Fox News guest: Felons should buy guns, but helping people buy Obamacare is too far

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Conservative National Review writer Charles Cooke told Fox News on Thursday that criminals should not be able to assist people using the government’s website to buy health insurance, but they should be allowed to own guns.

During a “breaking news” segment about new dropping public support for President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, Fox News host Gretchen Carlson pointed out that the National Review had a new report that was going to “scare some folks.”

According to the report, “convicted criminals” have been hired as Obamacare navigators in California, “including three individuals with records of significant financial crimes.”

“I should just say at the outset that I think as a rule, I do think sometimes we do over-punish people for crimes they’ve committed in the past,” Cooke opined. “We take away their vote, we take away their guns, and we can sometimes ruin their lives for too long.”

“But this is an issue where privacy is of paramount importance,” he continued. “There’s a lot of personal information and financial information that is being pushed through the system. And some of the people who are working in the system really have some developed skills of fraud and corruption.”

Dana Howard, the spokesperson for Covered California, told National Review that the employees had not been disqualified from the Navigator program because their records had been clean for an extended period of time.

“People make mistakes,” Howard said. “They paid their debt to society. They rehabilitated themselves. And so they apply, and they meet the qualifications. We do not see them as a threat.”

Watch this video from Fox News’ The Real Story, broadcast Jan. 30, 2014.

North Carolina Gun Owners Will Soon Be Able To Carry Firearms At Bars And Playgrounds

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

On Tuesday, North Carolina lawmakersapproved a bill allowing gun owners with concealed-carry permits to bring their weapons to playgrounds, bars, and public recreation areas, although bar owners will still be permitted to deny entry to armed patrons. Gov. Pat McCrory (R) is expected to sign the expansive bill into law soon. The measure will also allow concealed-carry permit holders to keep their guns in cars parked on school campuses. The bill was stripped of an especially extreme provision that would have eliminated the requirement for background checks or handgun permits.

Since the Newtown elementary school shooting, legislation to put guns in more places is gaining traction among Republican lawmakers, who argue that gun-free zones leave people unarmed and vulnerable to attack. But North Carolina’s plan to put guns in bars poses a far greater danger. Shootings involving alcohol are all too common. Nearly half of all homicides are preceded by some sort of argument, frequently a drunken fight over a perceived insult. Moreover, an estimated 40 percent of men and 30 percent of women who killed someone were drinking alcohol at the time.

Gun owners also tend to abuse alcohol at far higher rates than people who do not own guns, engaging in risky behaviors like binge drinking and drunk driving.

Undeterred by this data, North Carolina Republicans embraced the bill along with an onslaught of radical legislation targeting poor people, women, and minorities. Residents are fighting back with widespread “Moral Monday” protests. As of this week, 900 North Carolinians have been arrested in these demonstrations.

Other Republican legislatures have recently pushed similar bills to put guns in bars in Georgia,South Carolina, and Louisiana.