NEVER BUY THE “HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?” SCHTICK, AS IT GENERALLY COMES FROM PEOPLE WHO DON’T. In England, Piers Morgan joked about shooting rivals.

BLOOMBERG’S NEW YORK: City That Judges Soda Drinkers Won’t Evaluate Job Performance Of Teachers.

AT AMAZON, markdowns on Home Safety & Security.

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VIOLENCE AND THE MENTALLY ILL:

While most of the gun violence in America is committed by the clinically sane, the most horrific massacres are often the work of deranged people whose problems had come to the attention of family, neighbors or work associates.

Strangely, America has regressed in its treatment of the mentally ill. In the 19th century, most of the nation’s disturbed were either on the street or in jail. In an effort to provide humane treatment, state institutions popped up across the country, confining most of the nation’s severely deranged. Yet by the 1960s, controversy erupted as stories of mistreatment and poor conditions (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, anyone?) became rampant. Deinstitutionalization followed, in a movement that received strong bipartisan support. Liberals championed the fall of state psychiatric hospitals on the grounds of compassion and freedom; conservatives saw it as a way to save money and as a blow against the intrusive nanny state.

State institutions closed down in droves; of the one public psychiatric bed for every 300 Americans in 1955, only one for 7,000 remained in 2012. Community treatment centers (nursing homes, care homes, etc.) moved in as substitutes, but they received little funding and resources. A series of federal laws were then passed to make it nearly impossible to confine or treat someone against their will. Individuals had to be shown to pose an imminent threat to themselves or others. In America, you have a right to be mad.

Overall, available treatment not only became scarcer, but far more expensive. The mentally ill were either forced to live with their families, who weren’t prepared to deal with their condition, or were abandoned altogether.

Clayton Cramer has a book on this.

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT THIS YEAR’S FLU.

SO FILE CHARGES: ‘Abusive’: BuzzFeed Reporter Claims Rahm Emanuel Physically Assaulted Him During Heated Interview. “Hastings said that he has interviewed ‘terrorist leaders…dictators…a lot of politicians…a lot of angry people,’ but that no one had ever put their hands on him. The journalist also claimed that Emanuel didn’t seem to be ‘in full control of what he was doing’ during the exchange.” See, I think one reason why these people support gun control is that they assume everyone else is as unstable as they are.

ISLAMIST HEAVEN: The Poverty And Violence Of Daily Life In Mali.

ROGER SIMON: Message from Mali: Keep Fracking, America!

PRESIDENT ONE-PERCENT: Inauguration 2013: Dulles Closes Runway To Accommodate Private Jets.

POLITICO: Up Next For Obama: A Looming Democratic Divide.

THE HILL: Paul Ryan: House GOP discussing short-term hike to debt ceiling.

Also: Rank and file tell GOP leaders to keep sequester, shutdown ‘on the table.’

MICHELLE FIELDS AND ALLEN WEST talk about Next Generation TV.

CHANGE: Sheriffs, State Lawmakers Push Back On Gun Control. “From Oregon to Mississippi, President Barack Obama’s proposed ban on new assault weapons and large-capacity magazines struck a nerve among rural lawmen and lawmakers, many of whom vowed to ignore any restrictions — and even try to stop federal officials from enforcing gun policy in their jurisdictions.”

TIM GEITHNER’S LEGACY: An Issue For Republicans, If They’re Smart Enough To Use It:

As Timothy F. Geithner prepares to leave the Treasury Department, most assessments focus on how his policies affected the economy. But his lasting legacy may be more political, contributing to the creation of an issue that can now be seized either by the right or the left. What should be done about the too-big-to-fail category of financial institutions?

Mr. Geithner came to Treasury in the middle of a severe financial crisis, a set of problems that he helped to create and then worked hard to prevent from worsening. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, starting in 2003, he watched over – and failed to defuse – the buildup of systemic risk. In fact, the New York Fed was relatively on the side of allowing large, seemingly sophisticated financial institutions to fund themselves with more debt relative to their thin levels of equity.

