NRA official: 'Culture war' more than gun rights

Associated Press/Houston Chronicle, Johnny Hanson - NRA attendee Janet Bero waits to have her German Luger appraised during the NRA's Antiques Guns and Gold Showcase during the National Rifle Association's 142 Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center Thursday, May 2, 2013, in Houston. NRA's Antiques Guns and Gold Showcase is a television show that runs on the Sportsman Channel.The 2013 NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits runs from Friday, May 3, through Sunday, May 5. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Johnny Hanson)

HOUSTON (AP) — The National Rifle Association kicked off its annual convention Friday with a warning that its members are engaged in a "culture war" that stretches beyond gun rights, further ramping up emotions surrounding the gun control debate.

NRA First Vice President James Porter, who will assume the organization's presidency Monday, issued a full-throated challenge to President Barack Obama in the wake of a major victory regarding gun control and called on members to dig in for a long fight that will stretch into the 2014 elections.

More than 70,000 NRA members are expected to attend the three-day convention amid the backdrop of the national debate over gun control and the defeat of a U.S. Senate bill introduced after December's mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

Porter's remarks came in a short speech to about 300 people at a grass-roots organizing meeting and set the tone for a "Stand and Fight"-themed convention that is part gun trade show, political rally and strategy meeting.

"This is not a battle about gun rights," Porter said, calling it "a culture war."

"(You) here in this room are the fighters for freedom. We are the protectors," said Porter, whose father was NRA president from 1959-1960.

Rob Heagy, a former parole officer from San Francisco, agreed with Porter's description of a culture war.

"It is a cultural fight on those 10 guarantees," he said, referring to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution. "Mr. Obama said he wasn't going after our guns. As soon as the Connecticut thing happened, he came after our guns."

That theme carried throughout the day and reached a crescendo in the afternoon political rally that punctuated by fiery speeches from state and national conservative leaders.

"You stood up when freedom was under assault and you stood in the gap, you made a difference," former U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told the cheering crowd of more than 3,500 at the political rally.

"This is a critical time in American history. Something big is happening in America," Santorum said. "Stand for America. Fight for America."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry criticized gun control supporters as opportunists who prey on the raw emotions of tragic events.

"You can almost set you watch for how long it takes for people who hate guns, who hate gun owners, to start a new campaign," after a mass shooting, Perry said.

Obama, who has pushed for gun control measures, was a prime target for criticism. NRA Executive Director Chris Cox bragged about the organization's victory.

"It was great to see the president throw a temper tantrum in the Rose Garden," Cox said.

Gun control advocates were determined to have a presence outside the convention hall. Across the street Friday, the No More Names vigil read the names of gun violence victims since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Gun control advocates also planned a petition drive to support expanded background checks and a Saturday demonstration outside the convention hall.

Erica Lafferty, whose mother, Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, was killed by the gunman, was outside the building and said she hoped to talk to as many NRA members as she could.

"I am not against people owning guns. I am asking for safe and responsible gun ownership and gun laws. I don't understand where the problem is with background checks," Lafferty said.

Inside the convention hall, visitors strolled past acres of displays of rifles, pistols, swords and hunting gear. Under Texas law, attendees could conceal and carry weapons with a permit.

Debbie and Daniel Ferris of Gun Barrel City, Texas, also agreed with Porter's assessment of a culture war.

"It's about fighting tyranny," said Debbie Ferris, who has been an NRA member for five years. Her 35-year-old husband is a lifetime member.

"We don't like to be pushed around," Daniel Ferris said. "We are free Americans."

But polls also show that most Americans favor some expansion of background checks and gun control supporters promise to keep pressing the issue.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, has said he will re-introduce the bill to require criminal and mental health background checks for gun buyers at shows and online.

Gun control advocates have scored some significant victories at the state level. Colorado lawmakers passed new restrictions on firearms, including required background checks for private and online gun sales and a ban on ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

Connecticut recently added more than 100 firearms to the state's assault weapons ban and now requires background checks for private gun sales.

