The gun industry goes after some small targets

More than a decade ago, AFJ’s First Monday video, Deadly Business, documented the insidious means used by the gun industry to market its product – including marketing to children:

Now The New York Times has updated the story, with a comprehensive account of those efforts – including efforts to market semiautomatic weapons like the Bushmaster AR-15.  That’s the civilian version of the army’s M-16.  It’s also the one used in the Newtown massacre, among others.  It’s also one of the weapons Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has proposed banning.

According to the Times, the industry’s marketing efforts have taken on a new urgency, as the percentage of licensed hunters declines. Like the tobacco industry, the gun industry understands that, in the words of one industry publication, “the need for aggressive recruitment is urgent.” So the industry tries to, as one study recommends, “start them young.”

According to the Times: 

The AR-15

The pages of Junior Shooters, an industry-supported magazine that seeks to get children involved in the recreational use of firearms, once featured a smiling 15-year-old girl clutching a semiautomatic rifle. At the end of an accompanying article that extolled target shooting with a Bushmaster AR-15 — an advertisement elsewhere in the magazine directed readers to a coupon for buying one — the author encouraged youngsters to share the article with a parent.
 “Who knows?” it said. “Maybe you’ll find a Bushmaster AR-15 under your tree some frosty Christmas morning!” …

 Two other items in the Times story were notable:

● Apologists for the gun industry want to divert the discussion to possible causes of gun violence other than guns – things like video games.  But it turns out the industry is in that business, too: 

Military-style firearms are prevalent in a target-shooting video game and mobile app called Point of Impact, which was sponsored by the shooting sports foundation and Guns & Ammo magazine. 

● The gun industry has done everything it can to prevent the federal government from even conducting research on the harm of gun violence.  That’s because, as the Times points out in an editorial, the industry didn’t like the findings: 

…[B]y the early 1990s, … gun research had advanced to the point that it contradicted [National Rifle Association] ideology. Some studies found, for example, that people living in a home with a gun were not safer; they faced a significantly elevated risk of homicide and suicide. 

But research that helps the industry peddle its product is another matter.  According to the Times story: 

The focus on young people has been accompanied by [National Shooting Sports Founation]- sponsored research examining popular attitudes toward hunting and shooting. … Most [of the studies] were prepared by consultants retained by the foundation, and at least one was financed with a grant from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

The New York Times takes on "a severe breakdown in the process for appointing federal judges"

Making extensive use of AFJ's resources on judicial selection, The New York Times has an excellent editorial on that topic today:

Judges Needed for Federal Courts

There has been a severe breakdown in the process for appointing federal judges. At the start of the Reagan years, it took, on average, a month for candidates for appellate and trial courts to go from nomination to confirmation. In the first Obama term, it has taken, on average, more than seven months.

Seventy-seven judgeships, 9 percent of the federal bench (not counting the Supreme Court), are vacant; 19 more seats are expected to open up soon. The lack of judges is more acute if one considers the growing caseload. The Judicial Conference, the courts’ policy-making body, has recommended expanding the bench by 88 additional judgeships.

President Obama must make fully staffing the federal courts an important part of his second-term agenda — starting with the immediate Senate confirmation of the 18 nominees approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A significant reason for the slowdown has been the partisan opposition of Republicans to appeals court and even to trial court nominations, even though almost none of the nominees have backgrounds that raise ideological issues. The Republicans have time and again used the filibuster, the threat of filibuster, holds on nominations and other tactics to block confirmations.

The Democratic majority, led by Senator Harry Reid, can speed up the process by limiting use of the filibuster. He can do so by pushing for a simple majority vote at the start of the January session to alter Senate rules so that every judicial and executive-branch nominee is assured an up-or-down vote within 90 days. Without that change, many judicial nominations will founder.

The full editorial is available here.