• American demand for handguns (SECOND AMENDMENT!) has fueled a 28 percent jump this decade in world exports of small arms, a global report said today. According to the survey, the U.S. alone was responsible for about half of the worldwide increase in legal international gun sales between 2000 and 2006; the United States now accounts for over HALF of the world’s imports of pistols and revolvers and 45 percent of shotguns. Some perspective, in case that doesn’t strike as a scary and enormous fact in and of itself: no other country imports more than 4 percent of the global total, the report found. USA! USA! USA! [Salon]
• The government will require businesses that win federal contracts to use a government electronic database system (E-Verify) to verify that their employees have legal immigration status to work in the U.S. Hmm, I wonder what could possibly go wrong with a (previously voluntary) database run and maintained by government employees… [NY Times]
• Internal Pentagon documents show that children of U.S. military troops sought outpatient mental health care 2 million times last year, double the number at the start of the Iraq war (2003). From 2007 to 2008, some 20 percent more children of active duty troops were hospitalized for mental health services, while inpatient visits among military children have increased 50 percent since the invasion of 2003. Reasons for the treatment increases are unclear, but they do coincide with the various surges of tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops into Iraq and Afghanistan. How … bizarre. What could children whose parents are being mercilessly and pointlessly killed in war, or survive to struggle with domestic violence, alcohol abuse, depression and suicide, and post-traumatic stress possibly have to deal with? [TPM]
• Advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit charging states across the country of violating part of the federal “motor voter” law requiring voter registration help for low-income residents. The 1993 National Voter Registration Act requires states to offer voter registration when residents are applying for a driver’s license or state ID. To reach low-income residents who are less likely to own vehicles, the law also requires that voter registration be distributed along with applications for public assistance (food stamps, Medicaid, etc.). States basically have stopped distributing voter registration to these residents after 1995-1996, disenfranchising some 2 to 3 million people annually, because who gives a flying fuck what poor people want/think. Your voice only counts if you can afford a car, drive drunk, and have a mommy and daddy rich enough to bribe the judicial system out of charging you with vehicular manslaughter, mkay? This is America, after all. [Salon]
