It's bad enough that gun manufacturers promote their product to adults with little restraint or responsibility, but it is absolutely unconscionable when they design them to be attractive to little kids.

It's time to ask these questions, and it's time for people to start answering them.

SANJAY SANGHOEE has worked at leading investment banks as well as at a multi-billion dollar hedge fund. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School and is the author of a fast-paced thriller entitled "Killing Wall Street", which be released on June 1st, 2013. Please follow him on Twitter @sanghoee and visit his website at www.sanghoee.com

Should we start this off by apologizing to the NRA? No way, we've thought about it enough. If we think there's not another potential for a Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook massacre, we'd be fooling ourselves. Just by the timing of Boston Marathon bombing, it seemed very possible that it could have been used as a scare tactic by those who are afraid of losing their "gun rights." That somehow this was a homegrown terrorist attack, to influence the senators who were sitting on the fence; to sway them back over to the other side, away from the side of decency and common sense, where 90% of Americans are expecting change. We can imagine that it changed some of their votes, or at least an excuse to change it.

Well as it turns out, it was homegrown terrorism, a naturalized citizen and a misguided loser, as their extended family called them. They both had everything to look forward to in our land of the free. They came from an oppressed country by way of our American asylum system; a couple of cowards who took all the opportunities that were available to them and decided that a terrorist attack was the way to thank us. They took that American Dream and turned it into a momentary American nightmare for all of us, but a hellish existence for the victims and their families, a lifetime of recovery.

One will be buried, the other tried for both their crimes. Their families full of shame, grief and disbelief, left wondering: where did it all go wrong? The rest of us will be demanding answers, what drove these losers to do this, what anger possessed them to do this unthinkable act and how could they assemble and deliver all the bomb making materials they had without someone seeing something and reporting it.

The state of Massachusetts and the rest of the country have come together once again as one big family and shared in their anguish, grief and pain. Law enforcement agencies did a masterful and magnificent job of piecing together all the bits of information from the public and hunting down the perpetrators. Unfortunately, when the cameras and attention are gone, we'll remember the horrible events yearly, resting assured that it happened to someone else and going back to our daily lives, while those affected by the senseless violence are left behind to deal with their tragedy and try to assimilate back into society with the burden of grief for the rest of their lives.

There can't be a person in this country that doesn't feel for these victims, their families and also those affected by the horrific explosion in Texas. The victims and families of gun violence know all too well of their long journeys to recovery, physically, mentally and spiritually -- the agony that just will not go away. Why won't we do something to limit these attacks on fellow Americans?

We believe that, as a society, we really need to look into the mirror; that we are partially to blame. We have developed a mentality that puts us against them. We can't remember a time when we have been more fractured. It's the Republicans against the Democrats; Conservative against the Liberal; Religious against the Atheist; the right against the left; the list goes on and on, we have drawn so many lines in the sand and so deep that I can just imagine the United States of America looking like shredded wheat from outer space. We will never be overrun by a foreign country but we have the potential to destroy ourselves from the inside out.

My uncle, my best friend, a wise man who lived a long life but way too short for those he left behind. When our son was murdered our lives stopped, after Oom Tony died our lives seemed to go in reverse. He and I used to walk the neighborhood together, talking about everything and nothing; I credit him with helping me maintain some form of sanity, along with three years of therapy of course. We would always conclude our walks with, "Now that we've solved the problems of the world, we can get back to our lives."

He tried to impress in me his belief that from the beginning of our existence, we humans, our leaders have always used distractions to keep us from seeing what was really happening around us that was benefiting those in power. Whether it was the Roman Olympics, the gladiators, or all the way to the sporting teams of today, the movies, television, video games, name your poison. We have taken our passions and turned them into hate, i.e. the rioting after your team wins a championship, to the brutal beating of a San Francisco Giant fan by a couple of LA Dodger fanatics. Just look at the violence in our own streets.

We've crossed the line of human decency. We have developed into a society of every woman/man for himself, except of course for any tragedy that pulls on our heart strings. Which shows me we really can come together in a time of need. Collectively we have the potential to influence positive change; let's put aside our differences and do something for all Americans. As written in Psalm 37-11: "But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity." But in the meantime the aggressors are going to have one hell of a great time, at our expense.

Apologize to the NRA, I don't think so; they should apologize to us for filling us with fear and hate, just to enrich themselves and their personal agendas. There's no need to change the 2nd Amendment, we just need to debate what the intent of our brilliant forefathers was and come to an agreement we can all live with and not just the few.

What's that Honey? There's a game on? Sorry folks I got to go, I can't miss the game.

Jenny, Bert Heyman and Family

Recently, someone shared with me a fundraising letter in which Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council claimed, "not only did Jesus tolerate weapons, he instructed His disciples to buy them!" Don't believe me? Follow the link and read it for yourself. He cites Luke 22:36 as his evidence.

