NEW YORK: Two firefighters were shot dead and two others wounded in New York state on Monday when at least one gunman opened fire as the emergency personnel responded to a blaze, local media reported.
The incident -- which comes as debate rages in the United States about gun control following the Newtown school massacre -- happened in Webster, a suburb of Rochester, the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper reported, citing officials.
- AFP/xq
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and of the new book "Governing America."
(CNN) -- 2012 has been a tumultuous year in American politics. With the presidential election capping off the year, Americans have witnessed a series of bitter domestic battles and turbulent events overseas. As the year closes out, it is worth thinking about some of the most important lessons that politicians and voters can learn from this year as they prepare for 2013.
Here are six:
The Republican brand name is in trouble: The GOP took a drubbing in 2012. To be sure, Mitt Romney ran a problematic campaign. His inability to connect with voters and a number of embarrassing gaffes hurt the chances for Republicans to succeed.
Julian Zelizer
Just as important to the outcome was the party that Romney represented. Voters are not happy with the GOP. Public approval for the party has been extremely low. Congressional Republicans have helped to bring down the party name with their inability to compromise.
Recent polls show that if the nation goes off the fiscal cliff, the Republicans would be blamed. According to a survey by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, 65 percent of people asked for a short word or phrase to describe the GOP came up with something negative. The Republican Party was also the lowest-rated political institution.
The exit polls in November showed that the GOP is out of step with the electorate on a number of big issues, including immigration and gay marriage. If Republicans don't undertake some serious reforms and offer fresh voices, all the new messaging in the world won't help them as the competition starts for 2016.
America has grown more liberal on cultural and social issues: The election results confirmed what polls have been showing for some time. If the 1960s was a battle over conservative "traditional family values" and liberal ideals of social relations, liberals eventually won. Throughout the year, polls showed, for example, that the public was becoming more tolerant of gay marriage and civil unions. Americans support the view that gay sex should be legal by a margin of 2-1, compared to 1977 when the public was split.
In the election, same-sex marriage was approved in three states, voters in Wisconsin sent to office the first openly gay senator, and two states approved of referendums to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Americans are accepting of social diversity, and expect that the pluralism of the electorate will be reflected by the composition of elected officials in Washington.
While there are some conservative voices who lament these changes and warn of a nation that is veering toward Sodom, a majority are more than comfortable that some of the taboos and social restrictions of earlier eras are fading and that we live in a nation which is more tolerant than ever before. These social and cultural changes will certainly raise more questions about restrictive practices and policies that remain in place while creating pressure for new kinds of leaders who are responsive to these changes.
The Middle East remains a tinderbox: In the years that followed Barack Obama's election, there was some hope that the Middle East could become a calmer region. When revolutions brought down some of the most notorious dictators in the region, many Americans cheered as the fervor for democracy seemed to be riding high.
But events in 2012 threw some cold water on those hopes. The Muslim Brotherhood won control of the Egyptian government. In Syria, the government brutally cracked down on opponents, reaching the point in December where Obama's administration has started to talk about the possibility of the al-Assad regime using chemical weapons, though the severity of the threat is unclear. The battles between Palestinians and Israel raged with rockets being fired into Tel Aviv and Israelis bombing targets in Gaza.
Although national attention is focused on domestic policy, it is clear that the Middle East has the capacity to command national attention at any moment and remains as explosive as ever.
Our infrastructure needs repair: Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast in November, leaving millions of Americans on the East Coast without power and with damaged property. Soon after the hurricane hit, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made an important point. The infrastructure of our cities is outdated and needs to be revamped so that it can withstand current weather patterns. Speaking of the need for levees in New York, Cuomo said: "It is something we're going to have to start thinking about ... The construction of this city did not anticipate these kinds of situations."
Regardless of whether Congress takes action on the issue of climate change, in the short term cities and suburbs must do more work to curtail the kind of damage wreaked by these storms and to mitigate the costs of recovery -- building underground power lines, increasing resources for emergency responders, building state-of-the-art water systems, and constructing effective barriers to block water from flooding.
