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In his speech at the annual National Rifle Association convention, conservative radio personality Glenn Beck likened New York City’s mayor to a Nazi.

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  Glenn Beck Likens Mayor Bloomberg to a Nazi

Beck took issue generally, it seems, with some of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s policies, such as the sugary drink regulation.

Beck also took issue with his “friends in New York City,” who may want to reconsider that friendship in light of Beck’s name-calling.

“I am amazed at how many of my New York friends have become absolute dopes,” Beck declared, emphasizing that last word, “and just will accept the soda ban, the popcorn ban, the salt ban.”

Maybe he meant frenemies?

We were previously unaware of a popcorn ban, so we checked with the mayor’s office: spokeswoman Samantha Levine assured us that there is, in fact, no popcorn ban.

Whew.

While many New Yorkers don’t hold back when it comes to complaints about the possibly-overprotective “Nanny Bloomberg” and his soda ban, some may feel a little protective of the mayor after the new ad campaign Beck pitched to replace Milton Glaser’s famous “I love NY” design.

The ad Beck displayed featured a graphic of Bloomberg, who happens to be of Jewish descent, making the Nazi salute.

Beck’s main gripe appeared to be Bloomberg’s fight for gun control, before he veered off into complaints about Bloomberg’s health initiatives and proposals to replace iconic artwork.

“When somebody argues for gun control, they are either living in self-imposed ignorance or they are just living an argument of control,” Beck said.

According to a recent poll for the Bloomberg-led organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns conducted by Republican Frank Luntz, 82 percent of gun owners, including 74 percent of National Rifle Association members, support criminal background checks for anyone purchasing a gun. In the congressional districts polled in New York, Luntz found that 94 percent supported those background checks. Such background checks have been the focus of many of Bloomberg’s recent “arguments of control.”

 Correction: It turns out Beck wasn’t likening Bloomberg to a Nazi.

In Beck’s own words, “this was actually the exact image ripped off Soviet propaganda art.”

So everyone calm down: Beck just meant Bloomberg was like Lenin — who, as Beck noted, “also killed a lot of people, yes.” Many of whom also were Jewish.

For what it’s worth, whether it’s Lenin or a Nazi, the pose is “a sieg heil salute,” per Beck’s own admission. And as an astute reporter on Twitter noted, the armband on the Bloomberg version is missing from the “ripped off” Soviet original, and does seem to recall the Nazi uniform.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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In his public safety address to NYPD top brass, Mayor Michael Bloomberg lashed out at the New York Times and critics of stop-and-frisk for not paying attention to the shooting death of 17-year-old Alphonza Bryant in the Bronx.

DNAinfo reached out to Bryant’s mother, who reportedly was grateful for the attention the mayor brought to her son, though surprised, as she had never heard from the mayor or his aides following her son’s death three and a half weeks ago.

“We just thank him for putting it out there,” Bryant’s mother, Jenaii van Doten, told DNAinfo. “That he was a good kid.”

Bloomberg had also discussed stop-and-frisk in his speech, touting its vital importance in protected the city’s children and condemning its critics.

Van Doten partially agreed that stop-and-frisk is needed “to save our children,” but also felt “they need to modify it.”

She said that Bryant had been stopped himself on several occasions, though he avoided guns and gangs, and recounted one instance where he was in a bodega talking to her on the phone while buying a sandwich and said, “Ma, I got to get off the phone,” as she could hear cops cursing at him in the background.

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Gun deaths in the city declined by more than 30 percent between 2000 and 2011, a new Health Department study shows.

There were 524 firearm-related murders in 2000, compared with 366 in 2011, according to the study. The nation overall saw no decline during the same period, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in his radio address Sunday.

“Our success at keeping guns off our streets has meant that our city’s overall firearms fatality rate is less than half the rate in the rest of the country, and it’s markedly lower than that of other major cities,” Bloomberg said.

The number of injuries caused by guns during the same 11-year period also declined, falling 21 percent.

The mayor credited the city’s tough gun possession laws for the declines, as well as the “smart, proactive policing that makes it much more likely that if you break our city’s gun laws, you’ll be caught.”

Despite the fall in firearm deaths, gun violence remains a serious problem in the city, Bloomberg noted. Neighborhoods such as East New York, Crown Heights, Central Harlem and the South Bronx have the highest numbers of firearm deaths and injuries in the city, with rates twice the city’s average, the study found.

Firearms are also the leading cause of death for men aged 15 to 24 in those communities.

“We’re working every day to address this epidemic by targeting police resources where they’re most needed and implementing the same proactive law enforcement strategies that have proven so effective citywide,” the mayor said.

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This week marks National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office held their yearly VOICE OUT event to honor victims of violence. This year’s specific theme, gun violence, is especially timely given the defeat of several gun control measures in the U.S. Senate last week, as well as the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut shortly before Christmas.

District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, who regards his job as “an advocate for victims,” slammed the Senate for what he called “a total lack of courage.”

“The Senate shamefully failed us,” he said. “Not to pass legislation that would prevent guns from being in the hands of seriously mentally ill people or convicted felons, how in the name of God do they justify not voting for that legislation?”

Hynes said guns are responsible for an overwhelming majority of the homicides his office prosecutes.

“It’s always been 75 percent,” he explained. “When we were losing 760 people a year it was 75 percent; last year we went under 150 murders for the first time since 1960, but it’s still 75 percent.”

