China has 'mountains of data' about cyber attacks coming from US.

By Danny Palmer

05 Jun 2013
0 Comments

A top Chinese official claims to have ‘mountains of data' showing evidence of hacking originating from the US.

Huang Chengqing, director of the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT), made the comments ahead of President Barack Obama's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California on Thursday.

The two leaders are set to discuss cyber espionage and Obama will tell Xi he believes Beijing needs to be held accountable for any hacking that originates from Chinese soil.
However, Huang said that cyber espionage goes both ways between China and the US, although he avoided directly accusing the US government of computer hacking.
"We have mountains of data, if we wanted to accuse the US, but it's not helpful in solving the problem," Huang told a government-run Chinese newspaper.
"They advocated cases that they never let us know about," he continued, before calling for more co-operation.
"Some cases can be addressed if they had talked to us, why not let us know? It is not a constructive train of thought to solve problems."
Last week, it was revealed that Chinese hackers had gained access to secret US government files about advanced weapons systems.
Huang didn't deny the cyber attack had occurred, but suggested that if the American government wanted to keep the information secure, it shouldn't have been connected to the internet in the first place.
"Even following the general principle of secret-keeping, it should not have been linked to the internet," Huang said.
Speaking in a recent interview, News International CISO Amar Singh told Computing that every nation in the world is engaging in cyber attacks of some sort.


Read more: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2272851/china-has-mountains-of-data-about-cyber-attacks-coming-from-us#ixzz2VKw3ugfJ
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Beatles' album cover saves lives in India

Beatles' album cover saves lives
Tue, 28 May 2013 6:35

By Jane Luscombe
Reporter
George, Paul, Ringo and John knew how to cross a road safely, and now the people of Calcutta have been urged to do the same.

Traffic police in India have been saving lives thanks to the Beatles' iconic Abbey Road album cover. They've been using it to warn pedestrians about the dangers of jaywalking, and it appears to be working.

Dozens of billboards bearing the famous Abbey Road album cover went up three months ago, with the slogan: "If they can, why can't you?"

The aim was to stop pedestrians from being knocked over, and traffic police say the accident rate has dropped by 20 percent.

Ironically, some Beatles conspiracy theorists saw death, not saved lives, in the album cover. They were convinced Paul McCartney had perished, because he was the only one barefoot.

Anti-smoking Americans seized on the same album to promote their message. In 1969 McCartney was wielding a cigarette. Look now and it's gone, airbrushed out to protect music lovers from the evil weed.

But what next for Abbey Road? A campaign to champion the comeback of flared trousers and flowing locs.


Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Beatles-album-cover-saves-lives-in-India/tabid/417/articleID/299455/Default.aspx#ixzz2VL3pG7mP

Update your info, Israel left Gaza back in 2005. It belongs to the Arabs now and is run by the terrorist Hamas.

It's been confirmed that Sarin Gas is being used in the Syrian conflict.

Phark.

-PB

So now the question is, who's supplying Syria with chemical weapons.

Syria has had chemical weapons for ages.

Right from the beginning there were fears and concerns that Syria's chemical weapons stash (one of the the few countries who didn't comply with UN Resolutions to get rid of them in the late 90s) would fall into terrorist groups hands.

Syria did come out early on in the conflict and say they would never use chemical weapons against their own people, and they actually moved a few of them out of the conflict zones, but as the war grew wider and more fierce it's gotten harder to protect them.

Syria's justification of using these chemical weapons will be that the government views the opposition and 'rebel groups' as outsider groups, elements of Al-Queda (which unfortunately a lot now are) so now their dropping rockets with chemical warheads on them in 'rebel held' areas.

Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

by Cindy Cohn and Mark Rumold

Late on Wednesday, the Guardian newspaper confirmed what EFF (and many others) have long claimed: the NSA is conducting widespread, untargeted, domestic surveillance on millions of Americans. This revelation should end, once and for all, the government's long-discredited secrecy claims about its dragnet domestic surveillance programs. It should spur Congress and the American people to make the President finally tell the truth about the government's spying on innocent Americans.

In a report by Glenn Greenwald, the paper published an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISC) that directs Verizon to provide “on an ongoing daily basis” all call records for any call “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls” and any call made “between the United States and abroad.”