The new immigrants are a powerful political and social force: As was the case in the turn of the twentieth century when Eastern and Southern Europeans came into this county, massive waves of immigration are remaking the social fabric of the nation. Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans and other new portions of the electorate who have been coming into the country since the reform of immigration laws in 1965 are coming to represent a bigger and bigger portion of the electorate.
Not only are their numbers growing as a voting bloc, but they are more organized and active than ever before, both on election day as well as in policy making.
Soon after the election, The New York Times reported that 600 members of United We Dream, a network of younger immigrants who don't have their papers, met for three days to plan how to lobby for a bill that would enable 11 million illegal immigrants to become legal. One of the leaders, Christina Jimenez, explained: "We have an unprecedented opportunity to engage our parents, our cousins, our abuelitos in this fight." They have both parties scrambling as Democrats are working to fulfill the promises that brought these voters to their side in November, while some Republicans are desperate to dampen the influence of hardline anti-immigration activists in their party.
We need to do something about guns. The year ended with a horrific shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut. When a 20-year-old went on a rampage apparently using guns that had been legally purchased by his mother, the world watched with horror. Several prominent conservative advocates of gun rights, including former congressman and television host Joseph Scarborough as well as Sen. Joe Manchin, made statements indicating that the time has come to impose stricter controls and regulations on the purchase of weapons. "I don't know anybody in the sporting or hunting arena that goes out with an assault file," Manchin said.
Over the next few weeks, there will certainly be a big debate about what caused this shooting. People from different perspectives will highlight different issues but making it more difficult for people to get their hands on certain kinds of weapons, while not a cure-all, can only diminish the chances of this happening again.
There are many more lessons but these six stand out. After the trauma of the past week, let's hope the new year starts off with better days.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Julian Zelizer.
Updated 4:15 a.m.EST
KABUL, Afghanistan An Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American adviser outside the police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, a senior Afghan official said. The circumstances of the killing were not immediately clear but the shooting could be another insider attack by Afghans against their foreign allies.
A NATO command spokesman, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lester T. Carroll, said the shooter was taken into Afghan custody shortly after the incident. The slain adviser was a contractor but the name and nationality of the deceased were being withheld, Carroll said.
Deputy Police Chief Mohammad Daoud Amin said it has not been determined whether the American adviser's death was intentional or accidental. He said an investigation was under way and declined to give more details of the incident, which occurred in central Kabul on the compound housing the governor of the city and near a number of key ministries.
"We can confirm that a civilian police adviser was shot and killed this morning by a suspected member of the Afghan uniform. The suspected shooter is in Afghan custody," Carroll said. He said Afghan and NATO officials were still trying to confirm initial reports that the shooter was a policewoman.
The killing came just hours after an Afghan policeman shot five of his colleagues at a checkpoint in northern Afghanistan late Monday. The attacker then stole his colleague's weapons and fled to join the Taliban, said deputy provincial governor in Jawzjan province, Faqir Mohammad Jawzjani.
More than 60 international allies, including troops and civilian advisers, have been killed by Afghan soldiers or police this year, and a number of other insider attacks as they are known are still under investigation. NATO forces, due to mostly withdraw from the country by 2014, have sped up efforts to train and advise Afghan military and police units before the pullout.
The surge in insider attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops and has further undermined public support in NATO countries the 11-year war.
In February, two U.S. soldiers, Lt. Col. John D. Loftis and Maj. Robert J. Marchanti, died from wounds received during an attack by an Afghan policeman at the Interior Ministry in Kabul. The incident forced NATO to temporarily pull out its advisers from a number of ministries and police units and revise procedures in dealing with Afghan counterparts.
More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. Taliban militants claim such attacks reflect a growing popular opposition to both foreign military presence and the Kabul government.
In Sunday's attack, Jawzjani, the provincial official, said the attacker was an Afghan policeman manning a checkpoint in Dirzab District who turned his weapon on five colleagues before fleeing to the militant Islamist group.
