Category: Safety

 Crossing a State Line Shouldn’t Cost You Your Right to Self-Defense

Imagine a woman driving across state lines alone at night, fearful that her car might break down and leave her vulnerable. Or picture a truck driver hauling valuable cargo across the country. In states such as California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Oregon – five of the ten states that refuse to recognize concealed handgun permits from other states – these travelers can find themselves defenseless. Nine states also either deny non-residents permits altogether or make them extremely difficult to obtain.

Last week, President Trump again called for passage of national concealed carry reciprocity. The legislation would allow anyone legally permitted to carry a concealed handgun in their home state to carry across state lines, much as Americans use their driver’s licenses nationwide. The legislation would affect millions of law-abiding Americans.

Much of the gun-control debate centers on hypothetical risks. With reciprocity, however, we don’t have to speculate. With 21.5 million concealed handgun permit holders in the United States, we already know how they behave. In addition, most Americans already benefit from reciprocity. The average state recognizes permits from 30 other states, allowing permit holders to travel legally with their firearms.

Last year, when House Judiciary Committee passed national reciprocity along party lines, Democrats also opposed legislation that would allow current and retired law enforcement officers with at least ten years of service to carry firearms in facilities open to the public – including schools – while traveling across the country. Given their fear that allowing experienced current or retired law enforcement officers to carry would endanger public safety, it comes as no surprise that they also oppose allowing civilians to carry across state lines.

Congressional opponents of reciprocity warned that permit holders would commit crimes but cited no evidence to support that claim. The facts point in the opposite direction. Concealed handgun permit holders are extraordinarily law-abiding. States revoke their permits for firearm-related violations at rates measured in thousandths – or even ten-thousandths – of one percent. Police officers rarely commit firearm crimes, yet permit holders lose their permits for firearm offenses at only about one-twelfth the rate that police are convicted of firearm related crimes.

“This legislation is a dramatic infringement on states’ rights,” claimed Emma Brown, executive director of the gun-control group Giffords, echoing a common criticism. Yet those same organizations routinely advocate federal gun-control laws that override state policy choices.

Opponents also claimed that national reciprocity would confuse travelers about which gun laws apply in each state and lead to more arrests. But reciprocity already exists across much of the country, and no evidence shows that out-of-state permit holders create such problems. Indeed, the same situation exists for drivers when they cross state lines: They are required to follow the driving regulations for the state they are in.

Critics also argue that permit standards vary from state to state. Yet no evidence shows that states with less restrictive permitting systems experience higher permit revocation rates.

Despite these fears, more than 86% of police chiefs and sheriffs support national reciprocity, and over 90% of rank-and-file officers support concealed carry laws. These officers see firsthand how concealed carry works in practice. They understand that police deter crime, but they also know they usually arrive after the crime has begun. Victims often must defend themselves first. Consistent with that experience, the overwhelming weight of academic research finds that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces crime.

With tens of millions of Americans legally carrying concealed handguns over many decades, if opponents could identify even dozens of cases in which out-of-state permit holders created serious problems, their concerns would deserve careful consideration. They cannot. Such cases remain exceedingly rare. Americans do not need to guess whether gun-control advocates’ concerns are justified.

Carrying a firearm provides the greatest benefit to those who face the largest physical disadvantages – women and the elderly – and to those who face the highest risk of violent crime, including many poor black residents of high-crime neighborhoods. Not surprisingly, these groups have accounted for the largest percentage growth in permit ownership over the past decade. Between 2015 and 2024, permits held by women grew 112% faster than those held by men, while permits held by black Americans grew 284% faster than those held by whites.

Real life is not the movies. Most women cannot overpower several larger, stronger men, no matter how well trained they are. Men also generally possess greater upper-body strength and speed.

A firearm changes that equation. It gives women a far more effective means of self-defense. If an attacker has already closed the distance enough to seize a woman’s firearm, she is already in grave danger regardless.

Peer-reviewed research finds that allowing concealed carry reduces murder rates for both men and women. The reduction for women, however, is roughly three to four times larger than the reduction for men.

The House will likely pass national reciprocity, but it faces a steeper challenge in the Senate. Breaking the expected Democratic filibuster will require 60 votes, meaning at least seven Democratic senators must cross party lines. Those senators need only examine their own states’ experience. Six states represented by 12 Democratic senators – Arizona, Georgia, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia – already recognize concealed handgun permits from every other state. None has seen a problem with reciprocity.