In plain language: the order gave the NSA a record of every Verizon customer’s call history -- every call made, the location of the phone, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other “identifying information” for the phone and call -- from April 25, 2013 (the date the order was issued) to July 19, 2013. The order does not require content or the name of any subscriber and is issued under 50 USC sec.1861, also known as section 215 of the Patriot Act.

There is no indication that this order to Verizon was unique or novel. It is very likely that business records orders like this exist for every major American telecommunication company, meaning that, if you make calls in the United States, the NSA has those records. And this has been going on for at least 7 years, and probably longer.

This type of untargeted, wholly domestic surveillance is exactly what EFF, and others have been suing about for years. In 2006, USA Today published a story disclosing that the NSA had compiled a massive database of call records from American telecommunications companies. Our case, Jewel v. NSA, challenging the legality of the NSA’s domestic spying program, has been pending since 2008, but it's predecessor, Hepting v. AT&T filed in 2006, alleged the same surveillance. In 2011, on the 10th Anniversary of the Patriot Act, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Justice for records about the government’s use of Section 215 – the legal authority the government was relying on to perform this type of untargeted surveillance.

But at each step of the way, the government has tried to hide the truth from the American public: in Hepting, behind telecom immunity; in Jewel, behind the state secrets privilege; in the FOIA case, by claiming the information is classified at the top secret level. In May 2011, Senator Ron Wyden, one of the few courageous voices fighting against the government’s domestic surveillance program, said this in a debate about reauthorizing Section 215:

I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.

Today is that day. The American people have confirmed how the government has secretly interpreted Section 215. And we’re angry. It’s time to stop hiding behind legal privileges and to come clean about Section 215 and FISA. It’s time to start the national dialogue about our rights in the digital age. And it’s time to end the NSA’s unconstitutional domestic surveillance program.


http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/06?

Who else thinks that the west should NOT intervene in Syria?

As cold as it sounds, I agree. Different countries are going to back different sides and it's only going to lead to a full scale conflict.

It's a tough one as innocent people are dying daily. Both sides are equally evil and I wish the UN had the balls to send some troops in and sort them out.

There's another side to me that wishes for equal amounts of weapons to be given to both sides but subsequent loss of civilian life makes that wrong b

All I know is that playing footsies with the rebels, like the West has been doing, is only creating a bigger problem once the Assad regime collapses.

The West is effectively sponsoring the rebels while Russia is arming Assad and making noises that they care about missiles falling into Hezbollah hands.

I don't have a solution but IMO the West needs to treat both sides as criminals rather than taking a preference as it seems to have done.

As an aside, I see a whole lot less anger on this forum and in the media about 70,000 dead Syrians and Assad's use of chemical weapons than there was when Israel struck back at Hamas which fired over a thousand rockets over the border and into Israeli towns. No rage, no demonstrations in the streets, little in way of news networks showing the dead, no moral outrage from the Left - nada, zilch. Just cold, dispassionate reporting of facts.

Oh it's a hypocritical world we live in.

Well, sometimes.

I'm pretty sure the invading israelis are the terrorists buddy.

I'd have more sympathy for the rebels cause, were it not for the fact that they're just as bad as Assads regime. As Afro said, you risk an escalation of global conflict for the sake of quickening a war. As heartless as it sounds, there is no point arming/fighting with the rebels.

Any form of intervention by the West/America is just going to end badly.

1) Iran & Russia are already in the war in some form or another. Russia is supplying arms to Assad, and Iran are supplying arms, and have ~20,000 troops in the country fighting alongside Assad's and Hezbollah's forces.

2) You're going to wind up with a situation like Libya did, where thousands of terrorists in varying terrorist organizations are going to wind up with sophisticated weaponry, which will cause problems, ala Moroccan oil plant hostage crisis earlier this year, and the whole shitstorm that went down in Mali and currently in Northern Nigeria. Basically a repeat of Afghanistan 1990s.

Either way, Assad will win this civil war, whether the West likes it or not. The recent battle of Al-Qusayr is proof of this. Al-Qusayr was a strategic town the rebels took several months ago when the Rebels went on that huge offensive, and even had a crack at taking the capital, Damascus,and a couple of weeks ago Assad's forces, backed by Hezbollah and Iranian forces took it back in the last 48 hours.

Bottom line is IRAN and HEZBOLLAH and to a certain degree RUSSIA will not allow Assad's forces to lose this war, and any Western intervention will mean a war between Iran and Russia, and then it's a quick path to Nuclear War and probably WWIII.

