PIERS MORGAN, PLEASE TAKE NOTE: British Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade. Despite draconian gun-control laws.

BOB ZUBRIN TO THE GOP: Don’t Jump Off The Cliff: “Better to take the deal on middle class tax cuts now and work for something better later.”

STILL WONDERING what kind of guns Rupert Murdoch’s security team carries.

LOOKING DEEPLY INTO THE MEANING OF “Cornball Brother.”

IT’S NOT SOLUTIONS THEY’RE AFTER: Dr. Keith Ablow: “..Those who call for gun control after incidents like this contribute nothing to the solution.”

“PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS” IDENTIFY WRONG MAN AS NEWTOWN SHOOTER, THREATS ENSUE. The story headline blames the “Internet,” but that’s not really what happened, is it? “CNN, the Huffington Post, Slate and other news organizations” are not the Internet.

And it’s not a question of “where on the internet the misidentified innocents can go to reclaim their online reputations.” They should go to court and sue. This sort of feeding frenzy — which we’ve seen before — is the very picture of “reckless disregard.”

STACY MCCAIN: Chris Rock Was Right.

ROGER KIMBALL ON THE NEWTOWN SHOOTINGS:

Details about the horrible school shooting in the Sandy Hook section of Newtown, Connecticut are still emerging. According to some reports, the shooter had “a dispute” with his mother, and so targeted her and her kindergarten class. As of this writing, it seems that 20 children and 7 adults, including the 20-year-old mad man who murdered them, are dead.

What can one say? The horror is particularly close to home for me and my family if only because until this year our son went to school in Newtown (but not at Sandy Hook). Mute horror seems appropriate as a first response to such obscene displays of malevolence. But already one is hearing the predictable homilies about “gun control,” as if depriving people of their liberties would somehow contravene evil.

It’s magical thinking. Or an effort to take advantage of people who engage in magical thinking.

ARE AMERICANS “OVERTAXED AND UNDER-REPRESENTED?”

THIS, MY BOY, IS WHAT WE CALL “CHANGE:” The USA Probably passed Saudi Arabia as the Number One Total Oil liquids Producing Country in the first week of December 2012.

JOHN PODHORETZ: Gehenna In Connecticut. “The idea that civilization is dedicated to the protection and preservation the weak and the innocent, and not about fulfilling evil impulses to defile and destroy innocence, is the root and core of the West.”

IT IS NOW FOUR DECADES SINCE WE LEFT THE MOON. But we have a lot of social-welfare bureaucrats on the payroll that we didn’t have back then.

AT AMAZON, Top Holiday Deals in Sports & Outdoors.

LOST IN WASHINGTON? The Disappearing Director-General of UNESCO.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Gun-free zones provide false sense of security.

GOOD POINT: “Say what you will about homeschooling, but if your child is taught at home, he’s not going to be shot there by some disgruntled school employee, student, or parent.”

PUNISHMENT: ESPN’s Parker Suspended For Conducting Racial Purity Test On RGIII.

TWEET OF THE DAY: “Wait. So Eric Holder isn’t to blame for Fast and Furious, but the NRA is to blame for school shootings? Got it.”

AT AMAZON, Grills and Grilling Gear. It won’t be winter forever. Besides, we grill pretty much year-round.

IN RESPONSE TO TODAY’S SHOOTING, WHICH DIDN’T INVOLVE AUTOMATIC WEAPONS, Rupert Murdoch asks: “When will politicians find courage to ban automatic weapons?” Appalling ignorance.

UPDATE: Reader John Rumpelein says the answer to Murdoch’s question is “1934.” Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Murdoch keeps deleting my replies to his tweets. Tacky.

MORE: Reader Mike Puckett wonders what kind of weapons Murdoch’s bodyguards carry. I’d ask via Twitter, but, well . . . But hey, Rupert: What kind of guns do your bodyguards carry? And why are you more deserving of armed protection than ordinary Americans? You can email me through the blog.

MORE STILL: Well, I tried asking via Twitter anyway, but he deleted that, too.

STILL MORE: Reader Jason Young writes:

Murdoch’s non-response is a perfect illustration of the problem with the old guard media, and a tremendously ironic “no comment” from someone who would never take that from a subject. We need the New Media to start holding old media reporters’ feet to the fire by treating them exactly the way that they should be treating our elected representatives. Sit outside their houses and offices until they answer questions. Hound them with cameras and lights. Shout questions like “Why no coverage of Iran shooting down our drone?” or “Don’t you think the Benghazi survivors deserve to be interviewed?” or even “Why do you think the majority of the American public doesn’t trust you any longer?”. Get it on tape and post their non-responses for all the world to see.

Now that we have an alternative media channel we need to expose and shame these traitors into DOING THEIR JOBS.

Doing my best. But they’re kinda shameless.

AND EVEN MORE: Here’s a picture of “Rupert Murdoch, surrounded by his personal security team.”

There seem to be a lot of them. Hey, Rupert: Why is your life more deserving of protection than a battered woman’s or a 7-11 clerk’s? (Bumped).

DONALD SENSING mocks Hollywood over “gun culture” remarks. They’re mockable. Also, Tom Cruise is way too short to be a plausible Jack Reacher.

Also, Jim Treacher mocks David Frum. Easy, but still worth it.

MATT K. LEWIS: The Working-Class Epidemic of Demoralization: While coastal elites overindulge, struggling Americans in flyover country feel they have little to live for or believe in.

I had some related thoughts.

TWO NEWSPAPERS IN ONE!

CHICAGO-STYLE GOVERNANCE: City of Chicago Wants to Vacate Ruling Against Cops’ “Code of Silence.”

ADVICE: The Koch Brothers Should Buy MSNBC.

Well, they certainly seem to be doing well enough to afford it.