Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson: Putting people in prison is racist, unholy and doesn’t lower violent crime rates.
Please stick with this message, Democrats. pic.twitter.com/1cNsImGxJS
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 25, 2025
Category: Scratch a Lib-Find a Moron
Let’s check in with the democrat mayor of Minneapolis and learn about how “assault rifles” work.
Oh, apparently they can “reel off 30 clips in conjunction with a magazine before a person even needs to reload” 🤡
These are the people who want to make “common sense gun laws” to… pic.twitter.com/9OqTOHuBN4
— Mrgunsngear (@Mrgunsngear) August 28, 2025
I blame insane people like Nebraska Senator Machaela Kavanaugh for the trans shooting. pic.twitter.com/aeCnbtdg0E
— Matthew Nichol (@MatthewNichol5) August 27, 2025
You can not make this crap-for-brains up.
Delegate at the DNC: “Republicans and fellow citizens who profess to be active Christians, I remind them that DEI is the very foundation of the Christian church.” pic.twitter.com/YwgpTEEUYR
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 26, 2025
In late 2024, with finances tightening, [March for Our Lives] let go five employees — nearly a quarter of the staff. Seeking to refine its mission and funding pitch, the group brought in a consultant who interviewed board members, leadership, and staff, compiling “verbatim comments” from across the organization in a [confidential strategic] report. “We were all so convinced that we were going to rise up and not only crush Trump, but really show how much the youth care what’s going on in society with respect to gun violence,” one comment reads. “That didn’t happen.”
Many of the comments in the report are in tension — they clearly represent individual perspectives, not MFOL’s official views or policies. But themes emerge.
Some participants said the group’s message had become diluted, in part because it weighed in on issues like climate change, abortion, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This detracted from gun violence efforts and hampered fundraising, they said. A few people said MFOL needed to acknowledge that donors respond more to white kids affected by school shootings than to gun violence in marginalized communities. “We don’t utilize the Parkland narrative enough,” one comment reads. “Parkland still brings out a visceral reaction in people. We walked away from the Parkland narrative because people felt we needed to focus on Black and brown communities, but I would not walk away — especially in fundraising rooms.”
According to [former development director Zachary] Ford, it was largely board members who argued that by taking stands on too many causes, the group was turning off donors and abandoning its core purpose. Board members were wary of taking a position on Gaza, for instance, failing to appreciate that silence would harm the group’s credibility with its primary demographic, he said. The divide on Gaza illustrates a broader split that Ford described between staff — whom he characterized as young, assertive, deeply committed to issues of social justice, particularly around race — and the board, which was on the whole older, more buttoned-up, and wary of being divisive. But he stressed that these differences did not lead to the terminations. After the board called for a new direction, sparking concerns that work on behalf of Black and brown communities was in jeopardy, staff accused it of racism. Only then were employees fired, Ford said. …
Former staffers said that the board wanted one-off events that would spotlight the group and its cause, while staff were invested in the steady work of producing long-term results. “It was very clear that the board wanted something splashy, a viral moment, to go back to 2018 and 2019 and have those connections with celebrity, popular culture,” said a former staffer who requested anonymity because of the terms of a severance agreement. In recent years, several of the Parkland survivors who’d garnered public attention left MFOL, though Corin and high-profile board member David Hogg remain. (Hogg’s recent attempt to shake up the Democratic National Committee led to his departure from party leadership.)
The report identifies drawing young people to the group’s cause as another challenge. “We need to think about how to pull Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z-ers in,” reads one comment. “There is a whole generation that does not feel connected to this movement.” Another concern was maintaining authenticity as a youth crusade when so much direct support came from an older demographic, particularly white women. “At one point, 80 percent of our following was middle-aged white women. We focused our message on them, and it was effective,” a comment reads. “That’s when we were raising money.”
— Will Van Sant in They Rallied the Nation After the Parkland School Shooting. Years Later, Their Group Is Floundering.
If This Is Their Best Argument Against National Reciprocity, They Should Give Up Now
Concealed carry reciprocity at the federal level is more likely to happen now, before the midterms, than at any other point in history. It’s still an uphill fight, but President Trump has promised his support, and others are rallying to the cause. That’s the good news.