Except... there are no Israelis in Gaza. :lol: :lol:

Wright Brothers Taken Out History Books by Connecticut Senate


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A couple of days ago, the Wright Brothers found themselves taken out of history books. On Wednesday, the Connecticut Senate announced that, since historical evidence indicates that the original aviation pioneer was Gustave Whitehead, it would be common sense that he be credited with this achievement.

The Connecticut Senate passed a bill naming Gustave Whitehead as the original aviation pioneer. This bill is expected to be passed in to law in about a week's time.


“The Governor shall proclaim a date certain in each year as Powered Flight Day to honor the first powered flight by Gustave Whitehead and to commemorate the Connecticut aviation and aerospace industry,” House Bill No. 6671 reportedly reads.

Gustave Whitehead was a German immigrant who, when first arriving in the United States, was named Gustave Weisskopf.

The plane he designed and built was basically a car fitted with wings that could be left folded or unfolded, depending on whether one was interested in flying or driving.

Several aviation historians say that, according to their investigations into the matter at hand, Gustave Whitehead beat the Wright brothers by a couple of years.

Thus, it appears that he successfully flew his Condor plane on August 14, 1901. The Wright brothers only managed to fly their plane in December 1903.

“Whitehead's flight, it must be stressed, was more than two years before the Wrights manhandled their Flyer from its shed and flew a couple of hundred feet in a straight line,” reads an excerpt from the 100th anniversary edition of Jane's All The World's Aircraft, as cited by Daily Mail.

Furthermore, “The Wrights were right; but Whitehead was ahead.”

As was to be expected, not everybody agrees with the Connecticut Senate's decision to credit Gustave Whitehead with being the original aviation pioneer.

In fact, some historians say that there is hardly any evidence that the flight actually took place. What's more, word has it that it was all no more and no less than a hoax.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wright-Brothers-Taken-Out-History-Books-by-Connecticut-Senate-359177.shtml

Financial elite at 'secretive' annual meeting

Politicians, business leaders and royalty meet near London for Bilderberg Group's shadowy three-day event.

Last Modified: 07 Jun 2013 04:58

Politicians, business leaders and royalty from Europe and the US are meeting near London for a secretive three-day event to discuss global policy.

Known as the Bilderberg Group, their annual conferences are not recorded, nor do they produce any statements.

The lack of transparency often fuels theories that they are the secret rulers of the world.

Al Jazeera's Charlie Angela reports from London.

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2013/06/201367034958894.html?

Edited by Joffa: 7/6/2013 06:21:19 PM

By Dylan Welch and Mirwais Harooni, Reuters

KABUL -- A suicide bomber detonated a small truck loaded with explosives in southern Afghanistan, killing seven Georgian soldiers, NATO and Georgian officials said on Friday, and the Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility.

The attack happened on Thursday evening in Nawzad district in the battlefield province of Helmand, officials said. On May 13, three soldiers from the ex-Soviet state were killed in a similar attack in the same province.

The explosives were detonated outside a Georgian military base in Nawzad, said chief of the Georgian army joint staff, General Irakli Dzneladze.
Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

More than 10 years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

"I offer my deepest condolences to the families of our fallen heroes and to all of Georgia," Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in a televised address. "Our duty to their memory is to continue our path towards NATO membership."

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message sent to reporters, saying a "truck bombing inside a U.S.-NATO base has killed 20 foreign invaders and wounded dozens."

The Afghan Taliban, seeking to expel foreign forces and impose Islamist rule after they were ousted in 2001, routinely overstate casualties in their attacks.

The blast brings to 30 the death toll of Georgian soldiers serving in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

With over 1,500 soldiers serving in Helmand province, Georgia has the largest non-NATO combat troop commitment in Afghanistan.

Georgian troops have been in Afghanistan since 2004, a commitment that underscores Tbilisi's ambition to join NATO, despite fierce opposition from neighboring Russia, with which it fought a brief war in 2008.

Last month proved particularly bloody for members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which is preparing to withdraw most combat troops by the end of next year.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/07/18823506-7-georgian-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan-suicide-bomb-attack?

Probably proportionate to the number of people who have any kind of vested interest in what's going on. There's going to be more jewish/israeli immigrants here than Syrians.

There's also the fact that the details coming out of Syria are sketchy at best for many of the major news outlets. The confirmation that chemical weapons had been used was a three paragraph article published by AFP. If the quality of article isn't there, they're not going to publish it. And yeah, I know that hasn't stopped the Herald Sun before, but most HS readers would rather read about Dayne Swan's new sweat socks than chemical warfare in Syria.