Police play an indispensable role in public safety. But around 700,000 officers cannot protect over 340 million Americans everywhere at once. Congress should ensure that law-abiding Americans do not lose their ability to defend themselves simply by crossing a state line.

John R. Lott Jr. is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. 

 

BLUF
The Iranian people are living with the nightmare consequences of a system in which the murderous regime possesses all the arms and citizens possess only courage. America’s founders chose another path.

At 250 years, the United States must remain vigilant and committed to protecting our God-given, constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms that is indispensable to preserving every other freedom Americans hold dear.

How Important Are Gun Rights? Ask an Average Iranian Citizen These Days.

The U.S. Constitution recognizes that individual rights don’t come from government. Government exists to protect rights endowed by our Creator. Among them is the right to keep and bear arms for self defense, and other lawful purposes.

That distinction isn’t merely academic. Across the world, citizens live under control of governments that deny them the means to defend themselves, their families and their freedom. Iran offers a chilling reminder of what happens when tyrannical governments disarm citizens and wield firepower on their own people.

Speaking with reporters last week during a meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Mark Rutte at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, President Donald Trump addressed the situation and interactions with the Iranian regime.

“I deal with these guys and I say, ‘This is from a different school. They’re liars. They’re cheats. They’re sick people. They’ve hurt their people. They killed 54,000 people as of now that were protesting,’” President Trump said, according to a report in The Hill. “You know, when people say, ‘How come they haven’t taken over,’ they can’t take over because they’re dead. They killed them. Nobody’s going to take over. They [Iranian citizens] have no guns and the other side has machine guns and they’re killing them. The press doesn’t report it. But they’re bad people. They’re bad people and uh, frankly I don’t want to waste my time with them.”

The numbers of Iranian citizens murdered by Iran’s rulers are still being counted, but President Trump identified the central truth that courage alone cannot overcome a government willing to use overwhelming force against a defenseless population.

An Armed Citizenry Secured America’s Freedom

America’s founders understood that danger firsthand. British troops marched toward Lexington and Concord in April 1775 to seize arms, ammunition and military supplies held by American colonists. Armed militia members stood in their path. The resulting confrontation ignited the American Revolution.

The colonists ultimately recognized they could not preserve their liberties while remaining subjects of King George III. They united, declared independence and fought to establish a nation in which government answered to the people.

That understanding was later secured in and protected by the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Founders did not grant that pre-existing common law right. They expressly protected it from future government interference.

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The Urgent Case for Better Church Safety.

Sunday morning, July 5, 2026. St. John’s Lutheran Church in Effingham, Illinois, sat peaceful under a quiet sky. Volunteers had just begun to arrive to prepare for services. Just the ordinary rhythm of a house of worship going about its day. Then a man driving a stolen car slipped inside, asking for the pastor.

Church security didn’t blink. They noticed the out-of-state plates and saw the man approach. Safety team members made contact as he entered. The man asked for the pastor, but the safety volunteers sensed something was wrong. They called 911.

Police rolled in. There was a struggle. A gun was produced. One shot was fired. From the details it sounds like it might have been an attempted suicide. Either way, the intruder went down with life-threatening wounds. A few days later, he died of his injuries.

Thankfully no innocents were hit. No blood on the pews. No parents clawing through wreckage crying out for their kids. The pastor lived. Tragedy was averted, prevented by extraordinary vigilance.

Breathe easy? Not quite. Close your eyes and run the other reel.

Unlocked side doors. Nobody watching the parking lot or the doors. No radios calling out warnings.  Chaos explodes where hymns should rise. Gunfire shatters stained glass and the pastor and others go down. Children scream from the daycare area. Paramedics arrive to heartbreak. A community is gutted, forever asking, “Why didn’t we see it coming?”

That nightmare is one lazy policy choice away. Churches aren’t fortresses, they’re sanctuaries. Open doors, welcoming smiles, coffee and cookies. But evil doesn’t check the welcome sign. It walks right in.

FBI patterns show Sundays hosted the most active shooter incidents than any other day in 2022.  It shouldn’t surprise that Sundays reliably top the day for the most violent religious activity incidents pretty much every year. Barely half of Protestant churches have a real plan for such horrors.