And according to Hynes, the vast majority of guns used in these crimes come from out of state, making federal legislation actually very relevant to the safety of New Yorkers.

“Now it’s really up to the public,” Hynes said. “I would hope that the people wherever these folks are from, wherever they represent, will stand up and say, ‘We need someone else to represent us.’”

The event’s three speakers had an intimate understanding of the ramifications of guns on New York City streets.

Robin Lyde lost her son Benny—a model oldest brother, she said—when he was 21 years old.

The night he was shot, she heard the gunfire from her bedroom.

“When I heard it, I was petrified because I had children downstairs,” she said. She ran into the living room to check on her young twins and their friends. “I looked at everyone and said thank you God, everyone is OK.”

But she was compelled to look outside, as the gunshot had been so close, and there she saw her eldest son in a pool of blood on the street.

Lyde said part of what keeps her going is the work she is doing to try to stop gun violence.

“I am out there begging our young people, our old people, not to pick up a gun, not to take lives,” she said.

Yvette Bell, with her daughter Nyree Stevens-Credle in a wheelchair besides her, spoke of the night Nyree was shot in the neck. The bullet lodged in Nyree’s spine and she was paralyzed from the neck down.

Nyree was in Brooklyn and her mother was in the Bronx when Bell got a 4 a.m. phone call from someone who said, “I don’t know who you are, but your daughter is lying in the street, she’s been shot.”

It was Christmas night and, unable to find a taxi, Bell took the longest train and bus trip of her life, she said, desperate to get to her daughter, worried she would die alone.

And Diana Carnival, whose husband was shot in an armed robbery at his car dealership, addressed women who may be going through what she went through.

“I’m sure you feel so lost right now,” she said, cautioning that the journey they faced would not be easy, that it will be a day-by-day process to get to “the light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I will do it again tomorrow,” she said.

Her children wanted to come to the event with her, they told her, because there would be other families like them there, and maybe other children too.

“It took this day for my children to realize that we are not alone in this situation, that there are other people like us,” Carnival said.

Ultimately, the event is meant to provide catharsis to those whose lives have been shaken by gun violence.

And it seems to work, as the women who spoke of their loss left the event smiling, touching one another’s shoulders, and calling out hellos to the DA staff who helped them through what many describe as an incomprehensible experience.

“Anytime you need me to speak anywhere,” Yvette Bell said, hugging District Attorney Hynes goodbye.

“You’re terrific,” he replied, holding her hand in both of his. “You’re very courageous.”

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Rep. Carolyn Maloney received death threats this week because of her support for gun-control legislation, she said Wednesday.

People called the legislator’s New York office with death threats, she said, after she authored a bill that would require gun owners to have insurance.

“The calls were fielded by young interns, who were understandably shaken by this experience,” she said.

Police are investigating the calls, according to Maloney’s office.

Maloney has supported the comprehensive gun reform package proposed by President Barack Obama and wrote two bills, one that would strengthen a law against gun trafficking and another requiring gun owners carry insurance, similar to car owners.

“I am proud of my work to help curb gun violence,” she said. “Given all the acts of gun violence we have seen in the past two years, the shootings in Aurora and Newtown, the attack on my friend and colleague Gabby Gifford, I take the threat of more gun violence very seriously. But it is not something that I will allow to stop me from doing my work.”

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President Barack Obama attempted on Thursday to inject fresh momentum into efforts to pass gun-control legislation, pleading with U.S. lawmakers not to forget those shot to death in Newtown, Connecticut three months ago.

Amid signs that he may have to accept a scaled-down version of gun legislation, Obama sounded a note of frustration in calling upon Americans to demand action from the U.S. Congress in the weeks ahead.

He said the legislation’s opponents, the powerful U.S. gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association, are “doing everything they can” to derail the effort barely 100 days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which a gunman killed 20 children, six staff members and then himself.

“The entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten,” said Obama, appearing at the White House with mothers of children who had been shot to death.

The gunman in Newtown, Adam Lanza, fired 154 rounds in less than 5 minutes, selecting high capacity magazines from a home arsenal stocked with swords, knives and a cache of guns, officials said Thursday.

Despite events like this, a grassroots organizing effort by Obama supporters and a high-profile advertising campaign funded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to keep up the pressure, gun legislation has been stalled on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.

The best chance of success for gun-control advocates is that Congress will approve universal background checks for gun purchasers and tougher penalties for gun trafficking.

Less likely to pass are bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, two of the main proposals to emerge from Vice President Joe Biden’s gun violence task force, formed by Obama after the Newtown shootings.

‘JUST THE BEGINNING’

Biden seemed to acknowledged the challenge when he said on a conference call on Wednesday organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns that the administration will keep pressing for action regardless of what Congress does in the immediate future.

“Let me say this as clearly as I can: This is just the beginning,” Biden said.

Obama had hoped at the outset of his second term to use his re-election mandate to make rapid progress on three major issues: gun violence, deficit-reduction and immigration reform.

All are moving slowly, however.

Immigration may offer the best prospect for action as Republicans seek to attract more Hispanic Americans who voted overwhelming for Obama and his Democrats in the 2012 elections.

Republicans insist that any pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants be preceded by certification that U.S. borders are secure.

The biggest stumbling block to an immigration bill concerns creation of a guest-worker program to allow immigrants to cross the U.S.-Mexican border legally for temporary jobs.

U.S. labor unions, which worry such a program would lead to a loss of jobs for Americans, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have yet to arrive at a formula acceptable to both. Their agreement is considered crucial to bringing Congress along.

