“Chicago is the first but not the last for me,” said Flocka in a press release promoting the anti-violence concert.

Flocka has carved out a niche for himself as the rapper to call if you need a soundtrack for the sacking and pillaging of a small city. Everything about Flocka, from his name to his discography to hits such as “Live By the Gun” and “Gun Sounds,” encourages violence.

Flocka’s stylings are more appropriate at a NRA convention than at some soft anti-violence protest. Get on it, Wayne LaPierre.

Flocka himself was a victim of gun violence in winter 2010; he didn’t let that stop him from encouraging as much violence as possible. Per XXL:

“All I know was somebody was sent to kill me, but he was so scared, that he let me get out the car and grab what I tried to give to him. [He] hit me in my arm and my whole right side went out, so I couldn’t get him. But trust me, he coulda did the job if he wasn’t scared. That’s the word out to him and his people. I’m straight though, it just broke one of my ribs.”

“Shout out to everybody that’s been hating on me,” he added, “Y’all can’t stop me.”

The proceeds from Flocka’s performance of “Let Dem Guns Blam,” “Bustin’ At ‘Em,” and “Bang” will be donated to Chicago area schools in the hopes of preventing gun violence.

Aside from motivating everyone’s inner goon, Flocka is responsible for the greatest Obama parody video ever: Baracka Flocka Flame.

“The idea is we convert weapons into music. In the end of the day, we got these kids all over the world.We got this gun culture. What my movement is, we start converting weapons into musical instruments. Music is the movement.”

The setting of “Bang, Bang Bang” is Chicago, best known for having the highest gun violence in the nation. I agree with this item in Chicago Mag, which says the song is the “sort of concern-trolling, vaguely patronizing fare that has made Jean infamous. The song is also, frankly, unnecessary.”

The pattern is clear. Wyclef uses calamities to remain relevant. In the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake in his native Haiti, he got in front of every camera, microphone, and writer’s pen and squawked about his campaign to be the next Haitian president. But that campaign was short-lived, as he wasn’t actually a resident of, you know, Haiti.

Wyclef then used his resurgent visibility to fraudulently raise millions of dollars for travel and salaries for himself and his family. An audit on his charity uncovered Wyclef spent over $4.5 million on travel alone.

In both these cases, earthquakes and guns, Wyclef swoops in on a tragedy and attempts to exploit it for notoriety and money. He’s a disaster tourist. And it’s no mystery why. Wyclef hasn’t had a hit since 2007′s “Sweetest Girl”. And he’s got to pay for those lawsuits. Fugee royalties don’t net you that kind of coin.

A series of radio ads by the group Americans for Responsible Solutions will criticize the two for their votes against stricter gun laws.

Americans for Responsible Solutions is the gun-control organization of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D., Ariz.) and her husband. Giffords was shot in the head by a deranged gunman in 2011, and she has been an outspoken supporter of stricter gun laws since.

“As Gabby said last week, if we can’t keep our communities safer with the congress we have, we will work to change congress,” Pia Carusone, executive director of ARS, said in a press release. “Sen. McConnell and Sen. Ayotte turned their backs on their constituents at home in order to do the bidding in Washington of the corporate gun lobby. We’re going to make sure their constituents know that, effective immediately.”

The radio ads say Ayotte and McConnell “ignored the will of the people.”

“This was common sense legislation written by a Republican and a Democrat, supported by law enforcement, and it protected Second Amendment rights, but Ayotte voted against it anyway,” one woman in the ad says.

The ads urge listeners to call Ayotte and McConnell and invokes the shooting in Newtown, Conn.

“We watched. We listened. We felt it. Newtown. But Sen. McConnell won’t listen to us,” a narrator says.

The McConnell campaign said the Senate minority leader is listening to the will of his Kentucky constituents.

“Sen. McConnell commends Gabby Giffords for her courage and perseverance but in Kentucky we have a fundamental disagreement with a gun control agenda,” McConnell campaign spokesman Jesse Benton said in an email to the Washington Free Beacon. “President Obama’s allies have been attacking Sen. McConnell on this issue for months but his support for Kentuckians’ Second Amendment rights will not waver.”

Public support for gun control legislation has ebbed since the Newtown shooting. A recent USA Today poll found only 49 percent of those surveyed favor Congress passing a new gun-control law, compared to 45 percent opposed. A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in early April reported 55 percent backed a stricter gun law, compared to 61 percent in February.

