ALEC is now shutting down its "Public Safety and Elections" task force. ALEC's Public Safety and Elections task force's goals were twofold: to improve "public safety" by making it easier for citizens to carry guns everywhere they go and to shoot certain people without fear of arrest or prosecution, and to improve elections by making it harder for politically undesirable types to exercise their right to vote. (Why were gun rights and voter disenfranchisement the purview of one task force? Those two issues really have very little in common besides being of supreme importance to paranoid white people.)

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Behold the political power of the National Rifle Association. The gun lobby's muscle in Washington is famous. But critics often overlook the NRA's motivations. There are more than Second Amendment principles at stake. The NRA confronts an existential threat to its recruitment base: declining gun ownership and use among Americans.

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Apparently Maricopa County has guards -- private security firm employees, not county employees, with guns -- proper guns -- at most of its libraries.

"In large buildings with multiple rooms and lots of people, you need to have some feeling among the staff, as well as the public, that it's a secure place, particularly where it's used a lot by children," said library-district director Harry Courtright, who retired Friday.
[...]
In his 12 years with the district, Courtright said there have been no incidents of a guard drawing a gun.

"And they shouldn't have to, because they have the training. But that gun makes a difference to the people who are coming in the building who might want to do something that could be bad; they see an armed guard, and the reality is they back off and they don't do things - it's a preventative thing," he said.

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<p>The university issued an alert on its website at 9:37 a.m. telling students and employees to stay inside and lock their doors. Text and phone messages were sent to more than 45,000 subscribed to the school's alert system, along with an email sent to the entire campus, said school spokesman Mark Owczarski. The school's outdoor sirens also sounded, he said.</p>

<p>The school posted an update on its website around 1 p.m., saying authorities were combing through buildings on campus. Classes were canceled for the day, and the school said searching the buildings would be a long process. Police had received no other reports nor found anyone fitting the description the children gave. A composite sketch was posted on the school's website.</p>

<p>Officials told students, employees and others on campus to stay indoors.</p>

<p>Several thousand students attending summer classes, as well as the school's 6,500 employees, were on campus when the alert was issued, said University spokesman Larry Hincker. Many of the school's 30,000 students are on summer break and will return when the fall semester begins Aug. 22.</p>

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Reliant Stadium apparently has a blanket ban on "weapons," as if a handgun were a common cigarette or outside beverage.

A Perry constituent asked about bringing his licensed concealed weapon to the prayer festival, and received this response from event organizers:

Thank you for your question. According to the Reliant Stadium, weapons are prohibited. The following text can be found on our website: http://theresponseusa.com/faq.php

"What should I bring?

The Response is encouraging people to fast during the event, however there will be limited food vendors and water for sale. Bring a Bible and a notebook.

Stadium regulations prohibit: signs, flags, soliciting/promotion material, noise makers/instruments, coolers, tobacco, illegal substances, weapons or pets."

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Houston Independent School District Public Information Officer Norm Uhl tells Fox News that none of the injuries appears to be life-threatening.

Officials say Ross Elementary school was placed on lockdown Tuesday.

Images taken from Houston television KPRC's news helicopter show three children being wheeled to ambulances on stretchers.

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Brewer, a Republican, has signed other major gun rights measures over the last two years. But she said in her veto message Monday that she rejected the campus bill because it was "poorly written."

The governor says the measure didn't define a public right of way and could have been interpreted to apply to K-12 schools in addition to universities and community colleges.

The bill originally would have allowed the carrying of concealed weapons in buildings, including classrooms. The Senate amended it partway through the legislative process to apply only to rights of way.

Texas lawmakers are considering legislation similar to the original Arizona bill.

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According to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman:

Before traveling to Alaska, Christy said he verified with law enforcement and legal authorities in Pennsylvania that his trip to Anchorage would not violate the protective orders.

Earlier: The FBI has reportedly detained Shawn Christy, a 19-year-old man who sent Sarah Palin threatening letters and receipts for a gun he had purchased. An Alaska judge granted Palin a restraining order against Christy last September. According to a report:

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More than half the members of the Texas House have signed on as co-authors of a measure directing universities to allow concealed handguns. The Senate passed a similar bill in 2009 and is expected to do so again. Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who sometimes packs a pistol when he jogs, has said he's in favor of the idea.

Texas has become a prime battleground for the issue because of its gun culture and its size, with 38 public universities and more than 500,000 students. It would become the second state, following Utah, to pass such a broad-based law. Colorado gives colleges the option and several have allowed handguns.

Supporters of the legislation argue that gun violence on campuses, such as the mass shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Northern Illinois in 2008, show that the best defense against a gunman is students who can shoot back.

"It's strictly a matter of self-defense," said state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio. "I don't ever want to see repeated on a Texas college campus what happened at Virginia Tech, where some deranged, suicidal madman goes into a building and is able to pick off totally defenseless kids like sitting ducks."

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The deadline for complying with the three-year-old law was last month. But nine states haven't supplied any names to the database. Seventeen others have sent in fewer than 25, meaning gun dealers around the U.S. could be running names of would-be buyers against a woefully incomplete list.

Officials blame privacy laws, antiquated record-keeping and a severe lack of funding for the gap the AP found through public records requests.