Obama has said he is encouraged by the progress, and he believes the dispute over the guest-worker program can be resolved. After first declaring the U.S.-Mexican border sufficiently secure, Obama now says it can be improved, a position that may permit him to make a deal with Republicans.

“I’m actually optimistic about this, in part because I think both Republicans as well as Democrats are now recognizing that it’s the right thing to do,” Obama told Univision, a Spanish-language network, in an interview on Wednesday.

Obama’s attempt to negotiate a “grand bargain” aimed at reducing the U.S. budget deficit is facing old-fashioned political gridlock and could collapse into a partisan sinkhole.

In a fresh round of schmoozing to discuss this and other legislative items, Obama will dine with a dozen Republican senators on April 10, the second such meeting he will have held in his attempts to engage his political opponents.

TAXING THE RICH

Lawmakers are still bruised from a fight over $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that went into effect a month ago despite Obama’s attempt to head them off.

Obama still wants what Republicans refused to give him in that budget fight, an increase in taxes on the wealthy by eliminating some deductions and loopholes. Republicans instead want to cut spending.

The White House struck a pessimistic note this week on the prospects for success given the Republican leadership’s refusal to agree to raise more tax revenues.

“As long as Republicans are saying we’re not going to ask the wealthiest and well-connected to pay a single dime to reduce our deficit, then it is hard to imagine that we’re going to reach a compromise,” White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

The difficulties in gaining passage of major legislation reflects the continued grip partisan politics holds on Washington, with the White House and Senate run by Democrats and the House of Representatives controlled by Republicans. This makes the 2014 midterm congressional elections of increasing importance.

“Look, it’s what we all thought when Obama was re-elected,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “There is just not going to be a lot of new legislation in Obama’s second term, unless he wins the House in 2014, and even then it looks very, very tough.”

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Adam Lanza, the man who attacked a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in December, had a large arsenal including additional guns, swords and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, according to court papers released Thursday.

The pale yellow two-story suburban Colonial house where the gunman lived with his mother was stocked with weapons before he carried out the second-deadliest school shooting on record in the United States, police who searched it after the shooting said.

Documents released after the expiration of a 90-day sealing order showed that the 20-year-old Lanza, who killed himself at the end of his rampage, had a gun safe in his room and many weapons besides the AR-15-type assault rifle and two handguns used in the Dec. 14 attack.

Police inspecting the home found an Enfield Albian bolt-action rifle, a Savage Mark II rifle, a revolver, three samurai-style swords with blades measuring up to 28 inches and a 6 foot  10 inch wood-handled pole with a blade on one side and a spear on the opposite side, according to the documents.

Connecticut officials released dozens of pages of court documents on their investigation into Lanza’s assault, which began when he shot dead his mother, Nancy Lanza, in the Newtown house. He then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, which he had once attended, shooting to death 20 first-grade children and six staff members before killing himself.

Gun violence debate

The attack, which President Barack Obama called the worst day of his presidency, reignited a fierce debate on gun violence and regulation in the United States.

The National Rifle Association came out swinging after the incident, calling on armed guards to patrol every public school in the country, while gun-control advocates called for tighter restrictions on both the process to buy guns and the types of guns and ammunition clips that may be sold.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the right to gun ownership.

Police found NRA certificates in the names of both Adam Lanza and his mother, according to the documents. Police found Nancy Lanza’s body in her bed with a gunshot wound to her forehead and a file on the floor nearby.

The documents were released on the same day that a group of Newtown residents planned to protest at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, less than 3 miles from the school, over the NRA’s opposition to new gun control laws. Newtown residents were enraged after receiving a slew of robo-calls on behalf of the NRA that were critical of gun control laws.

The court papers made public several details about the police search of the Lanza home.

Police found a smashed computer hard drive and a gun safe in the room they believed to be Adam Lanza’s bedroom.

FBI agents interviewed one or more people who described Lanza as “a shut-in and avid (video) gamer who plays Call of Duty amongst other games.” It was noted that Sandy Hook Elementary School was his “life.”

The search also turned up a Saiga 12 shotgun and two magazines containing 70 rounds of ammunition in the car Lanza drove to the school.

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Protests in East Flatbush last week stemming from the shooting of 16-year-old Kimani Gray by police officers on March 9 grew steadily calmer as the week wore on, after an explosion of violence on Wednesday night resulted in 45 arrests and one police officer injured.

City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who had come under fire for comments made accusing “outsiders” of inciting unprepared teens to violence, was able to direct a fair number of the protesters on Friday night into a nearby church for a community discussion, though a group did split off to march on to the police precinct, where someone eventually threw a bottle at police before the crowd dispersed.

Reports of a successful Youth Empowerment Seminar on Saturday preceded another night of protests. This time, on-scene reports indicated police vastly outnumbered protesters by a factor of nearly three-to-one.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week said he was not going to go out to East Flatbush because he didn’t want to “inflame things” but that he had “reached out to clergy and officials.”

He said he was planning on calling the mother of the deceased boy, but as of Sunday had still not made the call.

The mayor’s office did not respond to inquiries as to when the mayor was planning to call Mrs. Gray.

Conflicting reports of her son’s involvement in gangs have piled up, from Mrs. Gray herself telling WNYC she doesn’t think her son would ever carry a gun, but wasn’t sure, to reports from the NY Post of Facebook photos where Kimani Gray is making gang signs with his hands or videos in which he taunts a “young rival Crip.”

