Eeyore's News and View

Owners must give fingerprints to get guns back from IMPD
An Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department rule that makes it harder to reclaim a seized gun than to buy one is drawing criticism from gun-rights advocates and has spawned at least one lawsuit.
The rule, adopted decades ago, requires gun owners cleared of a crime to provide fingerprints before they can recover a gun from the police property room. Indianapolis' rule is more stringent than those of similar-size cities in the Midwest and could lead to the destruction of legally owned guns.
Indianapolis police officials defend the rule as an important tool for keeping guns out of criminals' hands.
"Our goal . . . is to help ensure we do not release any weapon to a person with a felony conviction or to a person who might use a gun inappropriately," said Police Chief Michael Spears. "We also need to positively identify the individual to whom a weapon is returned."
Police seize guns for a host of reasons: They might have been involved in crimes; they might have been in a car or home where someone was arrested; some are recovered as stolen property and traced to the legitimate owners.
After guns are seized, rightful owners are free to claim any weapons not held as evidence. Unclaimed guns or those that can't be traced to a legal owner are destroyed.
In 2008, IMPD seized more than 3,000 weapons. Of those, 766 were returned to owners and 2,281 were sent to be destroyed by the Marion County Sheriff's Department. Certified Firearms Solutions of Lafayette visits the Sheriff's Department every few months to dismantle the guns, chop the bodies in half and melt the scrap metal.
To reclaim a gun, the owner must fill out a form at the City-County Building, where police check identification and take fingerprints. Officers then run a background check. If everything checks out, police notify owners that they may pick up their guns. The process takes four to eight weeks.
Owners then go to the police property room in the basement of the City-County Building, where they fill out more paperwork, give another fingerprint and get their weapons.
The origin of that procedure is unclear; city officials say the policy has been in effect more than 30 years. But it recently came under scrutiny when a Westside man filed suit in federal court to reclaim guns seized during a search two years ago.
Wrong address
Police came to Grady Scott's home in November 2006, looking for a drug dealer. Officers took a .38-caliber handgun and an SKS assault rifle
As it turned out, the wrong address was on the search warrant.
Scott, 69, sought to reclaim his guns but refused to be fingerprinted. He hired Indianapolis attorney Paul Ogden to represent him in the federal lawsuit.
Ogden, who filed the suit in November, also asked a federal judge to force IMPD to stop fingerprinting all gun owners.
"Here you have a guy who shouldn't have had his guns taken in the first place," Ogden said. "If fingerprinting was a requirement to have guns in your home, that's one thing, but it's not."
The department has destroyed Scott's guns. If Scott wins his lawsuit, taxpayers likely will have to pay for replacements.
Ogden points out that it's much simpler to buy a gun than to retrieve one from Indianapolis police. Under federal law, a purchaser simply has to show identification and clear a federal background check that gun store clerks complete in a short phone call. People can avoid the background checks and still legally purchase guns from a friend or a private seller at a gun show.
Rachel Parsons, a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, called IMPD's policy of fingerprinting gun owners "unreasonable and excessive."
Stephen Dunlop, president of Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence, said fingerprinting helps police keep guns out of the hands of criminals and other dangerous individuals.

"Since the gun community has been so resistant to any registration of guns and any tracking of guns once they leave the gun store, this is a real problem for police," Dunlop said. Fingerprinting "is not an unreasonable thing to do to try to confirm the identity."
Honest gun owners should have no problem with submitting to fingerprint checks, Dunlop said.
"You have to think: 'Why would someone refuse to give their fingerprint?' " he said.
A survey of police departments in the Midwest found Indianapolis to be the only one to require fingerprints from owners retrieving a seized firearm. Police in Louisville, Ky.; Cincinnati; Cleveland; and Milwaukee require identification and background checks, but no fingerprints.
The city's view
Jon Mayes, a lawyer for the city of Indianapolis, said public safety officials have a responsibility to ensure that the guns are returned to a legally qualified owner.
"We believe that that very small inconvenience is outweighed by the benefit of public safety," he said.
If the city were to loosen its gun-return policy, Mayes said, taxpayers would be exposed to other lawsuits if one of those guns were later used to commit a crime.
The gun return policy is a sensitive issue for Indianapolis police, who saw one of their own shot to death more than four years ago after guns were given back to a mentally ill man.
Police had seized guns owned by Southside resident Kenneth Anderson in January 2004 when he was hospitalized as delusional, paranoid and violent.
Anderson never faced criminal charges, and the law at the time did not give officials the authority to keep his guns. After he was released from the hospital, Anderson filled out the paperwork, submitted his fingerprints and took his guns home in March 2004.
Five months later, armed with some of those weapons, Anderson killed Patrolman Timothy "Jake" Laird in a rampage that also claimed the life of Anderson's mother and injured four other police officers.
In response, lawmakers in 2005 gave prosecutors the ability to ask a judge to keep weapons taken from dangerous individuals who are mentally or emotionally unstable.
"Once a gun is in our possession, it is our responsibility to ensure that it's not being released to somebody who poses a threat to society," said Sgt. Matthew Mount, IMPD spokesman. "To not do so would be a dereliction of our duty."
Indianapolis attorney David Hennessy retrieved 10 guns from the property room on behalf of a client in December. The process took about a month, Hennessy said.
"It perplexes me that it's easier to acquire new property that it is to get back property you already own," Hennessy said. "I would personally like to see more stringent requirements for people to get guns, new or used. There are far too many guns out there."
http://www.indystar.com/article/20090215/LOCAL18/902150409/1195/LOCAL18

