On Sunday, Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) denounced the recent push for anti-gun violence measures, blaming hatchets, hammers, video games, and “psychotropic drugs” for the nation’s homicide rate. Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Blackburn claimed that the conversation after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre should focus on mental health instead of guns, because disturbed individuals could use “a hammer, a hatchet, a car”:

BLACKBURN: We need to do a couple of things. Number one is to drill down on the mental health issue. Number two is to look at the psychiatric and psychotropic drugs, because that is many times linked to the individuals who carry out these crimes. They are also wanting to make certain that we begin to get in behind these video games. [...] The problem is it could be a hammer, a hatchet, a car.

Watch it:

In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, Republicans and pro-gun advocates have continued to insist that gun safety measures are not only useless but infringing on gun owners’ rights. A week after the shooting, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre held a controversial press conference in which he raged against gun safety and tried to divert attention to video games, corporate media, school security and hurricanes. Conservatives have taken up the NRA’s message; Blackburn’s colleague Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) used the same rationale to claim that any assault weapons ban would have to include hammers and machetes.

America’s gun homicide rate is 19.5 times higher than comparable nations. The FBI estimates that 8,775 people were killed by guns in 2010 — more than an order of magnitude higher than the 540 people killed with blunt objects. Furthermore, despite the gun lobby’s scapegoating of mentally ill individuals, people with mental health problems are not statistically more likely to be violent than the average person.

A small Wisconsin town school board will vote Monday night on whether or not to grant the Indianhead Rifle and Pistol Club access to the local elementary school this April for its annual gun show.

Spooner Elementary School has hosted the show without much objection for the last two decades. But less than a month after the mass shooting at Newtown elementary school that claimed the lives of 20 first graders and 7 others, some community members are raising objections to the idea of welcoming hundreds of guns and gun owners into a public elementary school.

Tim Brabec, a member of the club and organizer of their annual gun show, told ThinkProgress that the decision to use the elementary school is one of convenience.

“Who doesn’t have sympathy with the families in [Connecticut]?” said Brabec when asked about whether the visual of a gun show at an elementary school was appropriate so soon after the deadly shooting in Newtown. “But we don’t associate one with the other. We don’t go there for the shock value.”

Shock was but one reaction to the news that the town was considering granting the show permission to use the school. “I do not agree with it at all,” said one commenter online. “I was shocked to hear about it last year, and can’t believe they would even consider it this year after the shooting in CT.”

Also a point of contention is that the Indianhead Rifle and Pistol Club stands to make a handsome profit off of the sale of guns at this event by exploiting the gun show loophole that has become one focal point of the renewed debate over gun control.

“Gun Shows are a major opportunity for people who would fail the background check to obtain their guns,” argued another commenter. “Do we really think a school has any business (even thought it is a source of income for them) offering the public buildings for this possible loophole?”

State law forbids people from bringing guns within 1000 feet of public schools, but it does make exceptions for guns shows by licensed gun manufacturers and dealers.

Brabec said that he expects a close vote at tonight’s meeting, with three board members opposed to the show, three who support it and one undecided in his estimation.

On Friday, Internet pioneer and open information activist Aaron Swartz took his own life at the age of 26. At the time of his death, Swartz was under indictment for logging into JSTOR, a database of scholarly articles, and rapidly downloading those articles with the intent to make them public. If Swartz had lived to be convicted of the charges against him, he faced 50 years or more in a federal prison.

To put these charges in perspective, here are ten examples of federal crimes that carry lesser prison sentences than Swartz’ alleged crime of downloading academic articles in an effort to make knowledge widely available to the public:

• Manslaughter: Federal law provides that someone who kills another human being “[u]pon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion” faces a maximum of 10 years in prison if subject to federal jurisdiction. The lesser crime of involuntary manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of only six years.
• Bank Robbery: A person who “by force and violence, or by intimidation” robs a bank faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. If the criminal “assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device,” this sentence is upped to a maximum of 25 years.
• Selling Child Pornography: The maximum prison sentence for a first-time offender who “knowingly sells or possesses with intent to sell” child pornography in interstate commerce is 20 years. Significantly, the only way to produce child porn is to sexually molest a child, which means that such a criminal is literally profiting off of child rape or sexual abuse.
• Knowingly Spreading AIDS: A person who “after testing positive for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and receiving actual notice of that fact, knowingly donates or sells, or knowingly attempts to donate or sell, blood, semen, tissues, organs, or other bodily fluids for use by another, except as determined necessary for medical research or testing” faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.
• Selling Slaves: Under federal law, a person who willfully sells another person “into any condition of involuntary servitude” faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, although the penalty can be much higher if the slaver’s actions involve kidnapping, sexual abuse or an attempt to kill.
• Genocidal Eugenics: A person who “imposes measures intended to prevent births” within a particular racial, ethnic or religious group or who “subjects the group to conditions of life that are intended to cause the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part” faces a maximum prison term of 20 years, provided their actions did not result in a death.
• Helping al-Qaeda Develop A Nuclear Weapon: A person who “willfully participates in or knowingly provides material support or resources . . . to a nuclear weapons program or other weapons of mass destruction program of a foreign terrorist power, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall be imprisoned for not more than 20 years.”
• Violence At International Airports: Someone who uses a weapon to “perform[] an act of violence against a person at an airport serving international civil aviation that causes or is likely to cause serious bodily injury” faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years if their actions do not result in a death.
• Threatening The President: A person who threatens to kill the President, the President-elect, the Vice President or the Vice President-elect faces a maximum prison term of 5 years.
• Assaulting A Supreme Court Justice: Assaults against very senior government officials, including Members of Congress, cabinet secretaries or Supreme Court justices are punished by a maximum prison sentence of just one year. If the assault “involved the use of a dangerous weapon, or personal injury results,” the maximum prison term is 10 years.

