Category: Self Defense

CNN Panics as Almost Half the States Have Passed Constitutional Carry Laws.

“Law enforcement and their constituents and everybody united can help slow these policies now, but I also recognize that some of these states have been trying to do this over and over again and this may be the year, unfortunately, that they finally get it across the finish line,” [Everytown director of state affairs Monisha] Henley said.

[NRA spokesman Lars] Dalseide, the NRA spokesman, noted that permitless legislation does not allow known criminals to carry firearms, nor does it legalize the criminal use of firearms or allow individuals to carry firearms in localities where it is prohibited to do so.

“My concern is that as we support the second amendment, we get to a point here in our society that we’re ignoring the fact that it is not an individual freedom that is unlimited,” Sheriff [Charmaine] McGuffey said.

The senators who support constitutional carry “will never know the lives they saved if they go in opposition to the bill,” McGuffey added. “If they pass this bill, there is a great likelihood that they will come to know the lives that they didn’t save because those names will live in infamy and those situations will be reported to the public by the press.”

— Emma Tucker in ‘They will come to know the lives they didn’t save’: States forge ahead with permitless carry legislation despite law enforcement opposition

Another Eastern European Country Is Seeing Gun Sales Skyrocket After Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Citizens of Lithuania are taking advantage of the country’s relatively relaxed gun laws and are buying firearms in droves in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Euronews reported Lithuania gun stores are experiencing sales surging up to eight times and applications for gun licenses doubling, along with more people visiting gun ranges to brush up on their skills:

“Sales have shot up for all categories of weapons but the largest demand is for handguns used for self-defence and semi-automatic weapons that could also be used in military situations. Some stores have reported selling as many handguns in a week as during the preceding year….

“Many stores also report that they have run out of military-style gear such as night vision and thermal vision equipment, flak jackets and tactical clothes. The Lithuanian Defence and Security Industry Association has said that most of those goods have been bought to be sent to Ukraine as privately funded military assistance.

“In stores, handguns cost around €600 while semi-automatic rifles around €2,000. Second-hand guns sell online for just over half the price.”

“Many more clients are coming. they buy semi-automatic rifles – unfortunately, I have no more to show them, I sold them out – and handguns,” said gun store manager Gytis Misiukevicius.

“People buy handguns most probably for self-defense, as they are of course not suitable for war. So they buy them out of their insecurity, to protect themselves, their families and relatives should something happen. Whereas semi-automatic rifles, they can be used for firefights,” he continued.

Lithuanians “with a spotless reputation and appropriate medical certificates” are able to purchase firearms after obtaining a license from the police.

Lithuania borders Belarus, where Russia has launched troops and missiles into Ukraine.

During the opening days of the major Russian offensive into Ukraine in February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainians the government will be providing weapons to anyone who would be willing to fight against the Russians. Zelenskyy further told the country to prepare to fight “in the squares of our cities.”

Fontana Homeowner Fatally Shoots Attempted Burglar
Police are investigating a Saturday night fatal shooting in Fontana, after a home owner says he had to defend himself during an attempted burglary.

Police are investigating a Saturday night fatal shooting in Fontana [California] , after a home owner says he had to defend himself during an attempted burglary.

The homeowner, whose name has not been released by authorities, called the Fontana Police Department at 10:47 p.m. Saturday.

He told police multiple people were attempting to break into his house at the corner of Cypress Avenue and Baseline, that he believed at least one of them was inside, and that he believed they were armed. The home owner then armed himself with a handgun before the call with Fontana PD disconnected.

When police arrived at the scene, the home owner came out of the house and surrendered himself, saying he had shot someone inside the home.

When police went inside, they found a man dead in the hallway. The dead man was wearing gloves and a COVID-19 mask, and looked to be between 20 and 30 years old, according to the police.

The dead man also had a semi-automatic handgun next to his hand, and according to police, there were signs of a shootout in the home. Brass casings from two different weapons were found.

The other individuals the home owner said tried to break in ran away. Police are searching for those individuals.

Neighbors in the Fontana community are on high alert after the incident occurred.

“If they came here, what exactly would have happened?” said Michelle Luna, a neighbor.

Police are conducting a thorough investigation, but believe the man found dead inside the house was attempting to burglarize the home, and the home owner defended himself against an armed subject. If the investigation finds that to be the case, the home owner will not face charges.

