"The Freedom Group came in and consolidated production and just alienated everybody because they bought up these great brands and then destroyed them... it is fu***ng up some of the best brands in the gun world."

Robert Farago, publisher of the popular gun blog The Truth About Guns, told me that about the Freedom Group a month before the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, involving its gun brand Bushmaster. It was a month and a few days before Cerberus Capital Management announced it would sell its 95 percent stake in Freedom Group, citing the school tragedy which had, in its words, "raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level."

Investors saw Cerberus' move as a surprise (an added wrinkle: the father of the founder of Cerberus lives in Newtown) despite the raging gun debate. But many in the gun owning community saw it as a ray of hope. Finally, maybe, some classic gun brands would be free from an umbrella group that, in the opinion of many, was destroying untold brand value.Continue reading...

After clamming up in the wake of the Newton, Connecticut, school shooting massacre on Friday, the National Rifle Association finally broke its silence today to announce a press conference on Friday, and released a statement that read in part:

The National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters – and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown. Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting. The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.

The debate on America's out of control spiral on gun vioence dominated the news cycle and social media today, as more young victims of the Sandy Hook shooting were buried. A few turns in the events as the debate played out on Twitter leading up to the NRA's statement:Continue reading...

Newtown, Conn., and its survivors have only begun to cope with the aftermath of the rampage that ended in the deaths of 28 people, 20 of them first-graders, on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary school.

But it didn't take long for gun-control advocates to urge President Obama and all politicians, not just Democrats, to take a stand and rev up action for tighter controls on the types of weapons used by the shooter, Adam Lanza, as polls show that the majority of Americans favor gun control laws.

Those measures are shining a spotlight on "Big Gun" brands such as Smith & Wesson and owners of gun makers such as Cerberus, whose privately held Freedom Group is a "firearms conglomerate" (as Fortune puts it) that produces the Bushmaster .223 assault weapon (and a "man card" campaign raising hackles across the web) used by Lanza, along with his mother's Glock and Sig Sauer handguns.

Cerberus is taken to task in Eliot Spitzer's Slate column today, because the private-equity firm has acquired the find-it-at-Walmart Bushmaster and other top gun brands over the past several years. Meanwhile, investors nervous about the prospects for gun freedoms have been sending down the stocks of Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger. Even a hunting-gear retailer, Cabela's, has been caught in an investment downdraft since the Newtown massacre, Investor's Business Daily reports.

Naturally coming under the spotlight once again is Sig Sauer and Glock, an Austria-based arms manufacturer with a U.S. office in Georgia. Its semiautomatic pistols have been used in some of the biggest recent mass murders including the shootings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and killings at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.Continue reading...

In the battle to find more income sources, local newsrooms are turning to product placement.

Kansas City's CBS-affiliate station KCTV is experimenting with a deal in which local eatery Steak n' Shake has paid to place a coffee cup, its logo visible to the camera, on the table during news segments. The placement, which occurs only on the weekend,l appears to tie into a Steak n' Shake-sponsored contest on the KCTV website.

The KCTV deal recalls MSNBC brewhaha over Starbucks' sponsorship of Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe show, and the 2008 story of Las Vegas KVVU FOX 5's deal with McDonald's.Continue reading...

Move over, Naomi Klein: There’s a new effort afoot to obliterate brands.

But unlike the “No Logo” initiative targeting corporate brands that the liberal activist and writer launched a few years ago (or the apparel brand), this new campaign — called “No Labels” — is an attempt to obviate the need for political brands.

It boasts an anthem by Akon. It also has about as much chance as Klein’s anti-branding efforts to actually succeed.Continue reading...

Chevy to invest $40 million in clean energy projects.

Coca-Cola presents greatest interactive billboard of all times.

Darvon and Darvocet pulled from U.S. pharma market.

eBay joins Yahoo and Google in wooing Groupon.

The Economist comes to the iPhone & iPad.

Another publisher is out at Entertainment Weekly.

Facebook now accounts for nearly one in four pageviews in the U.S.Continue reading...