Illegal ivory trade 'funding Lord's Resistance Army rebels'

PATIENCE AKUMU FRIDAY 07 JUNE 2013


The Lord's Resistance Army has resorted to elephant poaching in order to fund its activities, according to human rights organisations.

Human rights activists and conservationists warn that "poaching and its potential linkages to other criminal, even terrorist, activities constitute a grave menace to sustainable peace and security in Central Africa."

The LRA leader, Joseph Kony, tops the wanted list of the International Criminal Court. Together with three other leaders, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen, and Vincent Otti, Kony has been indicted for crimes against humanity. Atrocities in Northern Uganda including murders, mutilations, rape, abductions, lootings and displacement of communities have all been attributed to the LRA.

Kony, originally based in South Sudan from where his militants terrorised Northern Uganda, has not attacked Uganda since 2006. However, the group reportedly continues to attack and displace people in the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo.

These places are also bases for their illegal trade and, human rights activists say, they are threatening the existence of elephants in Africa. The UN estimates that the elephant population in DRC and CRA could have already declined by 90 per cent.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned: "Wildlife crime has become a serious threat to the security, political stability, economy, natural resources and cultural heritage of many countries.

"The extent of the response required to effectively address this threat are often beyond the sole remit of environmental or wildlife law enforcement agencies, or of one country or region alone."

The LRA joins other rebel groups like Janjaweed in Cameroon and CRA, who have for long relied on illegal ivory trade to fund their operations.

"The spread of cross-border poaching in Central Africa and its links to sophisticated armed groups is alarming. We have seen the devastating impact of this crime in too many countries," said Jim Leape, International Director General of international conservation group WWF.

The report, Kony's Ivory: How Elephant Poaching in Congo Helps Support the Lord's Resistance Army, was authored by Invisible Children, an American charity organisation dedicated to exposing the atrocities of the LRA.

One of Invisible Children's most popular videos Kony 2012, while controversial, enlightened a mostly oblivious world about the extent of LRA atrocities. Critics however say the film simplified the LRA war and ignored the atrocities equally perpetuated by the Ugandan army. Following Kony 2012, the U.S sent troops to reinforce the UPDF's efforts in fighting the LRA.

In this latest report, Invisible Children, together with co-authors Enough Project and the Satellite Sentinel Project, say that the resources gained from the illegal trade of ivory undercut the efforts of the African Union Regional Task Force soldiers to combat the LRA and undermine the mission of US military advisers to assist their work.

The biggest market for ivory is china. The country is under pressure from international community that wants it to stop the trade in ivory to help conservation and, now, security efforts.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/illegal-ivory-trade-funding-lords-resistance-army-rebels-8650065.html

North Korea vows to boost "nuclear deterrence" after fresh rebuke, new sanctions from U.N. Security Council
:shock:
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA North Korea swiftly lashed out against the U.N. Security Council's condemnation of its December launch of a long-range rocket, saying Wednesday that it will strengthen its military defenses — including its nuclear weaponry — in response.

The defiant statement from North Korea's Foreign Ministry was issued hours after the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Pyongyang's Dec. 12 rocket launch as a violation of a ban against nuclear and missile activity. The resolution, which won approval from Pyongyang's ally and protector China after drawn-out discussions, also expanded sanctions against the North.

In Pyongyang, the Foreign Ministry maintained that the launch was a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space, not a test of long-range missile technology. But now, North Korea will "counter the U.S. hostile policy with strength, not with words," the ministry said, ominously warning that North Korea will "bolster the military capabilities for self-defense including the nuclear deterrence."

The wording "considerably and strongly hints at the possibility of a nuclear test," analyst Hong Hyun-ik at the private Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul said Wednesday.

A nuclear test would fit into a familiar pattern of defiance in Pyongyang. In 2006 and 2009, North Korea followed up rocket launches just weeks later by testing atomic devices, which experts say is necessary for development of nuclear warheads.

However, North Korea has a new leader, Kim Jong Un, who took over in December 2011 following the death of father Kim Jong Il. How he will handle the standoff with the international community remains unclear.

There was no indication Wednesday of an imminent nuclear test. However, satellite photos taken last month at North Korea's underground nuclear test site in Punggye-ri in the far northeast showed continued activity that suggested a state of readiness even in winter, according to analysis by 38 North, a North Korea website affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.