Maryland and New York have passed sweeping new guns laws, and in Washington state, supporters of universal background checks recently announced a statewide campaign to collect 300,000 signatures to take the issue straight to voters.

Feds: Many causes for dramatic bee disappearance

FILE - In this April 25, 2007 file photo, Jeffery Pettis, a top bee scientist at the Agriculture Department's Bee Research Laboratory, talks about his work with honeybees, in Beltsville, Md. A new federal report blames a combination of problems for a mysterious and dramatic disappearance of U.S. honeybees since 2006. The factors cited include a parasitic mite, multiple viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition and pesticides. Experts say having so many causes makes it harder to do something about what's called colony collapse disorder. The disorder has caused as much as one-third of the nation's bees to just disappear over the winter each year since 2006. The report was issued Thursday by the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new federal report blames a combination of problems for a mysterious and dramatic disappearance of U.S. honeybees since 2006.

The intertwined factors cited include a parasitic mite, multiple viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition, genetics, habitat loss andpesticides.

The multiple causes make it harder to do something about what's called colony collapse disorder, experts say. The disorder has caused as much as one-third of the nation's bees to just disappear each winter since 2006.

Bees, especially honeybees, are needed to pollinate crops.

The federal report, issued Thursday by the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, said the biggest culprit is the parasitic mite varroa destructor, calling it "the single most detrimental pest of honeybees."

The problem has also hit bee colonies in Europe, where regulators are considering a ban on a type of pesticides known as neonicotinoids that some environmental groups blame for the bee collapse. The U.S. report cites pesticides, but near the bottom of the list of factors. And federal officials and researchers advising them said the science doesn't justify a ban of the pesticides yet.

May Berenbaum, a top bee researcher from the University of Illinois, said in an interview that she was "extremely dubious" that banning the pesticide would have any effect on bee health. She participated in a large conference of scientists that the government brought together last year to figure out what's going on, and the new report is the result of that conference.

Berenbaum said more than 100 different chemicals — not just the pesticides that may be banned in Europe — have been found in bee colonies. Scientists find it hard to calculate how they react in different dosages and at different combinations, she said.

Some of these chemicals harm the immune systems of bees or amplify viruses, said Penn State University bee expert Diana Cox-Foster.

At a news conference Thursday, Sonny Ramaswamy, a top USDA official, said the scientific consensus is that there are multiple factors "and you can't parse any one out to be the smoking gun."

USDA bee researcher Jeff Pettis also cited modern farming practices that often leave little forage area for bees.

Dave Gaulson of the University of Stirling in Scotland, who conducted a study last year that implicated the chemical, said he can't disagree with the overall conclusions of the U.S. government report. However, he said it could have emphasized pesticides more.

The environmental group, Pesticide Action Network North America blasted the federal government for not following Europe's lead in looking at a ban of certain pesticides.

Pollinators, like honeybees, are crucial to the U.S. food supply. About $30 billion a year in agriculture depends on their health, said Ramaswamy.

Besides making honey, honeybees pollinate more than 90 flowering crops. Among them are a variety of fruits and vegetables: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, citrus fruit and cranberries. About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination.

"It affects virtually every American whether they realize it or not," said EPA acting administrator Bob Perciasepe.

Zac Browning, a fourth-generation commercial beekeeper who has hives in Idaho, North Dakota and California, said the nation is "on the brink" of not having enough bees to pollinate its crops.

University of Maryland entomologist David Inouye, who was not part of the federal report, said he agrees that there are multiple causes.

"It's not a simple situation. If it were one factor we would have identified it by now," he said.

Inouye, president-elect of the Ecological Society of America, said the problems in Europe and United States may be slightly different. In America, bee hives are trucked from farm to farm to pollinate large tracts of land and that may help spread the parasites and disease, as well as add stress to the colonies, while in Europe they stay put so those issues may not be as big a factor.

At the news conference, Berenbaum said there's no single solution to the U.S. bee problem: "We're not really well equipped or even used to fighting on multiple fronts."

