Medea Benjamin of Code Pink is removed by a security guard during a speech by Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association during a news conference in Washington. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters
While the final funerals for the victims of the Newtown, Connecticut school massacre have been held, gun violence continues apace, most notably with the Christmas Eve murder of two volunteer firefighters in rural Webster, New York, at the hands of an ex-convict who was armed, as was the Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, with a Bushmaster .223 caliber AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. James Holmes, the alleged perpetrator of the massacre last July in Aurora, Colorado, stands accused of using, among other weapons, a Smith & Wesson AR-15 with a 100-round drum in place of a standard magazine clip.
Standing stalwartly against any regulation of these weapons and high-capacity magazines, the
National Rifle Association continues to block any gun control laws whatsoever, and even trumpets its efforts to block the global
arms trade treaty, slated for negotiations at the
United Nations this March.
On Christmas Eve, the same day as the attack in Webster, the UN general assembly voted to move ahead with 10 days of negotiations on the
arms trade treaty, to commence 18 March. Recall it was last July that the
Obama administration said it "needed more time" to review the proposed treaty, effectively killing any hope of getting a treaty passed and sent back to member nations for ratification. This was just one week after the Aurora massacre, and in the heat of a close presidential election campaign.
The
NRA succeeded in helping to scuttle the global arms trade treaty, delivering to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a letter opposing the treaty signed by 50 US senators, including eight Democrats, and 130 members of the House of Representatives.
The global treaty shouldn't be controversial. By signing on, governments agree not to export weapons to countries that are under an arms embargo, or to export weapons that would facilitate "the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity,
war crimes" or other violations of international humanitarian law. Exports of arms are banned if they will facilitate "gender-based violence or violence against children" or be used for "transnational organized crime".
The treaty deals with international exports of weapons and ammunition, not any nation's internal, domestic laws that govern the sale or use of guns.
Amnesty International last week called on the NRA to "immediately drop its campaign of distortions and lies about the pending United Nations' global arms trade treaty". Amnesty USA's Michelle Ringuette elaborated:
"Every day, 1,500 people die in armed conflicts around the world – one person every minute. These unregulated weapons are used to force tens of thousands of children into armed conflict and to rape women and girls in conflict zones. More than 26 million people around the globe are forced from their homes, and their livelihoods destroyed, by armed conflict.
"The NRA must immediately stand down on its campaign to block a global arms trade treaty."
NRA CEO
Wayne LaPierre rolled out his public response to the Newtown massacre one week after it happened, blaming the violence on "monsters" and everything from video games to hurricanes, but not allowing that guns and their ready availability in the US might have something to do with it. At his press conference,
LaPierre was twice dramatically interrupted by peace activists from the group Code Pink.
The first banner, held by Tighe Barry, read "NRA Killing Our Kids". Barry held the banner in front of the podium, silently, as LaPierre tried to continue his speech. Barry was then pulled out. After LaPierre resumed his speech, Medea Benjamin rose, holding a banner reading, "NRA: Blood on your hands", after which she was hauled away.
Two days later, on NBC's Meet the Press, LaPierre denied that regulating semiautomatic weapons or high-capacity magazines would help stem the epidemic of mass shootings in this country.
The NRA exerts enormous influence over state and federal gun regulation.
Andrew Feinstein, who wrote the book The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, told me:
"I have not seen anywhere else in the world a gun lobby that has the same level of influence on its own government as the NRA does in the United States …
"The US buys and sells almost as much weaponry as the rest of the world combined. So what happens in the U.S. is going to have enormous impact on the rest of the world."
From the hallways of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, to Afghanistan, to Somalia, the flood of US weapons and ammunition fuels violence, death and injury. President Obama and Congress need to take action, now.
• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
The Passport photo of 46-year-old Sunando Sen, pushed to his death because a woman thought he was Muslim (Photo: Christie M. Farriella for New York Daily News)
Cape Air is the only airline flying out of the 
As a Scientist and engineer, I'm surprised about the spin that this subject has taken, or more properly, that has been given to, in order to favor or protect someone interests. There is at least one high quality,rigorous and properly formatted study of the known (for decades) phenomena of Tin Whisker growth in circuits. This study concludes that there is a possibility of 140/1,000,000 of these whiskers to produce a failure, which is significant given the quantity of vehicles.
The study is titled: Tin whisker analysis of Toyota’s electronic throttle controls by Bhanu Sood, Michael Osterman and Michael Pecht,
Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA.
Why the government agencies have concluded this failure mechanism was not the root of the uncommanded acelerations is simply not clear to me. the study shows very clear microphotographs of the tin whiskers, and its redaction and methodology is impeccable. I've heard comments on two different groups of scientists of NASA giving their opinions on this subject, but I haven't read them yet. Regardless, this NYT article don't even mention this possibility with the appropriate importance and significance it has.
So... before ruling out electronic failures (both hardware and sofware related) government officials should work more professionally to find the thruth. Amclaussen.
Your point is valid, but if had another make of car, you would be saying exactly the same, just to that make. The industry produces a lot of defective designs, most of them minor go unnoticed; from time to time, a big one attracts the attention of the media. Remember the Ford-Firestone case: people lost lives and these companies battled each other for years, ending a previous relation. You correctly saythe information is not as quick to find. Sometime it is not freely available, but can be found talking to shops that see these errors daily. Manufacturers have their own "Code of Un-ethics", more or less the same across all them: first; deny any knowledge that a problem exists, make the owner believe his problem is not common, make him responible for it (was its fault for not following a maintenance program at the dealer-expensive). If the defect IS real, reduce the image that it is widespread. Try to charge the repair, making it appear as an "out of warranty". If all fails, make a deal & pretend it never happened. I'm a DIY person that enjoys auto repair as a hobby, I've above average knowledge of autos and a number of tools. I've heard many complaints from friends and people about design failures, material failures, factory goofes etc. I've seen MANY from ALL makes of cars. They are showing weaknesses and their ways to save money, they all fail, ones more than others, but all of them. Owners need to find the problem, and put the blame where it belongs.