The home owner was not injured in the incident.

Poll finds Republicans would stay and fight, Dems less so

It’s not exactly breaking news that there are profound differences between Republicans and Democrats. We see them every single day, especially in how we view the Second Amendment.

Now, understand, there are pro-gun Democrats. There aren’t many of them, but they do exist and I’m more than prepared to stand side-by-side with them to defend our right to keep and bear arms.

But they’re the minority in their party.

Yet the Second Amendment was meant as a bulwark against tyranny, either domestic or from foreign invasion, which brings us to Ukraine. What if something like that were to happen here. Who would stay and fight and who would flee the country.

Well, Quinnipiac decided to ask in a recent poll, and the results are fascinating.

As the world witnesses what is happening to Ukraine, Americans were asked what they would do if they were in the same position as Ukrainians are now: stay and fight or leave the country?
A majority (55 percent) say they would stay and fight, while 38 percent say they would leave the country.
Republicans say 68 – 25 percent and Independents say 57 – 36 percent they would stay and fight,
while Democrats say 52 – 40 percent they would leave the country.

“When confronted with a terrible hypothetical that would put them in the shoes of the Ukrainians, Americans say they would stand and fight rather than seek safety in another country,” added Malloy.

Nearly half of Americans (49 percent) say the attack on Ukraine has contributed to them feeling anxious, while half (50 percent) say it has not.

1,374 U.S. adults nationwide were surveyed from March 4th – 6th with a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points.

So more than two-thirds of Republicans and more than half of independents would stay and fight for their homes compared to more than half of all Democrats who would run.

Fascinating.

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BLUF:
Peter Ambler of Giffords Law Center is unhappy that gun rights advocates are pointing out evidence that further unravels his cause, so it’s not surprising that he thinks it’s “deeply irresponsible” to do so. In other words, he wants us to stop pouncing and seizing and hammering and exploiting and feasting and gloating.

Giffords’ Ambler to 2A Supporters: Stop pouncing on Ukraine!

The history and rationale behind the Second Amendment are clear-cut. The defense of self, family, community, and country is protected in the founding documents of several states, not just the U.S. Bill of Rights. In a constitutional republic with checks and balances, with power splintered and diffused among various levels of governments, an armed citizenry is the ultimate check and balance against enemies both foreign and domestic.

The United States is approaching its 250th anniversary. That the republic has lasted so long, contributed so much to human flourishing and prosperity, spread the ideas of liberty and justice around the world, doesn’t mean that we can take the status quo for granted and forget or distort what it took to get here. The rest of the world provides periodic reminders and warnings of what could happen if America abandons its founding principles. Ukraine is the warning du jour.

Our friends in the Gun Grab Lobby, however, aren’t drawing the same lessons from Ukraine. When faced with yet another example of why an armed citizenry is good, their response is to cry foul and ask us to not cite it.

Ukraine crisis emerges as talking point in U.S. gun debate

By Barbara Goldberg and Brendan O’brien

NEW YORK, March 1 (Reuters) – Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, gun rights advocates in the United States have sought to use the crisis to bolster their position on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, injecting a new element into the heated debate.

Arguments linking the invasion to gun rights have cropped up this week across social media, in a post by the National Rifle Association and during a legislative vote in the Georgia statehouse.

“What is happening in Ukraine proves the wisdom of our founding fathers in drafting the Second Amendment,” the NRA said in a blog post on Monday, pointing to Ukrainians who have armed themselves to defend their country.

Is a newly discovered fossil a talking point in the evolution “debate” or is it yet another piece of evidence supporting evolution? Ukraine is not a mere talking point despite how the headline downplays it as one.

Anti-gun violence advocates, however, point to increasing fire-arms deaths in the United States and say tighter regulations and fewer guns are what is needed.

Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said it was “deeply irresponsible” for gun rights advocates to tie their “more guns everywhere” advocacy to the Ukraine crisis.

“The tyrannical actions of Vladimir Putin don’t erase the fact that 45,000 Americans died from gun violence in 2020, nor do they erase the urgent need for commonsense, popular gun violence prevention policies like background checks and funding for community violence intervention programs,” Ambler told Reuters.