The National Rifle Association may still get its way and defeat the lawmakers calling for a ban on the sale of assault ridles, but some gun store owners say it seems their customers aren't taking any chances.
"We have never seen anything like this," said Larry Hyatt, who owns a gun shop in Charlotte, N.C. "We have the Christmas business, the hunting season business, and now we have the political business.
"We have seen a lot of things, but we have never seen anything like this, this is probably four times bigger than the last time we saw a big rush," he said.
Some of the customers in his store said it is the talk of stricter gun control in the wake of the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that is driving the rush.
"The way they are trying to approach it, they are just making people who have never thought about buying a gun, now they want to come in here and buy a gun," one customer said.
At NOVA Firearms in Falls Church, Va., there have been "skyrocketing" sales following the Newtown shooting, chief firearms instructor Chuck Nesby said.
"They've been off the charts. Absolutely skyrocketing," Nesby said. "If I could give an award to President Obama and Senator Feinstein would be sales persons of the year."
He was referring to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who said she will introduce an assault weapons ban in January.
Sales are up 400 percent, he said.
"We're completely out of the so-called assault weapons, semi automatic firearms that are rifles," Nesby said. "Forty percent of those sales went to women and senior citizens. We can't get them now. Everybody, nationwide is out of them the sales have just been off the charts nationwide."
The horrific shooting, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza broke in to the elementary school and killed 20 children and six adults with a semi-automatic rifle, has even some former NRA supporters saying it's time to change the rules on assault weapons.
Those guns were banned from 1994 until 2004, when the ban expired and was not renewed.
Now it's not just lawmakers who have traditionally advocated stricter gun control talking about the need to act.
Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas suggested today on CBS' "Face the Nation" that new regulation should be considered.
"We ought to be looking at where the real danger is, like those large clips, I think that does need to be looked at," Hutchison said. "It's the semi-automatics and those large magazines that can be fired off very quickly. You do have to pull the trigger each time, but it's very quick."
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat but a long-time opponent of gun control who like Hutchison has received an A rating from the NRA, has also come out in support of strengthening gun laws.
NRA chief Wayne LaPierre said Friday that more gun control is not the way to stop such shooting from happening again: the answer is more guns, in the form of armed guards in every school.
After being criticized for two days for the proposal, LaPierre today stuck by his guns.
"If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"When that horrible monster tried to shoot his way into Sandy Hook school, that if a good guy with a gun had been there, he might have been able to stop [it]," LaPierre said.
LaPierre and the NRA said that the media, the entertainment culture and lack of proper mental health care are to blame, not the proliferation of guns in the United States.
Asa Hutchinson, the former congressman who will lead the effort by the NRA to place armed security guards in schools across the country, said today on "This Week" that gun control efforts would not be part of the "ultimate solution" to gun violence.
A nativity scene from St. Catherine's Church in Bethlehem in the West Bank.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Jay Parini, poet and novelist, is author of the forthcoming book, "Jesus: The Human Face of God." He is the Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College.
(CNN) -- At Christmas, the name of Jesus resounds everywhere in homes, churches, in hauntingly gorgeous carols, even casual conversations. Yet Christians didn't settle on December 25 as Christmas day until the fourth century, and this choice probably had something to do with its proximity to the winter solstice or its position as the final day of the Roman Saturnalia.
It was in the late third century, in fact, that the Roman emperor Aurelian established this date as a feast day celebrating the birth of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus), so it already had festive and quasi-religious prominence. Now it serves to welcome the infant who became Christ, the Greek word for Messiah.
There are probably as many visions of Jesus, and versions, as there are Christians. Many regard him as their savior, the Son of God sent to Earth to save human beings from themselves. Others see him as a great teacher, a healer or rabbi of extraordinary power, a holy man or prophet who proposed a new covenant between heaven and earth. To some, he represents a new world order, an egalitarian society, a preacher of nonviolence who asked us to turn the other cheek.
Jay Parini
Was he the long-awaited Messiah? The Lamb of God who removes the sin of the world by his self-sacrifice? King of the Jews? Or something less dramatic but still impressive -- an ethical teacher of extraordinary grace and power?