Given the devastating consequences of the tragic gun violence we have faced in recent decades, Perkins should be ashamed of himself. He owes an apology to the parents in Newtown grieving over the children they lost, to the thousands of families who have lost loved ones to gun violence since Newtown and to the American people as a whole. Frankly, in my opinion, he also owes an apology to Jesus, whose words he ripped from their context in an effort to use them to benefit his own organization's agenda. This is a new low in political argument, persuasive writing, manipulating Christianity and distorting the nature of Jesus.

Perkins' manipulation of Holy Scripture -- and, in my opinion, the blasphemous manner in which he attempts to make Jesus a supporter of violence -- is an all-time low. I have been a pastor for 50 years and I hold a doctoral degree in theology, so I like to think I know a thing or two about the Bible. Perkins is engaging in "proof-texting" a practice in which a quote from the Bible is lifted out of its context and used in isolation from its setting in the Bible to make a point that has nothing to do with its meaning in its original setting. Not only is this approach a shoddy method of biblical interpretation, but Perkins' attempt lacks even the support of other proof-texts. I am sure he would have quoted other statements from Jesus snatched out of context if he could have found them. But the weight of truth is against his out-of-place argument.

Set Perkins' singular passage over against the whole sweep of Jesus' ministry and teachings and see what happens. On the few occasions when Jesus talked about war, weapons or conflict, he rejected weapons of violence: "Blessed are the peacemakers," he said in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:9). "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matthew 26:52), Jesus commanded his impulsive disciple as Jesus rebuked him for using a weapon against a soldier. Jesus was a clear advocate for a life of peace. "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also," Jesus told his followers.

Does that sound like a religious leader wanting guns in all schools and blocking policies that would prevent more gun violence?

Tony, is this the Jesus about whom you were writing -- the Jesus whose followers refused to be a part of armed militaries for almost 300 years?

Yes, I also have lifted verses out of context. But there is a difference between what I have done and what Perkins did. My quotes are consistent with all of the teachings of Jesus and the breadth of the message of the Christian Scriptures. Perkins lifted one verse out of context to serve his purposes, but that one verse contradicts the whole of Jesus' teaching and ministry and the message of the rest of the New Testament. A theology built on self-serving proof-texts is inevitably questionable because it is more about the interpreter than it is about the Bible.

In addition to a flawed theological argument, Perkins' also claims that "The government can't make us safer until it recognizes that the problem isn't the instruments of violence -- but the environment of it." What outlandishly ludicrous logic. He is correct about a poisoned environment. Our mail and media are filthy with the lethal poison of condemnatory, inflammatory rhetoric that contributes to extremism, presumptive judgments, evil acts and incendiary hate. Some days people can hardly catch their breaths because of nasty onslaughts against those among us who do not embrace a particular religion, narrow sectarian values, and partisan politics. But it is the appallingly easy access to the "instruments" that lead to such violence. A confluence of many and varied factors lead sick, psychopathic people to commit such crimes and we may never be able to stop all of them from happening -- but if we make it harder for such people to access "the instruments of violence" we stand a far greater chance of doing so.

Look, I understand the need to write fundraising letters. I do that as well for the organization I lead, Interfaith Alliance. But no one should try to make Jesus their mascot -- it is not becoming to you or to him -- let alone so drastically abuse His teachings in the process. A fundraising letter to support a proliferation of weapons and brand those who support measures to prevent gun violence as anti-family is not a place to try and make Jesus look like an endorser of the Family Research Council's work. It is politically flawed, factually inaccurate and spiritually offensive for anyone who treasures the Bible and finds in it the directions of the Prince of Peace.

To even hint, much less declare, as Perkins has done, that those children in Newtown or those theatergoers in Colorado or Gabby Giffords in Arizona were shot down by the environment is at best hallucinatory and at worst an offensive error. They were shot by guns, guns which had they not been available to the sick people who used them would not have fired the damaging rounds of bullets into innocent children, guns which had they been stripped of high capacity magazines would not have been able to inflict such a high number of deaths. Is what seems to be a self-righteous fight for a bigger cartridge worth the life of one child?

Others have acted similarly, elevating fundraising to an end that is so important that it justifies any means, though it never does. Tony, you can do better than this!

I hope.

When the gun bill was gasping its last breath, Obama and the first lady's speech, as well as an all out push by the parents of the Sandy Hook children, may have revived it for a fleeting moment. The best chance of passing a gun bill in over a decade may have had some legs: The sight of sobbing parents at Hartford and the video plea from the grieved mother were beginning to find chinks in the gun lobby's suit of armor. But then came the Boston bombing, and it sucked all the wind out of gun bill's sails. With attention diverted from scrutinizing the gun issue, lawmakers surreptitiously and shamefully succeeded in defeating the background check bill by six measly votes while America looked in horror at Boston.

No one underestimates the choke hold the gun lobby has of the congress or the American penchant for guns. But corrective legislation we urgently need -- before more innocent lives are lost. And even if congress were to pass a bill, guns will remain a large factor in the American equation of sanguine violence.

