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President George W. Bush’s former chief strategist Matthew Dowd on Sunday lashed out at Congress for moving so quickly to fund air traffic controllers because lawmakers were personally "about to get delayed at the airports," while they couldn't pass background checks to protect children from mass shootings.

During a panel discussion on ABC's This Week, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile noted that Congress had rushed through a bill to avert air traffic controller furloughs caused by automatic budget cuts in the so-called sequester, but ignored the pain the cuts were causing less-wealthy Americans.

"This sequester will have real impact on real people in real time, not just members of Congress, but people that work for the park service, medical research as the NIH begin to make those cuts, it's impacting Meals on Wheels, kids who are in kindergarten," Brazile explained. "So I really do think that Congress needs to take a second look at this."

Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, however, called the air traffic controller bill "a real victory for fiscal conservatism" because Congress moved funds around, instead of undoing any budget cuts.

"Doesn't that mean the politically weakest are going to bear the biggest burden?" ABC host George Stephanopolous wondered.

"Not necessarily," Gingrich insisted. "It may mean the most corrupt are going to bear the biggest burden. It may mean the dumbest are going to bear the biggest burden. When you look at a $4 trillion government, you can find lots of really stupid things to quit paying for."

But Dowd found it "amazing" that the bitterly partisan Congress could only find a way to work together when they personally faced the possibility of spending some additional time on the tarmac.

"The only way they're bipartisan is to do something for themselves," he quipped. "It's amazing the speed at which they did that. We have this horrible shooting where all these children die in Connecticut, we can't pass gun control legislation. But oh by the way, you're about to get delayed at the airport through some small budget cuts -- which I still don't understand why we make policy the way we make policy. Everybody knows there's a fiscal crisis in this country, everybody knows we don't have the revenue to meet the expenses in this country, somebody has to bear pain, but we act in Washington like nobody has to bear any pain. So as soon as anybody bears any pain, we're going to take it back from them."

"I think many members of Congress have bought into a myth that doesn't exist anymore," he added. "I think most of what's gong on in gun control is there's not this huge vehement group of people saying I'm going to defeat you if you vote for background checks, I'm going to defeat you if you vote for high-capacity magazines... What there is, though, is a group of folks in Washington that are scared of their shadow on this issue, both some Democrats and a lot of Republicans."

"The myth doesn't exist anymore, but they're afraid to go launch themselves through it and do something about it."

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Longtime NY1 news anchor Pat Kiernan took the time this morning in his "In The Papers" segment to read Gabby Gifford's op-ed (A Senate in the Gun Lobby's Grip) for the NY Times in it's entirety.

A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

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Democratic Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy on Sunday lashed out at National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre and other gun control opponents as "clowns at the circus" who were just trying to sell more guns.

After Connecticut responded to the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School by enacting some of the toughest gun laws in the nation last week, LaPierre had appeared on Fox News to say that the new measures make "law books thicker for the law-abiding people."

"From the very start, my thought has been about how little this had to do with keeping kids safe and how much it has to do with this decades-long agenda against firearms that some in the political class and the media have had," the NRA chief opined.

On Sunday, CNN host Candy Crowley asked Malloy if LaPierre had been correct that the Connecticut laws had made it harder for law-abiding citizens to arm themselves.

"Wayne reminds me of the clowns at the circus," Malloy quipped. "They get the most attention and that's what he's paid to do. But the reality is, is that the gun that was used to kill 26 people on Dec. 14 was legally purchased in these state of Connecticut, even though we had an assault weapons ban. But there were loopholes in it that you could drive a truck through."

"I mean, this guy is so out of whack, it's unbelievable. Ninety-two percent of the American people want universal background checks," the governor added. "Candy, I don't want to tell you your business, but bring them back to reality."

"What this is about is the ability of the gun industry to sell as many guns to as many people as possible, even if they're deranged, even if they're mentally ill, even if they have a criminal background. They don't care, they want to sell guns."

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Police in Cottonwood Heights are searching for an assault rifle that was stolen Wednesday from the vehicle of a top Utah gun lobbyist, who called for more guns in schools after the shooting deaths of 20 children in Connecticut last year.

Utah Shooting Sports Council Chairman Clark Aposhian told KSTU that he was cleaning out his garage and placed the firearm in the back of his Dodge Magnum station wagon. He said the AR-15 military-style assault rifle was in a locked case and equipped with a thermal scope for night vision. Aposhian insisted the gun was not loaded at the time.

"To leave a weapon of that value, an assault rifle, in a car is just nuts," Cottonwood Heights Police Department Sgt. Scott Peck observed.

Peck fears that the weapon, which is registered, is on the streets of Cottonwood Heights.

“We definitely have a concern,” he explained. “There’s lots of them everywhere and we know there’s another one out there and it’s in the hands of a thief obviously.”

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BBC's Hilary Andersson took a concealed carry class with a group of teachers in Texas and discovered that using guns in schools without harming innocent children was a lot more more difficult that she had imagined.