My father, a former Roman Catholic, became a Baptist minister, and I grew up with an insider's view of evangelical Christianity. My father read the Bible aloud at breakfast each morning, always in the King James Version. Beginning in December, I listened to the sonorous birth narratives of Luke and Matthew. In the latter, there are Wise Men coming from the East, a mysterious star, the massacre of innocent children by King Herod, and a flight to Egypt by the Holy Family.
Belief Blog: The Christmas message of the real St. Nicholas
My father, like me, preferred the gentler Christmas story put forward by Luke: "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."
I remember asking my father one day why these two Christmas stories seemed incompatible, at best. Even the lineages puts forward by Matthew and Luke have few points of reconciliation. I also wondered why the two other Gospels -- Mark and John -- made no mention of Christmas.
Why was there no mention of Christmas anywhere else in the whole of the Bible? Didn't they care? He was a gentle but cautious fellow, my father, with a rock-solid faith. "It's probably better not to ask difficult questions," he said. "God will, in time, provide the answers. But not now. Not in this life." He told me simply to enjoy Christmas.
That didn't satisfy me, of course. Why should it? I realized that, as St. Paul so elegantly put it, we see only "through a glass darkly" while on this earth. But wasn't that too easy? I needed to know more.
And I still want to know the truth about this luminous figure, Jesus of Nazareth. Was he really the Son of God? Why was he sent into the world? Do we know anything about him, really? To consider yourself a Christian, must you believe in the Virgin Birth, or that Jesus walked on water, healed the sick, and rose triumphantly from the dead? Does it matter if we take all of this on board in a literal fashion? Isn't this a lovely mythos -- the Greek word for story -- a narrative with symbolic resonance and profound meaning?
Christmas by the numbers
Jesus himself seemed unwilling to answer questions about his royal status or divinity. When asked by Pontius Pilate about his status as King of the Jews, he simply replied, "You say so." Many in his circle referred to as the Son of God, but this wasn't an especially divine title. Augustus Caesar was called Son of God -- Divi filius -- on Roman coins. Jesus certainly regarded himself as having a filial connection to the person he called, in his native Aramaic, Abba, or Father. But doesn't that only mean he felt like a son before this personified spirit?
He was also called the Son of Man, reaching back to an ancient Hebraic phrase, which had rather humbling connotations. (It was in the Book of Daniel that a visionary figure called the Son of Man came into view, in apocalyptic terms).
All attempts to classify Jesus seem hopelessly inadequate.
As I've grown older, I appreciate more than ever before the strength of this figure, Jesus, who emerges in the four canonical Gospels, and the Gnostic gospels, as a witty, intelligent, complex, inspiring, and often contradictory person. He was a religious genius who grew up on the Silk Road in ancient Palestine, on that magical trade route connecting East and West.
From the West he acquired an understanding of Greek metaphysics, with its remarkable formulation of body and soul. From the East came the winds of mysticism, a sense of self-transformation based on the loss of selfhood, with enlightenment the ultimate goal. Jesus brings East and West together, focusing on his key idea -- that of a gradually realizing kingdom, a mystical space beyond time, though it requires time in order to root and grow. As he told someone who asked where this lofty kingdom lay: "The kingdom of God is within you."
Photos: Santas over the years
Too many Christians regard their religion as a list of boxes that need checking. To belong, you must subscribe to a particular set of beliefs. It's dogma, pure and simple. I suspect that Jesus himself would have been startled to think that, many centuries after his death, more than 2 billion people would celebrate his coming into the world, find his message of a gradually realizing kingdom an inspiring challenge, worthy of serious pursuit, devotion and emulation.
Jesus was a real person who lived in time, and his life has huge mythical resonance with the power to change hearts and minds. I believe that firmly. At this stage of my life -- a senior citizen, as they say politely -- I'm also quite happy to believe in miracles, assuming that the membrane between life and death is paper thin.
