The next CIA’s director’s challenges

qWhat John Brennan faces after confirmation

I see no reason why the Senate won’t confirm John Brennan, President Obama‘s chief counter-terrorism adviser, to be the next director of the CIA. There will be pro forma inquiries into his past entanglements with the NSA’s domestic surveillance program and his knowledge and approval of the CIA’s “Greystone” torture protocols, but he will have ready answers for the questions and he will say plenty in private to sooth the concerns of those whose concerns need to be soothed.

Assuming Brennan becomes the DCIA, as he will thenceforth be acronymed, he’ll inherit a powerful spy agency facing a set of tough questions. Actually, every CIA director since the advent of the age of Al Qaeda has more or less dealt with these same issues. The daily demands of the job require tactical thinking and leave little room for attention to the bigger picture.

SEE MORE: Why Django is better than Lincoln

# Is the CIA a paramilitary force? Should it go back to its roots as a source of intelligence and warning?  You see this question phrased as such a lot, but it ignores virtually all of the CIA’s history, except for a period in the 1990s when the “Peace Dividend” and director John Deutch pulled back significantly on the agency’s ambit. The CIA has always been both and will always be both. From the start, the agency has very broadly and probably (in an affront to the original understanding of the National Security Act of 1947) interpreted its mandate to do stuff to further American interests abroad, even and often to the point of violence, as Adam Elkus reminds us today. The question really is one of authorities and chains of command: how are American resources properly allocated? Are the mechanisms of accountability sufficient? Is there really anything better than an ad hoc framework for determining whether combined CIA-military operations are really CIA operations or military operations?

# There is no such thing as secrecy anymore, at least not in the way that the CIA has understood the term. We live in an era of open source everything, which means that the agency’s crown jewels have very short lifespans and that public interest in what the CIA does is bound to increase exponentially. The agency has to figure out a posture on the New Secrecy that satisfies its mission while accepting the Open Source reality. Younger analysts have different expectations of how to gather and collect information and are less satisfied with the complicated and fairly broken traditional secrecy rules.

# Similarly, it is exceedingly difficult for would-be spies to come to the CIA without significant social media trails, and it is very hard for them to work in the world without leaving electromagnetic detritus for everyone to exploit and discover. How can the CIA’s case officers maintain their cover identities? Is the era of fully-fledged cover identities over? Will the CIA continue to rely (and over-rely) on foreign intelligence services for critical human intelligence operations? 

# The same Open Source world that hinders CIA secrecy also provides the agency with far more data than it ever imagined having. The CIA will never face a problem of not having enough intelligence. It will face the problem of having too much and not knowing what it has or how to use it.

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'Twilight' finale leads Razzies worst-of list

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The "Twilight" finale had better reviews than the franchise's previous four movies, but you'd never know it from the Razzie nominations singling out Hollywood's worst of the year.

"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2" led the Razzies lineup late Tuesday with 11 nominations, including worst picture, lead-acting slots for Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and supporting-acting nominations for Taylor Lautner and Ashley Greene.

Other worst-picture nominees are the naval action tale "Battleship," the family flick "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure," Adam Sandler's raunchy dud "That's My Boy" and Eddie Murphy's comedy flop "A Thousand Words."

A spoof of the Academy Awards, the Razzies announcement came a little more than a day before Thursday's Oscar nominations. Winners for the 33rd annual Razzies will be announced Feb. 23, the night before the Oscar show.

The final installment in the supernatural romance involving vampires, werewolves and a moody schoolgirl, "Breaking Dawn — Part 2" also had nominations for worst director for Bill Condon, plus worst sequel, screenplay and screen ensemble. It picked up two nominations for worst screen couple — for Stewart and Pattinson and for Lautner and child co-star Mackenzie Foy.

Stewart's worst-actress nomination came for two performances in 2012, her Bella Swan of "Twilight" and the title role in "Snow White and the Huntsman."

Earlier "Twilight" movies have been regular nominees for the Razzies but have not come away with any key worst-of awards. But the finale seems to be the one Razzies voters have been waiting for, the way Oscar voters were waiting for the last "Lord of the Rings" film, the one that finally won the big prize.

"That's the analogy we're making, that this is the Razzies' flipside," said Razzies founder John Wilson. "This is our equivalent to 'The Lord of the Rings.' It's our members' last chance to razz 'Twilight.'"

