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Eric Holder's Justice Department includes the ATF within its bounds. I have been experiencing a severe delay in processing a Form 4 and wonder if fellow FReepers are also seeing an undocumented change in policy for handling the purchase of NFA Class III items? Anyone care to guess if Eric Holder is throttling down the vetting process?

Hayward - Chai Soua Vang's tearful farewell to his family after his testimony a day earlier proved prophetic Friday, as a jury convicted him of nine charges that guarantee he will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing six hunters and wounding two others. After three hours of deliberations, the jury rejected Vang's claims of self-defense and found the truck driver from St. Paul, Minn., guilty of six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of attempted homicide. In addition to the six mandatory life sentences, Vang faces an additional 225 years in prison. His sentencing...

Lack of adult authority frees unbalanced boys to vent rage By Philip Terzian 	Washington - There was another school shooting at a suburban high school last week. Thankfully, no one was killed. That may well be the reason why both Washington newspapers ran the story on Page 3, instead of the front page, the usual venue for school shootings. There may also be another reason: These events are no longer quite as newsworthy as they once were, and we're accustomed to them. 	There's some evidence for that. In the past, when sullen, disaffected teenage boys brought guns to school and ...

From September 6 - October 17, 2000 the American Legion and iBelong conducted a historic on-line poll in which the leading Presidential candidates were asked to state their position on seven important issues affecting all veterans. The issues ranged from protecting the U.S. Flag to Military Readiness to VA Health Care. On each issue respondents selected the candidate whose views most closely reflected their own. The results are posted HERE

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., June 12 (Reuters) - U.S. and Russian nuclear secrets stored on hard drives at the Los Alamos National Laboratory are missing from a vault there, the New York Times said on Monday. Laboratory director John Browne confirmed that electronic classified information was missing but declined to give details. He said that the FBI and investigators from the Department of Energy, which operates the world-famous nuclear facility with the university of California, were hunting for it. "This is an extremely serious matter and we are taking swift actions to deal with it," Browne said in a statement. Ed ...

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court rejected on Friday the U.S. Justice Department's request to set aside a ruling that President Clinton violated the privacy law by releasing letters from Kathleen Willey after she accused him of fondling her in 1993. The department's emergency appeal argued there could be no violation because the White House was not covered by the law. It asked the appeals court to dismiss the Privacy Act claim and to vacate the judge's order. But the three-judge panel refused to set aside the ruling now. It said the question of the reach of the privacy law ...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Faced with mounting criticism that their nuclear arsenals are too large, the five main nuclear powers pledged on Monday ``unequivocal commitment'' to eliminate atomic weapons, without setting a timetable. In a 23-point statement, the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China also called for preserving the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty and obliquely refer to Israel's refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The statement, presented at the current NPT conference by France, is aimed at deflecting criticism that the five powers, particularly the United States and Russia, are moving far too slowly in reducing their ...

WASHINGTON - In an unprecedented visit, the 15 ambassadors of the U.N. Security Council were to tour the U.S. capital on Thursday in an effort to patch up relations with Washington and press for payment of its huge U.N. debt. Not all countries, especially Russia, were eager at the prospect of making a pilgrimage to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee whose chairman, Jesse Helms, an intractable critic of the United Nations, initiated the trip. But all accepted his invitation, with some saying they would speak bluntly about the $1.7 billion U.S. debt to the world body and others saying the ...

I seem to recall (about a year or so back) the weapons procurement plans from the Pentagon included buying Chinese made air-to-air missiles for the Navy or Air Force. Does anyone remember the story and can you please provide details and/or links? Thanks, GtG

NEW YORK - The White House planned to announce on Monday a push to reverse a sharp rise in U.S. preschool children using Ritalin, Prozac and other psychiatric drugs, the New York Times reported. Citing Clinton administration officials, the Times reported in Monday's editions that the federal government planned to inform parents and teachers about the risks of using the drugs on preschoolers. Among some of the campaign's other initiatives, the Food and Drug Administration will develop new drug labels and the National Institutes of Health will begin a nationwide study of Ritalin use in children under the age of ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Friday dropped the threat of costly legal action against Smith & Wesson, the nation's biggest maker of handguns, after the beleaguered company agreed to a series of safety measures. The suits were being pursued by 30 cities, seeking to recover the cost of rising cost of gun violence, as well as several counties and states across the nation. The federal government, alarmed by a series of recent school shootings, had threatened to join the action unless there was a swift settlement. The deal marks a major victory for President Clinton as he seeks ...