All Christian thinking is, however, about resurrection. It's about moving beyond our small selves, shifting away from our ego-drenched understanding of reality. The way of Jesus involves engagement with his (often difficult) teachings as well as looking for those unspeakably beautiful moments in time when, for just a few seconds perhaps, we apprehend the timeless moment in time.
Life mostly offers, as T.S. Eliot suggests in "Little Gidding," "only hints and guesses, / Hints followed by guesses." The rest is "prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action."
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jay Parini.
WASHINGTON: Tens of thousands of petitioners are calling for US President Barack Obama to escalate the diplomatic feud that led Moscow to propose a law barring Americans from adopting Russian children.
Two petitions on the White House web site are asking for US sanctions on the Russian lawmakers who help pass the law that one of the petitions says will "jeopardize lives and well-being of thousands of Russian orphans."
Moscow sees the ban on adoptions as retaliation for a US human rights law that allows the seizure of assets from Russian officials implicated in the 2009 death of a Russian lawyer who blew the whistle on a US$235 million police embezzlement scheme.
Under the US law -- dubbed the Magnitsky Act in tribute to the late lawyer -- those same officials would also be barred from entering the United States.
More than 37,000 people have signed one of the petitions saying they are "outraged with the actions of Russian law-makers."
According to the White House rules, there will be an official response if the petition reaches 25,000 signatures within 30 days.
These lawmakers "breached all imaginable boundaries of humanity, responsibility, or common sense and chose to jeopardize lives and well-being of thousands of Russian orphans, some of whom, the ill and the disabled ones, now might not have a chance of survival if the ban on international adoption is to be put in place," the petition continues.
The petitioners "urge this Administration to identify those involved in adopting such legislature responsible under 'Magnitsky Act' and thus included to the relevant list."
Likewise, a second petition, signed by more than 5,000 people, asks that the Magnitsky Act "be extended to supporters of this law in (the) Russian Duma."
The Duma passed the adoption ban without debate in a quick 420-7 vote on Friday as protesters picketed the building demanding the measure be voted down.
The Kremlin-dominated upper house is now expected to approve the bill next Wednesday before passing it on to President Vladimir Putin for his signature.
The Russian leader has indicated he is ready to put his name on the measure so that it could enter law on January 1.
The measure, which underscores the severity of the recent strain in Russia-US ties, would end about 1,000 adoptions a year.
Caregivers in particular fear the new rules will hit the most disadvantaged children because foreign adoptive parents are often ready to adopt kids rejected by Russian families.
- AFP/xq
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
New Delhi (CNN) -- Thousands of protesters defied a ban on demonstrations in New Delhi on Sunday, venting their anger over a gang rape incident.
For a second day, demonstrators were blasted with water cannons in the Indian capital. While some dispersed, others huddled tightly in a circle to brave high-pressure streams in the cold December weather.
"We want justice!" the protesters shouted in chorus.
In addition to banners and cardboard placards, many demonstrators carried Indian flags as they scuffled with police. Authorities fired tear gas to try to break up crowds.
Earlier Sunday, authorities put up security barriers and banned protests in central New Delhi to prevent a repeat of clashes that broke out a day earlier.
India rape protest
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Saturday's demonstration was prompted by public outrage over what police said was the gang-rape and beating of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in the capital on December 16.
Authorities haven't released the name of the rape victim, but protesters are calling her "Damini," which means "lightning" in Hindi.
"Damini" is also a 1993 Bollywood film whose lead female character fights for a housemaid, a victim of a sexual assault.
"We support you Damini. We'll keep fighting for you," a middle-aged woman at the historic India Gate said Sunday.
"Damini wants justice," read a placard at the protest.
Police bundled scores of young protesters into buses in the Raisina Hill area, home of the India Gate, the presidential palace, the parliament building and ministerial offices.
Demonstrators slipped under police vans to deflate tires and prevent them from driving off. Officers dragged them out.
The rape victim's injuries were so severe she spent days in intensive care in a city hospital, battling for her life. Police said Saturday that she had recovered enough to give a statement to a magistrate from her hospital bed the night before.