“Anti-gun violence advocates,” better described as Anti-Second Amendment activists or gun control supporters, want fewer guns in the hands of the citizenry. A good question to ask them would be, “Can you define fewer?” We all know the answer to that, and it’s no mystery that the question was not asked by the reporters.

Peter Ambler of Giffords Law Center is unhappy that gun rights advocates are pointing out evidence that further unravels his cause, so it’s not surprising that he thinks it’s “deeply irresponsible” to do so. In other words, he wants us to stop pouncing and seizing and hammering and exploiting and feasting and gloating.

Seasoned readers and Second Amendment advocates know this already, but new readers may not, so I will also point out that the 45,000 “gun violence deaths” that Ambler is citing is vastly inflated using suicides, which are the bulk of firearm mortalities. That would be like calling suicide by hanging “rope violence” and suicide by jumping “bridge violence” or “gravity violence.” Ambler’s suggested background checks and community violence intervention programs won’t do anything to address the bulk of those mortalities.

Ukraine was among the arguments wielded by Republicans to win a 34-22 vote in the Georgia state Senate on a concealed carry bill that split down party lines on Monday.

“I would be willing to bet you today that 99 percent of the people of Ukraine would give anything that they have to have a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” Lindsey Tippins, a Republican state Senator, said in asking his fellow legislators to back the bill.

It’s unfortunate that it was a party-line vote, but thanks to the “arguments wielded,” the end-result is a win for our natural right of self-defense. Three cheers for pouncing on Ukraine!

Let’s all meet the shooter;  Jalyon Elmore
Student charged in Olathe, Kansas school shooting

MISSION, Kan. (AP) – An 18-year-old football player was charged Saturday in a shooting that wounded an administrator and a school resource officer at a suburban Kansas City high school.

The Johnson County prosecutor’s office announced Saturday that Jaylon Desean Elmore is charged with attempted capital murder in the shooting Friday at Olathe East High School. His bond is set at $1 million and no first appearance has been set..

Online records show he has a previous conviction for aggravated robbery.

KMBC 9 News learned that a school administrator pulled the student, who was a senior, from class this morning after receiving a tip that the teen had a gun in his backpack.

They went to the administrator’s office. The student refused to open his bag. That’s when the assistant principal called for the school resource officer. When SRO entered the office and that’s when the shots were fired.

 

Report: Good Guy with Gun Stops Kansas High School Shooter

An armed school resource officer shot and wounded an alleged school shooter, and the officer himself was shot and wounded, at Kansas’s Olathe East High School on Friday morning.

An administrator, a school resource officer, and a student — the alleged shooter — were injured in the incident, which occurred around 11 a.m., the Kansas City Star reported.

“Police said it was that school resource officer who shot the suspect,” KMBC noted.

The school administrator and resource officer were both in “stable condition,” as of 2:30 p.m. local time, KSHB observed.

Homeowner shoots, kills intruder who broke into his home as he slept

HOUSTON — A man was shot and killed by a homeowner after police say he broke into the man’s home, according to the Houston Police Department.

The incident happened around 1 a.m. Thursday in the 2200 block of Naomi Street in southwest Houston.

Police say the homeowner was asleep on the second floor of his house when he heard the glass break

The intruder entered the home and then made his way up the stairs, when the intruder saw him and discharged his weapon. According to HPD, the homeowner shot the intruder in the neck.

After being shot, police say the intruder ran out the same way he came in, then knocked on nearby doors letting neighbors know he was shot.

HPD says the man later collapsed a few houses away and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Other neighbors say they witnessed the intruder knocking on other houses in the area before the shooting happened.

“I have a newborn son,” Jalen Ross told KHOU 11 News. “That’s all I thought about…him, his mother. I didn’t have a weapon in the household. I was at a disadvantage.”

Ross says he saw the intruder through his door peephole. When he didn’t open the door, the intruder keyed his car before breaking in to the home next door.

Police did not say if the intruder was armed during the break-in.

The homeowner, who has not been identified, is fully cooperating with investigators according to HPD, and is not expected to face any charges.

The Right To Bear Arms Is Still a Check on Tyranny
Ukrainians have taken to the streets with arms to defend their country and their freedom.

Ukrainians have taken to the streets with arms to defend their country and their freedom. They’ve prepared Molotov cocktails as makeshift bombs.

