States Provide Lucrative Subsidies For Gunmakers

Reuters via the Hartford Courant ^ | January 9, 2013 | MICHAEL C. BENDER and WILLIAM SELWAY

[Daffynition]

WASHINGTON —

— Governments in nine states have awarded at least $49 million in subsidies in the past five years to gun and ammunition makers whose products are under scrutiny after the school shootings in Newtown.

Almost 85 percent of those tax breaks or grants have gone to two companies: Olin Corporation, the Clayton, Mo.-based maker of Winchester-brand bullets and shotgun shells, and a unit of Freedom Group, the Madison, N.C.-based company that produces the rifle used in the Dec. 14 killing of 20 children and six women at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The subsidies from state and local governments are attracting attention after high-profile mass killings last year, which also included a shooting at a suburban Denver movie theater that killed 12 in July. Lawmakers and gun control advocates are pressing to stop aid for weapons manufacturing, saying it does little to create new jobs and isn't worth the social costs.

[Daffynition]

That actual title, this morning, FP on The Hartford Courant, above the fold was : Gun Tax Breaks Totaled $49M

In campaign for tougher gun laws, Obama and allies work to tilt public opinion

Biden hints at ‘executive action’ on gun control

I don't live near the railroad....but I hear a train comin' down the tracks.

[trebb]

The subsidies from state and local governments are attracting attention after high-profile mass killings last year...

Easy to get around - unionize the States and nobody will care what they do with their money - it will be an act of hate to question them.

[Daffynition]

We’ll do everything by executive order now, comrade.

**“The president is going to act,” vowed Mr. Biden, whom Mr. Obama tapped to head the task force on the issue. “There are executive orders, executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help [of] the attorney general and all the rest of the Cabinet members as well as legislative action we believe is required.”

But talk of unilateral White House action — on which the administration declined to elaborate — alarmed gun-rights supporters.

“The Founding Fathers never envisioned executive orders being used to restrict our constitutional rights,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Republican. “We live in a republic, not a dictatorship. The president should not be able to act unilaterally when it comes to our constitutional rights. Executive orders were meant as a way for the president to implement legislatively passed laws, not to make law.”**