Initial census mailing leaves some scratching their heads Ouch. Bad start for Census 2000. The U.S. Bureau of the Census would like people to be talking about the upcoming census, but not the way they were on Monday and Tuesday. By now, every household in the U.S. should have received a form letter in the mail from Census Director Kenneth Prewitt, alerting people that the survey form itself will be mailed in about a week. For almost all Americans, this was the first, direct contact with the Census 2000 process. Let's hope it gets better. Problem- No. 1: Why does ...

Man who taped glass vials to poles won't face charges Prosecutor says 'test' of radio signals wasn't malicious or harmful A Racine man who taped more than 100 vials containing water to utility poles throughout the county in the belief that they could help him monitor the power of radio signals will not face criminal charges for the exploit a prosecutor said Friday. Milwaukee County Deputy District Attorney Jon N. Reddin said the absence of harmful substances in the vials as well as a lack of criminal intent on the man's part led prosecutors to conclude that criminal charges were ...

DAVOS, Switzerland - The United States needs to tame blistering growth and raise interest rates soon to prevent the world's top economy from overheating, a senior International Monetary Fund official said on Saturday. Stanley Fischer, the fund's first deputy managing director, said he was confident the U.S. Federal Reserve would confirm expectations in world financial markets and raise short-term interest rates when its policy-making council meets next week. Nothing less than the future of the entire world economy depended on U.S. policy-makers, he told a news briefing at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, an exclusive get-together of the ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian soldier shot by U.S. agents as he crashed around in a vehicle in the embassy compound in Moscow tried to run down two guards and did not stop when guns were drawn, a U.S. spokesman said on Tuesday. State Department spokesman James Rubin told a graphic tale of how agents tried to smash nto a car which was being driven erratically around the compound by Yevgeny Ivanov, 20. Ivanov is recovering in hospital with serious wounds and may face charges of attempted theft when he recovers. Rubin praised the agents for ``brave and quick'' ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Documents from the sex scandal that led to the impeachment of President Clinton in connection with his affair with Monica Lewinsky will be posted in their entirety on the Internet next week, a leading publisher said on Wednesday. Random House said that the documents -- used extensively by one of its authors, Jeffrey Toobin, in his new book on the scandal -- would be available next Tuesday, Jan. 11…Random House said that the documents to be posted were: -- Full text of Paula Jones affidavit concerning Clinton's ''distinguishing characteristics'' dated May 26, 1994. -- Affidavit by ...

Sheriff's deputies shot and injured a 14-year-old Indian boy who allegedly opened fire at them on the Potawatomi reservation in Forest County, igniting a storm of rumors of possible retaliation that kept half the student body home from an area high school Friday. The shooting also prompted the cancellation of the football team's first game. Two teens, including the one who was shot, were being held Friday in the Forest County Jail after the shooting Thursday, officials said. A third teen, believed to be armed, was being sought Friday night. At least two of the youths fired shotguns at deputies, ...

newsweek Newsweek AN EDITORIAL GUNS IN AMERICA WHAT MUST BE DONE After it was over, after the SWAT teams had swept in and the suspect had fled, after the screams and the tears, a little boy too young to know his letters wanted to thank the men who rescued him from the shooter.  Handing his mother a green crayon and a piece of blue construction paper, 4 1/2 year-old Nathan Powers started dictating.  "Thank you policemen" Nathan said, "for saving us from the gun because you're our friend." For saving us from the gun.  Nathan had been in day ...

The NAACP, the oldest and largest U.S. civil rights group, said Monday it was filing a lawsuit ``in an effort to break the backs'' of gun manufacturers that sell and distribute weapons across the country. ``They can't go and get a state legislature to stop us, they can't scare us, they will now have to deal with us,'' The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) president and CEO Kweisi Mfume said in his keynote address at the 90-year-old group's national convention in New York. Mfume announced that the NAACP would be a plaintiff in the lawsuit to ...