Eleven states have provided more than 1,000 records apiece to the federal database, yet gun-control groups have estimated more than 1 million files are missing nationwide.

"If the mental health records are not current from our sister states, the quality of our background check is going to be compromised," said Sean Byrne, acting commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services in New York, a state that has submitted more than 100,000 records.

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The bill, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2012, would give people six months to acquire a firearm after turning 21. The provision does not apply to people who are barred from owning a firearm.

Nor does the measure specify what type of firearm. Instead, residents would pick one “suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference.”

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Exactly what Obama will do isn't clear, though Plouffe mentioned as an example the president's support for renewing the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004 and made it illegal to manufacture the type of high-capacity clip used in the Tucson, Ariz., mass shooting earlier this month.

Gun control advocates have been frustrated by Obama's reticence on gun control in the wake of Tucson, including his conspicuous silence in the State of the Union address. The administration may well have made a pragmatic decision not to pursue major gun control legislation right now. After all, Republicans who control the House have shown zero interest in proposals that have been floated since Tucson. Even leading gun control advocate Rep. Carolyn McCarthy acknowledged in a recent interview that, facing a pro-gun House and a pro-gun Senate, Obama is "picking his battles."

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Unlike many entrepreneurs teaching "concealed carry" classes from sea to shining sea, he urged students to leave their guns at home. He stressed that he couldn't turn them into infantry soldiers with a few sessions in a gym basement. Even most armed assailants, he explained, aren't hell bent upon murder. They use weapons to control their victims.

Anybody pulling a gun must shoot to kill without hesitation. The soldier reasoned that most Rice students simply weren't prepared to do that. Hence the likeliest outcome was that criminals would end up murdering them with their own guns. Heightened awareness, avoiding lonely places at night, and pepper spray or mace would afford more safety than the illusion of power conveyed by a 9mm semi-automatic.

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The most recent police shooting occurred Monday morning in St. Petersburg, Florida, where two officers were killed while serving a U.S. marshal’s warrant.

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Her doctors' decision Sunday was yet another sign of a remarkable recovery since she was shot in the head Jan. 8 when a gunman opened fire as she met constituents in a Tucson supermarket parking lot. Six people were killed and 13 were wounded, including the congresswoman.

Giffords is now able to move around well enough that she gave Kelly a back rub from her hospital bed, he told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an interview that will air Tuesday.

"(It is) so typical of her. She's in the ICU. You know, gone through this traumatic injury. And she spent 10 minutes giving me a neck massage," Kelly explained. "I keep tellin' her. I'm like, 'Gabby, you're in the ICU. You know, you don't need -- you know, you don't need to be doin' this.' But it's so typical of her that no matter how bad the situation might be for her, you know, she's lookin' out for other people."

The gesture seemed to comfort Giffords and shows that his wife is improving and that her spirit and their personal bond remain strong, he said.

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That fact is striking in itself, and it's in line with what I described last week as a moribund gun control movement.

But even more striking is that, in the wake of the mass shooting, Arizona state legislators are preparing to push new laws that would actually make it easier to carry guns. The AP reports today on the agenda of the Republicans who control the state legislature:

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He checked into a down-and-out motel. He picked up photos showing him holding a Glock 19 while wearing only a bright red G-string. He bought ammunition on one of three trips to two different Walmarts.

He called a high-school pot-smoking buddy, ran away from his father into a cactus-dotted desert and updated his MySpace profile to say, "Goodbye friends."

Michelle Martinez ran into Loughner during his rambling odyssey. She and some friends were hanging out in the neighborhood when a sullen figure emerged from the darkness in a black hooded sweatshirt and startled them. Loughner picked his way through the group rather than walk around them, offering a deep, distant "What's up?" He then quickened his pace and disappeared into the darkness.

"I had a feeling he was thinking about something," said Martinez, who knew Loughner from their school days. "It was just kind of weird."

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My 11-year-old son was invited to the most important social event for sixth graders, a sleepover birthday party, and instead of being thrilled his mother is concerned about his safety, he is, instead, embarrassed.

Too bad for him.

As I do when my son gets invited to the homes of classmates whose parents I don't know, I touch base before the event, I Google their names, I go into the house for a little look-see when I drop him off, and I ask about weapons.

"Do you own guns?" I will ask.

So far, none of them say they do, but if they did, I'd ask to see how they're secured.

Maybe I am a little overprotective; he is, after all, my only child. And maybe, after all my years at the local newspaper, I've written and edited enough accidental shooting stories to make me perpetually nervous about how easily gun tragedies occur.

One of the worst happened years ago, when a local boy was spending the night at his friend's house. What began as a routine sleepover ended senselessly when one boy came across a gun thought by its owner to be safely put away in a drawer.

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"The NRA is out there already saying it's a slippery slope -- that if we take away the large magazines we're actually going to try and take away their guns, forgetting to mention that the Supreme Court has already said that everyone has a right to own a gun," she said.

The NRA has publicly declined to comment on the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people in Arizona Saturday beyond saying, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims." But McCarthy says that the pro-gun group has already been reaching out to key members to, for example, oppose legislation offered by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., that would bar possession of a gun within 1,000 feet of a member of Congress.

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