This was a major conceptual mistake for which there still has not been a full accounting. In fact, blank denial continues to be the reaction from the relevant officials. . . . In Mr. Geithner’s view of the world, the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation fixed the problem of too-big-to-fail banks. Outside of Treasury, it’s hard to find informed observers who share this position. Both Daniel Tarullo (the lead Fed governor for financial regulation) and William Dudley (the current president of the New York Fed) said in recent speeches that the problems of distorted incentives associated with too big to fail were unfortunately alive and well.

Ironically, despite the fact that the Obama administration failed to rein in the megabanks and allowed them to become larger and arguably more powerful, this has not helped the Republicans in electoral terms.

As Ms. Noonan puts it bluntly: “People think the G.O.P. is for the bankers. The G.O.P. should upend this assumption.”

Yes. In reality, the Democrats are the party of the plutocrats and big banks, while the “rich” that the GOP represents are the “petty rich” of small business owners and successful professionals — unsurprisingly, it’s the “petty rich” that Obama’s tax increases have targeted. Turn that around.

And while you’re at it, repeal the Hollywood tax cuts!

NICHOLAS JOHNSON: Presidential Sophistry.

The President has held two news conferences in three days commenting on the coming wave of gun control initiatives. His presentation has been emotional and properly reflects the anguish that we all feel for the victims of gun crime. It also has been a dazzling display of sophistry. I say that because the President is smart. And if he were not smart, I would say that, so far as his gun ban proposals, his comments were a profound display of ignorance. . . .

A separate but truly dazzling display of ignorance about the basic parameters of the gun crime problem is evident in the media reports of the addresses of gun carry permit holders and the threat to publish a full list of owners. One of the TV talking heads justified it on the basis that we report sex offenders so we should report gun owners. This approach I guess makes sense to people who have the illusion that no one they know owns guns. But on average 40% of households have guns. So these maps will be an education and will make the “investigative reporting” look silly. Unfortunately the implications go beyond silliness into the realm of clear hazard.

If you listen just to media reports, you would think that guns used in crimes come mainly from straw sales or the “gun show loophole”. But these sources account for only a small fraction of the illegal gun supply. Most crime guns come from a black market that is supplied by theft. On average about 500,000 guns are stolen each year. So publication of gun owners’ addresses is a wonderful public service …. to gun thieves.

Gun control is a culture-war effort to rub middle America’s nose in the fact that the world is run by its betters. Any actual improvement in public safety is of no concern at all.

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: “The legal academy is already shrinking, and that’s going to accelerate for a while—but it will slow and then stop. We have the choice to face the forces driving these changes thoughtfully and proactively, or to be dragged along willy-nilly. What we can’t do is resist them, and those who try will do so at their peril. When it’s done, we will likely be sadder, hopefully wiser, and certainly more modest in our dominion.”

PETER WEHNER: America’s Exodus From Marriage. “What we’re seeing is a rapid hollowing out of marriage in Middle America–with 44 percent of the children of moderately-educated mothers born outside of marriage.” On the other hand, if it weren’t for them our demographic collapse would be worse. . . .

HOW’S THAT “ARAB SPRING” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Egypt Turning Into Arab Version of Haiti. “The cumulative effect is that Egypt is fast becoming a Middle Eastern version of Haiti: a country without meaningful tourism, minimal foreign investment, massive capital flight, and eventually an exodus of its best and brightest. That, of course, will inevitably become a crisis for Egypt’s neighbors, who will be forced to shoulder the political and security burdens of its implosion. But most of all, it is a tragedy for Egyptians themselves, who, having once dreamed of greater political liberalism after Mubarak, have woken up to an economic nightmare presided over by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Actually, this is what a lot of them wanted. Now they’re getting it fast and hard.

COMPETITION: Y’all come to Texas, state official tells New York gun owners. “Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has a message for New York gun owners: Come to Texas, and bring your guns with you.”

I SMELL A LAWSUIT: Burglars steal two guns from home featured on weapons permit map published by newspaper, just days after break-in at another address on the list.

THE SENTIMENTALITY of fascists.

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HE HAS A 21ST CENTURY TITLE OF NOBILITY: Is there a “David Gregory Clause” in the New York Gun Law?

PJTV: Getting to Know Next Generation Correspondent Michelle Fields.