Additionally, a Washington Post/Pew poll found 39 percent of Americans were happy or relieved the gun control legislation failed, while 47 percent were disappointed or angry.

A poll by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling firm showed 44 percent of Granite State voters said they approve of the job Ayotte is doing while 46 percent said they disapprove.

The poll also found 75 percent of New Hampshire voters support requiring background checks for buyers at gun shows.

“When you go to registration, it raises all the black helicopter crowd notion that what this is all about is identifying who has a gun so that one day the government can get up and go to the house and arrest everyone who has a gun, and they’ll cite Nazi Germany and all that,” Biden told NPR Wednesday.

Paraphrase: Opposition to President Barack Obama’s gun agenda automatically makes you a conspiracy nut.

But if that’s true, a lot of Democrats must be receiving messages via their dental fillings. The day before Biden’s interview, Reid had made it clear that the gun bill he’d put to a vote on the Senate floor would not include an assault weapons ban. The assault weapons ban would rather have to be submitted as an amendment, which is almost certain to fail. Same goes for the ban on high-capacity magazines. (Universal background checks would be included in the bill, however.)

The Senate likely will pass an assortment of quite meaningless gun restrictions that will disappoint liberals who had hoped the Obama White House and congressional Democrats would seize the post-Newtown moment.

And they did try to seize the moment. It’s just that they failed—not because of Republicans but because of internal divisions within the supposedly unstoppable Democratic Party.

Let us note that in Harry Reid’s Senate there are more votes against Chuck Hagel than there are in favor of an assault weapons ban. (Reid said the ban has at most 40 votes on the floor; 41 Republicans voted against Hagel’s nomination for secretary of defense.) And let us note, too, that in this season of fake liberal concern for the divided and adrift GOP, Democrats aren’t exactly in tip-top shape, either.

The changing demographics of the country may give Democrats the edge in presidential elections. But Congress is another matter. The Founders designed the Senate so that small states with minority views had as equal a share in decision making as the big mommas such as New York and California.

And the nation’s population distribution and racial gerrymandering schemes under the Voting Rights Act have created a situation where Democratic voters are packed into a relatively small number of districts.

But it takes broad coalitions—or Democratic majorities that make inroads into purple and red states—to pass legislation.

The problem for Democrats is their majorities rely heavily on lawmakers who cannot toe the liberal line in all cases. Harry Reid has 55 Democrats in the Senate. But some of them—McCaskill, Nelson, Begich, Landrieu, Pryor, and others from the South and Midwest—know they would have to make an early transition into lobbying if they voted for a new assault weapons ban, or for legislation that would harm the coal industry, or, dare I say, for comprehensive immigration reform.

Republicans haven’t made Reid’s job any easier. House Speaker John Boehner’s decision to go with a “Senate-first” approach to gun legislation meant that Reid, not the speaker, would be to blame if the bill fell short. The tantrums from Piers Morgan and Michael Moore show that to have been a shrewd move.

Similarly, the Republican decision to call the president’s sequester bluff while avoiding a government shutdown put Senate Democrats on the defensive and the White House on the sidelines.

Obama’s much heralded social welfare group, Organizing for Action, hasn’t been able to sway the debate in favor of gun control or force additional tax increases. This “grassroots movement” seems to be disappearing as quickly as it did after the 2008 election—and with it, the hopes of a transformative second term.

If gun control can’t make it after the twin blows of Aurora and Newtown, how will Obama get the Senate to agree on a bill to reduce climate change through cap and trade or a carbon tax? And does the president really want to deal with the legal and political fallout if he instructs the EPA to regulate emissions unilaterally?

The Republican death wish is speeding along a potential immigration reform that would include an amnesty of illegal immigrants in the United States. But there is no guarantee the march off the cliff will proceed unhindered once the compromisers actually release the details of a bill.

A similar reform plan seemed to be doing well early on in Bush’s second term, but when actual lawmakers up for reelection had to cast votes on controversial amendments, the Jenga puzzle collapsed.

I trust Obama will spin whatever he gets out of the legislative process as important, historic victories. And no doubt the more gullible progressives will cheer him on. But the reality, as always, will be more complicated than that.

This past week in Washington, in fact, may be a harbinger of things to come: Congress plodded along on various policy and budget matters as the president took a somewhat meaningless trip overseas. Obama, like most second term presidents, will find himself devoting more attention to foreign policy as the Syrian war spreads and the Iranian nuclear program comes to a head.