I do not wish to minimize the Boston incident, which was horrendously tragic and abhorrent. Lives were lost, hundreds of people were injured and several were maimed. Yet the nature of that incident differs entirely from day to day gun violence. Bombings are rare and cannot compare to daily gun related violence and loss of lives diurnally. I am nauseated by the media's incessant and sensationalized coverage of the Boston event, in typical inexorably redundant fashion with no end in sight, forcing the nation to relive the nightmare in lurid detail through expert guests, barbed captions, terror analysts espousing theories, and no shortage of maudlin solemnity. One oft mentioned notorious cable "news" channel has already suggested abrogation of all sorts of constitutional rights in light of the Boston event, but god forbid one of them happens to be even the slightest modification of the second of those rights: that's constitutional sacrilege. Yes, there was broad coverage of the Sandy Hook incident, but it wasn't even closely equitable.

Tragically too, thousands of other children have been already gunned down, and are being gunned down as we speak. Sadly it took a mass shooting of mostly white children in a wealthy school to get any traction, and to have even the possibility of passing an anemic and diluted bill. The media should be ashamed of itself for not taking issue with Congress or the gun lobby and taking them to task. I wish it had conducted equally ceaseless coverage of Sandy Hook to keep the issue alive in the news, but it appears the media doesn't put equally intrinsic value on those twenty innocent children's lives. Piers Morgan did try on his own, and which garnered him the wrath of the gun lobby and a barrage of offensive from gun nuts, who even tried to muzzle him by pushing a petition for his deportation.

I had seen some American cop and western shows growing up, and I thought the gun-toting culture depiction was merely fictional. Was I in for a surprise when I arrived here! The ubiquitousness of guns was simply astounding. I had hardly seen any guns in India during my early childhood, and saw my first guns when I was a teen: My uncle who was a professional hunter in the Assam region brought guns one summer. That summer, when my younger uncle shot a bird, the bang (my first) shattered the quietude of the forest like glass, making everyone jump and the reverberation seem to last forever. This same uncle's son Gama, who was the Adonis of the family, died at his hand accidentally during a routine gun cleaning: he never recovered from that grief.

Buying a gun in United States is a cake walk, and the laws are conveniently orchestrated by the NRA and its proponents to do exactly that: Anyone or everyone can get a gun. Guns are big business for the industry and congress: they benefit handsomely for protecting these merchants of carnage by receiving huge sums of monies for their reelection campaign. It's the only industry that is not subject to spot check, inventory check, record keeping, or many other commerce laws. The gun lobby not only has the lawmakers over a barrel (there hasn't been a head of ATF since 2006 although there's been a nominee since 2010), it actually writes its own laws that get stealthily amalgamated with other bills to slip under the radar of scrutiny.

Guns are simply too complicated and expensive to acquire in India. Even if you could afford one, the labyrinthine bureaucracy one has to negotiate is quite irksome. But those who own guns (and these are not automatic, high capacity magazine, assault rifle type guns) hardly ever use it for protection as gun violence is quite rare -- still there are about 46 million guns in India. Owning a gun there is more akin to owning a luxury German sedan; it is merely a social status symbol.

The gun lobby will have you believe guns are the elixir for preventing all crimes, the perfect apotropaic talisman to be placed on everyone, even on school grounds. Like the old saying goes, "Those who live by the sword die by the sword", and Americans are certainly dying in gun-related deaths to a tune of nearly 34,000 deaths yearly. The statistics on just accidental gun deaths is no anomaly but conservative talking heads are constantly trying to dupe unsuspecting second amendment patriots into stockpiling more guns as if there were imminent danger of attack from Feds.

We don't let cigarette commercials on TV or sell them to minors, we card people for alcohol purchases and certain OTC drugs, we regulate the purchase and use of automobiles -- yet it is perfectly legal to market diminutive guns that are especially designed for children who can then accidentally shoot their younger sibling. The gun industry and their henchmen at the NRA are nothing if not cunning: they don't want a little thing like background checks encumbering their
cozy Laissez-faire business practices.

While we neglected to go bra shopping this weekend, folks attending at the National Rifle Association's Annual Meeting and Exhibits this weekend got the chance to peruse some new lingerie. Among the many items on display at the NRA's annual convention in Houston was a "gun bra," complete with lacy detailing in the back and a detachable holster in the front.

Made by Flashbang Holsters, the Women’s Holster allows women to conceal a firearm right between their breasts. As Flashbang describes on its website, "Simply pull up your shirt with one hand and pull down on your pistol with the other -- in a matter of seconds you’ve safely deployed your self-defense sidearm." And for only $39.95!

This isn't the first time we've seen a gun bra -- in addition to Lady Gaga's famous gun bra, the Flashbang brassiere has been around for years, and several more lines of "concealed carry clothing" have popped up as gun ownership rates rise. Women can now purchase purses, tank tops and even jean jackets outfitted with special gun pockets, not to mention the chinos available for firearm-loving guys.

We can't make any of this up. See for yourself below.

At the NRA Convention:

From Flashbang's website:

Clarification: Language has been amended in the article to reflect that Flashbang produces only the clip-on holster, not the accompanying undergarment.

For those looking to pack heat in style:

(h/t Jezebel)

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