Researching this, I initially found the number of churches with “church safety” as higher, but that’s because researchers counted the 21% of houses of worship with “No Firearms” policies as among those with safety programs. “Gun-Free Zone” signs have no preventative or survival value.

The rest? Hoping and praying. Winging it. That’s not faith. That’s playing Russian roulette with your flock.

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Ohio: 116 School Districts Now Allow Armed Employees

Four years after Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed legislation allowing school boards to choose to allow teachers and other employees to be armed, 116 school districts have chosen to allow armed employees for classroom defense.

WOWO reported that the figure of “116 school districts” is derived from state data “as of June 17.”

The Ohio Capital Journal noted that the 116 districts include “more than 70 Ohio school districts and 15 Christian schools…[with] staff members who are authorized to carry weapons on school grounds.”

Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper criticized the training requirements for the growing number of armed school employees, saying, “It’s not a sufficient amount of training. We’re talking about highly intense situations that require a lot of not only tactical training on how to use weapons, but how to deal with making split-second decisions.”

She did not provide an instance where an armed teacher or employee has harmed someone since the law was signed by DeWine.

Antwerp district superintendent Marty Miller explained that his district chose to arm teachers and employees because they are in a rural setting with a longer police response time.

He said, “It’s just letting the public know that your children are protected.”

This Is Why Some Want Your Guns

In 2023, Jason Aldean made waves with “Try That in a Small Town.” The song and accompanying video made it pretty clear that much of the lawlessness we see in American cities, particularly the political sort, such as riots, wouldn’t fly in small-town America. In fairness, it’s a good way to get your butt handed to you.

Whether or not you’re left alive to learn from your mistakes would directly depend on how stupid you were.

Of course, a lot of people on the left got very butthurt over it, claiming that the song was endorsing political violence, racism, and everything else they deem horrible in society…unless it’s them doing it.

The point, though, was that small towns didn’t play around, and since people are far more likely to be armed, their refusal to play around would not make them attractive places to try such shenanigans.

Well, someone on Reddit seemed to not get the memo, and it’s actually kind of funny.

It seems that the author hasn’t realized that rural Americans don’t rely on the police to protect them. If “The Revolution” were to start in small towns, what you’re going to see is something that will make the Battle of Athens look like a thumb-wrestling convention.

Sure, rural communities only have a couple of cops–my father, when he was chief in Leary, Georgia, had three officers at the department’s largest, and by the end, he was flying solo–but that’s because a lot of the time, the police are just there to draw the chalk line around the bad guy’s body.

What we need to understand, though, is that while this is just one rando on Reddit, where anyone can post anything, it represents what a lot of people would like to do.

Is it any wonder that these same people want to inflict gun control on the rest of the country? See, while right now, small-town America can generally handle itself just fine from a rampaging mob, the reason most people won’t bring up a “suggestion” like this is that the rural communities have the guns to fight back, even in states like California or New York.

Removing the guns from the equation is critical, especially as most people live in the cities, so even if they’re not part of this so-called revolution, they’re not going to be the ones impacted directly. They think that guns lead to the crime they see in their communities, so they support gun control with the misperception that it is a benefit to society.

The truth is that while not every gun control advocate is an authoritarian, every authoritarian favors gun control. Removing a civil liberty, though, is an inherently authoritarian act, and it can’t be successfully framed otherwise. Many try, but it fails simply because they can’t get away from the fact that it impacts the innocent far more than the guilty.

And, for those inclined to incite some communist “revolution” on the rest of the country, their masses must meet unarmed opposition. Guns are equalizers, and they can’t have that.

For now, it really is “Try That in a Small Town.”

If they get their way, though, make no mistake, they will. The fact that so many Democrats are swooning over “Democratic Socialists”–which are still just commies, but commies with sprinkles–suggests that more of them want to do this than we might otherwise suspect.

Luckily, Antifa is now officially a terrorist organization, and a group of them got a few centuries in prison for being lefty terrorists, which means anyone trying to do this is going to have a problem even before they get to Mayberry.

But if they make it there, the Second Amendment makes damn sure we can start stacking them before they can be offended by the fact.

Armed Americans: New Public Polling Reveals What the Firearm Industry Has Seen for Years

By Larry Keane

That loud sound you’re hearing is the collective jaws of gun control activists hitting the floor. They’re exasperated and can’t believe years of their antigun propaganda hasn’t worked. They are beside themselves that Americans would choose exercising the constitutional rights to keep and bear arms over backing more gun control restrictions and being lenient and soft on repeat criminals.

