Vladimir Putin on Saturday described as “an outrage” the sentencing of Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina to 18 months in prison in the US, calling her treatment a travesty of justice.
Related: Trump withdraws from UN arms treaty as NRA crowd cheers in delight
Continue reading...Donald Trump has announced that the US will withdraw its support for a United Nations treaty regulating the global arms trade. Addressing the National Rifle Association in Indianapolis, the president said he would revoke the US’s status as a signatory of the arms trade treaty regulating conventional weapons including small arms, battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships. The NRA has long claimed the treaty poses a threat to the second amendment. NRA members stood, applauded and chanted ‘USA! USA!’ as Trump signed a letter to Congress halting the ratification process, then tossed his pen into the crowd.
Trump withdraws from UN arms treaty as NRA crowd cheers in delight
Donald Trump announced at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting that the United States will drop out of an international arms treaty signed in 2013 by then president Barack Obama but opposed by the NRA and other conservative groups. Trump told members of the gun lobby that he intends to revoke the status of the US as a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty, which was never ratified by the US Senate. In a pre-emptive attack against his 2020 challengers, Trump claimed that Democrats 'want to take away your guns' and told the thousands in the crowd: 'You better get out there and vote'
Trump tells NRA: 'I'm a champion for the second amendment' – live
Continue reading...Donald Trump has announced that the US will withdraw its support for a United Nations treaty regulating the multibillion-dollar global arms trade.
Addressing the National Rifle Association (NRA) in Indianapolis, the president said he would revoke America’s status as a signatory of the arms trade treaty regulating conventional weapons including small arms, battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships.
Continue reading...Trump speaks at gun group’s conference in Indianapolis on same day Maria Butina given 18 months for conspiring to infiltrate NRA
•Joe Biden stopped short of apologizing to Anita Hill, in his first interview since announcing his presidential campaign. Told he had an opportunity to “apologize, say you’re sorry” for the way he handled Hill’s testimony during Clarence Thomas’ supreme court confirmation hearing, Biden equivocated. “I’m sorry she was treated the way she was treated. I wish we could have figured out a better way [to handle her testimony],” Biden said.
•Donald Trump claimed the second amendment was “under assault” in a typically free form speech to the National Rifle Association. The president also suggested he was “draining the [DC} swamp”, despite having appointed more than 350 lobbyists to government positions. Trump addressed the NRA at a time when the organization is seriously ailing. Tax filings for the right-wing gun-lobbying organization show it lost nearly $64m in 2016 and 2017.
It seems someone lobbed a phone at/in the general direction of Donald Trump as he came out to address the NRA. The president was unharmed.
whoever threw that phone has terrible aim if he/she was aiming for Trump https://t.co/CsO0IjJJ2B
Continue reading...One Nation leader tells al-Jazeera reporter there are ‘a lot of questions’ about 1996 attack
Pauline Hanson has implied that the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was a government conspiracy, in comments recorded secretly by al-Jazeera.
Hidden camera footage, released by al-Jazeera as part of the undercover operation that revealed One Nation had sought a US$20m (A$28m) donation from the US gun lobby, showed the party’s leader saying she had “a lot of questions” about Port Arthur.
Continue reading...Al-Jazeera journalist posing as gun campaigner films senior party figures in Washington DC soliciting financial support to help One Nation seize the balance of power
Senior One Nation figures James Ashby and Steve Dickson have been caught seeking millions of dollars of political donations from US gun rights group the National Rifle Association in a bid to seize the balance of power and weaken Australia’s gun laws.
The revelations are contained in an al-Jazeera investigation which used hidden cameras and a journalist posing as a grassroots gun campaigner to expose the far-right party’s extraordinary efforts to secure funding in Washington DC in September.
Continue reading...The Republican Matt Gaetz pushed Trump's goal of building a wall across the southern border of the US during a Congress hearing on gun reform. Arguing against the proposed HR8 bill, which would require universal background checks, he said: 'HR8 would not have stopped many of the circumstances ... but a wall, southern border, may have.' Gaetz's comments angered Manuel Oliver and Fred Guttenberg, both fathers who lost their children in the Parkland shootings in 2018, which prompted Gaetz to call for Oliver to be thrown out
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