The threat of tyranny isn’t only present in the third world. In the United States, critics of the Second Amendment have claimed that in modern warfare, small-time weapons are useless as a check on the power of standing armies.

“Well, the tree of liberty has not been watered with the blood of patriots,” President Joe Biden said in remarks delivered at the White House on June 23, 2021. “What’s happened is that there have never been, if you want to, think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”

But now Biden is sending small arms to “Ukraine’s front-line defenders,” and it turns out that weapons of all sorts can help fight off even a nuclear power.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted he’ll give weapons “to anyone who wants to defend the country.” Ukraine is the only European nation where firearms are not regulated by statute. Even in peacetime, Ukrainians were allowed to carry non–fully automatic rifles and shotguns as long as they were stored when not in use.

“And folks, ban assault weapons with high-capacity magazines that hold up to a hundred rounds,” Biden said at his 2022 State of the Union address. “You think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests?”

No, but unfortunately, hunting isn’t the only purpose of a gun. The horrific war in Ukraine reminds us that the right to bear arms is still a check on tyranny.

Minneapolis homeowner claims self-defense in deadly shooting of possible burglar

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A 53-year-old woman and Minneapolis homeowner is claiming self-defense, and protection of property in a deadly shooting in her yard last week. Court documents reveal on Feb. 22 a man died after he was shot in the 3300 block of 25th Avenue South in Minneapolis’ Corcoran neighborhood. The homeowner who pulled the trigger claims, she fired several warning shots. But the man advanced towards her.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner has identified the man killed as Martin Lee Johnson, 30 of Minneapolis. A search warrant reports Johnson broke into the woman’s detached garage about 8:30 p.m. FOX 9 is not publicly naming the homeowner.

She told detectives she first fired four warning shots into the air with a handgun, but when he advanced and appeared to reach into his waistband, she eventually shot him with a rifle.

“She is just a loving person. It’s unfortunate that had to happen,” Katherine Wiley, a neighbor, told FOX 9.

Wiley is a long-time friend of the homeowner, and runs a daycare in the MPD first precinct neighborhood that sits right on the backside of the Hiawatha light rail tracks.

“Police can’t do it all themselves. That’s why we look out for each other. Our eyes and ears is for the community. That’s what it’s about nowadays,” Wiley explained.

According to the search warrant, investigators located both weapons, the handgun and rifle, in plain sight inside the home. They also requested access to the woman’s cell phones, as well as, Ring doorbell and home surveillance video recordings. The house appears to have several cameras and spotlights in the back of the home and garage where the shooting is said to have taken place.

“You have to do what we all have to do to protect ourselves and protect out home. If someone tries to come up and invade your space. You know, you have to call police. You have a weapon and ask someone to leave, you are going to do whatever,” said Wiley.

The search warrant says the homeowner did call 911, but did not indicate whether Johnson was armed. The ultimate decision is now in the hands of the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office to determine whether charges are warranted, or whether this was a justified use of deadly force.

Homeowner shot armed intruder in Denham Springs

DENHAM SPRINGS – A homeowner shot an armed suspect who entered their residence early Monday morning, according to sheriff’s deputies.

The Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office reported the shooting happened around 6 a.m. on Hammack Road near LA 16. The department said the property owner shot the suspect, who was also armed with a weapon, after that person entered the home.

The intruder and the homeowner knew one another, according to the sheriff’s office.

The suspect was taken to a hospital. The homeowner was uninjured.

No other details related to the shooting were immediately available.

California church shooting: Dad kills 3 kids, turns gun on himself, police say
Authorities believe the incident was domestic violence-related

‘domestic violence – related’ Really? It was the children’s father and he killed all 3 of them, from accounts their escort, then himself. And that restraining order and ‘gun free zone’ of the church building were worth exactly what they accomplished…..nothing.
Bad about the kids, but people just seem to not recognize danger, near or far away.

At least five people are dead, including the suspected gunman, following a shooting at a church in Sacramento, California, on Monday, authorities said.

The gunman killed his three kids before turning the gun on himself around 5 p.m. at an Arden-Arcade area church in Sacramento. Those killed were pronounced dead at the scene and authorities believe the incident was domestic violence-related. The fifth person who died was described as an adult………….

