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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (691389)	1/5/2013 12:08:06 AM
From: THE WATSONYOUTH	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1577594

Perhaps this should be addressed FIRST before any new gun laws are even considered. Where is the LIBTARD outrage here? If this takes back burner status to new gun control laws, it will only prove that the LIBTARD real goal is to ban guns. Clearly Cho's mental illness status should have prevented him from obtaining weapons and FURTHER alerted state officials of a potential tragedy. So......what say you LIBTARDS? Why do states ignore mentally ill gun buyers? By USA Today Staff January 4, 2013 6:50 am Text Size: A A A USA Today - Seung-Hui Cho, the college student who killed 32 people in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech in 2007, had no trouble buying guns. He breezed into stores, passed federal background checks and legally purchased the two weapons he used in the massacre. Yet he had been judged mentally ill. If a judge's order that Cho get mental health treatment had been sent to the national database used to run checks on gun buyers, he'd have been disqualified. Because of a glitch in Virginia's reporting, that didn't happen. Virginia rushed to fix its system, and today it feeds more mental health records per capita into the database, known as NICS, than any other state. But the shock waves from the deadliest shooting in U.S. history faded away at the Virginia border. As of October, a third of states had reported fewer than one record for every 100,000 residents to NICS. Rhode Island has failed to report any. Five states -- Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, North Dakota and Pennsylvania -- have each reported one. Denying guns to people who've been judged mentally ill or committed to an institution, as federal law requires, is one of the least controversial gun controls imaginable. More than 90% of the public supports preventing people with mental health problems from owning guns. The practice would not have prevented last month's slaughter at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Despite obvious signs of mental illness, the killer, Adam Lanza, had never been involuntarily committed, and the guns he used were bought by his mother. But compliance with the law could deter other tragedies. As the country seeks ways to prevent more gun violence, this is a logical place to start. So what's standing in the way? Bureaucratic confusion, political cowardice and utter ineptitude, judging by the explanations from some of the worst performing states: Massachusetts says it needs a state law to require reporting to the database. Twice since 2009, Gov. Deval Patrick has sent measures to the legislature to do just that. And twice, they've died without a vote in a legislature controlled by Democrats in a liberal state. The Gun Owners' Action League, the state's pro-gun lobby, says it doesn't oppose the bills, but it has voiced concern with just about every provision. It's hard to know why, but the result is obvious. Pennsylvania blames its failure to report on federal inaction, and in part, state officials are right. Pennsylvania has tougher restrictions than the federal government on what sort of commitment to a mental institution triggers the ban on buying a gun. State police have sought federal guidance since 2011 on whether the gun check database would recognize its stricter standards. Finally, after ping-ponging between two agencies for nearly two years, the state got a reply. North Dakota makes you wonder whether anybody's in charge. Gov. Jack Dalrymple's spokesman says reporting to NICS is Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem's job. Stenehjem's spokesman says his office is merely a "conduit" and has no access to mental health records: Go talk to the Department of Human Services, says the spokesman. Human Services says it knows nothing about the issue. One thing is clear: Stenehjem's office has gotten $297,000 in federal grants to improve NICS reporting. The governor, his human services chief and the attorney general might want to spend some of it on a conference call to get this fixed. States, conservative and liberal, with the will to change have found solutions. When Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, elected in 2008, found that his state wasn't reporting any mental health records, he pushed a measure to solve the problem. In just the past year, Delaware has reported 18,699 records, rising to No. 2 for reporting. The death of 32 in Virginia failed to produce similar leadership elsewhere. Perhaps the death of 20 small children in Connecticut can. --- (c) Copyright 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (691389)	1/5/2013 12:53:37 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1577594

But the muslims are doing fine in Chris Christie's New Jersey.

To: THE WATSONYOUTH who wrote (691389)	1/17/2013 1:36:03 AM
From: FJB	Respond to of 1577594

1 in 3 Illinoisans lives in or near poverty level: report Posted: Jan 16, 2013 8:52 AM CSTUpdated: Jan 16, 2013 8:52 AM CST CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) - A staggering one out of three Illinoisans today lives in or near poverty — the peak of a continued climb over three decades, a new study finds. It means one in five Illinois children are living in poverty, according to the study released Wednesday by the Social IMPACT Research Center of Chicago's Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights. The forces behind this rising poverty in a post-recession economy go beyond unemployment, according to the study, which traces it also to an inadequate living wage and lack of access to education, housing, health care and assets. "Illinois' 33%: Report on Illinois Poverty," is based on 2011 U.S. Census Bureau data. It declares a crisis sparing no community in Illinois, and only worsening under budget cuts to government programs and policies that alleviate poverty. Rodney Dawkins, 46, of Lake View, is among the 33 percent. With a high school diploma — which the study says holds little value today in wage-earning potential — Dawkins worked minimum-wage jobs all of his life, before a job loss at age 40 left him homeless. "I lived at SROs, stayed with friends, slept in the bus or the park," he said. "I couldn't find work or afford a place." He finally connected with an employment training program, got a restaurant job, and last year, moved into subsidized housing. But he still lives below poverty. "I work maybe 25 hours a week, and manage my money the best way I can," he said. "Rent comes first, then lights and cellphone. But now that my CTA bus card just went up, I'm really going to have to budget my money to make it through." The 33 percent figure is up from 25 percent of Illinoisans who lived in or near poverty in 2000. In 1990, it was 27 percent; in 1980, 26 percent. "We wanted to get a handle on how people are recovering post-recession and to understand how things like our state's budget crisis are filtering down into communities," said report author Amy Rynell, director of the research center. "What we learned was extraordinarily disturbing," Rynell said. The study found that almost half of Chicago's population is living in or near poverty. In suburban Cook and Kane counties, it's nearly a third; in DuPage, McHenry and Will counties, one out of five people, and in Lake County, one out of four. Statewide, 31 percent of the African-American population lives in poverty, along with 22.6 percent of Latinos; 12 percent of Asians, and 11 percent of whites. Of the state's households headed by single women, 34.3 percent live in poverty; as do 8.2 percent of senior citizens, and 20.7 percent of disabled people. The pervasiveness makes poverty one of the most pressing social issues facing Illinois and the nation, according to the study. It offers recommendations from increasing minimum wage and the affordable housing stock to addressing issues of education, health and nutrition and financial traps intrinsic to poverty. Read more: myfoxchicago.com