The polling also backs up recent reporting from big national media outlets revealing that antigun organizations and politicians have “conceded” that “gun control is no longer their top issue.”

“We know the political realities,” U.S. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) recently told NOTUS. That “political reality” is that Americans don’t want more gun control.

That’s exactly what the firearm industry has seen over the past few years. And polling is now catching up.

The ‘New’ News

So, what’s all the “new” news? Recent survey data conducted in partnership between the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) and the well-respected polling firm The McLaughlin Group revealed Americans are significantly more likely to support and exercise their Second Amendment rights now than they were just 18 months ago. They are less likely to support increased gun control restrictions pushed by antigun activists.

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Survey: More Americans Are Carrying Concealed Guns
Three in 10 Americans at least occasionally carry a firearm.

Firearms sales went through the roof during COVID and 2020’s social unrest as people scrambled to deal with a world that seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Previously thought of—with a great deal of exaggeration—as the domain of white male rural-dwellers, gun ownership became increasingly diverse as women and minorities acquired the means of self-defense. A recent survey finds that many people among the growing ranks of gun owners are carrying their tools for protection.

Concealed Carry Became More Common Since 2024

“In the survey, 13.2% carry all/most of the time, with another 16.6% carrying sometimes/rarely,” the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) announced last month of the results of a survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates. “The percent who carry all or most [of] the time is virtually the same as the percent who carried similarly in December 2024. But the percent who carry at [least] some of the time or rarely has increase[d] by 5.4 percentage points (from 11.2% to 16.6%). So the total who are carrying increased by 5.5 percentage points (from 24.3% to 29.8%).”

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What a graphic example for “Carry Spare Ammo, People!”

Massachusetts Gun Laws Interfered With Armed Citizen’s Response to Mass Shooting

If Massachusetts gun laws worked as advertised, a convicted felon never would have been able to get his hands on a banned firearm and open fire on motorists driving down Cambridge’s busy Memorial Drive last month.

As we all saw, those laws failed to stop a prohibited person from accessing a prohibited firearm. They did, however, impede the armed citizen who helped put an end to the shooting alongside a Massachusetts state trooper.

How many times have we heard anti-gunners proclaim that “nobody needs 20 rounds to shoot a deer” or some such nonsense?

The reality is that when faced with a threat to human life, we need as many rounds as it takes to neutralize that threat. In Massachusetts, though, you get ten rounds per magazine at best.

Tyler Brown, the man accused of the shooting spree on Memorial Drive, allegedly fired about 60 rounds from the BCI Defense Model FF-15 he illegally possessed. The armed citizen who helped stop that shooting spree had just eight rounds for his Glock handgun.

“The witness is an experienced firearm ower with a license to carry, as he is an ex-Marine and used to be a firearm instructor,” the criminal complaint says.

The civilian said he saw a man with a long rifle, which he believeed looked like an AK-47, on foot in front of his vehicle. The civilian had a Glock 9mm pistol in a safe in the backseat of his vehicle, and retrieved it while covering himself. The former Marine said he fired all eight rounds from his gun and then moved to a tree for cover, telling other people to get back. he said he heard sirens, so he put his gun on the ground away from him.

The civilian said he heard two different calibers of gunfire going off, which he believed to be coming from a trooper and the suspect. He heard the shooter yelling something, but did not remember what is was, and he said the shooter eventually fell to the ground. Troopers rendered medical aid, and Brown was taken to Beth Israel Hospital.

As Swearer noted in a follow-up post on X, “once again the lesson is that while most incidents of armed self-defense don’t (strictly speaking) *require* the victim to fire more than 10 rounds, when the outliers occur, they are precisely the types of armed confrontations in which more than 10 rounds can make all the difference between life or death.”

Anti-gun activists can argue all they want that the “average” defensive gun use requires less than ten rounds, but they can’t guarantee that any of us will ever face an “average” situation where we need to use our firearm to protect ourselves or others. Most of us won’t ever pull the trigger of one of our guns in self-defense, but some of us will find ourselves in a situation where ten rounds simply isn’t enough.