Unfortunately, there are still enough senators who can filibuster the bill that it makes it a challenge to get it to the president’s desk.
Still, gun control groups are digging in for a fight. They’re trying to lay the groundwork for their attacks on the bill, but if they look like this, they should just give up now.
Let’s start with the headline, because it matters. It reads, “More Than 2,800 Non-Self Defense Deaths Involving Concealed Carry Killers Since 2007, Latest Violence Policy Center Research Shows.”
Note the language here: “concealed carry killers” versus “non-self defense[sic] deaths.”
That’s an important point that will come up here in a bit.
Now, for the “argument”:
Concealed handgun permit holders are responsible for at least 2,817 deaths not involving self-defense since 2007, according to the Violence Policy Center’s (VPC) ongoing Concealed Carry Killers (concealedcarrykillers.org) project, an online resource that provides examples of non-self defense killings involving private citizens with permits to carry concealed handguns in public.
This latest update comes as legislation endorsed by the gun lobby and firearms industry has been introduced in the U.S. House (H.R. 38) and Senate (S. 65) to allow individuals with state-issued concealed firearm permits to carry their weapons in any state that issues carry permits or does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms. The bills are currently moving through the committee process.
Overall, Concealed Carry Killers documents 2,552 fatal, non-self defense incidents since May 2007 in 40 states and the District of Columbia, resulting in the deaths of 2,817 people. Thirty-eight of the incidents were fatal mass shootings as defined by federal law (three or more victims killed), resulting in the deaths of 186 victims. At least 24 law enforcement officers have died at the hands of concealed carry killers since May 2007.
VPC Government Affairs Director Kristen Rand states, “While the firearms industry and gun lobby push for coast-to-coast concealed carry, real-world facts show that concealed handgun permit holders are far more likely to kill themselves or innocent victims than use their gun in a justifiable homicide.”
Of course, they note that there are no official records keeping track of this, so they have to base all of their so-called research on news reports and whatever limited data they can get from the states, but let’s start off by looking at the raw numbers presented here. They maintain that the actual numbers are probably higher, which might be true, but probably isn’t. Still, let’s look at what they’ve got because that’s what we have.
It’s been 17 full years since 2007, and I’m making an assumption they’re not including any information from this year–which isn’t a safe assumption, to be fair, but for the sake of argument, I think this will be fine–which means we’re looking at 165.7 “deaths” by concealed carriers per year.
Sure, those are all tragic, to be certain, but when you look at nearly 46,000 “gun deaths” each year, it’s not even a drop in the bucket.
“But Tom, those ‘gun deaths’ include suicides. Isn’t that apples and oranges?”
A fair question, good reader, but it’s not. Why? Because the VPC does the exact same thing.
In the vast majority of the 2,552 incidents documented in Concealed Carry Killers (2,435, or 95 percent), the concealed carry permit holder either died by suicide (1,732), has already been convicted (614), perpetrated a murder-suicide (65), or was killed in the incident (24). Of the 77 cases still pending, the vast majority (61) of concealed carry killers have been charged with criminal homicide, five were deemed incompetent to stand trial, and 11 incidents are still under investigation. An additional 40 incidents were fatal unintentional shootings involving the gun of the concealed handgun permit holder.
The fact that someone has a concealed carry permit has nothing at all to do with their suicide. Plenty of people take their own lives with guns while lacking carry permits. Others use different means of doing the same thing. Suicide numbers really shouldn’t be included in a look at “concealed carry killers,” now, should it? Not if you really want to make the case that national reciprocity will make people less safe.
Interestingly, the chart they include has a section for “self-defense/no verdict,” which makes no sense at all if you’re trying to claim these aren’t self-defense shootings.
Still, if we decide to accept the remaining numbers at face value–mostly because they don’t include any total on those “self-defense/no verdict” numbers–we end up with 1,085 deaths attributed to concealed carry permit holders. That’s an average of just under 64 killings per year. That’s versus an average of just under 18,000 murders with firearms.
