Fifty-year-old UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed by a masked gunman outside the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as he arrived for a conference around 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday.
The New York Postreported the masked attacker fired “repeatedly” at Thompson then “fled eastbound off of 6th Avenue.”
Thompson was shot in the chest during the attack and rushed to the hospital thereafter, where he died.
ABC 7 noted police believe the shooting was targeted but they do not know a motive. The masked attacker is still on the loose.
Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety ranks New York the No. 2 state in the Union for gun control laws, making the Empire State second only to California.
New York has universal background checks, an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, a red flag law, gun storage requirements, a microstamping requirement for new pistols, a ban on college carry for self-defense, a ban on campus carry on K-12 campuses for classroom defense, a “sensitive places” ban for licensed concealed carriers, and much more.
Raja Cholan, Chief of the Health Data Standards Branch at the U.S. National Library of Medicine for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has raised eyebrows with his candid remarks on COVID vaccines, global health strategies, and their broader implications.
Cholan admitted he has chosen not to receive the latest COVID vaccine boosters, citing mixed evidence of their efficacy: “I haven’t gotten the latest COVID shots, and I’m not going to… there’s mixed evidence about if it really does anything.” He also expressed concerns over the risks the vaccine poses to younger individuals, saying, “For people that are 30 or under, it really increases your risk for heart conditions. The data does show that… I’m close enough to 30 to where I don’t want to have a heart attack.”
Cholan further questioned the vaccines’ effectiveness, stating, “I don’t even know if these vaccines stop you from getting COVID. They don’t.”
Cholan also linked the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to funding research in Wuhan, China, alleging, “There is some evidence out that the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases… they might have funded Wuhan, a lab in Wuhan, China, to make COVID.” He pointed to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s former role at NIAID, claiming, “That’s where Fauci was the director. Like they might have funded some labs to do vaccine studies and disease, like to prepare for an outbreak.”
Criticizing the expedited vaccine approval process, Cholan noted the contrast with the measles vaccine, which requires multiple rounds of testing: “The measles vaccine requires several rounds of approval, but the COVID-19 vaccines were accelerated through the approvals for all of us to get our boosters.” He also highlighted the financial motivations behind the vaccines, saying, “Pfizer and Moderna are just getting a bunch of money from it.”
Cholan concluded by commenting on the difficulty of implementing reform, even under an administration led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He pointed to the entrenched relationships between federal agencies and pharmaceutical companies, adding, “Anything that RFK would want to do probably would just, like, wouldn’t happen.”
O’Keefe Media Group reached out to Cholan for comment regarding his statements but did not receive a response. On release day of the first installation of the NIH Tapes, Cholan deleted his LinkedIn account, sparking further speculation about his involvement in the issues raised.
The Second Amendment references a militia, “the security of a free State,” and two specific rights–the right to possess arms and the right to carry them–and all of this is bound together by a general, overarching right to self-defense.
To put it simply, the Second Amendment is multi-faceted.
It is multi-faceted in the following ways: It makes clear the importance of the people being able to come together in militia, noting that such a militia must be “well regulated.” In other words, that militia must be well ordered. It warns that “the security of a free state” rests on the reality and performance of such a militia and then points specifically to the people’s right to “keep” arms and to “bear” arms, that is, the right to possess arms and to carry them.
Despite the numerous and different aspects of the Second Amendment, it remains simple to understand because all the aspects of it are held together by a central component, and that component is self-defense.
In the majority opinion for McDonald v. Chicago (2010), United States Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito wrote, “Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present day, and in Heller, we held that individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment right.”
I like to present it this way when speaking to groups and organizations around the country: “Self-defense is the hinge on which the door of the Second Amendment swings.”
What does this mean for the American people? It means that while the Second Amendment protects guns, it protects other tools that can be used for self-defense as well. The “central component” of the Second Amendment is not a 9mm pistol or a .357 Magnum revolver, but the right to defend one’s own life and liberty with whatever tools are in common use for such defense in each period of America’s existence.
For example, the Massachusetts Supreme Court recently struck down that state’s ban on switchblades and issued an opinion which said, in part, “While both Heller and Bruen involved handguns, Second Amendment protections subsume more than just firearms.”
Your life is your most valuable possession, and the Founding Fathers put the Second Amendment in place to protect your right to defend that life. The vast majority of Americans believe a firearm is the best way to protect their lives, and the Second Amendment has them covered. A number of other Americans believe a knife or other tool is the best means for protecting their lives, and the Second Amendment has them covered as well.