Experts on city gangs dismissed the Facebook and YouTube activity as amateur, and indications that Kimani’s gang involvement would have been extremely low-level; while teachers and neighbors spoke of a young man who “acted tough” but was serious about becoming an accountant and moving his family into a better neighborhood.

The principal at Kimani’s school in Manhattan said they “believed in his potential from the day he entered [the] school.”

“He traveled over an hour each day from East Flatbush… The year and a half we had with Kimani allowed us to get to know his best self,” Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction principal Matt Willoughby said.

Hit hard by loss of brother

Gray’s mother also talked about the effect her eldest son’s death two years ago had on Kimani: the older boy had apparently been a father figure to his younger sibling, and instrumental in keeping him in school and off the streets.

After his death, Kimani started staying out late because, he told her, he had nothing to come home to.

At the same time, the Grays had been displaced from their home and were reportedly living five-to-one-room in her brother’s apartment. They had finally moved into a new home a few days before Gray was shot by police. His mother said when she showed him the keys to the new house, he was so excited he “jumped as high as to the ceiling and said, ‘yes, we’re finally out of here!’”

The officers involved

The cops who shot Gray were identified last week as Sergeant Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova.

According to NY1, one officer was involved in two prior lawsuits for alleged civil rights violations, and the other faced three similar lawsuits.

Some of those cases reportedly involved stop-and-frisk incidents, and city officials reportedly opted to pay settlements in all five cases.

City officials insisted that settlements do not indicate an acknowledgement of any wrong-doing, and that involvement in lawsuits do not necessarily indicate guilt.

A major stop-and-frisk lawsuit against the city commences Monday morning.

Community calls for experience and cultural sensitivity from police

Last week, members of the community suggested that a problem with the police force in the area is that they are often young and inexperienced: NYPD policy frequently places rookie cops in the worst areas of the city.

NYPD officials have previously said that the purpose of the Impact Program is to allow rookies to get important experience quickly.

In the case of the Kimani Gray shooting, Mourad was an 8-year veteran on the force, and Cordova had five years.

But community organizers maintained the point that more training is needed, and specific training, as repeated calls were made for cultural sensitivity by police officers when operating within the community.

 Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Following a third night of unrest during what was meant to be a vigil for 16-year-old Kimani Gray, shot by cops last weekend after reportedly pointing a .38 caliber gun at them, local City Councilman Jumaane Williams held another press conference Thursday afternoon with other community leaders, asking the public to respect the wishes of Gray’s family and maintain peaceful protests and marches, but abstain from further violence.

After repeated calls via Twitter at the height of last night’s violence for outsiders to leave the community alone, Councilman Jumaane Williams again requested that “outsiders” abstain from rallying youth to action without proper training and strategy, but said that he believes those outsiders are well-intentioned, and welcomed them.

“I think they’re concerned and want to help,” Williams said. “I just want to make sure that our young people’s anger is channeled productively.”

“We want you, but be constructive; don’t endanger our kids,” he added.

Williams refused to identify who he sees as “outsiders,” asserting that doing so would be counterproductive. He also asked that the community withhold comment on either side until a thorough investigation has been completed.

The sisters of Shantal Davis, an unarmed woman killed by police last June, spoke as well, urging the community to attend meetings they hold on Monday at 39th Street and Church Avenue.

Other speakers mentioned Williams’ efforts to find a location in the neighborhood to establish a community center.

Gray’s father stood by Councilman Williams, but chose not to speak. Speaking on his behalf, Williams told the crowd the elder Gray was “not happy with the violence occurring,” but wanted peaceful, organized marches and protests.

A man who identified himself as a former member of the Bloods gang said he came from “the same thing Kimani came from.”

He called the police murderers, noting that Gray was shot three times in the back.

According to the autopsy report, Gray was shot a total of seven times. Three shots were to his back.

The repeated theme, from clergy, community members, and elected representatives, was that action was needed, but it must be organized. Williams lamented the handful of youth who “unknowingly violated parole last night,” using this as an example of the negative consequences of inciting youth to action without properly informing them of consequences.

As the crowd disbanded, a young man began to shout at nearby police, calling them “occupiers.”

“This is Palestine!” the young man cried. “And last night was Syria!”

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A motion for a preliminary injustice of the controversial Cuomo gun law was denied by a state Supreme Court judge on Wednesday, reported the Democrat and Chronicle.

The plaintiffs, numbering over 1,200, sued the state over Governor Andrew Cuomo’s use of a “message of necessity,” alleging that passage of the law on the first day of session was unconstitional.

Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara shot down the motion because he “constrained” by previous decisions of the state’s highest court, he said.

He said that the courts are not allowed to intervene with a message of necessity, as decided by previous Court of Appeals rulings.

The plaintiffs plan to appeal, and said they expect the lawsuit to go before the Court of Appeals.

The governor’s office reportedly declined to comment.

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On any given Monday or Wednesday afternoon, in a third-floor room in a church on Kingston Avenue, a group of 14- to 17-year-olds are gearing up for important work: tackling the issue of gun violence in their community. 

These teens are part of a group in Crown Heights called YO S.O.S. (Youth Organizing to Save Our Streets), and they all went through an application process to join a program that many of them say hits very close to home.

Mariama Barry, a ninth-grader at Wingate, a school nearby on Kingston, lives in Bed-Stuy and said she was motivated to join YO S.O.S. because of the shootings in her neighborhood.