That’s not a problem. That’s statistical noise.
Then we have their interpretation of these claims.
VPC Government Affairs director Kristen Rand is quoted as saying, “While the firearms industry and gun lobby push for coast-to-coast concealed carry, real-world facts show that concealed handgun permit holders are far more likely to kill themselves or innocent victims than use their gun in a justifiable homicide.”
Except that’s not the case at all, and even the anti-gun The Trace knows that’s not true.
How do I know that? Because look at their report on defensive gun uses, which looked at both Gun Violence Archive numbers and numbers from The Heritage Foundation.
Gun Violence Archive, the Kentucky-based nonprofit that tallies gun-related incidents in near-real time, also counts DGUs. But it only captures incidents that make the news or are reported to police. And GVA includes incidents involving illegal gun possessors as well as legal owners, including shootouts as well as stand-your-ground shootings. GVA recorded 8,394 DGUs from 2017 to 2021, which works out to an average of 1,678 a year. But that’s likely a massive undercount.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, launched a DGU tracker in 2019 that relies on media reports, but counts only defensive gun use by lawful owners. Heritage tallied 2,106 shootings from 2019 to 2021, for an average of 702 per year. The group cautions that it’s “not intended to be comprehensive” because “most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local or national media outlets.” That’s a common belief among pro-gun advocates, some of whom believe the 2.5 million figure is, in fact, too low.
Both of these totals are much lower than the 165.7 per year average noted above. It’s worth noting, though, that these are compiled through media reports, just as VPC’s numbers are. If their estimates are low, then it stands to reason that we’re right about the defensive gun use totals also being low, especially since a lot of them never make the news.
And if you remove suicides from the equation, as you should, the difference is even more stark.
However, then we need to consider concealed carry holders versus society as a whole, since this whole report was intended to imply that they’re a danger to society.
Joe LoPorto, the Director of Legal Operations for the New Jersey Firearms Owners Syndicate, did a little math, passed along to me, comparing per capita rates overall. Here’s what he told me:
The VPC, financially backed by the Joyce Foundation, itself a President Obama pet project with over $1 billion in assets has been running its Concealed Carry Killers database for years. We all know the numbers they are producing are massively inflated. However, even when taken at face value and considering the most conservative estimate of the number of Americans with a concealed carry permit (rounded down to just 20 million), their own data support our point.
Based on their own data, presented by VPC in a way to look as inflammatory as possible, the murder rate amongst the population of concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. would be 2.7 per 100,000 people, or less than half the murder rate of the overall U.S. population at 5.9 per 100,000. Again, based on their inflated numbers, the suicide rate of concealed carry permit holders would be 5.0 per 100,000 or about 1/3rd that of the overall U.S. population at 14.2 per 100,000.
Even accepting their inflated statistics, their own data show that concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. are substantially safer than the overall U.S. population.
New Jersey is the perfect example. Before Bruen, virtually no one was able to obtain a concealed carry permit. In the years since Bruen, nearly 100,000 New Jerseyans obtained concealed carry permits… and the violent crime and gun crime rates in the state declined.
Peaceable people exercising their core constitutional rights in the U.S. are not the problem.
That last bit, especially, is absolutely correct.
On every level, their entire premise falls apart. The attempt to demonize concealed carry permit holders fails in the face of literally any other evidence. It only works in a vacuum, and there’s no such thing in the world of media today.
Seriously, this is so absolutely pathetic that they should hide in shame for the next thousand years or so.
Dear @realDonaldTrump … I’ve been carjacked in Chicago with my arm broken. I still don’t want you or your troops here. TIA. BTW there are no red hats here. 🫶 pic.twitter.com/f8NJ3xHL5O
— Jill Ciminillo (@jillciminillo) August 23, 2025
Make it make sense: Gun grabbers come out against fighting crime
A gun control nonprofit that wants to disarm Americans has come out against President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., crime crackdown.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, known these days as Brady: United Against Gun Violence, issued a lengthy statement on Monday condemning Trump’s ongoing D.C. crime crackdown.