It should be noted that Swartz faced such a stiff sentence because prosecutors charged him with multiple federal crimes arising out of his efforts to download and distribute academic papers. Similarly, a person who robbed a bank, sold a slave, and then rounded out their day by breaking Justice Scalia’s nose would also risk spending the next 50 years in prison, just like Aaron Swartz did.

Indeed, if Swartz’s story reveals anything, it is the power of prosecutors to pressure defendants into plea bargains by stringing multiple criminal charges together and threatening outlandish prison sentences. Whatever one thinks of Swartz’s actions, which were likely illegal and probably should be illegal, it is difficult to justify treating him as if he were a more dangerous criminal than someone who flies into a rage and kills their own brother.

According to the New York Times, the Obama Administration will not back down on its calls for comprehensive immigration reform that addresses all aspects of the issue, including provisions for high-skilled workers, students, and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who achieve legal status.

Bucking GOP calls for a piecemeal approach on the issue, the administration will insist on a holistic solution that includes the promise of citizenship in conjunction with punitive measures against undocumented immigrants, according to administration officials:

The president and Democrats will also oppose measures that do not allow immigrants who gain legal status to become American citizens one day, the officials said. [...]

Mr. Obama is expected to lay out his plan in the coming weeks, perhaps in his State of the Union address early next month, administration officials said. The White House will argue that its solution for illegal immigrants is not an amnesty, as many critics insist, because it would include fines, the payment of back taxes and other hurdles for illegal immigrants who would obtain legal status, the officials said.

The president’s plan would also impose nationwide verification of legal status for all newly hired workers; add visas to relieve backlogs and allow highly skilled immigrants to stay; and create some form of guest-worker program to bring in low-wage immigrants in the future.

Since President Obama won his decisive re-election with a staggering 75 percent of the Latino vote, conservatives have been undergoing a collective epiphany on the status of their relationship with the Latino community. Influential Republicans such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Colin Powell have called out the contemporary GOP on its borderline xenophobia and asserted that, barring significant changes, it will not be able to attract support from one of America’s fastest-growing demographics.

Still, that hasn’t stopped some Republicans — such as Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — from pursuing extremist policies such as an unconstitutional ban on birthright citizenship.

Gun sales skyrocketed at the end of 2012 after the tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. The FBI conductedmore than 2 million criminal background checks ahead of gun purchases in December, according to the National Sports Shooting Association, representing a 58.6 percent increase over December 2011.

The National Rifle Association usually encourages Americans to purchase guns in the aftermath of an attack by spreading rumors of Democrats’ supposed efforts to restrict gun ownership. For instance, the NRA’s CEO and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre once warned that Obama would confiscate “our firearms” and undermine America’s greatness. But on CNN’s State Of The Union Sunday, NRA President David Keene dismissed charges that the organization’s fearmongering is responsible for the spike in sales fand instead blamed President Obama and gun safety proponent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA):

CANDY CROWLEY (HOST): The accusation is that you are ginning up this conversation because it helps gun sales.

KEENE: The two people who are selling so-called assault rifles are Sen. Feinstein and President Obama, not us. They’re the ones that are scaring American gun owners. It isn’t the NRA.

Watch it:

While Keene may think American gun owners fear stronger gun laws, like the proposals that Vice President Biden’s gun violence prevention task force will likely release this week, even NRA members overwhelmingly support common-sense measures.

Keene dismissed policies that would limit the availability of assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, two proposals that are likely to be included in the recommendations of Vice President Joe Biden’s gun task force. “We don’t think any of those things work,” he said. “You should absolutely be able to compromise on things that accomplish the purpose. Our objection to those things is that they interfere with people’s rights without doing anything to solve the problem.” Biden is expected to send his report to the president on Tuesday.