The article is out of date on current events, but the point is these anti-self defense politards shot themselves in the foot when trying make a saint out of a thug backfired on them. Another of their deceits is conflating and insinuating all homicides as criminal to pump the numbers, when a homicide is simply defined as one person killing another, and includes those determined to be justifiable.

Stand your ground laws proliferate after Trayvon spotlight

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The “stand your ground” self defense law had been in effect in Florida for more than six years when it became part of the national vocabulary with the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. When the 17-year-old was fatally shot, Florida was still one of the few states with the law that removes the duty to retreat before using deadly force in the face of danger.

Now, upwards of 30 states have some form of the law and recent research indicates they are associated with more deaths — as many as 700 additional firearm killings each year, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study found a national increase of up to 11% in homicide rates per month between 1999 and 2017 in those states with stand your ground laws. The largest increases, between 16% and 33%, were in southern states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, the study found.

States colored in red or orange below have some form of Stand Your Ground law.

“These findings suggest that adoption of (stand your ground) laws across the U.S. was associated with increases in violent deaths, deaths that could potentially have been avoided,” the study’s authors concluded.

Advocates for the laws, especially the National Rifle Association, have argued they act as a crime deterrent by ensuring a person can protect themselves and others against a would-be assailant.

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Homeowner shoots, kills armed intruder in Northland

A man was shot and killed Sunday morning after breaking into a residence in the Northland, Kansas City police said. Officers with the Kansas City Police Department were dispatched to a disturbance in the 3800 block of Northwest Barry Road around 9:30 a.m. Sunday. While arriving, they were told there was a shooting nearby in the 3800 block of Northwest 85th Terrace.

At the scene of the shooting, officers made contact with the resident of the home, who said an armed intruder had broken in, said Capt. Leslie Foreman, a spokeswoman for the department.

The resident of the apartment complex said he shot the intruder, who police said was declared dead at the scene. Foreman said police do not know at this point whether the intruder and the resident had any relation or knew one another. She said they’re also working to figure out whether the initial disturbance call and the shooting were connected.

Police said the resident of the home is cooperating with detectives. They do not believe any other suspects are involved. Detectives and investigators were on the scene canvassing for witnesses and processing the scene for evidence through at least late Sunday morning.

Sunday’s killing marks the 24th homicide reported this year in Kansas City, according to data kept by The Star, which includes police shootings. Last year saw 157 killings, one of the highest numbers recorded in the city’s history after 2020, which saw the most homicides ever for Kansas City.

Are Ukraine’s armed citizens making a difference?

One of the go-to arguments of gun control advocates who try to portray our Second Amendment as an outdated anachronism is that armed citizens just wouldn’t stand a chance against the might of a modern military force bristling with tanks, missiles, and even nuclear weapons (looking at you, Eric Swalwell).

The armed citizens of Ukraine, however, are helping to put that argument to rest. So far the nation has defied expectations and has continued to to resist the Russian invasion, repelling many of the attacks against the country’s biggest cities, and the country’s Territorial Defense Force, which includes many individuals who were simply private citizens a couple of weeks ago, is having an impact, according to Ukrainian officials.

“In the city itself, the territorial defense detachments are working quite effectively,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential chief of staff, said in a statement Saturday morning. “It turned out that people are coming out, defending their homes. It wasn’t expected by analysts of the Russian General Staff.”

I don’t think it was expected even for some of those who’ve shown up to volunteer, many of whom may never have thought about defending their country with a gun until last week but who are now heading down to their nearest recruitment center.

Men from their 20s to late 50s, from a range of backgrounds, showed up. Igor, 37, an economist for an online retailing company, who didn’t want his last name published for safety reasons, stood in line for his gun. He spoke at barely a whisper and his lips trembled. The dull thud of bombs or artillery could be heard in the distance.

“I never served in the army or with the police or anything,” he said. He said he hoped to be able to figure it out. He was worried, he said. “But people who are really afraid are sitting at home. They aren’t out here now.”

“Everybody in our country needs to defend — women, girls, everybody,” said Denis Matash, 33, the manager of Milk, a Kyiv nightclub, standing in line with about 50 other men at the recruitment center. “I don’t think they understand where they came,” he said of the Russians. “Look at what is happening here.”