Some banks may end up nationalized, analysts say
'Stress test' could result in effective government control anyway
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. government has tried several different ways to pump capital into the nation's ailing banks, revive lending and ease the recession. Now some analysts say it may be time for the solution everyone's been trying to avoid: nationalization.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled a Financial Stability Plan Tuesday that aims to strengthen banks, buy up to $1 trillion of their toxic assets and revitalize moribund securitization markets.
The plan includes a so-called "stress test" that all U.S. banks with at least $100 billion in assets will be required to take. If lenders are found to need more capital after the test, the government said it will invest more money via preferred securities that could convert into common shares if needed.
The broad plan was criticized, partly for being too small to tackle the size of the banking sector's problems, while a lack of details on the stress test increased uncertainty among investors. See full story.
"The Treasury plan is a step in the right direction, but it does not go far enough in addressing banks' tangible common equity or the problem assets on their balance sheets," Paul Miller, an analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, told investors this week.
The U.S. financial system needs at least $1 trillion in tangible common equity to be sufficiently capitalized, he noted. Common shareholders are the true owners of businesses. In banking, when loan losses happen, they're the most exposed. Without more common equity, banks will likely remain reluctant to increase lending.
"We would prefer to see the government take bold steps now, either putting the much-needed capital into financials or providing a closed-back solution, in which the government briefly takes over the weakest financials (regardless of size), strips out the bad assets, and sells the good back to public markets," Miller said.
Gerard Cassidy, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets, suggested a similar "tuff love" approach.
"U.S. regulators need to move in and close down insolvent banks (regardless of size)," Cassidy wrote in a note to clients this week. "The banks are seized, the deposits are sold along with any good assets, and bad assets are transferred over to an 'RTC II,' which liquidates the troubled assets."
The original Resolution Trust Corp., or RTC, was a government-owned investment fund that bought bad assets after the savings and loan crisis at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s. The fund helped get lending going again by buying soured debt from failed institutions and liquidating the assets.
During that crisis, regulators seized banks if losses ate into their equity capital positions and profitability didn't return, Cassidy recalled. That left common stock holders with nothing.
"After the shareholders were wiped out and bond holders took their losses, taxpayers had to step in and fill the hole," the analyst explained.
"In this cycle, taxpayers are being asked to share the burden of the losses with common shareholders," Cassidy added. "Taxpayers and Congress will probably revolt against any kind of additional bailout that does not include shareholders being nearly wiped out should they require meaningful government assistance."
Effective nationalization
Treasury may end up effectively nationalizing many weaker institutions, if its stress tests conclude some firms need more capital.
Treasury is expected to allocate at least $100 billion of the remaining $350 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to a bank bailout fund to buy preferred shares in banks that can be converted into voting common equity "if needed." According to Treasury, banks can convert securities into common shares in a "worse than expected economic environment."
Many banks have such low stock market valuations that if the government converts its stakes into common stock, it would end up owning at least half of the equity of the bank and leave existing common shareholders heavily diluted.
"Depending on how much capital an institution needs under this program, you could see a high percentage of its common equity, more than half, be issued to Treasury," said David Brown, partner at Alston & Bird LLP in Washington.
If needed, the convertible securities will be converted into common shares at a "modest discount" to banks' stock prices on Feb. 9.
Robert Klingler, attorney at Bryan Cave LLP in Atlanta, points out that most financial institutions were trading at historic low valuations on that date, which means the government stakes could be converted into massive controlling interests.
"Because of the low stock market valuations of these banks, the government is expected to get more of the company than they would have once the shares are converted into common shares," Klinger said.
Klinger contends that only banks that have significant loan quality concerns but aren't in great risk of going into receivership this year will be eligible to receive capital injections.
To see a lis of the most vulnerable banks go to the link
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Government-may-have-nationalize-weakest/story.aspx?guid=%7B0DFB5950%2D747C%2D44BF%2DA8FB%2D3F444F5FEE2A%7D