Completely baffled by everyones collective intentional ignorance on this. He has a studio with massive amounts of expensive equipment and staff. Everyone, *everyone*, comes to him. He's the biggest podcaster in the world. She needs him, not the other way around. https://t.co/SAyXr6zVVU
Auschwitz survivor Jerry Warstki, 94, denounces Kamala Harris in a new Trump campaign video for endorsing claims that former president is a “fascist” akin to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
“I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes,” he says. pic.twitter.com/hPWUQXrohN
As promised, SNW commentator and legal wiz LKB convened an all-star expert panel last night. The topic was yesterday’s oral arguments in the Supreme Court in the matter of Garland v. VanDerStock. That’s the case challenging the ATF’s unilateral redefinition of what constitutes a firearm under the narrowly-worded language of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
Joining LKB were Independent Institute fellow Steven Halbrook, California Rifle & Pistol Association President Chuck Michel and NRA-ILA Director of Constitutional Studies Joseph Greenlee. These are three legal minds who have been working in the pro-2A space for decades and whose views on the matter at hand before the Court actually mean something.
This video will not only give you 33 well worthwhile minutes of analysis of the VanDerStok arguments, but the participants also look into their crystal balls to anticipate what other significant Second Amendment cases are headed the Supreme Court’s way in the near future. Enjoy.
The youth of America………
Stated perfectly. So many young people of this great nation are emerging as bright beacons of hope. pic.twitter.com/2NMtciyPxo
It was quite surprising to hear it when it happened but Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, was fact checked in real time about the real drivers of criminal gun violence. She was tripped up on her answer because the journalist pressing her wasn’t buying the vice president’s tired talking points.
It happened during an interview of the vice president at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) after one of the questioners asked Vice President Harris about her gun control platform.
For those needing any reminding, the Biden-Harris administration has been the most fervently anti-gun administration in history. Vice President Harris, as the administration’s “gun czar,” has infamously instituted a “whole-of-government” attack on the firearm and ammunition industry and the Second Amendment. She is colluding with gun control groups – who literally operate out of her office. As President Joe Biden’s “gun czar,” Harris has continually failed to bring criminals to account for their crimes.
Vice President Kamala Harris tries to claim to voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and other close-polling states that she “isn’t taking anyone’s guns away from them” while in the same breath calling for a ban and confiscation of an entire class of lawfully made and legally purchased firearms – the most popular rifle in America. That’s just about the extent of her “plan” to reduce criminal gun violence. But finally, she received pushback for specifics that voters deserve to hear.
Please Answer the Question
Whenever Vice President Kamala Harris has been asked about criminals committing gun crimes, her response is predictably always the same. She calls for more gun control on law-abiding Americans, lists a kitchen sink full of anti-Second Amendment talking points and blames Congress for inaction. This is despite the fact that for the first two years of the Biden-Harris administration, Democrats controlled both chambers in Congress and The White House. She never mentions that not even all Democrats in the U.S. Senate supported a bill to reinstate, and expanded, a so-called “assault weapons” ban. That doesn’t stop the vice president from repeating those calls. But the interviewers at the NABJ wanted more specifics from her.
“In cities like Philadelphia, handguns are responsible for most homicides and violent crime,” NPR’s Tonya Moselybegan. “How will you address the issue of the use of handguns because a push for an assault weapons ban only addresses, um, a significant but small part of the problem?”
The vice president began her answer by repeating the talking point that she and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were both gun owners. She claimed “we’re not trying to take anyone’s guns away from them. But we do need an assault weapons ban.” As she continued to filibuster her answer about how Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) need to be banned and universal background checks must be implemented, Mosely interrupted and pressed her further.
“Respectfully, we do understand that. But I’m asking specifically about handguns because many of those handguns aren’t purchased at places that run background checks. In many of those instances those handguns aren’t bought lawfully.”
The vice president was stumped. She had no response to the logical reasoning that the firearm industry continues to highlight when calls for gun control are made – that criminals do not follow the law. NSSF has reported on Department of Justice data that shows 90 percent of firearms used by criminals in the commission of their crime were obtained through illicit means and not at a firearm retailer. It’s also one of the main reasons why universal background checks won’t work. That and the fact that a national firearm registry is prohibited by law under the Gun Control Act of 1986 and the Brady Act of 1993.
