Where to Buy an AK-47 for Your Favorite Mentally Ill, Abusive Felon This Holiday Season

The traffic success of my last guns story led the bureau chief to assign me to the guns beat, so this is likely to be the second in a series of posts about wackos with weapons.

With legislation to close the gun-show loophole stalled in Congress, Virginia Tech shooting survivor Collin Goddard teamed up with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence to show just how easy it is for anyone to legally buy firearms—even individuals who would otherwise be barred from gun ownership, such as convicted felons or domestic abusers.

While most gun purchases require prospective buyers to submit to a National Instant Check System background check by the FBI, in 33 states proof of residency is all that’s needed to buy firearms from unlicensed private dealers at gun shows. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives estimated that each year some 2,000 to 5,000 gun-shows take place nationwide.

In the video below, Goddard, who was shot four times in the Virgina Tech massacre that left 32 dead, buys firearms in his native Virginia and at gun-shows in Ohio, Minnesota, and Texas with the help of local activists in those states. Wearing a hidden camera, he records the purchase of a weapons cache that includes cheap handgun, a pistol with a silencer, and yes, an AK-47. Goddard and an Ohio resident were even able to obtain the Maadi Egyptian assault rifle without showing any form of ID, as federal law requires.

Click here to watch the video on the MoJo blog.

Photo credit: K’s Photo’s (via Flickr)

Climate Change: Desperate Measures

This box, my first piece to be featured in Mother Jones magazine, was based on some research I did for my “Lines in the sand” article. I pitched the concept for this box on my third day in the DC bureau and was very pleasantly surprised when it was picked to run in print.

Four Don Quixote-style climate change projects—and how likely they are to succeed.

While politicians still debate the when and if of climate change, some governments and corporations are already bankrolling massive projects to stave off the catastrophic effects. But are they just global warming boondoggles?

Click here to see rest of the feature box from the November/December issue.

Photo credit: Chandra Marsono (via Flickr)

Bush, Favre, and Another Vikings Victory

With a 10-1 record unrivaled since their historic 15-0 season in 1998, the Minnesota Vikings have this long-suffering fan feeling a bit strange.

Watching the football game this afternoon, I found myself emitting the same sort of smug laughs President Bush must have made when given progress updates during the invasion of Iraq. Will the end result of the Vikings season be “Mission Accomplished” or, with the franchise’s first-ever NFL championship, a real mission accomplished?

Much depends on the health of their 40-year-old warhorse and erstwhile enemy Brett Favre. The future-Hall of Fame quarterback is having a banner year with this afternoon’s resounding victory over the Chicago Bears being no exception. Indeed, he very nearly broke his personal passing yard record. Last year, his backup Tavaris Jackson couldn’t even pilot the team into the playoffs–in spite of having Adrian Peterson, the most dangerous running back in football, to carry the ball every couple plays.

At the beginning of the regular season when the surprise signing of Favre–the longtime leader of the hated Wisconsin Packers–was announced, I predicted he would get us within a game of the playoffs, throw a season-ending interception, and then rip off his jersey to reveal his familiar green and yellow number 4 sweater underneath. Now it is difficult for me to imagine such a scene anywhere outside of the Superbowl.

Like Bush after the capture of Baghdad, Vikings fans like me continue to hope all will end well–in spite of what history and premonition might suggest.

Photo credit: jpellgen (via Flickr)

Green.view: The rise of slime

My editor chopped my lead about Maine’s record red tide, a toxic algal bloom that posed skin and respiratory risks to beachgoers and resulted in a summer-long suspension of shellfish harvesting in “Vacationland,” in favor of those familiar culprits jellyfish [yawn]. Otherwise, I’m very happy with the piece.

Warmer water is exacerbating problems in the oceans

THE fishermen of Kokongi, Japan, have seen record hauls this year. They are not, however, very happy. Their nets are trapping jellyfish: giant, gelatinous, wobbly and worthless. Jellyfish were once rare along these shores, but are now an almost annual occurrence.

It is the same story in many other parts of the world. Jellyfish are blamed for damaging fishing, shutting down power and desalination plants, and upsetting swimmers.