Surviving rape: iReporters speak out
Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said up to 35 protesters and nearly 40 police personnel were injured Saturday.
The protest was among a number of anti-rape demonstrations held across the country in the past week.
A video journalist was killed by police gunfire Sunday during a violent protest in India's remote northeastern state of Manipur, authorities said.
The journalist, Th. Nanao, was covering a protest against a separate molestation case in the provincial capital of Imphal, state police said. Protests have rocked Manipur over the alleged molestation of a local actress by a suspected militant on December 18, during a public performance.
Protesters had torched a vehicle, forcing police to open fire, officer Manik Longjam said Sunday.
Nanao died in the gunfire, Longjam said.
Police said the molester was still at large.
Official data show that rape cases have jumped almost 875% over the past 40 years -- from 2,487 in 1971 to 24,206 in 2011.
New Delhi alone reported 572 rapes last year and more than 600 in 2012.
Opinion: Rapes show that Indian society needs a new attitude
Six suspects, including the bus driver and a minor, have now been arrested in connection with the rape of "Damini."
As fury about the assault gathered pace, some Indian lawmakers called for treating rape as a capital crime.
"We'll work collectively to see we make a law which is deterrent and preventive," said New Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit.
India's Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters Saturday that the government would work toward increasing punishment in "rarest of the rare" rape cases.
But pressed on whether the administration would agree to demands for death by hanging in such instances, he said: "We'll have to see in what way it (the rape sentencing) can be enhanced."
Shinde said the government was pushing for a speedy trial for the attack.
Authorities are also taking a number of steps to improve security for women in New Delhi, particularly on public transport, he said.
"(The) government shares the widespread concern and support that has been expressed throughout society for the girl who has so suffered. Government also respects the right of legitimate protest," Shinde said.
"At the same time, there is need to exercise calm at this juncture and for everyone to work together to improve the safety and security environment."
In the meantime, the victim has been promised the best possible medical care, Shinde said.
A physician described the woman's condition Saturday as better than a day earlier, but said there was still a risk of infection. She is receiving psychological as well as medical care, he said.
Read more: Indian girl seeks justice after gang rape
Following the brutal assault, the country's human rights body sent notices to city police and federal authorities, demanding an explanation.
"The incident has raised the issue of declining public confidence in the law and order machinery in the city, especially in its capacity to ensure safety of women, as a number of such incidents have been reported in the national capital in the recent past," the National Human Rights Commission said in a statement Tuesday.
Home Secretary R. K. Singh announced the suspension of five police officers in the wake of the rape.
NEWTOWN, Conn. When Adam Lanza started his lethal attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School, Andrei Nikitchyuk's eight year-old son and another third grader were on their way to the principal's office. It was their turn to bring the daily attendance sheet to the front office, near where principal Dawn Hochsprung and psychologist Mary Sherlach would become the first casualties inside the school.
"When they got close to the office, they heard the shots fired, my son saying that the bullets were flying by him," Nikitchyuk recalled in an interview with CBS News. "I don't think he saw the bullets, but probably he saw the hits in the wall next to them."
Within moments, second grade teacher Abbey Clements pulled the boys into her classroom, where she had already hidden 19 children behind a wall, and locked the door.
"She really is a hero, and we are indebted to her," Nikitchyuk said. "She saved those two kids."
Nikitchyuk's son, nicknamed Bear, is his third child to attend Sandy Hook Elementary, following the path of his two older sisters. As the whole suburban town of 28,000 residents continues to struggle with the shock and grief of the shooting spree that claimed the lives 20 first-graders, 6 adults, and the killer's mother, Nikitchyuk has channeled his emotions into action for greater gun control.
"I will do whatever is in my power to change the situation," he said. "What I don't understand is how the gun manufacturing lobby can argue with a tragedy like this. I don't know how they are looking in the faces of their children. I would like them to make personal statements that they will do whatever it takes to make sure that our children are safe. I want to tell Wall Street to not expect the same type profits of arms manufacturers like they had before."