Last month's rocket launch has been celebrated as a success in North Korea, and the scientists involved treated like heroes. Kim Jong Un cited the launch in his New Year's Day speech laying out North Korea's main policies and goals for the upcoming year, and banners hailing the launch are posted on buildings across the capital.

Washington and its allies consider the long-range rocket launch a covert test of ballistic missile technology, and suspect Pyongyang is working toward mounting a nuclear warhead on a missile capable of striking the U.S.

North Korea claims the right to build nuclear weapons as a defense against the United States, which stations more than 28,000 troops in South Korea. The foes fought in the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953 and left the Korean Peninsula divided at the 38th parallel.

Six-nation disarmament negotiations, hosted by China and aimed at offering North Korea much-needed food and fuel in return for dismantling its nuclear program, have been stalled since North Korea walked away from the talks following U.N. punishment for its 2009 rocket launch.


Since then, Pyongyang had indicated its readiness to resume discussing disarmament, and in February 2012 negotiated a deal with Washington to place a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests in exchange for food aid.

That deal fell apart when North Korea unsuccessfully launched a long-range rocket in April. In July, North Korea's Foreign Ministry issued a memorandum declaring that it felt forced to "completely re-examine the nuclear issue due to the continued U.S. hostile policy" toward Pyongyang.

Following Tuesday's Security Council resolution, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said it would rebuff any attempts to engage Pyongyang in disarmament negotiations.

"There can be talks for peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region in the future, but no talks for the denuclearization of the peninsula," it said.

The Security Council demanded that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible manner," and ordered the regime to cease rocket launches.

"Today's resolution also makes clear that if North Korea chooses again to defy the international community, such as by conducting another launch or a nuclear test, then the (Security) Council will take significant action," U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said.

The binding resolution is the first in four years to expand sanctions against Pyongyang. It ordered the freeze of more North Korean assets, including the space agency, and imposed a travel ban on four more officials — limited sanctions that target individuals and specific companies.

"We believe that action taken by the Council should be prudent, measured, proportionate and conducive to stability," Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong said after the vote.

The decision by China, North Korea's biggest ally and economic supporter, to approve the U.N. resolution — including sanctions — may reflect frustration on Beijing's part toward its neighbor, analysts said. In the past, China has vetoed applying sanctions for past provocations.

"China has limited influence with North Korea," Zhang Liangui, a researcher with the ruling Communist Party's main research and training institute, said in Beijing. "Beijing disapproves of any nuclear test or new missile launch, but there's not a lot it can do."

China's support for the resolution, with targeted sanctions, signals that it agrees that North Korea's launch was a test of its ballistic missile technology, but it is still trying to protect the ally.

"China is striking a balance here. It wants to punish North Korea for the latest launch and tell it not to undertake a new ballistic missile launch. But it doesn't want to put unbearable pressure on Pyongyang," said Shen Dingli, a regional security expert and director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57565318/north-korea-vows-to-boost-nuclear-deterrence-after-fresh-rebuke-new-sanctions-from-u.n-security-council/?

Edited by Joffa: 8/6/2013 02:59:07 AM

There's intelligence suggesting that NoKo have restored their nuclear reactor to working capacity.

Nelson Mandela hospitalised, in serious condition

June 8, 2013 - 4:19PM

Former South African president Nelson Mandela, 94, has been readmitted to hospital with a renewed lung infection and is in ‘‘serious but stable’’ condition, the presidency said.

‘‘This morning at about 1:30am (9:30am Saturday AEST) his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to a Pretoria hospital. He remains in a serious but stable condition,’’ President Jacob Zuma’s office said in a statement.

It marks the second hospitalisation for the ailing anti-apartheid hero in two months.

On April 6 he was released from hospital after being treated for pneumonia during a 10-day stay.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/nelson-mandela-hospitalised-in-serious-condition-20130608-2nwol.html#ixzz2VbY81xl8

The poor bloke can't have long on this coil left.

Will be a very sad day when he goes, which could be very soon :cry:

Free gun initiative begins in Houston neighborhood

Houston’s Oak Forest neighborhood is the first in the country being trained and equipped by the Armed Citizen Project, a nonprofit that is giving away shotguns to single women and residents of neighborhoods with high crime rates.