The statement began by describing the one-day Jan. 6 riot as “the worst outbreak of mass violence in recent District memory.”
Recall that only one person died during the riot: Rioter Ashli Babbitt. Meanwhile, 99 people have been murdered in D.C. this year alone.
The statement continued by using possibly falsified crime data to claim violent crime in D.C. “has fallen precipitously since 2023 and were at a 30-year low the day the president returned to the Oval Office.”
Hilariously, the statement attributed this alleged low to the Biden administration’s otherwise widely panned policy decisions.
According to the White House, the reality is that “D.C.’s murder rate is roughly three times higher than that of Islamabad, Pakistan, and 18 times higher than that of communist-run Havana, Cuba.”
The statement from Brady president Kris Brown concluded with her suggesting that Trump’s federal police are the ones “endanger[ing]” D.C. residents, not the hordes of violent criminals running the streets.
“We cannot allow the president to suggest that federalized police is an appropriate response to any and all challenges; or that federalized police do not further endanger the public, especially Black and Brown communities who live and work in or visit D.C.,” it read.
So, in other words, the same people who want to disarm Americans, thus making them prey to criminals, also want to effectively disarm the police, making residents even more prey to criminals. It makes no sense, especially when you factor in how the locals actually feel.
Last year, dozens of business groups with offices in D.C. penned a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser expressing “deep concern about the alarming increase in violent crime across our city.”
“D.C. is quickly becoming a national outlier in rising crime, and the trends are alarming,” the letter read. “Our organizations are primarily based in the downtown business district, where there have been horrifying acts of violence.”
“Innocent people in neighborhoods across the city have been targeted in robberies, carjackings, and seemingly random acts of violence,” the letter continued.
D.C. Police Union Chairman Gregg Pemberton has also raised concerns about the city’s violent crime epidemic.
“We stand with the President in recognizing that Washington, D.C., cannot continue on this trajectory,” he said in a statement. “Crime is out of control, and our officers are stretched beyond their limits.”
He reiterated this during an appearance this week on Fox News’ “America Reports“:
As for Brady, last year it also came out against self-defense, arguing that guns “are rarely used successfully in self-defense.” The stunning claim prompted a fact-check from Breitbart.
“Academic work by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck shows that, at a minimum, guns are used to protect life and property at least 760,000 times a year,” the fact-check reads.
Probably the best explanation of Western liberalism and progressivism you’ll ever watch and listen to 🔥
Melanie Philips is amazing 🩷 pic.twitter.com/SuUvUBM45o
— Cheryl E 🇮🇱🎗️ (@CherylWroteIt) August 9, 2025
2 years ago today, a historically illiterate Al Sharpton asked the following:
Can you imagine if James Madison or Thomas Jefferson tried to overthrow the government? pic.twitter.com/r8A8Nexyk1
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 3, 2025
Pro Forma Kabuki Theater
Democrat Senator Pushes for $4,700 Tax Stamps
A leading anti-gun firebrand on Capitol Hill this week introduced a measure that would skyrocket the federal tax on NFA items, like suppressors and short-barreled firearms.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who has signed on to just about every wandering gun ban and restriction that has come through Congress in the past two decades, on Tuesday suggested new tax rates on NFA items.
His proposed amendment to a Republican military spending bill would set the typical $200 making and transfer tax on most items to $4,709 and move the $5 tax on AOWs to $55.
“If we want to save lives in this country, we have to find a way, come hell or high water, to stop mass legalization of silencers in this country,” said Murphy in a press conference last month on the eve of potential NFA reform in the Republican reconciliation bill, H.R.1, better known as President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
While H.R.1 did not include “mass legalization” of suppressors (they have never been illegal, just taxed since 1934), it did drop the tax rate to $0, effective in January 2026.
National gun control groups quickly welcomed Murphy’s move, with Brady saying, “Thank you, Chris Murphy, for introducing this critical amendment to strike the provision in the big UGLY bill that removed taxes on deadly silencers & other uniquely lethal weapons, and instead adjust taxes to reflect inflation today.”