As Washington returns to its parochial rhythms of budgets and favors to business, Obama will be spending more time on helicopters, black and green, than in building his “New Foundation.” And he’ll have Harry Reid along for the ride.

Even large retailers such as Walmart and Cabela’s are having trouble keeping up with demand while ammo manufacturers are likely to have increased production:

Wal-Mart has been rationing its ammo since January, to three boxes per customer per day. And when a gun retailer like Cabela’s gets two or three shrink-wrapped pallets of 5.56 mm or .223 ammunition for AR-15 assault rifles, they’re “cleaned off like locusts, within a couple of hours,” according to Brian Rafn, a research director at Morgan Dempsey Capital Management in Milwaukee who follows ammo manufacturers.

“You’re talking about a massive civilian arsenal build up,” he added.

As demand has climbed, so have prices, from $12 for a box of 50 rounds for assault rifles to $25 a box, said Rafn.

Larry Keane, the president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, took the organization’s blog earlier this week to offer a few tweaks to the president’s form, as showcased in an August photo released by the White House last week:

In the same vein, we can offer the president some constructive advice on his shooting. Mr. President, try leaning a little further forward into the shot to better manage recoil. Keep your feet about shoulder width apart, and put more weight on your leading foot. You appear to be shooting a gun with “neutral cast,” to wit, a straight stock. Since you’re shooting left-handed, you may want to look into a different stock cast to better accommodate you. And if you’re going to get a custom gun, make sure they measure your length of pull first. Proper gun fit makes an enormous difference in accuracy, and thus in your enjoyment of the sport.

In the blog post, Keane also recommends a semiautomatic shotgun–like one the group donated to Camp David–to the president:

You may also want to try out the semiautomatic shotguns that another one of our member companies donated to Camp David. These too come in left-handed versions, which eject the spent casing to your left, instead of to the right as is customary. No matter which way the case ejects when you shoot the semiautomatic, you’ll notice that the gun still only shoots one round per pull of the trigger, just like the over/under you’re shooting in the picture.

In fact, the semiautomatic shotguns are functionally identical to all the semiautomatic firearms that Senator Dianne Feinstein has proposed to ban in her sweeping new legislation, S. 150. We feel like we have to keep repeating that fact, because many of the media voices that consider themselves learned scholars on gun policy don’t even know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun, for heaven’s sake. Note that the New York Times article has a correction at the bottom of the page, because it originally said that you were shooting a rifle in the picture — a mistake quickly repeated by dozens of other media outlets. Many of these same media outlets have been quick to editorialize about which guns Americans should and should not be allowed to own, when apparently they wouldn’t know a rifle or a shotgun from a barn door. Go figure.

H/T TPM.

“The real life topic really is diminished by suggesting that anything–Hollywood caused the circumstances that just happened recently and happened anytime somebody goes a little off-the-rails, or a lot off-the-rails,” he said.

Willis contends Hollywood movies are more akin to a “roller coaster ride.”

The boards of Chicago’s municipal employees’ and teachers’ retirement funds voted to withdraw hundreds of thousands of dollars in gun company holdings. Chicago has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country, as well as the highest murder rate in the nation. It also has some of the most severely underfunded pension systems.

Andrew Biggs, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former Social Security administrator, said that the board might have broken the law by withdrawing support from profitable, yet politically unpopular companies.

“I’m not convinced of the appropriateness nor the legality of these actions,” he said. “Their commitment to the people in the plan is to maximize the value of investments to make sure benefits are paid for, so employees don’t end up having to pay the difference through contributions.”

Gun stocks have skyrocketed in the past decade due to increased demand.

Smith & Wesson’s stock has quadrupled in price since 2003, including 65 percent growth in the last 12 months. Sturm & Ruger grew by nearly 30 percent in 2012, quintupling in price over the last 10 years. The Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund (MEABF) and the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund (CTPF) voted in January to drop more than $1 million in those companies, as well as smaller gun manufacturers.

Jonathan Ingram of the Illinois Policy Institute accused the board of scoring cheap political points at the expense of worker welfare at a time when the city is more than $25 billion short of meeting its obligations to public employees.

“This is symptomatic of the entire Illinois pension crisis,” he said. “The retirement savings of government workers is controlled by politicians and politicians do what makes political sense, rather than fiscal sense.”

