Meet The Man Leading The NRA's Push For Guns In Schools

Eric Lach | December 21, 2012, 3:59PM

Former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) at the NRA's press conference on Dec. 21, 2012.

At the National Rifle Association's press conference on Friday, the group's Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called on Congress to "immediately" put armed police officers in every school, and rejected any suggestion that the nation's gun laws needed to change in the wake of last Friday's mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.

At the end of his defiant remarks, LaPierre also announced the NRA's plan to develop a National School Shield Emergency Response Program, a "multifaceted" education and training program "available to every school in America free of charge." LaPierre said the NRA had selected former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) to lead the effort, and serve as its national director.

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Loughner's Judge Makes Conservative Plea For Gun Control

Eric Lach | December 20, 2012, 2:54PM

Larry Alan Burns, the federal district judge in San Diego who just last month sentenced Tuscon shooter Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison, is no darling of the gun control movement.

Burns is a self-described conservative, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, and he agrees with the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, which held that the 2nd Amendment gives Americans the right to own guns for self-defense. He is also a gun owner.

But while sentencing Loughner in November, Burns questioned the need for high-capacity magazines like the one Loughner had in his Glock, and said he regretted how the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. On Thursday, reacting to last week's mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., Burns publicly called for a new assault weapons ban "with some teeth this time," in an op-ed published by The Los Angeles Times.

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A History Of The Rifle Used In The Sandy Hook Massacre

Eric Lach | December 20, 2012, 11:54AM

When he died in April 1997 at his home in Palm City, Fla., Eugene Stoner was a millionaire with about 100 patents to his name and, in the words of an obituary that ran in The New York Times, a reputation as "one of the world's foremost designers of and experts on small arms." In the late 1950s, working as an engineer for an upstart California company called ArmaLite, a division of the Fairchild Aircraft & Engine Corporation, Stoner had developed the AR-15 rifle.

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Arizona Dark Money Group Gave Lavishly To Other Groups

Eric Lach | December 18, 2012, 2:34PM

The Center to Protect Patient Rights (CPPR), the secretive Arizona dark money group tied to the movement of millions of dollars between political nonprofits, gave almost $15 million in 2011 to a number of groups that spent heavily on political ads in 2012, according to IRS documents obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

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Investment Firm To Dump Gunmaker After Massacre

Eric Lach | December 18, 2012, 10:18AM

A New York City private equity firm that quietly became a big player in gun manufacturing in recent years has decided to get out of the business in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Cerberus Capital Management, which counts former Vice President Dan Quayle among its executives, said in a statement Tuesday that it plans to sell its stake in Freedom Group, the parent company of some of the biggest names in firearms, including Bushmaster, the manufacturer of the rifle used to kill 27 people, including 20 first graders, in Friday's massacre.

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