There is one man, though, who may be justified in saying “I told you so”. His name is Jeremy Jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in San Diego, and for the past decade he has been touring the world giving a depressing presentation he calls the “Brave New Ocean”.

Dr Jackson is a commanding presence in any room, with his long, white ponytail and booming voice. The story he has been telling is quite simple, that the world’s oceans are undergoing a profound shift because of overfishing, habitat destruction and warming. The effects are seen in the rise of jellyfish, and also in algal blooms and “blobs”, something he describes as “the rise of slime”.

A Story Requiring More Than 140 Characters

I originally wrote this for Hiar Learning without any intention of publishing it for a wider audience. But before I posted it I showed it to the editor of MIL, who decided to publish it–even though she described it as “self-indulgent.” Guilty as charged: I had fun with this one.

So maybe you don’t do the Twitter. Maybe it all seems rather silly to you: all the symbols and abbreviations and hash-tags–and especially the arbitrary 140-character length of a tweet. Before I began micro-blogging, I too was bothered by its lingo and limitations. But I’ve found a lot can be communicated within those restraints. Which brings me to my Twitter tale…

After reading an insightful (and frightening) post by James Pethokoukis, Reuter’s money and politics blogger, about why America’s unemployment rate may surpass 12% (summary: it’s a lagging indicator and GDP just moved into the black this quarter), I decided to follow him on Twitter.

I soon discovered that Pethokoukis’s politics are more conservative than mine, but this isn’t necessarily a problem. If only there were more thoughtful Republicans and fewer teabaggers polluting American political discourse with their death panels and socialism scaremongering. But I was rather surprised to see him tweet his endorsement of one such scaremongerer:

Senate Bill Would Allow “Mentally Incapacitated” Vets to Buy Guns

This post was assigned by DC Bureau Chief David Corn, who is very good at passing on newsworthy, underreported stories for me to flesh out. While I’m a journalist not a gun control activist, after having examined what is by all appearances a tremendously misguided policy proposal I wouldn’t mind if my piece stirred up a bit of righteous indignation.

UPDATE: My story is featured on The Huffington Post home page and the top story on its politics page. It is featured on SodaHead and linked to in a Raw Story report on the bill. It is also my second Top Story for Mother Jones.

Major Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood Army base, has been described by former colleagues as “psychotic.” As more details emerge about Hasan’s troubled state, gun safety advocates are launching fresh attacks on a Senate bill they say would make it easier for mentally unstable veterans to buy firearms.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) says his “Veterans 2^nd Amendment Protection Act” will protect veterans’ gun rights. But the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence calls it a “dangerous” proposal that could allow “over 100,000 mentally incapacitated or incompetent persons” to buy guns—people who would previously have been barred from doing so by the Veterans Administration (VA).

With debate over Fort Hood still raging on cable news, one might think that Burr might try to quietly shelve the measure, whose co-sponsors include Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.). Instead, Burr fired back at the Brady Campaign in an interview with Fox News, accusing its president, Paul Helmke, of using the tragedy to “exploit the senseless murder of American soldiers in the quest to secure personal triumph.”

Responding to Burr Thursday in an open letter, Helmke wrote, “it is hardly ‘exploitative’ to have an honest debate” about the proposal, which would cancel out key provisions of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and override standards used by the VA for nearly four decades.

Click here to read the rest of the MoJo blog post or make a comment.

Photo credit: Hoggheff (via Flickr)

No Clunkers to Crash

The Daily Show has a typically insightful piece on the most often ignored rule in Washington: the law of unintended consequences. The well-meaning Cash for Clunkers program has upset a very unlikely constituency, demolition derby enthusiasts. Unlike vintage auto collectors, who succeed in negotiating an exemption for gas guzzlers over 25 years old, the massive cars favored by demolition derby drivers were the primary target of the car buyers’ tax rebate.

First, intrepid Daily Show corespondent Josh Gad climbs into the passenger seat of one of these increasingly rarer vehicles to get the perspective of derby car industry. Gad then travels to the capital to ask Austan Goolsbee, the normally good-humored member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, if he knows “how hard it is to find a piece of shit American car right now.” Goolsbee was not amused.

While Gad hilariously overplays the grievances of derby drivers, their complaints can now be added to the buyers’ remorse environmentalists and deficit hawks have had for the ill-advised Cash for Clunkers program.