Illinois state law requires that pension fund managers make investment decisions based on the interests of members. The teachers fund’s investment guidelines say the board must makes decisions “solely in the interest of the members and benefit recipients and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits and defraying reasonable expenses incurred in performing such duties, as required by law.”

Jay C. Rehak, president of the CTPF board of trustees, said that while investment growth is important, the divestment reflected the ethical standards of the workers.

“We are fiduciaries guided by the recognition that we act with the obligation to protect fund assets and minimize investment losses,” he said in a statement. “We are also teachers, in classrooms and schools every day, and many of us unfortunately understand all too well the tragedy of gun violence. In the last academic year, 319 Chicago Public School students were wounded by guns, and 24 died from gun violence. These aren’t just tragic statistics—these are our students.”

Biggs blasted Rehak for not including workers input on the decision.

“They may dress this up as an investment decision, but it’s a political decision made in violation of their legal and moral obligations to their beneficiaries,” Biggs said. “It’d be one thing if participants voted to divest; instead pension mangers voted to make themselves feel good at the expense and the financial well being of workers.”

Neither Rehak, nor representatives from the MEABF returned requests for comment.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is calling on the city’s financial community to take further steps to hurt gun companies. Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s onetime chief of staff, urged banks to halt lending to gun companies and later pressured mutual funds to “blacklist” manufacturers from their portfolios.

One financial professional, who requested anonymity because of his company’s involvement in the bond market, said Emanuel is threatening more than just gun companies.

“It sounds like a veiled threat that if you want to do business with or in Chicago, you better not have any gun holdings,” the source said.

Emanuel’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Ingram, who supports converting the traditional pension systems into 401(k)-style retirement accounts, said the state and city must reform the system to empower its workers.

“We need to give workers control over where they invest,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense for the government to make these decisions or to pressure money managers on how to invest.”

Wolf, the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department, recommended Holder reprogram $12 million to strengthen NICS.

“If they really want to do something to improve NICS, they can do it today,” Wolf told the Free Beacon. “Holder can do it by 5 p.m. today.”

The $12 million recommended by Wolf is the same amount passed in the House Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill for fiscal year 2013 and more than double the amount recommended in the president’s budget. It is also double the appropriation currently provided to the program by Congress.

“Both the National Instant Criminal Background Check System Act Record Improvement Program and the National Criminal History Improvement Program can provide states with grant funding to update and automate criminal history and mental illness records,” Wolf wrote in his letter to Holder. “I believe that improving the data in the NICS index will improve the effectiveness of the national background check system and thereby reduce gun violence.”

Wolf also recommended establishing a national center for campus public safety.

“Such a program could provide training, research, and best practices to educational institutions at all levels to increase safety and prevent violence,” Wolf wrote in the letter. “This proposal has passed the House and has strong bipartisan support in both chambers. It’s also supported by the Virginia Tech Family Outreach Foundation.”

Ken Fulmer, the executive director of the Virginia Tech Family Outreach Foundation, said his organization has supported Wolf’s bill and similar efforts for the past three years.

“Right now, there’s no central place for colleges and universities to go for improving their standards,” Fulmer said. “The idea is to create a national clearinghouse for virtually everything on campus safety. Increased diligence on the basics could make all the difference in the world.”

President Barack Obama has pledged to pursue aggressively new gun-control measures in the wake of the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

The president recently signed a slate of executive actions aimed at strengthening gun laws and is using the bully pulpit to press Congress to enact sweeping new gun legislation, including new bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

However, Second Amendment groups argue such measures would do little or nothing to curb mass shootings.

Wolf said such a unilateral move by the Justice Department would not be without precedent.

The Justice Department bought Thomson prison from the state of Illinois for $165 million in October 2012, bypassing the appropriations process.

The purchase angered Republican members of Congress because the prison was being considered as a facility to hold Guantanamo Bay detainees.

“The unilateral decision to purchase the Thomson Prison—even though Congress has repeatedly opposed the Obama administration’s effort to use taxpayer funds to do so—underscores the administration’s desire to move forward and bring these detainees to U.S. soil,” House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said at the time.

However, Wolf said that in this case a unilateral move by Holder would not be contentious.

“If he can do that, we’re giving him the authority to do this now. Both of these things have been put in bills that passed the House,” he said. “They’re noncontroversial issues.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Video via Business Insider.