Top Links: Obama talks gun control, the right talks arming teachers and Benghazi conspiracy theories debunked

Time’s Person of the Year officially starts the gun control debate today, while Speaker John Boehner tries to sell his own party on his fiscal cliff plan. That and more of what we’ll be talking about at 4 p.m.

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• The President is announcing a gun control task force. Heading that force? The VP: “The White House has indicated that in addition to supporting an assault-weapons ban, the president will call for restrictions on high-capacity ammunition clips and legislation that will close the gun-show exception for background checks.” (The Hill)

• Why Biden? It’s in his wheelhouse. (Jake Tapper)

• Still, there are critics: “Because nothing says bold immediate action like a commission to do something sometime maybe whatever probably not #guncontrol” (Ben White)

• Even the non-snarky admit: the politics of congressional arm-twisting is going to be tough on this one. (National Journal)

• A lot of good numbers about gun ownership, gun violence and more in this Bloomberg article. “We haven’t had a year like 2012 for mass shootings before, with each one being more disturbing than the last.” (Bloomberg)

• Oh, the NRA seems to have found its Facebook page’s “on” button. (NRA)

• What might the NRA say at its Friday presser? Maybe this: “If we’re going to talk about the Second Amendment, then let’s also talk about the First Amendment, and Hollywood, and the video games that teach young kids how to shoot heads.” (Fox News)

• Virginia’s governor joins the “arm the teachers” crowd (WTOP)

• An independent review has come to a conclusion on the many conspiracy theories surrounding the Benghazi attacks: They were just plain wrong. (Foreign Policy) and (Erik Wemple)

• Still, investigation found the State Department did err in its neglect of security risks at the U.S. mission there. (The Cable)

• Conservatives at the Wall Street Journal editorial board are not happy with talk of a fiscal cliff “compromise.” (Review & Outlook)

• The Heritage Foundation handles the news in typical Heritage fashion: “GOP leaders capitulate on core conservative principles” (Heritage)

• So how does Boehner & Co. sell this tax hike? By calling it a massive tax cut. (Political Wire)

• Then again, the president’s “allies are disappointed to see an old dynamic reasserting itself: The president makes concessions, thinking he’s close to a deal, and then the Republicans pocket those concessions, offering nothing but renewed threats to blow up the talks in return.” (Wonkblog)

• In part, they’re disappointed that Social Security payments—or the way payments are inflation-adjusted—is now on the table. (Debt Reckoning)

• Here’s a simple explanation of the numbers behind both offers. (Fact Checker)

• And in fun news…astronomers think they’ve discovered a planet that could sustain human life. The good news? It’s only 12 light years away. The bad news? It would take a space shuttle, roughly, half a million years to reach it by our calculations. (Science Now)