Nikitchyuk, who immigrated from Russia 22 years ago, is a former Soviet military officer who was trained to fire the Russian-made AK-47 machine gun (sold in U.S. under the trade name Saiga). CBS News has reported that Adam Lanza had a Saiga shotgun in the trunk of the car he drove to the school - the only one of four guns he possessed that he did not bring inside.
"Why are we allowing sales of weapons as terrible as this in this country?" Nikitchyuk asked. "Can you tell me what sport could use such a weapon. If you want to use guns for hunting, that's one thing. You don't need an AK 47."
Lanza committed the 26 murders at the school with a .223 caliber Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle and emptied at least three 30-bullet magazines. He also carried a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol (the same model issued to Secret Service agents), and a Glock 10mm semi-automatic pistol (issued to park rangers to shot wild game), which he used to kill himself once police arrived on the scene.
"This is insanity," said Nikitchyuk. "We have an escalation of weapons in this country. This is a civilian country. Why do we give these kind of military-grade munitions in the hands of people that are as unstable as that person was?"
On Tuesday Nikitchyuk went public by attending a news conference at the Capitol, in Washington, along with many families victimized by other mass shootings, from Columbine High School in 1999 to the Aurora movie massacre this past summer. The event was organized by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Nikitchyuk later attended a White House meeting with Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.
"We know that the President is committed," he said.
Nikitchyuk appealed to pro-gun rights members of Congress to support the President's proposals to ban the sale of assault weapons and gun magazines that hold more than ten bullets, while expanding background checks to all guns buyers, including at gun shows.
"There is nothing wrong about changing your opinion when you have a really strong evidence. What can be stronger than what happened in Sandy Hook?" Nikitchyuk said. "As a country, we cannot move forward unless we change our gun laws."
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The first family arrived in the president's idyllic home state of Hawaii early today to celebrate the holidays, but President Obama, who along with Michelle will pay tribute Sunday to the late Sen. Daniel Inouye at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, could be returning home to Washington sooner than he expected.
That's because the President didn't get his Christmas wish: a deal with Congress on the looming fiscal cliff.
Members of Congress streamed out of the Capitol Friday night with no agreement to avert the fiscal cliff -- a massive package of mandatory tax increases and federal spending cuts triggered if no deal is worked out to cut the deficit. Congress is expected to be back in session by Thursday.
It's unclear when President Obama may return from Hawaii. His limited vacation time will not be without updates on continuing talks. Staff members for both sides are expected to exchange emails and phone calls over the next couple of days.
Meanwhile, Speaker of the House John Boehner is home in Ohio. He recorded the weekly GOP address before leaving Washington, stressing the president's role in the failure to reach an agreement on the cliff.
"What the president has offered so far simply won't do anything to solve our spending problem and begin to address our nation's crippling debt," he said in the recorded address, "The House has done its part to avert this entire fiscal cliff. ... The events of the past week make it clearer than ever that these measures reflect the will of the House."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed the sentiment while lamenting the failure to reach a compromise.
"I'm stuck here in Washington trying to prevent my fellow Kentuckians having to shell out more money to Uncle Sam next year," he said.
McConnell is also traveling to Hawaii to attend the Inouye service Sunday.
If the White House and Congress cannot reach a deficit-cutting budget agreement by year's end, by law the across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts -- the so called fiscal cliff -- will go into effect. Many economists say that will likely send the economy into a new recession.
Reports today shed light on how negotiations fell apart behind closed doors. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that when Boehner expressed his opposition to tax rate increases, the president allegedly responded, "You are asking me to accept Mitt Romney's tax plan. Why would I do that?"
The icy exchange continued when, in reference to Boehner's offer to secure $800 billion in revenue by limiting deductions, the speaker reportedly implored the president, "What do I get?"
The president's alleged response: "You get nothing. I get that for free."
The account is perhaps the most thorough and hostile released about the series of unsuccessful talks Obama and Boehner have had in an effort to reach an agreement about the cliff.