Grigory Mamchur, 40, who works as a male strip dancer at the Milk nightclub, part of the now shuttered but once booming nightlife scene in Kyiv, was also in line for a Kalashnikov.

“There wasn’t even anything to think about,” Mr. Mamchur said. “We will defend the country however we can. This could be our last chance.”

The Territorial Defense Force and the private citizens who are taking up arms against their country’s invaders can’t thwart the Russian military on their own, but they can and have made life hell for Russian troops. In addition, the massive mobilization of civilian volunteers serves as a psychological boost for Ukrainians and is helping to obliterate the argument made by Vladimir Putin that the Ukrainian campaign is about “liberating” a grateful populace from their democratically-elected overlords.

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Nice, but no armor, no ammo load and – btw –that’s a Airsoft rifle.
Can you say: “Photo Op” ?

Former Miss Ukraine Takes Up Arms Against Russia

Former Miss Ukraine Anastasiia Lenna posted this image.(Instagram/@anastasiia.lenna)

Former Miss Ukraine Anastasiia Lenna is taking up arms against Russia and will kill those who enter Ukraine “with the intent to invade.”

Lenna was the winner of Miss Ukraine 2015, and now she stands out as one of the many defenders of Ukraine.

She recently posted a photo of herself on Instagram, rifle in hand, with the hashtags #standwithukraine and #handsoffukraine……………

BLUF:
I have a fairly good imagination and we can imagine all kinds of problems that might exist with armed school staff. Before our imagination runs wild, consider that we already have several thousand man-years of experience with armed staff in schools. We wouldn’t notice that because concealed firearms are concealed. I have been in the training classes with school staff who volunteered to go armed on campus. The teachers and SROs talked to me after class. They were exactly the levelheaded people we want protecting our children. They would stop a bullet with their body to protect their kids.

Now we’ve given them a chance to save our children and a chance to go home alive. The greatest threat our children face is a politician and a journalist who can tell a biased story and leave the kids unprotected. That is another story for another time, but we have more challenges to face.

Why They Murder Our Kids, and How to Stop the Next School Attack

Life tests our character and we are both the ant and grasshopper from Aesop’s fable. We both prepare and we procrastinate. We face a similar choice when it comes to protecting our children at school. Some of us planned and prepared ahead of time to protect our children, and some of us put that off for another day. What is worse is that some unprepared adults will blame the next mass murder at school on the citizens who took steps to protect their children from harm. Fortunately for all of us we know how to stop mass murder in our schools. That wasn’t always true. Defending our children at school was both a discovery and an invention. I’ve studied school safety for the last decade and this is some of what we’ve learned.

Mass murder is designed to shocks us, yet most of us ignore why these murderers kill our kids. Fewer of us act to take away the murderer’s motivation. Only a few of us work to put an effective defense in our schools. Mass murder strikes at all of our hearts, but a dedicated handful of people worked for years to make our children safer. It was hard work. It remains hard work.

Comparing mass murder to a natural disaster, it is easier to write detailed fire codes and seismic requirements for our schools than to admit that some people who look like us will deliberately hurt our children. Mass murder makes us feel helpless. We have to look evil in the face and not flinch. The good news is that we know exactly what to do to stop the next mass murderer in his tracks.

Murder is an ancient problem. We have laws against taking an innocent life but those laws are ineffective against someone who doesn’t care if they get killed. In the past, killing innocent victims was usually motivated by politics and religion and resulted in terrorists attacks. Planning your own suicide to include the death of a number of unrelated innocent parties is relatively new. We had to make a new name for it. This celebrity-murder was spawned by the news media that turned the murderer into an overnight sensation.

As peculiar as celebrity-murder sounds, we’ve seen similar behavior. We saw teenagers kill themselves so that they would be talked about on the local television news and in local newspapers. Teen suicides would cluster as one depressed teen wanted the attention given to the previous suicide. These troubled kids would rather be dead than live with the feeling of being ignored. We learned to keep these teens alive by not mentioning the name or showing the picture of the teenager who took his own life.

We reduced teen celebrity-suicide when we denied the teenagers the notoriety they were dying to get.

We can trace the growth celebrity-murders back to the attacks in Dunblane, Scotland and then to Port Arthur, Australia. It was 1999 when we saw celebrity-murder jump to the US with the attack at the high school in Columbine, Colorado. Old investigative reports found over 80 copycat attempts following the attack at Columbine. I’m sure the number of copycats is far higher by now.