Here's how Razzies organizers describe the "Twilight" finale in the nominations announcement: "The ultimate installment of the inexplicably successful series focuses on Shirtless Werewolf Jacob and his creepy relationship with the daughter of Sparkly Vampire Edward and Gloomy Goth Gal Bella. Together, the four face a final showdown that will determine the fate of Romantic-But-Boring Monsters everywhere."

Sandler — whose "Jack and Jill" made Razzies history last season by winning a record 10 awards, sweeping every category — remains a Razzies favorite this time. "That's My Boy" ran second with eight Razzie nominations, among them worst actor for Sandler and supporting actor for both Nick Swardson and Vanilla Ice.

Tyler Perry was nominated for both worst actor ("Alex Cross" and "Good Deeds") and actress ("Madea's Witness Protection," in which he reprised his cross-dressing title character).

Along with Sandler, Pattinson and Perry, worst-actor contenders are Nicolas Cage for "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" and "Seeking Justice"; and Murphy for "A Thousand Words."

Joining Stewart and Perry in the worst-actress lineup are Katherine Heigl for "One for the Money"; Milla Jovovich for "Resident Evil: Retribution"; and Barbra Streisand for "The Guilt Trip."

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Economic Scene: Health Care and Pursuit of Profit Make a Poor Mix

Thirty years ago, Bonnie Svarstad and Chester Bond of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered an interesting pattern in the use of sedatives at nursing homes in the south of the state.

Patients entering church-affiliated nonprofit homes were prescribed drugs roughly as often as those entering profit-making “proprietary” institutions. But patients in proprietary homes received, on average, more than four times the dose of patients at nonprofits.

Writing about his colleagues’ research in his 1988 book “The Nonprofit Economy,” the economist Burton Weisbrod provided a straightforward explanation: “differences in the pursuit of profit.” Sedatives are cheap, Mr. Weisbrod noted. “Less expensive than, say, giving special attention to more active patients who need to be kept busy.”

This behavior was hardly surprising. Hospitals run for profit are also less likely than nonprofit and government-run institutions to offer services like home health care and psychiatric emergency care, which are not as profitable as open-heart surgery.

A shareholder might even applaud the creativity with which profit-seeking institutions go about seeking profit. But the consequences of this pursuit might not be so great for other stakeholders in the system — patients, for instance. One study found that patients’ mortality rates spiked when nonprofit hospitals switched to become profit-making, and their staff levels declined.

These profit-maximizing tactics point to a troubling conflict of interest that goes beyond the private delivery of health care. They raise a broader, more important question: How much should we rely on the private sector to satisfy broad social needs?

From health to pensions to education, the United States relies on private enterprise more than pretty much every other advanced, industrial nation to provide essential social services. The government pays Medicare Advantage plans to deliver health care to aging Americans. It provides a tax break to encourage employers to cover workers under 65.

Businesses devote almost 6 percent of the nation’s economic output to pay for health insurance for their employees. This amounts to nine times similar private spending on health benefits across the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, on average. Private plans cover more than a third of pension benefits. The average for 30 countries in the O.E.C.D. is just over one-fifth.

We let the private sector handle tasks other countries would never dream of moving outside the government’s purview. Consider bail bondsmen and their rugged sidekicks, the bounty hunters.

American TV audiences may reminisce fondly about Lee Majors in “The Fall Guy” chasing bad guys in a souped-up GMC truck — a cheap way to get felons to court. People in most other nations see them as an undue commercial intrusion into the criminal justice system that discriminates against the poor.

Our reliance on private enterprise to provide the most essential services stems, in part, from a more narrow understanding of our collective responsibility to provide social goods. Private American health care has stood out for decades among industrial nations, where public universal coverage has long been considered a right of citizenship. But our faith in private solutions also draws on an ingrained belief that big government serves too many disparate objectives and must cater to too many conflicting interests to deliver services fairly and effectively.

Our trust appears undeserved, however. Our track record suggests that handing over responsibility for social goals to private enterprise is providing us with social goods of lower quality, distributed more inequitably and at a higher cost than if government delivered or paid for them directly.

The government’s most expensive housing support program — it will cost about $140 billion this year — is a tax break for individuals to buy homes on the private market.

According to the Tax Policy Center, this break will benefit only 20 percent of mostly well-to-do taxpayers, and most economists agree that it does nothing to further its purported goal of increasing homeownership. Tax breaks for private pensions also mostly benefit the wealthy. And 401(k) plans are riskier and costlier to administer than Social Security.

