Dana Liebelson

Reporter

Dana Liebelson is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She contributes regularly to The Week. Previously, she worked for the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), covering defense and open government issues. Her work has also appeared on TIME's Battleland, Truthout, OtherWords and Yahoo! News. In her free time, she plays electric violin in an Indie rock band.

Get my RSS | Follow @dliebelson

6 Things the NRA Didn't Blame for Mass Shootings

Video games and Hurricane Sandy made the list. Adam Lanza's Bushmaster didn't.

—By Dana Liebelson

| Fri Dec. 21, 2012 2:55 PM PST

In this morning's National Rifle Association (NRA) press conference, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre found a lot of things to blame for the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, many of them rehashed from the NRA's past responses to mass shootings. Video games, the absence of armed policemen in schools, and pure evil made the list, as did Hurricane Sandy.

Here's what LaPierre didn't blame:

.223 BUSHMASTER SEMI-AUTOMATIC ASSAULT RIFLE

The weapon used by Adam Lanza when he massacred 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, according to the medical examiner (December, 2012).

.223-CALIBER SMITH & WESSON M&P15

One of the weapons used by James Holmes at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that killed and injured a total of 70 people (July, 2012).

.40-CALIBER GLOCK

The weapon used by Jeffrey Weise, who murdered nine people and wounded five others on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota (March, 2005).

GLOCK 19 SEMI-AUTOMATIC PISTOL

One of the weapons used by Seung-Hui Cho, who injured and killed 56 people at the Virginia Tech campus (April, 2007).

7.62 mm AK-47 Chinese variant

The weapon used by former Caltrans employee Arturo Reyes Torres, who opened fire at a maintenance yard, killing five and injuring two.

INTRATEC TEC-9 PISTOL

One of the weapons used by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who opened fire in Columbine High School, injuring and killing 39 (April, 1999).

Photos courtesy of Academy Sports and Outdoors, Shooting Times, Wikimedia Commons, Info4Guns, Popular AirSoft, Arms List

Advertise on MotherJones.com

How to Make Your Gun Shoot Like It's Fully Automatic—in One Easy Step

A legal add-on can make assault rifles fire "as a machine gun would."

—By Dana Liebelson

| Fri Dec. 21, 2012 4:01 AM PST

In the 1920s and '30s, America faced a wave of violence as gangsters like Al Capone and "Baby Face" Nelson used machine guns to shoot nonstop at cops or rivals. In 1934, the same year Baby Face was killed in a FBI shootout, Congress passed the National Firearms Act, making it illegal for Americans to manufacture fully automatic weapons for personal use. In 1986, it became illegal for civilians to own newly made machine guns. But with just $299, you can modify your semi-automatic AK-47 and probably fool your neighbors:

Slide Fire is a company that sells gun stocks that you can use with an AK-47 or an AR-15. These attachments enable accurate "controlled rapid firing," according to the company's website, meaning "you can shoot one round, 2 rounds…15 rounds or a full magazine," as Jeremiah Cottle, the US Air Force vet who invented the product, told Guns America last year.

Gun enthusiasts, who have posted videos on YouTube of the Slide Fire in use, seem to love the product. "It's just like an M-16!" the shooter in the YouTube video above exclaims. "You can shoot it accurately…or if you want to have fun, you can just spray the shit out of everything." Survivalists also love the product. "If the gun-grabbers and Brady camp gets hold of this, it's game over," wrote a user on a survivalist message board, referring to the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence.

A gun modified with Slide Fire "fires as a machine gun would," explains David Coulson, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the federal government's gun regulator—but, he adds, that doesn't make it a machine gun.

That's because, despite enabling rapid fire that mimics a fully automatic weapon, Slide Fire doesn't appear to violate the production ban in the National Firearms Act. The law only regulates weapons that are designed to shoot "automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading." The way the Slide Fire works, as Cottle explained to Guns America, makes it easier for semi-automatic gun owners to do what they've been doing anyway: "bump firing," which is where you simulate automatic firing by rocking the gun against the trigger finger. (This practice can also lead to highly inaccurate shooting.)

The Slide Fire helps shooters increase their accuracy and number of rounds—without actually firing automatically. "You actively fire every round, and if you stop pushing forward or you take your finger off the trigger the gun stops firing. It just helps you fire the gun in semiautomatic very fast," Cottle told the magazine.

A letter from the ATF on Slide Fire's website certifies the part's legality for exactly that reason. According to the letter, Slide Fire told ATF that the stock "is intended to assist persons whose hands have limited mobility." So, basically, if you are missing a hand and need to fire a gun like Capone, the Slide Fire is for you.

Coulson, the ATF spokesman, confirmed the stock does not violate any national laws, and Stephen Halbrook, an attorney who has represented gun companies and the NRA, says "if it was even borderline illegal, ATF would have told them, no, you can't market it. I've met the guys there and they're very strict." In 2006, the ATF revoked its approval of a strikingly similar piece, the Akins Accelerator. But the Akins Accelerator, unlike the Slide Fire, included a recoil spring in its design. (It has since been successfully relaunched without the spring.)

Although the federal government is okay with the Slide Fire stock, states have a role in gun regulation, too. According to company's website, it "has not been notified by any individual state that our products conflict with any state laws."

But even if it's legal, it's still easy to confuse a Slide Fire-modified weapon with a fully automatic weapon. Because it sounds so similar to banned kits that convert semi-automatic guns to fully automatic, says James Wright, a gun policy expert who teaches sociology at University of Central Florida, "You would think the National Firearms Act would cover something like that. But if it's available online, I guess it's legal."