To follow up on the mass shooting of 20 elementary school children late last year in Connecticut, BBC on Monday planned to air a Panorama special report called "America's Gun Addiction."

In a preview of Monday night's broadcast, Andersson attends a free concealed gun class that is being offered to teachers by Austin firearms instructor Johnny Price.

"Obama's out there trying to take our guns and high-cap mags," Price warns the dozens of teachers attending his class. "Guns founded America. We didn't do it on bows and arrows."

After the target practice portion of the course, Andersson admits: "It's harder than I thought it would be."

"You got your crotch area and that's always good," Price notes as he reviews the bullet holes in the BBC reporter's target. "But you got your points here. You passed."

Price adds that one bullet had "pushed" to the outside of human silhouette area on the target.

"You push, you take out a child," he explains.

But Price insists that he still believes that guns have a place in the classroom.

"Those teachers up in Connecticut, they begged, they pleaded, they cried, the kids cried," he says. "But he kept pulling the trigger. The only thing that would have stopped him was one concealed handgun. One teacher properly trained with a firearm could have stopped him."

"But you told me I would have just killed a child there," Andersson notes.

"Did I say you're ready to carry in a school?" Price shoots back. "No. Are you ready for it? No. It takes more training."

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A pastor in Connecticut has apologized for taking part in a vigil for the victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School because his church does not allow worshiping with other faiths.

Rev. Rob Morris of Newtown's Christ the King Lutheran Church offered a letter of apology after he was reprimanded by church president Matthew Harrison for "joint worship with other religions," according to the Religion News Service.

King Lutheran Church is a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which bans ministers from praying alongside Muslims, Jews or even other Christians.

Morris had provided the closing benediction at the Dec. 16 vigil in Newtown.

"There is sometimes a real tension between wanting to bear witness to Christ and at the same time avoiding situations which may give the impression that our differences with respect to who God is, who Jesus is, how he deals with us, and how we get to heaven, really don't matter in the end," Harrison wrote in his letter of reprimand. "There will be times in this crazy world when, for what we believe are all the right reasons, we may step over the scriptural line."

Harrison argued that “the presence of prayers and religious readings” meant that Morris should have not participated in the Newtown vigil.

In his apology letter, Morris explained that he had spoken to his supervisor before participating in the vigil but "I made my own decision."

“I believed my participation to be, not an act of joint worship, but an act of community chaplaincy," he said.

Missouri Synod's Rev. David H. Benke was also suspended for about two years after he participated in an interfaith service with a Muslim imam, a rabbi, a Catholic cardinal and others 12 days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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A bank in the small Texas town of Chappell Hill is inviting customers to bring in concealed handguns because it has been robbed five times, "all of them by Yankees."

"You never know who’s sitting in this bank," Chappell Hill Bank President Ed Smith told KHOU. “If you’re coming in to rob it, I think you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

A sign on the bank's door with the image of a handgun reads: "Lawfully concealed carry permitted on these premises."

Chappell Hill Bank is thought to be the first bank in the nation to welcome concealed handguns.

"We’ve been robbed five times," Smith explained. "All of them by Yankees."

The bank president also suggested that new gun control laws were not the way to prevent mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Everybody wants the government to do something,” Smith opined. “People need to do things for themselves.”

“People down here have a mindset about taking care of themselves,” he added. “If we have a flood, I don’t think you’re going to see people sitting in water up to their knees waiting for FEMA to come help them.”

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A prosecutor in Lapeer, Michigan says, "No harm, no foul," after a charter school took the National Rifle Association's (NRA) advice and hired a armed security guard who promptly left his handgun unattended in a student bathroom.

Chatfield School co-directors Matt Young and Bill Kraly announced last week that they had hired retired Lapeer County Sheriff’s Dept. firearms instructor Clark Arnold as a security guard in response to the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

"It's a tremendous asset to the safety of our students," Young told WNEM in a report that aired on Tuesday.

But by Wednesday, the school had admitted to The Flint Journal that the retired firearms instructor had made a "made a breach in security protocol" and left his unloaded handgun unattended in the school restroom "for a few moments."

"The school has put additional security procedures in place that follow local law enforcement practices and guidelines," a statement from Young said. "At no time was any student involved in this breach of protocol. We will continue to work on improving school security."

The school director insisted that the incident had been reported to authorities, but said that any repercussions for the newly hired guard were "a personnel matter."

Lapeer County Prosecutor Byron Konschuh expected that no criminal charges would be filed because no one was harmed.

"If you left a gun unattended and a toddler finds it and shoots and hurts someone, it could be some kind of reckless use of a firearm," Konschuh explained,

He added that "[i]t's almost like no harm no foul" because no students were injured in this case.

A 2008 resolution from the Lapeer Country Board of Commissioners indicated that Arnold had joined the Lapeer County Sheriff’s Dept. in 1976 as a corrections officer before being promoted to a road patrol officer in 1978. He served as a Certified Firearms Instructor, Certified Taser Instructor and Pepper Spray Instructor before retiring on April 19, 2008 with 32 years of service.

(h/t: Addicting Info)

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The hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday ripped into the National Rifle Association (NRA) for using President Barack Obama's daughters in an advertisement opposing new gun safety measures.

On Tuesday, the pro-gun lobbying group sparked outrage by releasing an ad calling Obama an "elitist hypocrite" for opposing guns in schools while allowing his own daughters to be protected by armed bodyguards. The ad comes one month after 20 children were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and just days after the NRA released a first-person shooting game for Apple's iPhone and iPad targeted at children as young as four.

After reviewing the ad on Wednesday, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle immediately denounced it as "political pornography."

"What's wrong with these people, Mika?" MSNBC's Joe Scarborough asked co-host Mika Brzezinski. "You have children who had no say in the decision in whether their father, who is going to step forward to be president of the United States, to run for president -- one of the most bone-crushing, sacrificing things any husband or wife can do to their family. And the second they make that decision, their children and their entire family have targets on their backs."

"And the NRA is putting something out?" he continued. "What's wrong with these people? Putting out apps that 4 year olds can play on the anniversary of the Newtown murders and now putting out an ad talking about the president's daughters."

"They are out of step, out of the mainstream, totally out of sync with what's going on in our society and, quite frankly after seeing that, I think that some of the people who run that thing are sick," Brzezinski agreed. "I really do. I think they are sick in the head. And I'm serious. I'm embarrassed right now. I'm embarrassed for our country, that we have a section of society, the NRA, which should have a voice certainly trying to protect a constitutional amendment. I understand that. There's a really legitimate debate there, [but] they just took it, they just brought it down to the lowest, most base level. I don't even want to -- it's now fringe."

"They are now a fringe organization with millions of mainstream Americans, gun, hunting guys and women that love to hunt," Scarborough noted.

"You should be embarrassed to be part of the NRA at this point," Brzezinski insisted. "I was even going to try and understand the people running to gun shops and loading up on these high-capacity weapons, assault weapons and magazines. I was willing to understand this debate and understand their fear of laws changing and try and discuss it on this show, but after seeing that, honestly, I'm done. They're done. This ad is the final straw."

"It can't be a real ad!" Scarborough exclaimed.

"That's so sick," Brzezinski lamented. "That's some sick person that did it at home in their basement."

"It's just disgusting people," CNBC host Donny Deutsch piled on. "It just gets to a point where it's below human decency."

"This is how they mark the anniversary of Newtown," Scarborough sighed. "I've never seen an organization as out of touch and extreme with middle America as this one... The NRA's worst enemy could not be doing the damage to this once-respected, mainstream organization as [NRA CEO] Wayne LaPierre is every single day."

"I'm terrified," Brzezinski concluded.

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Fox News host Eric Bolling on Friday insisted that assault-style rifles which can shoot "four or five rounds per second" were "protected under the Constitution."

In his weekly appearance on Fox & Friends, Fox News host Geraldo Rivera predicted that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden would be successful in enacting some measures to control gun violence after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but it would be difficult to ban weapons like the Bushmaster AR-15 that was used to slaughter 20 children.

"There really is some movement now for the first time in many decades to have some meaningful reform," he explained. "What I don't expect -- I think it's a long shot, I think the Second Amendment advocates are very strong, they have an excellent case constitutionally -- and it's going to be very, very difficult to ban assault-style weapons. I would love to see them banned except for sanctioned gun clubs, law enforcement and the military."

"You need to address, when you say assault-style weapons," Bolling interrupted. "Because most people understand an assault weapon is currently, not necessarily banned, but almost impossible to own as a civilian."

"You're talking about a fully automatic," Rivera pointed out. "But you're also enough of a gun advocate to know that with a semi-automatic, you can get off four or five rounds per second."

"Absolutely," Bolling agreed. "And that's protected under the constitution. And why are they even putting that in discussions?"

"When does the liberal left say, 'Enough, semi-automatic rifles are banned'? Boom. Then one day, they say, 'You know what? Semi-automatic handguns are illegal also,'" he added.

"Why do you need 30 rounds in the clip of your Glock [handgun], in the clip of you 9 mm?" Rivera wondered. "Why do you need 30 rounds? What are you going to do with 30 rounds in your pistol?"

The Fox News morning show then played a 2008 clip of then-candidates Biden and Obama promising not to take people's shotguns, which was accompanied by a red siren and a graphic that read, "Hypocrisy Alert."

"A lot of people are afraid that one thing is going to lead to another," co-host Steve Doocy opined.

"I think that paranoia is unfortunate," Rivera replied. "I think when you examine those people who are stocking up arsenals of AR-15s and .223 Bushmasters, they are often people who are so deeply suspicious of their own government that it is bitterly ironic that these are the same people who claim a mantel of patriotism."