If you doubt that celebrity-murder is real, then remember how the media idolized the two terrorists who set off a pressure-cooker bomb at the 2013 Boston Marathon. The media gave the murders a public relations campaign worth tens-of-millions-of-dollars. In response, thousands of attentions-starved teens wondered what they would have to do so it would be their face on the news.

The solution to stop celebrity-murder should be as easy as repeating what we did to radically reduce teen celebrity-suicide. What makes the solution harder is that few politicians will scold the press and hold them accountable for sensationalizing the mass murderer. The politician depends on the news media for campaign coverage.. and the press feeds the politician’s ego. I think that is why so few politicians will promote legislation to punish the news media when the press creates celebrity murderers.

Given our flawed political and media climate, we might think that the situation is hopeless if we want to stop someone who wants to kill others and then kill themselves. Threatening the murderer with punishment certainly doesn’t work. That means increased criminal penalties are ineffective. The murderers will study and plan for years. That means that mandatory waiting periods for firearms don’t work either. We’ve seen these murderers kill their family members to get a gun. We’ve seen mass murderers lie to school counselors and psychiatrists, so the murderer is not looking for help with their personal problems. That limits the therapeutic model of stopping mass murderers. In fact, many of the murderers feel superior to the rest of us because of their skill in deception and in manipulating others. A firearms background check looks backwards, and mass murder is simply not a long-term career choice.

We discovered the solution to stop mass murders in schools almost by accident, but the discovery wasn’t simple. Fortunately, we had lots of people looking for a solution. The obvious place to turn for expertise at protecting our children was to ask the people who carried guns at school every day as part of their job. The process of discovery started when we asked school resource officers what they could do to stop mass murder in our schools.

There is a strong strain of professionalism in law enforcement when it comes to learning from the experience of other agencies. Administrators studied what worked and what failed. Someone asked the organization that studied school resource officers to see if an SRO could stop a mass murderer. The answer offered a ray of hope.

Yes, the SRO is an effective deterrent. Unfortunately, he is in uniform so he is easily identified. All the attacker had to do was wait for the SRO to go to lunch or until the SRO was at the opposite end of campus. The multiple attackers at Columbine, Colorado drove the single uniformed officer off campus with their gunfire. These researchers determined that time was the critical factor in stopping an attack. Whatever solution would stop the attacker had to be inside the building before the first shot was fired. Every other solution took too long and left too many of our children dead or injured.

After the attack in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, we had tens-of-thousands of school boards and school principals calling their local sheriff or their police chief. They asked for armed officers in every school. Time is so critical that the school officials wanted an armed officer in every building.

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Poll: Majority Feels Safer ‘Knowing There’s A Gun In The House’

Contrary to what the gun prohibition lobby would have America believe, a new Rasmussen survey released Friday shows that a majority of American adults who say someone in the house owns a firearm (61%) “feel safer knowing there’s a gun in the house.” majority feels safer with gun

Rasmussen learned that 36 percent of poll respondents admit they or someone in their household owns a gun. In recent years, anecdotal evidence suggests that gun owners refuse to acknowledge they have a gun in the home, as they are either worried about social stigma or simply believe it’s nobody’s business.

The survey of 1,000 U.S. American Adults was conducted on February 17 and 20, 2022, by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence, the veteran polling company said.

According to Rasmussen, “Of those who live in gun-owning households, majorities of both men (62%) and women (59%) say they feel safer knowing there’s a gun in the house.” The survey also revealed, “More whites (42%) than blacks (30%) or other minorities (28%) say they or someone in their household owns a gun.”

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, in 2020 and 2021, millions of Americans purchased firearms for the first time.

As one might expect, gun ownership falls mainly along political lines. Rasmussen’s survey found “Republicans (44%) are significantly more likely than Democrats or those unaffiliated with either major party (both 34%) to say they or someone in their household owns a gun.” The poll also revealed, “More men (42%) than women (32%) say they live in gun-owning households. However, a majority (58%) of men under 40 say they live in homes without firearms.”

And here’s something startling: “Entrepreneurs are more likely to live in gun-owning households than either government employees or private-sector workers.”