By JUAN A. LOZANO
The Associated Press

HOUSTON — Houston resident Cheryl Strain’s inexperience with guns was apparent as she struggled to load shells into a 20-gauge shotgun.

Over the piercing blasts of gunfire in the shooting range, Strain’s instructor, Dan Blackford, patiently directed her on how to use her thumb to shove a shell all the way inside the barrel and feel it click.

“Now we got a round in the chamber ready to go,” Blackford said as he positioned her body the right way to hold the shotgun. “Look down your sight, put that BB right in the middle of your target and press the trigger.”

Strain’s northwest Houston community of Oak Forest is the first neighborhood in the country being trained and equipped by the Armed Citizen Project, a Houston nonprofit that is giving away shotguns to single women and residents of neighborhoods with high crime rates.

While many cities have tried gun buybacks and other tactics in the national debate on gun control, the nonprofit and its supporters say gun giveaways to responsible owners are a better way to deter crime. The organization, which plans to offer classes in Dallas, San Antonio, and Tucson, Ariz., in the next few weeks, is working to expand its giveaways to 15 cities by the end of the year, including Chicago and New York.

Others in Houston, while expressing support for Second Amendment rights, question whether more guns will result in more gun-related deaths rather than less crime.

Oak Forest residents say their neighborhood, made up of older one-story houses and a growing number of new town homes, has experienced a recent rash of driveway robberies and home burglaries. On a recent Sunday afternoon, a group of 10 residents, including Strain, went through training at Shiloh Shooting.

Mixed feelings

Kyle Coplen, 29, the project’s founder, said his group expects to train at least 50 Oak Forest residents and put up signs saying the neighborhood is armed.

“When we have a crime wave, we don’t just say, let’s just increase police and that’s all we do. We do multiple things. I see this as one aspect of what we can do,” said Coplen, who graduated from the University of Houston with a master’s degree in public administration.

It costs the organization about $300 to arm and train an individual and about $20,000 for a neighborhood. All costs are paid through donations, said Coplen, though he declined to say how much his organization has raised.

While some residents in the neighborhood are supportive, several officials expressed mixed feelings about it.

Sandra Keller, Strain’s neighbor, said she is participating, in part because of the helplessness she felt after her furniture store was robbed a few years ago.

“If you don’t have a gun, you’re just a walking victim. You’re just waiting for somebody to take advantage of you and your property,” said Keller, 64, after practicing at the shooting range.

Houston City Councilwoman Ellen Cohen, who represents Oak Forest, said: “I have serious concerns about more guns in homes.”

Cohen said she supports Second Amendment rights and thinks that such a responsibility should include proper training and background checks.

David Hemenway, a professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health who has written about firearms and health, said studies suggesting gun ownership deters crime have been contradicted by many others that say the opposite.

“Mostly what guns seem to do is make situations more lethal because most crime has nothing to do with guns,” he said. “When there is a gun in the mix, there is much more likely to be somebody dying or somebody incredibly hurt.”

Backers’ argument

Proponents of increased gun ownership point to a variety of statistics to support their argument, including ones showing that some cities with strict gun-control laws, such as Chicago, still have high homicide rates.

Blackford, the firearm instructor, said the group is teaching residents how to handle and store a weapon and when to use deadly force.

“The sad part is most people think if you’re pro-gun, that you’ve got this gunslinger attitude, that you are walking around looking for a gunfight to get into — and that is so far from the truth,” said Blackford, a former Secret Service agent.

Harris County Precinct One Constable Alan Rosen, whose deputies patrol Oak Forest, said that while he thinks the best deterrent to crime is effective neighborhood-watch programs, he says people should have the right to protect themselves.

“In terms of having a shotgun, after you’ve been properly trained on it, to have that in your home to protect your home, I’m for it,” he said.

Strain, 46, a single mother who has never owned a gun, said she was nervous firing the shotgun but thought that more training will help. She also had her son Rory, 12, practice firing the shotgun so “if God forbid something happens, he could be prepared as well.”

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021149040_freegunsxml.html?

As strange as this sounds, I think it's a good initiative. People are going to own guns, and after shootings they're going to go out and panic buy. This way they're ensuring that they're properly trained to use the weapon.

Should be charged with 2996 counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

If they target gangs and crims and take guns away from THEM, innocent people will be less likely to want to keep a weapon in the home.

I'm dead against guns (pardon the pun) but when the majority of gun deaths in the US is gang/crime related, clearly they are going for the soft target rather than doing anything concrete.