The likelihood of Murphy’s proposal sticking to the spending bill and making it into law is slim in the Republican-controlled Senate. Still, it signals one of the priorities that Dems will pursue when the polarity of Congress switches.
For over 90 years, the NFA has required that anyone interested in buying or building one of these weapons first submit an application to the ATF along with their fingerprints, a passport-style photo, and a $200 tax stamp before undergoing an enhanced background check. As the ATF notes, the $200 tax was “considered quite severe” in 1934 “to carry out Congress’ purpose to discourage or eliminate transactions in these firearms,” though it was never raised or adjusted to account for inflation. In today’s dollars, the figure would be well over $4,700.
But after January 1, 2026, those taxes will no longer be required for silencers, short-barreled firearms, or AOWs, making them significantly easier to obtain — jeopardizing public safety and resulting in an estimated $1.7 billion loss in tax revenue over the next decade.
The move is the latest attempt by the gun industry to chip away at the NFA. While NFA applicants previously had to be approved by the ATF and the chief law enforcement officers (CLEOs) in their areas, in 2016 — after lobbying from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s trade association — the ATF ruled that applicants only had to provide copies of their forms to CLEOs. The NSSF also lobbied for the ATF’s revamped “eForms” application system, which has led to dramatically faster approval times. …
— Greg Lickenbrock in Congress Cuts Taxes on Silencers and Short-Barreled Firearms
WHAT IN THE WORLD is @RepMcGovern talking about???
“Combining a silencer & a concealable short-barreled rifle with easy to assemble & totally legal parts would allow people to convert them into untraceable unregistered machineguns.” pic.twitter.com/9TMmMA4Jd6
— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) July 2, 2025
Leftists have to buy a lot of flags
A couple years ago they needed
Then it was
Now it’s
Their priorities change with the news cycle
Conservatives only need this one
I can't believe she really asked this out loud, in a recorded public meeting:
LA City Councilwoman Imellda Padilla asks the LAPD to warn illegals before ICE raids.
He tells her that would be obstruction and she should go speak with the city attorney🤣 pic.twitter.com/hesYLqZORP
— Derrick Evans (@DerrickEvans4WV) June 14, 2025
One of the best things about President Donald Trump winning and Kamala Harris losing in November is that the insufferable Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, also lost.
Walz is not having a good week. He got flamed big time at the Sanctuary State hearing, where his answers were ridiculous.
But then came his remarks at a Center for American Progress (CAP) event, “What’s Next: Conversations on the Path Forward” with CAP CEO and former Biden official Neera Tanden. Those remarks confirmed again how lucky we are that he is not in power. They were truly next-level bad.
They were talking about the “escalatory” nature of the strikes in Israel and Iran.
Walz said, “Iran has to retaliate, in their mind,” and the “Middle East is back on fire in a way that has now expanded.”
“Now, who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this? Who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor, and we maybe never were,” Walz said of the United States’ role in de-escalating tensions in the Middle East.
Guess who he thought might be the “neutral actor” with the “moral authority” to negotiate peace? China.
There are so many things wrong with this, it’s just mind-numbing.
He’s saying Communist, oppressive China has more moral authority than we do? How many millions of innocent people has the Chinese government slaughtered over the years? And since when are they a “neutral actor” as far as Iran? Does he not know they support Iran? Or does he not care, given his prior connection to China?
Harris Faulkner noted in the above “Outnumbered” report that China issued a similar statement about being ready to help, and it sounded like Tim received the same memo.
Kayley McEnany called it “one of the most naive articulations of foreign policy” — and she was kind.
Yes, we’re not neutral, nor should we be. Is he nuts? They’ve been our enemy, chanting “Death to America!” for decades since the mullahs took over. So much of what has gone wrong over the years in the region has been because of the failed Obama positions on Iran.
But Walz wasn’t quite done with the radical remarks yet. He was upset that — gasp — we would celebrate the 250th birthday of the Army. Listen as he explains how the preparations for the event offended his delicate sensibilities, that they were “horrific,” “looks wrong, feels wrong.” He’s talking about our military.