“I’ve heard the gunshots and it’s really disturbing,” Mariama explained. “I wouldn’t want something like that to affect any of my family members.”

Claudlin Pierre Louis, 17, lives in East New York and is a senior in high school: “When I got to this program I wasn’t really an outspoken person, I was always quiet. When I’m nervous, I get quiet. But ever since I joined this I’ve learned how to become more of a leader: I speak out more, I stand for what I believe in more. It’s also helped me with my schoolwork because when we have presentations I can be more calm and speak up when I need to, I don’t stutter as much.”

This year, the group is putting together an Arts to End Violence Festival, and the teens are tasked with soliciting artwork from their classmates and friends by April 1. Led by YO S.O.S. Case Manager Ruby-Beth Buitekant, they discussed their outreach efforts at a recent Wednesday meeting.

Buitekant asks one girl, Imani, how she was able to be comfortable approaching people at school to be in the arts festival.

Imani explains that she strategically approached the kids she knew would be interesting in spoken word and performance, but added, “Why wouldn’t they want to speak up on something that affects all of us? We’re all teenagers and we all hear about people getting shot.”

This is true for nearly all of the kids in the room, including Rezziea “Rezzy” Alexander, 16, who said that not only has she lost friends to gun violence, she was recently almost shot near her home in Brownsville.

Rezzeia Alexander, 16, said, “Before I came here I was a hothead, everything would get me upset and I had a really bad temper. Because where I come from, we always resort to violence first and since I’ve been here it really changed my life. I don’t get as mad as I used to, I just walk away from certain situations, I let stuff roll off my back. Honestly, it really changed my life. Without SOS, I really don’t know where I’d be right now, to be honest.”

Rezzy insists that outreach programs like YO S.O.S. are the best way to decrease gun violence, and explains how the program has taught her to control her temper, and given her insight on how to “de-escalate situations and just walk away.”

“I think some people… don’t have much to live up to or live for, so it’s like going to jail or hurting somebody is what they know,” Rezzy said. “Some people just don’t have anybody to talk to about their problems or any way to release anger because that’s just how they grew up, that’s all they know.”

For those people, Rezzy says YO S.O.S. is the answer.

Funds running out

Amy Ellenbogen, Project Director at the Crown Heights Mediation Center, the parent group of YO S.O.S., said that they had so many people applying and bringing friends to YO S.O.S. this year they didn’t have enough space to let everyone into the program.

The kids who didn’t make it this year may not have another chance, unfortunately: YO S.O.S. is funded by a three-year grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice that expires at the end of 2013.

Ellenbogen said they are working to find new funding to keep the program going.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post YO S.O.S.: Brooklyn teens ready to holster gun violence appeared first on Metro.us.

The city’s billionaire mayor is richer than ever, apparently — Mayor Michael Bloomberg placed at 13 on Forbes magazine’s annual list of the world’s richest people, up from 20th place last year.

The Daily News reports the jump occurred due to a mere $5 billion added to his personal fortune. According to Forbes, Bloomberg is worth $27 billion.

The three-term mayor’s plans after this year’s elections are still unclear, but the News pointed out that the mayor’s recent funding of political campaigns outside of the Empire State, particularly in support of candidates who are pro-gun-control, signals a desire to use his wealth to remain politically active.

Forbes notes that while the majority of the billionaires on their list are from the U.S., first place is still held by Mexico’s telecom billionaire, Carlos Slim Helu. Helu, valued at $73 billion, makes our big-bucks mayor look like small potatoes.

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UPDATE: According to Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is not opposed to the Guns for Greatness program.

“Commissioner Kelly… is working with the organizers to make it happen,” Browne said.

Metro’s original story is below.

Hip-hop music executive Michael “Blue” Williams has pitched the NYPD a different kind of gun buyback program: “Guns for Greatness” — and “Greatness” is Beyoncé and Jay-Z concert tickets.

Williams’ proposal suggests that people turning in illegal firearms receive tickets to some of this summer’s most anticipated shows.

Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne confirmed that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is considering the proposal. Ed Mullins, a sergeant in the detective squad at the 67th precinct, is hoping Kelly approves the program.

“Any program that gets people to turn in illegal handguns is a good program,” Mullins said. “What’s especially good about this program is people look up to celebrities, and we’re now bringing them in to help send the message to get firearms off the street.”

Browne did not elaborate on what Kelly’s hesitations might be, and Mullins couldn’t think of any problems with the program himself.

“I don’t see a downside,” Mullins said. “We’ve done these programs before and they’ve been very successful.”

Typically, the NYPD offers cash vouchers in their buyback programs. Mullins said the funding comes from a variety of sources, including outside sponsors or organizations and individuals within the community.

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Dozens of counties and local governments have passed largely-symbolic resolutions in reaction to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent bill regulation assault weapons, according to reports from the Democrat and Chronicle.

The resolutions vary, from those declaring Cuomo’s gun control bill unconstitutional to those looking to repeal it to those alleging that the bill could produce unfunded mandates.

They are largely coming from rural upstate townships, where mostly Republican lawmakers are saying they’re representing the concerns of their constituents.

While the resolutions are largely symbolic, local officials are hoping to sent a message to state lawmakers.

“This gun law was poor drafted, it was poorly passed. It really does need a lot of fixes,” said Ulster County Legislature chairwoman Terry Bernardo.