From the high administrative costs incurred by health insurers to screen out sick patients to the array of expensive treatments prescribed by doctors who earn more money for every treatment they provide, our private health care industry provides perhaps the clearest illustration of how the profit motive can send incentives astray.

By many objective measures, the mostly private American system delivers worse value for money than every other in the developed world. We spend nearly 18 percent of the nation’s economic output on health care and still manage to leave tens of millions of Americans without adequate access to care.

Britain gets universal coverage for 10 percent of gross domestic product. Germany and France for 12 percent. What’s more, our free market for health services produces no better health than the public health care systems in other advanced nations. On some measures — infant mortality, for instance — it does much worse.

In a way, private delivery of health care misleads Americans about the financial burdens they must bear to lead an adequate existence. If they were to consider the additional private spending on health care as a form of tax — an indispensable cost to live a healthy life — the nation’s tax bill would rise to about 31 percent from 25 percent of the nation’s G.D.P. — much closer to the 34 percent average across the O.E.C.D.

A quarter of a century ago, a belief swept across America that we could reduce the ballooning costs of the government’s health care entitlements just by handing over their management to the private sector. Private companies would have a strong incentive to identify and wipe out wasteful treatment. They could encourage healthy lifestyles among beneficiaries, lowering use of costly care. Competition for government contracts would keep the overall price down.

We now know this didn’t work as advertised. Competition wasn’t as robust as hoped. Health maintenance organizations didn’t keep costs in check, and they spent heavily on administration and screening to enroll only the healthiest, most profitable beneficiaries.

One study of Medicare spending found that the program saved no money by relying on H.M.O.’s. Another found that moving Medicaid recipients into H.M.O.’s increased the average cost per beneficiary by 12 percent with no improvement in the quality of care for the poor. Two years ago, President Obama’s health care law cut almost $150 billion from Medicare simply by reducing payments to private plans that provide similar care to plain vanilla Medicare at a higher cost.

Today, again, entitlements are at the center of the national debate. Our elected officials are consumed by slashing a budget deficit that is expected to balloon over coming decades. With both Democrats and Republicans unwilling to raise taxes on the middle class, the discussion is quickly boiling down to how deeply entitlements must be cut.

We may want to broaden the debate. The relevant question is how best we can serve our social needs at the lowest possible cost. One answer is that we have a lot of room to do better. Improving the delivery of social services like health care and pensions may be possible without increasing the burden on American families, simply by removing the profit motive from the equation.

E-mail: eporter@nytimes.com;

Twitter: @portereduardo

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Disneyland fights multiday pass abuse by photographing holders

Workers at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park took photos of visitors entering the parks Tuesday as part of a new crackdown on abuse of multiday passes.

The photographing of guests — including children — delayed visitors' getting into the park by about 45 minutes, parkgoers said.

"They delayed literally thousands of people in line to do this process," said Bob Shoberg, a San Jose resident who visited Disneyland with his wife, daughters, in-laws and grandchildren.

Disneyland officials denied that guests suffered significant delays and said only multiday pass holders were photographed.

Disney has been struggling to stop several ticket brokers in Anaheim from buying multiday park passes and then "leasing" or "renting" them to visitors for individual days.

The scenario works like this: A ticket broker buys a three-day "park hopper" pass for $205 and rents the ticket to three guests for $99 a day. The broker makes a profit of $92, and the guests, who would otherwise pay $125 for a one-day "park hopper" ticket, save $26 each.

Disneyland prohibits visitors from sharing multiday passes, but the practice does not violate local laws.

To help stop the practice, Disneyland workers a few months ago began adding the names of parkgoers to the passes and requiring that they show identification at the front gate.

On Tuesday, Disneyland took the latest step of photographing visitors who are using a multiday pass for the first time, park spokeswoman Suzi Brown said.

When the pass is used a second time, Disneyland workers at the park turnstiles will see a photo of the guest pop up on a computer screen, she said. If the person at the turnstile is not the person shown on the screen, Brown said the guest won't be allowed to use the ticket.

Disneyland officials declined to say what percentage of visitors use multiday passes, but Brown said only a "very small percentage of guests" were photographed, and that did not cause a significant delay.

"So that our guests are not taken advantage of, we strongly advise that they only purchase tickets at Disneyland Resort, at our hotels or through an authorized seller to ensure that tickets are valid," Brown added.

Brown said the parks realized the problem was growing when park workers noticed ticket brokers waving signs hawking discounted passes on the streets around the park.

One business, Bestticketshere.com, says on its website that it rents multiday passes for Disneyland and Universal Studios. The website said the business guarantees its tickets will be accepted or customers will get a full refund.

In response to an email request for comment on Disneyland's new crackdown, the company wrote: "Is the ultimate goal to shut these companies down so everyone has to pay full price?"

Most theme parks take photographs of people who buy annual passes and affix them to the pass.

Universal Studios Hollywood uses fingerprints and cross-checks the names printed on the annual passes to ensure that the tickets are not shared, park officials said. At Raging Waters in San Dimas, annual pass buyers are photographed and their photo is affixed to the pass.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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Banks, regulators reach mortgage settlements

In two of the biggest civil settlements since the financial crisis, the nation's biggest banks agreed Monday to cough up nearly $19 billion to resolve federal allegations of mortgage misdeeds.

Bankers saw the settlements as a major step in providing more certainty for their balance sheets and possibly foreshadowing an end to the era of billion-dollar mea culpas and open-ended regulatory probes.

In one case, 10 banks settled with regulators for $8.5 billion. In the second, Bank of America Corp. agreed to pay almost $10.4 billion to Fannie Mae, the giant loan buyer that the U.S. seized and propped up with tens of billions of taxpayer dollars.

The deals come three years after prosecutors dropped criminal investigations against such subprime-mortgage kingpins as Countrywide Financial Corp.'s Angelo Mozilo in favor of pursuing civil fines.

"I'd have to say we're at least 75% of the way through with this process," said SNL Financial analyst Nancy Bush, arguing that it's time to concentrate on rebuilding the dysfunctional U.S. mortgage system. "The bankers are going to have to stop complaining about the government, and we'll have to stop this endless calling for someone to go to jail."

Housing advocates welcomed payouts for homeowners but asserted that the banks and bankers have gotten off easy, given the enormity of the economic damage to Main Street.

"When you think about $8.5 billion, and you know trillions of dollars in wealth have been lost by communities, it's not enough at all," said Sasha Werblin of the Greenlining Institute. "But some money is better than nothing."

The Bank of America settlement ends a bitter standoff between BofA, once the largest seller of home loans, and Fannie Mae, the nation's largest mortgage buyer.

The deal ends Fannie's demands that BofA buy back a mountain of soured loans issued by Countrywide, the high-risk Calabasas lender BofA acquired in 2008. BofA Chief Executive Brian Moynihan characterized the deal as "a significant step in resolving our remaining legacy mortgage issues."

BofA agreed to buy back $6.75 billion in residential mortgage loans sold to Fannie Mae and pay it an additional $3.6 billion in cash.

Moynihan had agreed previously to tens of billions of dollars in Countrywide-related claims. Those include shouldering the lion's share of last year's $25-billion settlement that five banks reached with the Obama administration and state attorneys general over so-called robo-signing of foreclosure paperwork and other abuses.

BofA still faces billions of dollars in claims from plaintiffs, including major insurers, the U.S. attorney's office in New York and the federal regulator overseeing Fannie Mae and fellow mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac.

But the bank has reached a tentative $8.5-billion settlement with holders of certain Countrywide mortgage bonds and another pending settlement for $2.4 million over its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co., also in 2008.

Because Countrywide left Bank of America with so many mortgage-related headaches, many view BofA's tangles with regulators as a barometer for the whole mortgage industry, SNL's Bush said. And as bank stock prices recovered over the last year, BofA led the way with a 109% gain for 2012.

The $8.5-million settlement with 10 banks Monday represented an acknowledgment by bank regulators that a previous attempt to review millions of foreclosures for bank wrongdoing had failed. Instead, they took a streamlined approach — the lump sum — in getting relief for troubled borrowers. Four other banks opted out of the settlement.

The settlement replaces a failed process that started in April 2011. In that arrangement, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve required the 14 big providers of mortgage customer service to hire consultants to review foreclosures from 2009 or 2010, potentially affecting 4.4 million borrowers. Nearly half a million borrowers signed up for the free reviews, which were supposed to lead to compensation in cases of bank misconduct.

But the consultants' tab totaled $1.5 billion as last year ended — without a single penny of relief going to borrowers. So the regulators and 10 of the banks, including mortgage giants Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., agreed to a plan for more direct aid.

The 10 banks will pay $3.3 billion to 3.8 million borrowers, who could receive amounts ranging from a few hundred dollars to $125,000 depending on evidence of wrongdoing. Reviews continue at the four banks that opted out of the new approach.

In addition, the 10 banks agreed to provide $5.2 billion in foreclosure prevention assistance to borrowers at risk of losing homes, including mortgage modifications or forgiveness of judgments against them.

Comptroller Tom Curry, the nation's top bank regulator, said the switch was a "significant change in direction." But he said it met the original objectives "by ensuring that consumers are the ones who will benefit and that they will benefit more quickly and in a more direct manner."

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181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter

Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals on Twitter, people who adorn their profiles with credentials like “social media freak” and “social media wonk” and “social media authority.”

RELATED: Teens Hacking Their Friends’s Twitter Accounts Is All the Rage

B.L. Ochman at Advertising Age, whose heroic research produced the final tally, first noted the trend three years ago — when she recorded, among other distinctions, 68 “social media stars” and 79 “social media ninjas” on Twitter alone — and has been keeping track ever since. This isn’t just the stuff of legitimate Twitter news-breakers like Anthony DeRosa and Andy Carvin — Ohman provides a helpful breakdown of the terms she looked for — you know, like “social media warrior.” (We’re tempted to argue that such diligence makes Ochman something of a social media warrior herself.) Ochman also warns of using “guru” — a Sanskrit term — to describe oneself:

While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let’s save “guru” (Sanskrit for “teacher”) for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.

I’d argue, in fact, that “social media” and “guru” should never appear in the same sentence.

Whatever the term, social media seems to be a growth industry: there were only 15,740 “mavens” (or whatever) in 2009 — less than a tenth of those represented today.

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Brad Pitt tweets to Chinese that he's coming

BEIJING (AP) — Brad Pitt is now on China's version of Twitter, and his first enigmatic tweet drew thousands of comments. Just as mysteriously, it later disappeared.

The actor's verified Sina Weibo account sent the message Monday: "It is the truth. Yup, I'm coming." That was forwarded more than 31,000 times and netted over 14,000 comments, many expressing surprise. He gathered more than 100,000 followers.

But by Tuesday morning the tweet had disappeared, and a standard message read "He hasn't tweeted yet." The number of his followers kept growing, however.

It was unclear whether the deletion was the work of Pitt and his PR team or Chinese censors. Chinese censors regularly delete tweets and even accounts that they deem sensitive. The government requires Sina and other Internet companies to do this in-house at their own cost, under threat of fines and shutdowns if they fail.

A request for comment from Pitt's manager was not immediately answered.

The IMDb.com movie website says Pitt was banned from ever entering China because of his role in the 1997 "Seven Years in Tibet." The government was upset about the film's portrayal of harsh Chinese rule in Tibet. His later film "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" with Angelina Jolie was popular in China.

Pop and movie stars use Weibo as a way to connect with the giant Chinese market. To get a certified account overseas celebrities have to submit copies of their ID and job evidence among other documents.

Tom Cruise joined Sina Weibo in 2011 and now has over 5 million followers.

Former NBA star Stephon Marbury who now plays for China's professional basketball league is prolific on Weibo and has over 779,000 followers.

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Global Update: China Moves to Prevent Spread of Yellow Fever From Africa

In a move that underlines how many Chinese citizens now work in Africa, China’s quarantine officials recently urged greater efforts to make sure that a yellow fever epidemic now raging in Sudan does not come back to China.

Local health authorities were asked to scan all travelers arriving from Sudan for fevers. Chinese citizens planning travel to Sudan were advised to get yellow fever shots. Customs officers were told that containers arriving from Sudan might have stray infected mosquitoes inside.

Sudan’s epidemic is considered the world’s worst in 20 years. Sweden, Britain and other donors have paid for vaccinations. The United States Navy’s laboratory in Egypt has helped with diagnoses.

Estimates of the number of Chinese working in Africa, many in the oil and mining industries or on major construction projects, range from 500,000 to 1 million. Experts on AIDS have previously warned that the workers could become a new means of bringing that disease to China, which has a low H.I.V.-infection rate.

ProMED-mail, a Web site that follows emerging diseases, has tracked reports about the Sudan outbreak, with its moderators adding valuable context. China’s mosquito-killing winters make a large yellow fever outbreak there unlikely, moderators said. But Sudan’s containment efforts are troubled. For example, vaccinated people cannot get cards proving they have had shots, but the cards are reported to be for sale at police checkpoints.