Unable to agree to a "big deal" on taxes and entitlements, the president is now reportedly hoping to reach a "small deal" with Republicans to avoid the fiscal cliff.
Such a deal would extend unemployment benefits and set the tone for a bigger deal with Republicans down the line.
In his own weekly address, Obama called this smaller deal "an achievable goal ... that can get done in 10 days."
But though there is no definitive way to say one way or the other whether it really is an achievable goal, one thing is for certain: Republican leadership does not agree with the president on this question.
Of reaching an agreement on the fiscal cliff by the deadline, Boehner said, "How we get there, God only knows."
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Howard Kurtz is the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and is Newsweek's Washington bureau chief. He is also a contributor to the website Daily Download.
(CNN) -- The conventional wisdom is that Newtown has just a few more days to run as a major media story.
The reporters are pulling out of the grief-stricken Connecticut town, which means no more live shots every hour. The White House press corps responded to President Obama's announcement Wednesday of a task force on gun control with the first three reporters asking about the impending fiscal cliff. And after every previous mass shooting, from Columbine to Aurora, the media's attention has soon drifted away.
But I believe this time will be different.
Howard Kurtz
I believe the horror of 20 young children being gunned down has pricked the conscience of those in the news business, along with the rest of America.
I could be wrong, of course. The press is notorious for suffering from ADD.
But every conversation I've had with journalists has quickly drifted to this subject and just as quickly turned intense. Most have talked about how their thoughts have centered on their children, and grandchildren, and the unspeakable fear of anything happening to them. All have spoken about how hard it is to watch the coverage, and many have recalled crying as they watch interviews with the victims' families, or even when Obama teared up while addressing the nation.
Watch: Blaming Jon Stewart for the Newtown Shootings?
I've watched Fox's Megyn Kelly choke back tears on the air after watching an interview from Newtown. I've heard CNN's Don Lemon admit that he is on the verge of crying all the time. I've seen MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, say that day in Connecticut "changed everything" and prompted him to rethink his longstanding opposition to gun control, which earned him top ratings from the NRA.
Maybe Newtown will be the 9/11 of school safety.
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The media paid scant attention to gun control in the past, in part because of a conviction that the NRA would block any reform on Capitol Hill. At the same time, they took their cue from the fact that officeholders in both parties were avoiding the issue at all costs—Republicans because they mainly support the status quo, Democrats because they mostly deem it political poison.
But since when is it our job solely to take dictation from pols? When it comes to subjects like climate change and same-sex marriage, the press has been out ahead of the political establishment. Given the carnage in Newtown as the latest example, journalists should demand whether we can do better. The fact that Obama now promises to submit gun legislation to Congress will help the narrative, but it shouldn't be a mandatory requirement for coverage.
Watch: From Joe Scarborough to Rush Limbaugh, the conservative media meltdown
This is not a plea for a press-driven crusade for gun control. In fact, it's imperative that journalists be seen as honest brokers who are fair to all sides. MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts, in an interview with Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, who opposes gun restrictions, said: "So we need to just be complacent in the fact that we can send our children to school to be assassinated." That is demonization, just as some conservative pundits are unfairly accusing liberal commentators who push for gun control of "politicizing" a tragedy or of pushing God out of the public schools.
The question of school safety extends beyond guns to mental illness and societal influences. With even some NRA supporters asking why law-abiding hunters need automatic rifles with high-capacity magazines, it's time for a nuanced debate that goes beyond the usual finger-pointing. Bob Costas got hammered for using an NFL murder-suicide to raise the gun issue during a halftime commentary, but he was right to broach the subject.
Here is where the media have not just an opportunity but a responsibility. The news business has no problem giving saturation coverage to such salacious stories as David Petraeus' dalliance with Paula Broadwell. Isn't keeping our children safe from lunatics far more important by an order of magnitude?
I think the press is up to the challenge. Based on what I've heard in the voices of people in the profession, they will not soon forget what happened in Newtown. And they shouldn't let the rest of us forget either.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz.
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