Click here to watch watch the video on the MoJo blog.

 

Photo credit: boeke (via Flickr)

Regina Spektor’s Raucous Piano Recital

I would like to thank both Sue Kim for bringing me to this show and Ted Reinert for giving me a couple Regina Spektor albums–good times, good tunes.

 

By the time I spotted an exuberant couple swing-dancing in the wide carpeted isles of the Daughters of the American Revolution ballroom, I’d already quit trying to guess what would come next. A Regina Spektor neophyte in a CBGB T-shirt, I knew I was out of place as soon as the DAR’s chandeliers dimmed and Spektor’s devoted fans began cheering. But it didn’t take long before I was clapping along with the rest of the crowd.

A captivating performer with a voice like velvet, Regina Spektor has that effect on people. Raised in Moscow and then the Bronx, Spektor developed her distinctive style playing all over New York City, in small clubs, basements and synagogues–anywhere she could find a piano. Fast forward a decade and Spektor is signed with an imprint of Warner Brothers, playing a concert in one of the most patrician venue in all of Washington, DC. Her song “Chemo Limo” is rumoured to be featured on a forthcoming release from the president of hip-hop, Jay-Z.

None of these details do much to explain her utterly unique music. Combining poetic and occasionally bizarre lyrics with beautiful, halting melodies, Spektor’s style is difficult to describe. Her sound has been labelled everything from “anti-folk” to blues to indie rock. MTV’s James Montgomery calls it “twisty, turny, timeless and tangible music”, yet others have complained that her songs are too precious. Her latest album, “Far“, released over the summer, has been both praised for its ingenuity and maligned for its cuteness.

Though her recordings do occasionally border on twee, Spektor’s live show is raucous. Click here to read the rest of this MIL blog post.

Photo credit: crazybobbles (via Flickr)

Deutschland (Solar Panels) Über Alles!

Fun factoid that didn’t make the final cut: four of the top five houses were from teams in cold-weather climates. The beautiful, fifth-place finisher from my home state of Minnesota is featured below. The full standings are here.

The US Department of Energy recently concluded its fourth “Solar Decathlon” in Washington, DC. The ten-event competition is a two-week contest between 20 of the world’s most energy-efficient houses. For the two brief weekends when the houses were open for viewing, the rows of futuristic abodes transformed the usually humdrum National Mall into the busiest and most high tech block in America. On the soggy final day of the contest, throngs of umbrella wielding architects and environmentalists replaced the standard assortment of tourists, protestors and ultimate Frisbee players on the nation’s quad.

Like the last decathlon in 2007, this year’s gold medal went to Darmstadt University of Technology in Hesse, Germany… 

Click here to read the rest of the MIL post about “The Homes of The Future.”

Photo credit: Dept of Energy Solar Decathlon (via Flickr)

Fox News: Boycott or Not?

This post was assigned to me by the bureau chief, but I had fun with it. There’s a lot of Fox-haters who read Mother Jones. (ex: an old editor at The Nation who, somewhat surprisingly, tweeted my piece out to his legion of followers this morning.)

As David pointed out in his Politics Daily column Wednesday about the feud between Fox News and the White House, “Fox is just not worth a game of chicken.” I would go one step further and suggest that, for all of its obvious flaws, Fox and its out-sized viewership are still very worth Obama’s time.

Following statements by White House Communications Director Anita Dunn describing Fox as “opinion journalism masquerading as news,” media watchdogs and left-wing pressure groups have turned up the heat on the network.  Yesterday, Media Matters sent around a press release drawing attention to Fox’s use of outdated or dubious polls that suggested its audience is as balanced as its coverage famously claims to be. MoveOn is urging Democratic lawmakers to boycott Fox News.

The attention is not unwarranted. Dunn was merely voicing what every Daily Show viewer has known for years. The fastidious fact-checkers at Media Matters caught Fox News playing up last year’s biennial news consumption survey from the Pew Research Center while ignoring its less favorable but more recent media attitudes survey and called out political analyst Dick Morris for quoted some unbelievable numbers on air.

A boycott, however, is the wrong kind of attention…

Click here to read the rest of the MoJo blog post or to make a comment.