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Online:

The report: http://www.usda.gov/documents/ReportHoneyBeeHealth.pdf

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Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Murder-suicide of 3 ailing in Calif. investigated

HACIENDA HEIGHTS, Calif. (AP) — Every morning, Jim Crabtree said he would wake up, wash and dress his wife who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and drop her off at his parents' home so he could go to work.

On Wednesday, he did the same, without any sign of trouble. Hours later, his parents and his wife were dead in an apparent murder-suicide.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives are trying to determine what happened.

Crabtree identified the three dead as his 80-year-old mother, Carol Crabtree, his 84-year-old father,Dan Crabtree, and his 62-year-old wife, Rita Delehanty.

Crabtree, 55, said all three suffered from chronic illnesses: His wife from mid-stage Alzheimer's, his father from early-stage Alzheimer's, and his mother from debilitating chronic joint pain that forced her to use a wheelchair.

Authorities found the three after a 911 call Wednesday morning brought deputies to the quiet suburban neighborhood in Hacienda Heights.

Sheriff's Lt. Dave Dolson said investigators found the couple and their daughter-in-law with multiple gunshots wounds: Delehanty was dead in the living room, Carol Crabtree's body was in a powered wheelchair in the back bedroom, and Dan Crabtree was barely alive on the backyard porch. A shotgun and handgun were found near him.

Investigators believe Dan Crabtree used a handgun to kill the two women, and then shot himself with both the shotgun and the handgun, Dolson said. Investigators also believe Dan Crabtree called 911, although the caller didn't identify himself. They don't know a motive for the killings.

"There's no indication that anybody else was in the house except the three of them," Dolson said.

Jim Crabtree said he believed their failing health led them to hasten their deaths. "This is the classic ending of three people with terminal illnesses," he said.

Marjorie Bauer was in her house a block away when she heard the blast of a single gunshot shortly before 9 a.m. She has lived in the neighborhood for decades, along with neighbors George and Alice Parrish.

"It's shocking," said Alice Parrish. "You don't expect it in your own backyard."

Residents used to see Carol Crabtree out taking walks, but more recently, she was rarely seen. "She couldn't walk anymore, she was in a lot of pain," Alice Parrish said.

Bauer said the couple owned a large motorhome they'd take on camping trips, and recently strapped Carol Crabtree's wheelchair to the back and headed out on vacation.

"I feel more grief for them then calling it murder," Bauer said. "There ought to be another word ... It was probably just a mercy killing. I advocate for the right to die with dignity, and we don't have that in California."

Though Dan and Carol Crabtree were suffering from poor health, they agreed to care for their son's wife so he could work.

His wife would have breakfast with her in-laws each morning, and Jim Crabtree would go to his job as a registered nurse who trained paramedics for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Later in the day, his parents would drop his wife off at her home about a mile away, and paid caregivers would take care of her until Crabtree returned.

Crabtree said he learned about what happened from a colleague while at work. He spoke outside his parents' home Wednesday about his wife's progressively worsening Alzheimer's over the last seven years. Delehanty had also been a nurse, but she had to stop working five years ago because of her illness. The two had been married 25 years and never had kids, he said.

"My wife didn't know who I was. My wife didn't know we were married," Crabtree said. "You try to help her, she yells, she screams, she hits you."

Crabtree wore a white tie Wednesday with a purple ribbon on it that said "I wear purple for my wife" and pledged Alzheimer's awareness.

"The pain and misery that comes with this dementia, until you lived it, you don't get it," Crabtree said. He said caregivers cost him $2,000 a month and none of it was covered by insurance.

After years of withering emotional drain caring for his wife, he said he was somewhat relieved it was all over. As he had looked into the future, he had wondered how it was going to end.

"When somebody dies, you don't want to go out and say I'm overjoyed my parents and my wife are dead," Crabtree said, "But in some cases, my wife died years ago."

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BOMBSHELL: CIA Ran The Boston Bombers Reveals FBI Whistleblower

Published on Apr 30, 2013

London’s 7/7 and now the Boston bombing were both “Black Ops False Flag” – by Peter Eyre