Are US Nuke Secrets Vulnerable to Cyberattack?

The Department of Energy's internal watchdog has released a "very problematic" report about its cybersecurity practices.

—By Dana Liebelson

| Thu Dec. 20, 2012 4:06 AM PST

The Department of Energy, which is responsible for safeguarding America's nuclear weapons and secrets, has failed to tell law enforcement the details of when its computer systems have come under attack, "hindering investigations" into some of the 2,300 cybersecurity incidents the agency recorded between October 2009 and March 2012. This lack of timely and comprehensive cybersecurity reporting is putting the DOE's "information systems and networks at increased risk," according to a new investigation by the agency's internal watchdog.

The findings are "very problematic," says James Lewis, a senior cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, because "DOE sites are a primary target for espionage and have been successfully hacked in the past."

While preparing the report, the DOE's Office of Inspector General audited seven sites, including nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and found that, of 223 incidents reported at DOE sites, 41 percent were not reported within established time frames. Another 10 incidents involving a loss of personally identifiable information (which affected 109 people) were reported late.

Joshua McConaha, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the DOE entity responsible for the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, told Mother Jones that the cybersecurity incidents not involving identity theft "were normal computer issues such as viruses" that occur "on a regular basis." But experts say that the report's findings still don't bode well for nuclear weapons security.

Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, says that while the weapons themselves weren't at risk, "weapons-related information and facility security information could potentially be vulnerable." It wouldn't be the first time: In 2007, hackers believed to be from China launched a sophisticated cyberattack on several DOE laboratories in the United States. A spokesman for Los Alamos National Lab, which undertakes nuclear weapons design, told ABC News that "a significant amount of data was removed" from a small number of computers on the facility's unclassified network. This is the same lab that had its director step down in 2003 after a scandal involving widespread theft and security lapses.

Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos National Laboratory, denies that the lab is reporting cyberattacks incorrectly. He told Mother Jones that the audit listed "six incidents where they believed Los Alamos was late in its reporting," none of which had to do with personal information being stolen. And according to Roark, "Los Alamos personnel have subsequently checked the six incidents, and determined that all were reported within the required time frame, but the information in the reports led the reporting authority to derive an inaccurate date and time."

When asked to about the incidents and Roark's response, a spokesman for the IG said that "the report speaks for itself and we have no additional comment."

It's well established that the NNSA faces regular cyberattacks—a spokesman for the agency told US News and World Report in March that if you count "security significant cyber security events," the number of cyberattacks goes up to 10 million per day. (Experts told Mother Jones that the number changes depending on how you categorize different types of incidents.) The real question is whether NNSA and DOE can deal with the attacks. The DOE has recently taken steps like improving cybersecurity training for employees and addressing weaknesses at facilities, according to a separate report released by the inspector general last month.

"Cybersecurity is a work in progress, both inside and outside government." Aftergood notes. " One would like to think that the nuclear weapons infrastructure would be ahead of the curve, but apparently that is too much to expect."

Left unanswered is the question of who's to blame for the cyberattacks that the DOE seems to have so much trouble reporting correctly.

"It's probably not Russia or China," Lewis snipes. "They've already gotten everything."

Zoom in on the map below to find the warheads near you as well as the nuclear labs that maintain the stockpile and develop the next generation of atomic weaponry. (For reference, we've also included the locations of the nation's civilian nuclear power plants.)

View full-screen map

View Mother Jones: America's Nuclear Facilities in a full-screen map

Sources: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Federation of American Scientists (PDF), Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, Nuclear Energy Institute, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, United States Navy.

Dr. Strangeloaf: A Survival-Food Taste Test

How I learned to stop worrying and love the Candwich.

—By Tim Murphy, Dana Liebelson, and Brett Brownell

| Thu Dec. 20, 2012 4:06 AM PST

In 1961, the Pentagon ordered 150 million crushed-wheat wafers to be distributed to fallout shelters and opened in the event of nuclear war. The biscuit, the New York Times reported with some trepidation, "tastes something like a graham cracker." Since then, the selection of survival food has expanded with every end-times scare, from Y2K to 2012. A sampling of what's in the well-provisioned bug-out bag:

ENTRÉES

AmeriQual macaroni and beef in sauce Meal Ready to Eat

This vacuum-sealed staple, beloved of American soldiers with no other menu options, comes with peanut butter, crackers, raisins, a toaster pastry, and an oatmeal cookie. Want vegetables? Go nibble some grass. Shelf life: 5 years (or more)

Mountain House freeze-dried eggs with bacon

After a month of chasing squirrels, you won't mind the unnaturally yellow color, the flavor of liquid smoke, or the spongy texture. Shelf life: 7 years

[Read the full article]

CHART: How Taxpayer Dollars Were Wasted on Afghanistan's Electrical Grid

—By Dana Liebelson

| Wed Dec. 19, 2012 11:32 AM PST

One important part of the US reconstruction effort in Afghanistan is beefing up the country's power grid, run by the state-owned utilities company, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat. As of July 2012, only a third of Afghanistan had access to regular power, and a former UN advisor for Afghanistan told NPR that "energy remains a huge constraint for development of the country."

The United States is pouring tens of millions of dollars into the country to help the country commercialize its electricity, but a portion of that money is being squandered. A new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), released on Tuesday, shows that expensive electrical equipment purchased by the Pentagon is sitting unused in a warehouse near Kandahar. SIGAR also found that USAID paid a contractor $5.76 million contractor for a contract that was never completed.

SIGAR John F. Sopko wrote that both of these issues "warrant immediate attention." Here's the breakdown of the numbers: