SeaWorld Hopes For an IPO Splash

Shamu may have new masters. The private equity firm Blackstone today filed to take SeaWorld public at an undisclosed date. Blackstone (BX)  bought the amusement parks in late 2009 for $ 2.7 billion from Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD). At the time, the amusement parks weren’t profitable—they lost $ 58 million in December 2009 alone—but they’ve made money since: In 2011 net income was $ 19 million, and in the first nine months of 2012 it was $ 86 million.

SeaWorld Entertainment runs 11 parks under several different brands: SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Aquatica, and Sesame Place. It also runs Discovery Cove, a park next to the SeaWorld in Orlando that offers luxury cabanas and the ability to swim with dolphins and limits admission to no more than 1,300 people a day. More than half the company’s revenue comes from parks in Florida, several of which are in the theme park mecca, Orlando. In an attempt at the quantification of fun, the IPO filing says the parks combined have 93 animal attractions (Hello, Shamu), 193 rides (lazy rivers, anyone?), 113 shows, 49 play areas (like Halloween mazes), 38 limited-time events, and 113 “distinctive experiences,” such as feeding penguins.

SeaWorld’s filing makes clear what anyone who’s ever purchased an outrageously priced amusement park soda already knows—the real profit comes from food and merchandise. In the nine months through September, SeaWorld spent just $ 99 million on food and goods that brought in $ 445 million in revenue. Compare that with the $ 560 million it cost to operate the parks, which brought in $ 716 million in ticket sales. The average customer spent $ 22.39 on “in-park” spending, the filing says. That’s on top of the nearly $ 35 the average person spent on admission.

The filing points out some unique risk factors. Blackstone will keep a controlling share in SeaWorld, which could lead to a conflict of interest, because Blackstone also owns a “substantial stake” in the company that owns Legoland theme parks. And then there are the animals. They are susceptible to infectious diseases, the filing says, and dangers lurk in their interactions with humans, too. “Injuries or death, while rare, have occurred in the past and may occur in the future,” it says. So Shamu and his buddies are both assets and liabilities.

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Analysis: For tech investors, it’s hard to know when to bolt

(Reuters) – When Hewlett-Packard Co agreed to buy British software company Autonomy in August last year for $ 11.1 billion, two well-known investors made diametrically different bets on how the big deal would play out.

To short seller Jim Chanos, who had been raising red flags on Autonomy for years and had started shorting shares of HP in 2011, the deal was another nail in the coffin of the Silicon Valley tech giant, according to a source familiar with his thinking.

But to activist investor Ralph Whitworth, co-founder of Relational Investors LLC, it was time to commit to HP and the turnaround story the company was trying to sell to Wall Street. His fund bought more than 17.5 million HP shares after the deal was announced, and Whitworth received a seat on the company’s board. This year, Relational roughly doubled its stake in HP.

In the wake of HP’s decision to take an $ 8.8 billion write-down on the deal because of alleged accounting irregularities at Autonomy, it appears Chanos – whose call to short Enron before the energy company collapsed in a corporate scandal may be his most famous trade – was more astute.

HP’s shares are down 36 percent since Relational, which declined to comment, built its stake in the third quarter of 2011.

BARRIERS TO ENTRY

Relational’s big move into HP is a reminder that even smart investors can get things wrong in the fast-evolving technology sector, where once hot global names like Research in Motion and Yahoo can quickly become yesterday’s news.

It is a world where a company may effectively erect barriers to entry in a market only to have them torn down by a rival with a new whizz-bang product – just as Apple‘s iPhone broke the dominance that Research in Motion’s BlackBerry had enjoyed.

One warning sign that a tech company may be on the verge of losing its edge is when it makes acquisitions outside of its main area of expertise to move into new product lines. Savvy tech investors also say be wary of companies that experience a succession of management changes, or when a successful core business starts looking tired.

The pace of change in the technology sector is much faster than in other industries, said Kaushik Roy, an analyst at Hercules Technology Growth Capital. “It attracts new talent and capital, many startups are formed, which can be extremely disruptive to incumbents,” Roy said. “In other words, yesterday’s winners can rapidly become today’s losers and vice versa.”

In the case of HP, the company not only has had four CEOs since 1999, it has been striving to find another niche to dominate as demand for one of its core products – computer printers – wanes and as its PC business stumbles.

Or consider online search pioneer Yahoo, which has gone through six chief executives and is struggling to keep pace with Google.

Josh Spencer, a portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, said frequent turnover in the executive suite at Yahoo was a warning sign to him. Spencer said he does not own Yahoo shares and has not in the recent past.

RED FLAGS

While a company may view an acquisition as a fresh start – that is what HP was trying to say about Autonomy – some investors see it as a warning the core business is struggling.

Spencer noted that the technology industry’s most successful companies – Apple and Samsung – generally have not made acquisitions and instead developed new products internally.

For Margaret Patel, managing director at Wells Capital Management, one of the first red flags she saw at HP was when former CEO Carly Fiorina bought Compaq for roughly $ 25 billion in 2002.

“I felt then that the acquisition was too large and expensive, and personal computers were not their core strength,” said Patel, who has since avoided investing in HP.

Of course, timing can be everything even if an investor is eventually proven right. Patel missed out on a 137 percent gain in HP’s stock price from the time of the Compaq deal up until the end of 2010.

PREMIUM VALUATIONS

A few money managers see a flashing yellow light in the big sell-off of Apple shares in the past few months.

Apple, the most valuable U.S. company, has shed nearly 30 percent of its value in the last three months.

Since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs – the driving force behind Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPad – DoubleLine co-founder Jeffrey Gundlach has been recommending that investors short the company’s shares because “the product innovator isn’t there anymore.”

Gundlach said he began shorting Apple’s stock at around $ 610 and maintains that it could drop to $ 425. He declined to comment on Tim Cook, who succeeded Jobs over a year ago and is seen by many as less visionary and innovative than Jobs.

Christian Bertelsen, chief investment officer at Global Financial Private Capital, with assets under management of $ 1.7 billion, said his firm began paring back its exposure to Apple this fall because he felt the expectations for the company’s new iPhone5 had gotten overheated.

He said his firm dramatically took down its exposure to Apple shares when the stock hit $ 670 a share. “For us, the light bulb went off this fall,” he said. Mind you, Apple’s shares still remain up about 25 percent for the whole year.

And then there’s Research in Motion. Once a leader in smartphones, it’s now in danger of becoming irrelevant.

“They saw the move towards all touch-screen phones and didn’t move with it,” said Stuart Jeffrey, an analyst at Nomura Securities who noted how the BlackBerry 10 touch-screen phone will debut on January 30, 2013, six years after Apple released its first iPhone in 2007.

Robert Stimpson, a portfolio manager at Oak Associates Funds whose fund does not own any shares of Research in Motion, said the company’s BlackBerry phones are on a downward slope and it will be tough for the company to regain its lost luster.

“The end of the road is a long, lonely journey,” Stimpson said of Research in Motion. “I think they will fight the good fight for many years, probably unsuccessfully.”

(Reporting by Nicola Leske and Sam Forgione in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Tiffany Wu, Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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‘Rescue Me’ singer Fontella Bass dies

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Fontella Bass, a St. Louis-born soul singer who hit the top of the R&B charts with “Rescue Me” in 1965, has died. She was 72.

Bass died Wednesday night at a St. Louis hospice of complications from a heart attack suffered three weeks ago, her daughter, Neuka Mitchell, said. Bass had also suffered a series of strokes over the past seven years.

“She was an outgoing person,” Mitchell said of her mother. “She had a very big personality. Any room she entered she just lit the room up, whether she was on stage or just going out to eat.”

Bass was born into a family with deep musical roots. Her mother was gospel singer Martha Bass, one of the Clara Ward Singers. Her younger brother, David Peaston, had a string of R&B hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Peaston died in February at age 54.

Bass began performing at a young age, singing in her church’s choir at age 6. She was surrounded by music, often traveling on national tours with her mother and her gospel group.

Her interest turned from gospel to R&B when she was a teenager and she began her professional career at the Showboat Club in north St. Louis at age 17. She eventually auditioned for Chess Records and landed a recording contract, first as a duet artist. Her duet with Bobby McClure, “Don’t Mess Up a Good Thing,” reached No. 5 on the R&B charts and No. 33 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1965.

She co-wrote and later that year recorded “Rescue Me,” reaching No. 1 on the R&B charts and No. 4 on the Billboard pop singles chart. Bass’s powerful voice bore a striking resemblance to that of Aretha Franklin, who is often misidentified as the singer of that chart-topping hit.

Bass had a few other modest hits but by her own accounts developed a reputation as a troublemaker because she demanded more artistic control, and more money for her songs. She haggled over royalty rights to “Rescue Me” for years before reaching a settlement in the late 1980s, Mitchell said. She sued American Express over the use of “Rescue Me” in a commercial, settling for an undisclosed amount in 1993.

“Rescue Me” has been covered by many top artists, including Linda Ronstadt, Cher, Melissa Manchester and Pat Benatar. Franklin eventually sang a form of it too — as “Deliver Me” in a Pizza Hut TV ad in 1991.

Bass lived briefly in Europe before returning to St. Louis in the early 1970s, where she and husband Lester Bowie raised their family. She recorded occasionally, including a 1995 gospel album, “No Ways Tired,” that earned a Grammy nomination.

Bass was inducted into the St. Louis Hall of Fame in 2000.

Funeral arrangements for Bass were incomplete. She is survived by four children. Bowie died in 1999.

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Surival Rates Similar for Two Types of Abdominal Aneurysm Repairs

Less-invasive surgery isn’t necessarily better than an open procedure to repair a potentially fatal abdominal aortic aneurysm. That’s the conclusion of researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who found similar survival rates for both types of procedures.

The medical community was enthusiastic about a new, less-invasive procedure assumed to be safer and better than traditional open surgery, according to Medical News Today. The researchers followed patients for up to nine years. Surprisingly, they found that after four years, survival rates for the two types of surgery were very similar.

An aneurysm is a bulge resembling a balloon in an artery. When the artery’s wall has been weakened by genetic issues, trauma, or certain medical problems, the pressure of blood against it can cause an aneurysm. Aneurysms in the aorta claim the lives of around 13,000 Americans a year, says the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. Most deaths occur after the rupture of an aneurysm or a split in the aorta’s wall.

An abdominal aortic aneurysm occurs when the aorta — the body’s largest blood vessel — balloons in the abdomen due to pressure on the wall. If it ruptures, massive bleeding can be quickly fatal. This type of aneurysm ranks 14th among leading causes of death for Americans between 60 and 85.

Treatment depends on an aneurysm’s size and location. The traditional surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm utilizes a large, open cut. The more recent type of repair is an endovascular embolization, in which the surgeon uses a stent to prop open the blood vessel or reinforce its wall, according to PubMed Health.

While the survival rate was higher after two years in patients in the Hopkins study who had undergone endovascular repair, by the four-year mark, rates were nearly the same. Among elderly patients considered bad risks for an open surgery, individuals didn’t fare better with the newer technique. The team found no increased survival in patients at least 70 years old who had undergone the less-invasive procedure. Any benefits occurred in younger individuals.

Study leader Julie A. Freischlag, M.D., says the results raise an issue over who should undergo aneurysm repair. Even when older patients underwent repairs, their lives weren’t prolonged. She says the issue is whether they should have either procedure, since they’re already dying of diseases associated with old age.

My father lived, largely symptom-free, for years with an abdominal aortic aneurysm . Citing a weak heart, surgeons declined to repair it. When he experienced sudden pain, my mother took him to the emergency room. He survived an open repair procedure but died after 16 days in intensive care of an infection at the surgical site. Although he was 71, we wonder if an endovascular embolization would have provided a different outcome, at least for four years after surgery.

Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.

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Home prices rose in ninth straight month: S&P

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Single-family home prices rose in October for nine months in a row, reinforcing the view the domestic real estate market is improving and should bolster the economy in 2013, a closely watched survey showed on Wednesday.

The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 0.7 percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, stronger than the 0.5 percent rise forecast by economists polled by Reuters.

“Looking over this report, and considering other data on housing starts and sales, it is clear that the housing recovery is gathering strength,” David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement.

While record low mortgage rates and modest job growth should keep the housing recovery on track, analysts cautioned home prices face downward pressure from a likely pickup in the sales of foreclosed and distressed properties and reduced buying investors and speculators.

Prices in the 20 cities rose 4.3 percent year over year, beating expectations for a rise of 4.0 percent.

Las Vegas posted the biggest monthly rise on a seasonally adjusted basis at 2.4 percent, followed by a 1.7 percent increase in San Diego, the latest Case-Shiller data showed.

“Higher year-over-year price gains plus strong performances in the Southwest and California, regions that suffered during the housing bust, confirm that housing is now contributing to the economy,” Blitzer said.

Housing contributed 10 percent to the overall U.S. economic growth in the third quarter, while the sector represented less than 3 percent of gross domestic product, he said.

Last week, the government said U.S. GDP expanded at a stronger-than-expected 3.1 percent annualized pace in the third quarter.

Excluding seasonal factors, however, home prices in 12 of the 20 cities fell in October from September as home values tend to decline in fall and winter, Blitzer said.

Chicago experienced the largest non-seasonally adjusted decline at 1.5 percent, followed by a 1.4 percent fall in Boston.

(Reporting by Richard Leong; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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Afghan bomber attacks near major US base

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the gate of a major U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing the attacker and three Afghans, Afghan police said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Police Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizai said a local guard who questioned the vehicle driver at the gate of Camp Chapman was killed along with two civilians and the assailant. The camp is located adjacent to the airport of the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan. Chapman and nearby Camp Salerno had been frequently targeted by militants in the past, but violent incidents have decreased considerably in recent months.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email that the bomber targeted Afghan police manning the gate and Afghans working for the Americans entering the base. He claimed high casualties were inflicted.

NATO operates with more than 100,000 troops in the country, including some 66,000 American forces. It is handing most combat operations over to the Afghans in preparation for a pullout from Afghanistan in 2014. Militant groups, including the Taliban, rarely face NATO troops head-on and rely mainly on roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

NATO forces and foreign civilians have also been increasingly attacked by rogue Afghan military and police, eroding trust between the allies.

On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said a policewoman who killed an American contractor in Kabul a day earlier was a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed “unstable behavior” but had no known links to militants.

The policewoman, identified as Sgt. Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Georgia, on Monday, in the first such shooting by a woman in the spate of insider attacks. Nargas walked into a heavily-guarded compound in the heart of Kabul, confronted Griffin and shot him once with her pistol.

The U.S-based security firm DynCorp International said on its website that Griffin was a U.S. military veteran who earlier worked with law enforcement agencies in the United States. In Kabul, he was under contract to the NATO military command to advise the Afghan police force.

The ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqi, told a news conference that Nargas, who uses one name like many in the country, was born in Tehran, where she married an Afghan. She moved to the country 10 years ago, after her husband obtained fake documents enabling her to live and work there.

A mother of four in her early 30s, she joined the police five years ago, held various positions and had a clean record, he said. Sediqi produced an Iranian passport that he said was found at her home.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing.

The chief investigator of the case, Police Gen. Mohammad Zahir, said that during interrogation, the policewoman said she had plans to kill either the Kabul governor, city police chief or Zahir himself, but when she realized that penetrating the last security cordons to reach them would be too difficult, she saw “a foreigner” and turned her weapon on him.

There have been 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel, compared to 21 in 2011. This surge presents another looming security issue as NATO prepares to pull out almost all of its forces by 2014, putting the war against the Taliban and other militant groups largely in the hands of the Afghans.

More than 50 Afghan members of the government’s security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. The Taliban claims such incidents reflect a growing popular opposition to the foreign military presence and the Kabul government.

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Nokia Lumia 920′s fascinating Christmas sets stage for battle with BlackBerry 10

The Chinese version of Nokia’s (NOK) new flagship Windows Phone model recently debuted in Shanghai. According to pictures posted to Chinese websites, the Lumia 920T drew a big crowd… and sold out in two hours. So the debate over whether there is wide mass market demand for the model rages on.

[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface trampled at the bottom of the tablet pile this Christmas]

The very limited early supply makes it hard to gauge the demand in China. The Lumia 920 did hit Amazon China’s (AMZN) top-five list a week ago, but sold out quickly and dropped out. There are now rumors about China Mobile planning to further subsidize the Lumia 920T in January, making it effectively free on contract. This would be China Mobile’s revenge on Apple (AAPL) for its refusal to cut a sweetheart deal with the giant carrier and its 700 million subscribers.

[More from BGR: Purported photo of new BlackBerry phone with QWERTY keyboard leaks]

Nokia may thus be close to landing the Chinese version of the role that Motorola played for Verizon (VZ) in 2010. Back then, the U.S. carrier used DROID models to flaunt the fact that it did not really need the iPhone as badly as many assumed.

China Mobile is now planning to show Apple it can turn even Windows Phones into mass-market hits in China with its marketing and subsidy machine. This could be great for Nokia — if Apple isn’t forced into a cutting a quick deal in coming months. The iPhone’s ho-hum market share performance in markets like Latin America and Asia is piling pressure on Apple right about now.

In a fascinating U.S. twist, the Lumia 920 climbed the Amazon charts again over the past week as its supply has improved. The black variant of the Lumia 920 debuted in the top-three in November, dropped out of top-40 after Amazon’s delivery time stretched to two weeks… and has now staged a comeback to No.14. This makes it the second-biggest AT&T (T) phone on Amazon right now, with only the blue version of the Galaxy S III outperforming the 920.

The Lumia 822 is fizzling badly at Verizon, but Nokia just might be gaining a toehold at AT&T even after the pre-Christmas supply drama. It is now clear that the Lumia 920 is beating its biggest Windows rival, the HTC Windows Phone 8X, convincingly at AT&T.

This sets up a very interesting rivalry when AT&T debuts the new generation of BlackBerry 10 models sometime in February or March. The battle for the third mobile ecosystem at AT&T will be effectively waged by Nokia and RIM (RIMM) this spring. The loser may well find out that it does not have strong subsidy or marketing support in 2013.

AT&T has an incentive to build up a third rival for the Apple and Android ecosystems, but it has little reason to support both minor operating systems.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Police investigate NBC News anchor for showing gun clip

(Reuters) – NBC News anchor David Gregory is being investigated by police after displaying what he said was a high-capacity gun clip on Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press,” Washington‘s Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday.

Gregory held up what appeared to be a 30-round gun magazine – which would be barred under Washington municipal code – while hosting the nationally broadcast interview with National Rifle Association Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre.

“Here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets,” Gregory said as he held aloft the black cartridge, according to video posted on the network’s website.

“Now isn’t it possible that, if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said ‘Well, you could only have a magazine that carries five bullets or ten bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we can reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?” Gregory asked LaPierre.

“I don’t think it’s what will work,” LaPierre responded.

The network had contacted the police department prior to Sunday’s broadcast “inquiring if they could use a high capacity magazine for the segment,” police spokesman Araz Alali said on Wednesday.

“NBC was informed that possession of a high-capacity magazine was not permissible and their request was denied.”

Alali, the police spokesman, declined to elaborate on the investigation into NBC.

Washington’s municipal code prohibits possession, sale or transfer of “any large capacity ammunition feeding device, regardless of whether the device is attached to a firearm.”

The maximum penalty for conviction on such a charge is a $ 1,000 fine and one year in prison.

NBC spokeswoman Erika Masonhall, contacted by email, said the network had no comment on the investigation.

After the broadcast, which originated in Washington, a number of bloggers and websites questioned Gregory’s actions and the legality of the gun clip.

(Reporting by Chris Francescani and Paul Eckert; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Andrew Hay and Gunna Dickson)

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Mayo Scientists Link Enzyme to Aggressive Prostate Cancer

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic have directly linked an enzyme to aggressive prostate cancer. They’ve also developed a compound that restricts the ability of the molecule to fuel metastases of this type of cancer.

The team from Mayo’s Florida campus identified the first direct relationship between the enzyme known as PRSS3 to prostate cancer, according to Medical News Today. They published their results in Molecular Cancer Research.

The National Cancer Institute estimated that close to a quarter of a million men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, and around 28,000 of them wouldn’t survive.

For years, medical professionals have relied on two types of screening for this disease: a digital rectal exam and the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test. However, the Mayo Clinic says using the PSA test is sometimes controversial, since it can provide false indicators and since there is no proof that it actually saves lives.

PRSS3, a protease, digests other molecules. The Mayo researchers concluded that activity associated with the enzyme alters the environment surrounding prostate cancer cells. They suspect that PRSS3 frees the cells from surrounding tissue, allowing them to become invasive and to spread cancer.

They haven’t concluded that the enzyme is the only issue linked to aggressive prostate cancer, however. Instead, they suspect that PRSS3 might power a potentially lethal form of this cancer.

The researchers examined databases available to the public that contained information from clinical studies. After finding a link between early breast cancer and protease in earlier work, they sought to discover whether any other type of cancer expressed protease and at which stages of the disease.

They found a dramatic relationship between increases in PRSS3 expression and progression of aggressive prostate cancer. The scientists determined that protease expression played a critical role in prostate cancer metastasis in mice models and found a site for an inhibiting agent to shut down the expression. In mice in which PRSS3 was “shut off,” the malignancy did not spread.

One outcome of the study is the possibility of testing prostate cancer patients for the molecule. Doctors could better determine patients at highest risk for an aggressive form of the disease. While the inhibitor utilized cannot be directly developed into a useful drug, it could provide a template for creating one.

My husband is among those who could eventually profit from this study. After two successive PSA tests with numbers that suddenly skyrocketed, he underwent painful biopsies that showed nothing amiss. Although his PSA numbers bounce, his urologist insists that he keep repeating the test.

With a family history of aggressive prostate cancer, my husband finds it hard to argue. Should he nix more PSA tests and eventually develop the illness, the link between the enzyme and prostate cancer provides some hope of a positive outcome.

Vonda J. Sines has published thousands of print and online health and medical articles. She specializes in diseases and other conditions that affect the quality of life.

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Taking on Guns and the NRA, One Tweet at a Time

(Updates the number of video views, petition signatures, and twitter impressions)

On Dec. 21, a group of A-list Hollywood celebrities, including Jon Hamm, Reese Witherspoon, Jamie Foxx, and Beyoncé, posted an 80-second, black-and-white video clip on YouTube calling for lawmakers to develop a comprehensive plan to deal with gun violence. The clip, uploaded the same day the National Rifle Association held a press conference calling for armed guards in schools and no new restrictions on guns, has been viewed 4 million times.

The public service announcement is well-produced and hits all the intended emotional chords as it reminds viewers of mass shootings from Columbine to Newtown. It’s is part of a broader “Demand a Plan” social media campaign by the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns that was launched right after the Newtown massacre. (The group is co-chaired by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P., which owns Bloomberg Businessweek.) The video also raises an intriguing question: Can social media strategies somehow level the playing field with the NRA, a laser-focused, well-financed, and successful lobbying group with four million members?

John Feinblatt, who oversees MAIG and is a chief policy adviser to the mayor, is ready to go on the offensive with the NRA and thinks the moment has arrived for the gun safety movement  to make legislative advances. He says there is “enormous pent up frustration because Americans want to be safe.” Facebook (FB), Twitter, and YouTube (GOOG) can effectively focus that raw energy on Congress and President Barack Obama to get things moving and undercut the NRA’s clout in Washington. “What people want is to be heard and you have to give them that vehicle,” says Feinblatt.

The Demand a Plan site delivers that video testimonials of 30-plus survivors and victims’ family members and all manner of online tools to mobilize support and donations to pressure the White House and Congress. Some 600,000 users have signed an online petition to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, require criminal background checks on every gun sold in the U.S., and crack down on arms trafficking. The Demand a Plan campaign has generated 10 million tweet impressions since its launch on Dec. 17, according to Feinblatt. This chart of Google search results for “gun control” shows interest spiking far higher after Newtown, compared with responses to other shooting incidents, going back to 2005.

Yet it’s worth asking if a “Twitter Revolution,” to borrow from the Arab Spring lexicon, can change the U.S. gun policy debate over the long haul? Social media is a great technology for disseminating information, organizing protests, and expressing spontaneous emotion—but it is unclear how effective it might be in a prolonged legislative battle to sway, cajole, and basically electorally threaten lawmakers beholden to the NRA and gun industry money.

“Signing an online petition is easy, but getting the continuing electoral and financial support of millions is difficult,” says Harry Wilson,  a gun industry expert and a public policy professor at Roanoke College in Virginia. “If gun control groups, including MAIG, are not significantly emboldened and empowered by the Newtown tragedy, then they have lost the battle.”

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