Over the past several days, Headlines from southeast Europe provide more reason for Americans to appreciate their Second Amendment rights. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the Ukrainian government reportedly handing out firearms to citizens to mount a defense against Vladimir Putin’s army. In the United States, such a situation would hardly be necessary thanks to the Second Amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms.

War in the Ukraine Has Strengthened the 2nd Amendment in the U.S.

If you held any doubts about the importance of the 2nd Amendment the war in Ukraine should serve as a prime example as to why the “right to keep and bear arms” is absolutely vital to the security and peace of the Nation. It may be too little too late, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the announcement yesterday that all citizens who wish to arm themselves in defense of the country may do so.

More than that, the Ukrainian government/military would supply the weapons. At this time thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians are arming themselves and are ready to fight alongside their military in defense of their country. Had this right been protected by a constitution and in place prior to the invasion they would have been armed already and better prepared to defend their lives and country. By loosening the firearm laws in the country the Ukrainian government has at least given their citizens and country a fighting chance.

To those who doubted the meaning, intent, or reasoning of the 2nd Amendment what’s happening in Ukraine should settle that argument. An armed citizenship is near impossible to conquer and control. In the United States, an enemy foreign or domestic would have to get through all of our military branches, all the reserves and guard units along with an armed populace in order to even occupy the country, much less conquer it.

It’s frustratingly funny that people, “anti-gun” people, always remark that there’s no need for citizens to have arms and that the 2nd Amendment is outdated. They continually say it’s ridiculous to think that a private citizen with a gun could do much in defense of the country. Well, oddly enough that’s exactly how our country began. A group of armed men tried of the tyranny they were living under got together and fought back, with arms. I’m sure the British at the time thought like our “anti-gun” crowd, and like them were dead wrong.

Within minutes of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian government immediately put the word out about arming its citizens. So to those who constantly state that it’s the government’s job to protect and defend us, it clearly shows without us, it’s a non-reality. Relying solely on others for protection is to be utterly defenseless and victim-bound. Without the means to protect yourself and others, you are at the mercy of those who would seek to do you harm and even those sworn to protect you. This is the heart of the Second Amendment.

The 2nd Amendment has never been about hunting, or really even self-defense. It’s about having the means to protect our freedom, liberties, and the ability to use arms against tyranny, both foreign and domestic.

That’s what it’s all about and what we’re seeing in Ukraine definitely affirms this, at least to those who are paying attention anyway. Hopefully, some lessons will be learned and those who in the past wished to eliminate or further restrict our rights to keep and bear arms will better understand the intent of our Founding Fathers, the architects of freedom and framers of our constitution had in mind when writing it.

Lastly, the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution DOES NOT grant rights. It recognizes and upholds the rights that were given to us at birth by our creator, which is why they’re called “Inalienable Rights.”

The primary purpose of the Consitution and Bill of Rights is to restrict the government’s “infringement” of rights, which preexisted the documents in the first place. So any argument about changing any of the amendments in the Constitution is completely invalid. Our rights aren’t given to us by the government, we were born with them. This means you CAN NOT take away what you haven’t given!

They Held the Line: Ukrainians in Kyiv Hold Out Against Hellacious Russian Assault

I will say this about the Ukrainians. They’re holding out. They’re putting up a tenacious fight against their Russian invaders. It was something Moscow was not expecting. Vladimir Putin has the better military, but they’re struggling in achieving their objectives. Kyiv was projected to be surrounded by Russian forces by this time. At one point this week, they were only a mere 20 miles from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv which was already being bombed.

Last night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was clear that last night was a fight for the nation. they needed to keep Kyiv, but it was going to be difficult as the full might of Russia’s war machine was going to be unleashed upon the city. The nation has been virtually mustered. Citizens can carry firearms in public for the national defense. All males 18-60 cannot leave. Martial law has been declared. The people are ready to fight with whatever means available. Ukrainian soldiers were teaching civilians how to make Molotov cocktails prior to the Russian assault. Russian troops reached the outskirts of the city yesterday evening and fighting did break out in the streets reportedly.

The Ukrainians held the line. The city remains in their hands. Zelensky had rebuffed an American offer of an evacuation—he was in the city during the assault—adding that he needed ammunition, not a ride (via NBC News):

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