Noah Pozner did nothing to change my mind, except die. Before he died, I believed a few sensible gun laws could save children like Noah Pozner. After he died, after he and his Sandy Hook classmates were mowed down by a man with a gun, I changed my mind.

After he died, I realized an old custom had to die with him, so a nobler one could take its place. Before Noah Pozner died, I thought there was nothing wrong with the Second Amendment a little common sense couldn’t fix. After he died, I’ve come to believe “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” no longer promotes our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but daily threatens them. How free are we when more people are shot and killed each year in America than populate the towns in which many of us live? How free are we when a backpack that unfolds into a bulletproof covering is a must-have item for schoolchildren?

“A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

While I concede that a well-regulated militia might be necessary to the security of a free state, that role is now ably served by our military, professionally trained and highly disciplined, drawn from the ranks of our families and friends, from whom we have nothing to fear. We no longer need Minutemen. The British have not surrounded Concord. This is not “Independence Day” and we’re not under alien attack. I cannot imagine any circumstance in which our government would urge us to arm ourselves in defense of our country. Our nation has outgrown its need for an armed citizenry. The disadvantages of widespread gun ownership far outweigh any perceived advantage. Ask the parents of Noah Pozner. Ask African-American residents of Ferguson, Missouri. Ask what America’s love affair with guns has meant to them.

The merit of a position can be gauged by the temperament of its supporters, and these days the NRA reminds me of the folks who packed the courtroom of the Scopes monkey trial, fighting to preserve a worldview no thoughtful person espoused. This worship of guns grows more ridiculous, more difficult to sustain, and they know it, hence their theatrics, their parading through Home Depot and Target, rifles slung over shoulders. Defending themselves, they say. From what, from whom? I have whiled away many an hour at Home Depots and Targets and never once come under attack.

Element Electronics boasts of being the only American-owned and American-assembled television company. Flashy red-white-and-blue packaging helps it do business with Walmart as part of the retailer’s quarter-trillion-dollar “Made in USA” initiative. But according to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint filed Tuesday, the company isn’t making anything in America after all.

Instead, the complaint alleges, the Chinese-made TVs arrive to Element’s South Carolina assembly line in boxes adorned with a waving American flag and the slogan “America Matters” on the front and the phrase “assembled in the USA” on top. Element’s employees unscrew a plastic panel, install a Chinese-made motherboard, close the panel, and return the TVs to their patriotic packaging so that they can be shipped out to Walmart, Target, Meijer, Sam’s Club, and QVC. That depiction of Element’s assembly process comes from a July article in the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal article is the key evidence in the FTC complaint, which was filed by a non-partisan non-profit group called the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM). AAM’s blog had previously touted Element Electronics as an example of manufacturing jobs returning to the U.S., but in Tuesday’s complaint it asks the FTC for an injunction barring Element from saying that their televisions are assembled stateside.

A product cannot be advertised as assembled in America, according to FTC rules, unless it undergoes a “substantial transformation” on U.S. soil. Furthermore, the AAM complaint notes, the FTC rules offer a specific example of an assembly process that would not qualify — and that example “is strikingly similar to the facts as they relate to Element’s ‘assembly’ process.” The example describes a computer built from foreign-made parts that “then are put together in a simple ‘screwdriver’ operation in the U.S.,” reminiscent of what the Journal found upon visiting Element’s South Carolina facility.

Photograph by Grégoire Sieuw, National Geographic Your Shot

From a northern promontory on the Faroe island of Kalsoy, the Kallur lighthouse boasts a panoramic view of the sea and neighboring islands. About a hundred people inhabit four villages on remote Kalsoy, one of 18 islands making up the North Atlantic archipelago.

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The photo came from Seibert’s personal Facebook page, and police aren’t sure why it was found on the woman’s phone.

Police notified Grace that same month that her broadcasts about the case were false, but she continued to show his photo on the air.

Seibert filed a defamation lawsuit against Grace seeking more than $100,000 in damages.

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The lawsuit points out that Grace has made “outrageous and defamatory” about other cases and suspects during her broadcasts and notes that she had been reprimanded in court for unethical conduct during her nine years as a prosecutor.

Photograph by Andy Ferrington, National Geographic Your Shot

“Burma (Myanmar) is one of those special countries that will never fail to inspire and excite even the most well-traveled photographers,” writes Your Shot member Andy Ferrington. “There is nothing more awe inspiring than watching sunrise from the top of one of the 2,000-plus temples in the central plain in Bagan. This was my third consecutive 5 a.m. start to climb yet another temple in the cold, dark morning in bare feet. I opted for a super telephoto shot, as I wanted to really pull the punch of those warm sunrise colors. As I was tracking the flight path of this solo balloon, I estimated that it would pass between a perfect gap in the temples.”

Self-proclaimed “date coach” Julien Blanc has cancelled his seminar tour in Australia and left the country after officials revoked his visa in light of online protests that highlighted his longtime promotion of abusive behavior against women.

In recent months, Blanc, a representative of global dating help company Real Social Dynamics, attained a following of men desperate for companionship through his “Ph.D. in female attraction” program. The dating strategy Blanc touts in online videos and in-person sessions centered on the use of force and disregard of consent as a means of gaining a woman’s attention.

The Australia leg of Blanc’s world tour — which would have lasted until December — included a seminar on a boat in Melbourne. On Friday, Australian officials confirmed Blanc and his assistant’s overnight departure during a news conference.

“The matter was raised with us and we had it investigated and this fellow looked at,” Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said, according to The Guardian. “This guy wasn’t putting forward political ideas, he was putting forward abuse that was derogatory to women and that’s just something, those are values abhorred in this country.”

Blanc took things further when he put his words into action through his social media campaign, #ChokingGirlsAllAroundTheWorld, a compilation of graphic photos that show him choking women. A viral YouTube video also follows Blanc as he wrings a Japanese woman’s neck and pushes it toward his pelvic area during a walk through the streets of Tokyo.

Older voters helped propel Republicans to sweeping victories Tuesday in Senate and gubernatorial races nationwide, according to exit polls from NBC News.

The disparity between the under-30 and over-60 was the widest it's been in a decade, those polls found. The seniors comprised 37 percent of the electorate; young people made up 12 percent.

That was even more extreme than 2010, another great Republican year, when the split was 32 percent over 60 and 12 percent under 30.

The GOP is trying to convince Iowa voters on Facebook that their neighbors will know if they voted Republican.

Screenshots of Facebook ads, promoted by the official Facebook page of the Republican National Committee feature an ominous message: “NOTICE: All Voting Is Public.” The ad tell voters that “In a few months, Iowa will release the list of individual who voted in this election.” Most troublingly, the ad includes an arial view of a neighborhood with checkmarks indicating that “These People Voted GOP.”

It is true that voter participation in elections in public information. But how a someone voted, including what party they voted for, is not. The secret ballot has long been considered a hallmark of American democracy.

The ad is a variation of a GOTV (Get Out The Vote) strategy called “vote shaming.” The tactic is employed by liberals and conservatives to use social psychology to increase the chances that people vote. In every state but Virginia, whether or not you participated in an election is public. “If you publicize something, it has a very powerful effect on behavior,” Chris Larimer, an Iowa political scientist, told USA Today in 2012.