Japan economy shrinks at fastest rate in 35 years
February 15, 2009 - 11:42pm
TOKYO (AP) - Japan's economy contracted at the fastest pace in 35 years in the fourth quarter as a collapse in export demand drained life from the world's second-biggest economy.
Japan's gross domestic product, or the total value of the nation's goods and services, dropped at an annual pace of 12.7 percent in the October-December period, the government said Monday.
That's the steepest drop for Japan since the oil shock of 1974 and far outpaces declines of 3.8 percent in the U.S. and 1.2 percent in the euro zone. A survey of economists by Kyodo news agency had projected an 11.6 percent contraction.
Japan now faces "the worst economic crisis in the postwar era," said Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano, according to Kyodo.
Already, Toyota Motor Corp., Sony Corp. and a slew of other companies have announced deep job cuts and projected net losses for the full fiscal year through March. The yen's appreciation, which erodes income from abroad has only intensified the pain.
Japan's economy has now contracted for three straight quarters. Compared to the third quarter, GDP fell 3.3 percent. If that rate continued for a full year, the economy would contract 12.7 percent.
For all for 2008, it shrank 0.7 percent _ the first decline in nine years, according to the Cabinet Office.
Martin Schulz, an economist at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo, said the three main pillars that lifted Japan out of the so-called "lost decade" of the 1990s had crumbled _ favorable exchange rates, overseas investment and demand, and old industry such steel, cars and chemicals.
"The recovery was unsustainable," Schulz said. "It was built on a major global bubble, and now basically the economy is paying the price."
Japan's exports plummeted a record 13.9 percent in the fourth quarter from the third quarter, the government said, as the deepening global slowdown choked off demand for the country's cars and gadgets. Capital expenditure _ business investment in factories and equipment _ fell 5.3 percent from the previous quarter, while consumer spending slipped a modest 0.4 percent.
The figures underscore the vulnerability of Asia's export-driven economies during global downturns and point toward more cuts in jobs, production and profits in the coming months. Even demand from emerging markets, which earlier had partly offset declines in North America and Europe, began falling sharply in the fourth quarter.
Last week, electronics company Pioneer Corp. said it will cut 10,000 jobs globally, joining a growing list of the country's corporate giants scrambling to slash their payrolls. Sony is shedding 8,000 workers, while Nissan Motor Co. and NEC Corp. are each cutting 20,000 people.
Japan slipped into recession in the third quarter after its economy contracted two straight quarters _ a common definition of recession _ though many economists using other parameters say that the current downturn actually began in late 2007.
In its latest forecast, the International Monetary Fund predicts Japan's economy will shrink 2.6 percent this year, outpacing the 2 percent overall decline it expects for advanced economies. It projects growth in developing Asian countries to slow to 5.5 percent, compared with 10.6 percent just two years earlier.
To revive the economy, Japan's parliament passed a contentious 4.8 trillion yen ($52.2 billion) stimulus plan in January that includes a cash payout that amounts to 12,000 yen ($133) per Japanese taxpayer. Prime Minister Taro Aso _ who faces dismal approval ratings _ has championed the idea, saying it will stimulate sagging consumer spending.
But the public has generally panned the handouts as a lavish waste of public money with limited impact.
Kyohei Morita, chief economist at Barclays Capital in Tokyo, said Japanese policymakers tend to introduce measures to boost approval ratings rather than GDP, especially with mandated elections later this year.
"We cannot expect much from Japanese fiscal spending," he said. "But given the large negative (GDP) number, this will probably be a factor to make politicians think seriously about implementing a supplementary budget for (next fiscal year)."
Media reports over the weekend said Japan may be considering additional measures to shore up the economy with fresh spending likely to top 10 trillion yen ($109 billion).
Japan's central bank, which lowered its key interest rate to 0.1 percent in December, has introduced various steps to try to thaw a corporate credit crunch. But there is little it can do to address the unprecedented decline in external demand.
The Bank of Japan policy board is scheduled to start a two-day meeting Wednesday.
In stock trading, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.5 percent at 7,741.31 in afternoon trading. The dollar was trading at 91.59 yen, down from 91.87 late Monday.
http://wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1602418

BRITISH and French nuclear submarines which collided deep under the Atlantic could have sunk or released deadly radioactivity, it emerged last night.
The Royal Navy’s HMS Vanguard and the French Navy’s Le Triomphant are both nuclear powered and were carrying nuke missiles.
Between them they had around 250 sailors on board.
A senior Navy source said: “The potential consequences are unthinkable. It’s very unlikely there would have been a nuclear explosion.
“But a radioactive leak was a possibility. Worse, we could have lost the crew and warheads. That would have been a national disaster.”
The collision is believed to have taken place on February 3 or 4, in mid-Atlantic. Both subs were submerged and on separate missions.
Row
As inquiries began, naval sources said it was a millions-to-one unlucky chance both subs were in the same patch of sea. Warships have sonar gear which locates submarines by sound waves.
But modern anti-sonar technology is so good it is possible neither boat “saw” the other.
A senior military source said: “The lines between London and Paris have been hot.”
The MoD insisted last night there had been no nuclear security breach. But this is the biggest embarrassment to the Navy since Iran captured 15 sailors in 2007. The naval source said: “Crashing a nuclear submarine is as serious as it gets.”
Vanguard is one of Britain’s four V-Class subs forming our Trident nuclear deterrent. Each is armed with 16 ballistic missiles.
She was last night towed into Faslane in Scotland, with dents and scrapes visible on her hull. Triomphant limped to Brest with extensive damage to her sonar dome.
Triomphant has a crew of 101. Vanguard weighs 16,000 tons, is 150 metres long and has a crew of 140.
The MoD said it did not comment on submarine operations.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2240543.ece