Ulster and Niagara counties both passed similar resolutions opposing Cuomo’s gun bill on Tuesday.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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A Bronx politician is pushing for a registry that would track criminals much as the state’s sex offender registry tracks offenders.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., made the suggestion in his State of the Borough address yesterday.

“Law-abiding citizens ought to know who among us is responsible for gun violence,” Diaz said.

He proposed an online registry featuring criminals convicted of crimes involving a gun. They would have to update the police about where they live and work and stay on the registry for 10 years.

Criminals would also need to get their photograph taken every three years at a police agency.

Failure to do any of these would be a felony under his proposal.

Diaz said he would lobby state legislators starting this month to build the legislation.

He joins other New York politicians who have pushed for stiffer gun policies.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been an aggressive advocate for getting illegal guns of the streets.

In his State of the City this month, he urged people to contact their Congressional representatives to push for gun legislation. He credited attacking illegal guns with reducing crimes.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also pushed for gun legislation that closes loopholes in New York’s state laws, already among some of the most stringent in the nation.

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A gun buyback at Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Staten Island on Saturday brought in 55 firearms, police reported. Two were loaded, and two had the serial numbers scratched off.

One of the weapons was an SKS .762 caliber assault rifle with a 30-round magazine. Governor Cuomo’s recent gun legislation regulated magazines to a maximum of seven rounds.

47 of the 55 weapons were handguns. Some city politicians, including Councilwoman Letitia James, have been calling for legislation focusing on handgun regulation, arguing that handguns are the city’s major problem. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly recently noted that only two percent of arrests for illegal firearms involve assault weapons, while 60 percent of the city’s murders are committed using handguns.

The NYPD’s gun buy back program has taken in over 8,100 firearms since it started in 2008. The program is completely anonymous; people turning in guns will not be asked to show identification or permits.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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State Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin posted a video on YouTube Tuesday afternoon to publicly apologize to Governor Andrew Cuomo and “all of you” for an analogy “that [he] should not have made” at a press conference earlier that day.

McLaughlin, a Republican, said his constituents are “very upset” about the gun control bill Cuomo passed last month, which is why he was moved to speak the way he did.

The New York Post reported that McLaughlin said pushing the gun control bill to pass through a message of necessity — allowing an immediate vote and bypassing a three-day review process — was a “dictatorial thing to do” and that Hitler, Mussolini, and Moscow “would be proud.”

“Just like you, I’m human and I make mistakes sometimes,” McLaughlin said in the video.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Rolling out a wide-ranging plan for executive and legislative action to curb gun violence, Obama set up a fierce clash with the powerful U.S. gun lobby and its supporters in Congress, who are expected to resist what they see as an encroachment on constitutionally protected gun rights.

Obama presented his agenda at a White House event in front of an audience that included children from around the country, a poignant reminder of the 20 first-graders who were killed along with six adults by a lone gunman on December 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“While reducing gun violence is a complicated challenge, protecting our children from harm shouldn’t be a divisive one,” Obama said.

Until now, Obama had done little to rein in America’s weapons culture during his first four years in office. But just days before his second inauguration, he appears determined to champion gun control in his next term with a concerted drive for tighter laws and other steps aimed at preventing further tragedies like the one at Newtown.

The proposals stem from a month-long review led by Vice President Joe Biden, who on orders from Obama met with advocates on both sides, including representatives from the weapons and entertainment industries.

Obama’s plan calls on Congress for a renewed prohibition on assault weapons sales that expired in 2004, a requirement for criminal background checks on all gun purchases, including closing a loophole for gun show sales, and a new federal gun trafficking law – long sought by big-city mayors to keep out-of-state guns off their streets.

He also announced 23 steps he intends to take immediately without congressional approval. These include improvements in the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research into gun violence, putting more counselors and “resource officers” in schools and improved access to mental health services.

The most politically contentious piece of the package is Obama’s call for a renewed ban on military-style assault weapons, a move that Republicans who control the House of Representatives are expected to oppose.

The Newtown gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle to shoot his victims, many of them 6- and 7-year-olds, before killing himself.

Underscoring the tough political fight ahead, the National Rifle Association, launching a scathing advertising campaign against Obama’s gun control effort and deployed its representatives in force on Capitol Hill.

The NRA, which says it has about 4 million members, took aim at Obama in a stinging TV and Internet spot, accusing him of being “just another elitist hypocrite” for accepting Secret Service protection for his two daughters but turning down the lobby group’s proposal to put armed guards in all schools.

Obama’s plan appears to tread cautiously on the question of whether violent movies and video games contribute to the gun violence, which would open up issues of freedom of expression.

A senior administration official said, however, that Obama would be asking for $10 million for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the root causes of gun violence, including any relationship to video games and media images.

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The majority Republican state Senate voted 43-18 to advance a bill that Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo outlined on Monday following the deaths of 20 students and six adults in a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in neighboring Connecticut.

The action in New York came the same day that Maryland’s governor and Delaware’s attorney general said they would press for legislation in their states to tighten bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Gun control has been at the center of U.S. politics, once again, since the Connecticut massacre. The assault rifle used in the attack is based on a military rifle and can be equipped with magazines that hold up to 30 rounds of ammunition.

The Senate “made a bold statement, coming together in a bipartisan, collaborative manner to meet the challenges that face our state and our nation, as we have seen far too many senseless acts of gun violence,” Cuomo said after the vote.

The state assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, was expected to take up the bill on Tuesday.

NO IMPACT ON HUNTERS

New York already has among the toughest gun control laws in the country and the proposal tightens an assault weapons ban to include semiautomatic weapons with detachable clips that have one feature associated with military weapons.

The state currently bans assault weapons that have two military-style features.

The proposal also limits magazine capacity to no more than seven cartridges, and requires a statewide re-registration of all handguns and grandfathered-in assault weapons.

It also would require mental health professionals to report dangerous patients to county mental health officers for potential action and would add provisions to suspend or revoke licenses for people found to pose a danger to others.

“I believe it is the most comprehensive package in the nation,” Cuomo told reporters in a briefing, adding, “Much of this is common sense. Unfortunately, common sense has eluded us for many, many years when it comes to this issue.”

Cuomo said the proposal was not directed at and would have no impact on hunters or sport shooters.

Cuomo said last week that the current ban on assault weapons had so many loopholes that it was unenforceable. For example, current law bans magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, but exempts those made before 1994.

The new legislation would also increase monitoring of high-volume ammunition purchases in-person or over the Internet and current owners of assault weapons would be required to register them, as is required with handguns.

Also on Monday, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden joined other state leaders in announcing gun control proposals while his father, Democratic U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, was preparing national gun control proposals.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, said on Monday he would propose a tighter ban on assault weapons and certain magazines later this week.

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A firm believer in the right to bear arms, Wilson is deliberately producing parts for assault weapons likely to be banned by new controls.
 
“(US Vice-President) Joe Biden’s group are using the assumption that if you control the channel you control the product – but that is not the case any more,” says Wilson. His company have made open-source code for over 30 gun parts available online, and claims they have been receiving thousands of downloads a day.
 
The printed guns are not a finished product. “At this point the biggest problem is the force of explosion in the chamber,” Kevin Coleman, military technology analyst, told Metro. But the US military have begun to outfit their mobile labs with 3D printers to replace parts, and Coleman believes “further down the line you could produce a weapon that way.”
 
So how could the weapons be controlled? A spokesman for 3D print company Automaker said it is powerless; “we do not promote guns, but we cannot control the use of the product.”

Neither can government intervene effectively, says Michael Weinberg, attorney specializing in emerging technologies for the US Public Knowledge think tank.

“When you apply anger over gun control to a general purpose technology there’s a lot of collateral damage,”  he said. “It’s like if you regulate steel – a lot of productive areas would be lost. We don’t know enough about 3D printing to legislate the future.”

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Here’s a look:



GUN CONTROL

President Barack Obama vows to crack down on gun violence in the wake of the school massacre last month in Newtown, Connecticut, the latest in a series of shooting rampages over the past decade.

According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll, 58 percent of Americans now back tougher gun laws, but 51 percent oppose Obama’s call to outlaw so-called assault weapons.

A sharply divided Congress is awaiting a broad review of gun violence headed by Vice President Joe Biden.

IMMIGRATION

Hispanic voters last year helped Obama win a second term and Democrats to increase their clout in Congress.

Republicans took notice and want to win Hispanic support in the 2014 elections. One step toward that goal would be for Republicans to become more open to immigration reform.

The big question is how far Republicans would go to provide a path toward citizenship for illegal immigrants, estimated to number up to 12 million in the United States.

SEQUESTRATION

The White House and Congress managed to cut a deal on the “fiscal cliff” by agreeing to a two-month delay to sequestration – automatic spending cuts that were set to take effect on January 1.

Obama and lawmakers now have until March 1 to reach agreement on about $85 billion in spending reductions. If they do not, they will see across-the-board ones kick in, about evenly split between military and domestic programs.

DEBT LIMIT

Obama and Congress likely have until the end of February to raise the U.S. debt limit, now at $16.4 trillion.

Failure to do so would result in an unprecedented U.S. default, a move likely to rattle financial markets worldwide.

Obama says he will refuse to allow the debt limit to become a political bargaining tool again.

But Republicans do not seem be willing to raise it without extracting major spending cuts, mostly from government programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

FARM BILL

Congress gave itself a new deadline, September 30, to complete an overdue five-year, $500 billion farm bill that withered in election-year acrimony in 2012.

The House version proposed the deepest cuts in a generation for food stamps for the poor. But fiscal conservatives want more cuts in food stamps as well as farm subsidies.

The bills produced last year by the House and Senate agriculture committees would have cut between $23 billion and $35 billion. They will dig deeper in the months ahead.

It will be the first time Congress began work on a farm bill in one session and had to refile it in the new session.

HURRICANE SANDY RELIEF

Under pressure from fellow Republicans inside and outside of Congress, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the Republican-led House is expected to move quickly in coming weeks to approve a long-delayed relief package for victims of superstorm Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

SENATE FILIBUSTER

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is fed up with Republican procedural roadblocks commonly known as filibusters.

So Reid, to the outrage of Republicans, vows to try to change the rules – unless both sides enter some sort of an agreement to make the chamber work more efficiently.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Obama’s fellow Democrats will take another crack at trying to renew the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which was championed nearly two decades ago by Biden, then a senator.

The measure is designed to combat domestic abuse, but became a legislative vehicle in Congress last year for Democrats and Republicans to jockey for political position.

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With Newtown still in mourning from last Friday’s shooting, when a 20-year-old gunman shot dead 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School and then himself, Biden took the assignment to produce recommendations and report back to Obama in time for the president’s State of the Union address in late January.

Obama’s initiative addressed national outrage over the shootings in Connecticut, which have prompted longtime gun-rights supporters to reconsider their positions and a major private equity firm to put its gun-making business up for sale.

Funerals or wakes were held for four of Newtown’s children on Wednesday, as well as the school principal. Teacher Victoria Soto, who is credited with saving half her class of 6- and 7-year-olds by diverting the shooter and hiding the children in a closet, was also laid to rest.

“Vicki achieved in her 27 years what many of us will never achieve if we live to be a hundred,” the Reverend Meg Boxwell Williams told the funeral service. “Her last act was absolutely selfless, Christ-like, laying down her life for her children.”

Gunman Adam Lanza, 20, shot his mother at home and then killed 20 children and six adults at the school before shooting himself in the head, officials said.

Soto hid her students in a closet when she heard the shooting start early Friday morning, and when Lanza entered Soto’s classroom she tried to throw him off by telling him the students were at the other end of the school in an auditorium, the Hartford Courant reported, citing unnamed law-enforcement officials.

Lanza shot six of the children when they tried to run, and police later found the remaining seven students still hiding in the closet, the Courant said. Those children told law enforcement officials what had happened, the Courant reported.

The account provided Newtown with a positive story to cling to following the horrible events that left the nation stunned.

Soto’s death “mixed with the glad knowledge that her sacrifice saved so many children,” Williams said.

MOURNERS LINE THE STREETS

Some 30 police motorcycles from surrounding towns led the hearse carrying Soto’s body to the service in Stratford, Connecticut. About 200 mourners lined the streets outside the church, including a mother and daughter from Maryland who never met Soto but made the long drive because they were touched by her bravery in trying to protect the children in her class.

The family of the school’s slain principal, Dawn Hochsprung, invited mourners to visit a local funeral home on Wednesday. Her burial was due to be private at an undisclosed time.

Hundreds braved a bitter wind to pay their respects to the fallen principal, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

After the service for Daniel Barden, 7, a bagpiper played “America the Beautiful,” as hundreds of police officers and firefighters, some from New York City and distant towns, stood in formation outside.

The little boy loved his family, riding waves at the beach, playing drums, foosball, reading and making s’mores around a bonfire at his grandfather’s house, said an obituary in the Newtown Bee newspaper.

Funerals were also held for for Charlotte Bacon and Caroline Previdi, both 6, and a wake for Chase Kowalski, 7.

The massacre prompted some Republican lawmakers to open the door to a national debate about gun control.

That may give an opening to Obama, who said he hoped the National Rifle Association gun lobby would reflect on the tragedy as it awaits Biden’s recommendations.

“The vast majority of responsible law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war,” Obama said.

Connecticut’s U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator-elect Chris Murphy met on Wednesday evening with a group of about 40 Newtown residents who are pushing for strengthened gun control and calling themselves Newtown United.

Blumenthal said, as he asks people in town if there is anything he can do, they tell him: “Yes. Do something about guns.”

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Obama was not expected to unveil policy decisions but outline how his administration will proceed, White House aides said. The move could signal that he will make the issue a second-term priority and add momentum to a national debate over tighter gun control laws.

Obama has turned to Biden in the past to take a role in high-profile initiatives, including efforts on a deficit-reduction compromise with congressional Republicans in 2011. The vice president will join Obama for the announcement in the White House briefing room at 11:45 a.m. EST (1645 GMT).

Biden’s mission – to coordinate a strategy among government agencies in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings – comes days after the mass murder that has generated a national outcry for greater efforts to stem gun violence.

Friday’s massacre was the fourth shooting rampage to claim multiple lives in the United States this year.

The president demanded changes to the way the United States deals with gun violence at a memorial service in Newtown on Sunday. Obama said he would “use whatever power this office” holds to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Gun control has been a low priority for most U.S. politicians due to the widespread popularity of guns in America and the clout of the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun industry lobby.

The constitutional right to bear arms is seen by many Americans as set in stone, and even after mass shootings, politicians have tiptoed around specific steps to limit access to lethal weapons.

Even so, the horror of the Newtown killings, in which a 20-year-old man killed 6- and 7-year-old children and their teachers in their classrooms before taking his own life, has provoked an apparent change of heart in some politicians.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a longtime gun rights advocate, said he is now open to more regulation of military-style rifles like the one used in Newtown. Obama spoke with him on Tuesday, the White House said.

The White House spelled out some gun control measures on Tuesday that Obama would support.

Spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would back U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s effort to reinstate an assault weapons ban. The president also would favor any law to close a loophole related to gun-show sales, he said.

Efforts to limit high-capacity gun ammunition clips would be another option, Carney said.

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Stephen Barton was in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater for the midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises” on July 20 when suspect James Holmes allegedly opened fire on the crowd, killing 12 people and injuring 60 others.

Barton, who was shot in the face and neck, now appears in a national ad urging politicians to make gun control a major priority. The ad is part of the “Demand a Plan” campaign by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group co-founded by Bloomberg.

Sitting in an empty movie theater, Barton explains in the ad that he was one of the people lucky enough to survive the terrifying experience.

“In the next four years, 48,000 Americans won’t be so lucky, because they’ll be murdered with guns in the next president’s term. Enough to fill over 200 theaters,” he says.

The ad does not endorse Obama, nor Romney, but instead pressures both candidates to bring up the topic in Wednesday night’s presidential debate, which will happen just miles from the Aurora movie theater at the University of Denver.

“So when you watch the presidential debates, ask yourself: Who has a plan to stop gun violence? Let’s demand a plan,” Barton says.

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