Australia’s now-endemic dengue fever, according to ProMED moderators, may have come from mosquitoes arriving in containers from East Timor.

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Customers pack Ontario gun show, fearing possible new laws

Women pushing strollers stopped to peer at handguns in glass cases. Men squinted through scopes. The "clack-clack" of stun guns crackled overhead. A man meandered through the crowd, a black rifle slung over his back with a cardboard sign: "For sale: $1,700."

Less than a month after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school, business was brisk at one of the nation's largest gun shows, held this weekend at the Ontario Convention Center, where vendors and patrons alike expressed fear of possible new federal restrictions on guns.

Ryan Girard, 41, surveyed the crowd at the Crossroads of the West show Sunday afternoon, a box of ammunition in his hands. "It's out of control this weekend," he said. "People are just scared of what could or could not happen."

Girard said he tried to go to the show Saturday but the out-the-door line was more than four hours long. He opted to come back about 6 a.m. Sunday, three hours before the event opened. He said about 500 people already had staked out spots by the time he arrived.

"I'll tell you right now, Obama is the No.1 gun salesman in the nation," Girard said. "The NRA should give him an award."

President Obama, who has voiced support of a federal ban on assault weapons since his 2008 campaign, tasked his administration with reviewing gun policy shortly after the Newtown, Conn., massacre. Several lawmakers have pledged support of new gun measures, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who promised to introduce an assault-weapons ban similar to the one she wrote in 1994. That ban expired in 2004.

California is home to some of the nation's toughest gun laws. The state has bans on assault weapons and on ammunition clips holding more than 10 rounds, strong background check requirements and a 10-day waiting period for sales.

Businesses and trade associations across the country have reported a surge in gun and ammunition sales in recent weeks. The FBI reported 2.78 million firearm background checks were conducted in December — the highest monthly figure since routine background checks were first required in November 1998.

Although gun sales are typically higher in December because of the holidays, last month's background check figure was up more than 900,000 from December 2011. It was also nearly three times the number of checks conducted in October 2001, a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But, the agency said, a "one-to-one correlation" between background checks and gun sales could not be made because of "varying state laws and purchase scenarios."

Frequent vendors said they have seen a noticeable increase in sales.

"It's crazy," said Ken Hunt, 51. "Everyone's nervous about what the government's going to do."

Hunt sat in front of a table lined with plastic bags of steel and brass shell casings. Sales were up, he said, and so were prices. A few weeks ago, Hunt said, he sold 10,000 .223 casings for $500. On Sunday he sold packages of 500 for $75 — triple the price per casing.

Chris Kaufman, 62, worked at one of the largest ammunition booths at the show. It brought three semi trucks of merchandise, and three-quarters was gone Saturday. The stand bought out the inventory of a closing business so it would have enough to sell the next day.

The booth, which travels to major gun shows throughout California, Nevada and Arizona, is seeing five to 10 times as much business as normal, Kaufman said.

Although gun events in some parts of the country also reported larger-than-usual crowds, several other shows have been canceled, including several near Newtown.

Hector Garcia, 49, who managed a booth at the Ontario show, said that as a father of two young children, he has thought a lot about the elementary school shooting. But he doesn't think additional legislation will necessarily help.

"Everybody feels bad, no doubt," he said. "But banning guns and restricting people is not going to do anything to prevent that crazy person."

Fears of gun restrictions are nothing new. Many vendors said they've seen similar, although smaller, surges after Obama and President Clinton were elected — "every time the political winds seem to blow," Kaufman said.

But many said the crowds in Ontario were unlike anything they had seen before. Harold Holmes, 51, said he usually goes to a show in San Diego but chose the Ontario event because of its timing.

"It's right before the Legislature has time to act," he said, several boxes of ammunition sitting in a wheeled cart at his feet.

Holmes said he was shopping for extra ammunition for an antique military rifle and pistol — "just to stock up," he said. "Just in case."

The only pause to Sunday's activities at the Ontario gun show came when a woman's voice over the loudspeaker asked attendees to stop and "find a flag … so we can honor our beloved country." She then began reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as attendees doffed their hats. A quote attributed to George Washington — "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference. They deserve a place of honor with all that is good." — was read moments before.

Two lines wound around the ammunition booth, one side for pistols, the other for rifles. An employee walked a man and woman past thinning boxes of bullets, stopping at the end of the booth to point to an empty shelf.

"Oh, wow," the woman said.

kate.mather@latimes.com

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