Tim Walz compares DC on Saturday to “Pyong-yong” and hopes the military runs into bad weather at the parade.
“This may get me in trouble or whatever.” pic.twitter.com/8WQGhLCArG
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 13, 2025
Walz explained that he would go somewhere else where they had a tradition of “separation” (not sure what he was talking about). He said, “This was not Pyong Yang on a Saturday.”
He confessed, “This may get me into trouble…but I have never so hoped for rain in my life.”
Then Neera Tanden laughs like it’s the funniest thing ever.
What the heck? He hopes the military is rained on/out. Again, I say, is he nuts? How petty and twisted is this? And he’s comparing our military with North Korea? How could anyone support this character for anything, even dogcatcher, much less for president? But it’s JD Vance, who they termed “weird.”
Newsom really thought he had a zinger there… pic.twitter.com/8I4WoYaJSg
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) June 9, 2025
SOMEONE SHOULD BE FIRED AFTER CNN ANALYST GOES ON RACIST RANT AGAINST WHITE AFRIKANERS
Things got wild on CNN on Monday night after a former Obama staffer and current CNN analyst decided to go on a racist rant over President Donald Trump admitting 48 South African refugees.
As RedState has reported, South Africa’s ruling party has infamously made singing “Kill the Boer,” which translates to “kill the farmer,” a staple of their political rallies. For context, the song specifically refers to white farmers (Afrikaners) and dates back to the country’s apartheid days. Laws to confiscate their land and extra-judicial killings have taken center stage over the last several years.
For some reason, though, that has greatly offended Democrats, who have finally found refugees they do not want to admit into the country. Funny how that works, right? I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. On the other hand, here’s Ashley Allison making it clear that it’s not one.
.@ScottJenningsKY was able to see right through it — and cut straight to the heart of the issue. pic.twitter.com/dt2h15j8F3
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 13, 2025
ALLISON: So if the Afrikaners don’t actually like the land, they can leave that country.
JENNINGS: They are. They’re leaving to come here. These refugees are coming here.
ALLISON: No, they can leave and go to where their native land is, which is probably Germany or…
JENNINGS: Are you against them coming here?
PANELIST: Holland…
ALLISON: Holland, yes.
JENNINGS: Are you against them coming here?
ALLISON: I’m against the hypocrisy of this administration…
JENNINGS: No, no, that’s not the question. The question is are you against them coming here.
ALLISON: If there was actually a genocide happening like there is other places in Sudan and the Congo, I would not, I’m not opposed for Congolese and for the Sudanese to come to Africa [America?] just like I’m not opposed to Venzualans and South Americans coming to America if they are fleeing and looking for asylum. What I am against…
JENNINGS: So just these 50 people, you’re against…
ALLISON: What I am against is that they are being given special treatment when there is not a genocide happening in South Africa, and they just don’t like the law of the land!
What an absolutely deranged thing to say on so many levels. Imagine, for a moment, if a Republican CNN panelist told black Americans that they can “leave and go to where their native land is” if they don’t like laws that physically and financially persecute them. Do you imagine that person would still have a job right now? Heck, they kicked Ryan James Girdusky off the air permanently for making a beeper joke about terrorist-supporter Mehdi Hasan, and the conservative commentator chimed in to provide this bit of insight on Allison’s rampant racism.
It should also be mentioned that pretending all South American refugees are legitimate and worthy of entry while singling out these South Africans is completely transparent. Most of the illegal aliens who crossed the border and claimed asylum were economic migrants. At no point did Allison have a problem with that or decry the standards by which they were being admitted. Let some white farmers with hundreds of years of lineage in Africa show up, and suddenly she wants to proclaim only the persecutions she approves of count. There’s no good explanation for that except that she’s exactly what she appears to be, which is a blatant racist.
Understand that as much as Trump brought these Afrikaners over to help them, he also did it because he knew Democrats would react like this and expose themselves. He threw the bait out there, and they gobbled it up because they just can’t help themselves. Meanwhile, CNN is just fine with racism on their airwaves as long as it comes from the “right” people.