That was the case in Cambridge, Massachusetts last month. Thankfully, the state trooper (who is exempt from the state’s ban on “large capacity” magazines) was able to return fire as well, and the two individuals shooting back at the assailant were able to stop his random attack. We can’t count on a cop rushing in to save the day, though… and in Massachusetts you can’t count on having a magazine large enough to help you survive an encounter with a violent predator who ignored the state’s restrictive gun laws and armed himself anyway.

Missouri Making Moves to Bump School Safety Up a Notch or 12

Keeping students safe is as universal of a goal as you’re going to find in such a divided country. The problem, however, is that we’re divided to a point that we can’t even agree on how to keep them safe. Some people want to restrict the rights of ordinary people to such a degree that they can delude themselves into thinking students can’t be hurt by violent people.

The rest of us recognize that violent people aren’t going to be stopped with laws. If they were, the laws against hurting kids would be more than enough.

So, in that vein, it seems Missouri is stepping up the game a few dozen notches and really taking the goal of keeping kids safe seriously.

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Many Police agencies have never liked the idea that people can and will -legally- take matters into their own hands

Des Moines Police Issue Bizarre Warning After Self-Defense Shooting

It’s not uncommon for police or sheriffs to issue a warning after a defensive gun use in their communities, but generally they’re admonishing criminals to be aware of the fact that armed citizens have the right to protect themselves.

In a twist, the Des Moines, Iowa police department is warning legal gun carriers after a shooting near a park in Des Moines, Iowa last month that’s been deemed to be a justifiable use of force on the part of an armed citizen.

In that incident, a group of individuals tried to rob a 22-year-old of his belongings, including a gun he was carrying. Little did they know that the armed citizen, who was sitting in his car when he was confronted by the group, had a backup gun on him, and the armed citizen shot and killed one of his attackers in self-defense.

Though the 22-year-old isn’t facing any charges, the Des Moines police appears to be using this as an excuse to chastise those of us who exercise our right to bear arms on a regular basis.

Law enforcement officials explained that self-defense shootings, which are more commonly associated with police officers, are increasingly being seen among civilians.

“There’s been several changes in gun laws here in Iowa over the years. And the one thing that we’ve seen, the byproduct of that is there’s more guns out there,” said DMPD Sgt. Paul Parizek.

Since 2021, Iowa has been a constitutional carry state, allowing any law-abiding adult to carry a handgun without a permit.

Police emphasized that self-defense with a firearm is only justified under strict criteria. Deadly force can only be used if there is a reasonable assumption that one’s life or wellbeing is in immediate danger.

“Somebody can’t drive by and flip you off, and you can’t shoot them. That’s not a response for that. You can’t say I was scared they were going to get out of their car. There has to be a threat,” Parizek said.

Based on Parizek’s comments, folks might be left with the impression that gun owners carrying under Iowa’s permitless carry law are causing all kinds of problems, but that isn’t the case. Last year the city saw ten homicides, which was a 33% decrease compared to 2024. So far this year police have investigated at least eleven homicides, but we know that one of those cases has been deemed a justifiable use of deadly force, and there may be others as well.

We’re also now five years in to Iowa’s experience as a permitless carry state, so if the city does end up seeing a spike in homicides this year I doubt that the law will have anything to do with it. Crime analyst Jeff Asher’s Real Time Crime Index shows other cities in permitless carry states are seeing big declines in murders; with Houston, Fort Worth, Memphis, Kansas City, New Orleans, Birmingham, Cincinnati, and Jacksonville all down by more than 20% so far this year.

If the Des Moines PD wants to remind folks about when it’s appropriate and legally okay to use lethal force, so be it. Still, it’s bizarre to use a legally justified use of deadly force as the reason to do so. It would be far more appropriate to use this incident to warn would-be robbers in the city that they’re putting their lives at risk by engaging in violent crimes, but for some reason I can’t fathom, the DMPD seems more concerned about lawful gun owners than armed robbers.

Here’s Another Reason Cops Aren’t Checking to See If It’s a BB Gun Pointed at Them

[Which one is which? Can YOU tell?-Miles]

When a gun is pointed at you, even for a split second, the barrel seems a whole lot larger than it really is. I’ve been unfortunate enough to experience that due to someone’s unsafe gun handling, so I’m talking from first-hand experience. Because of that, I don’t get worked up when there’s an officer-involved shooting, and the person shot by the police has a BB gun. I hate that it happened, and I feel awful for the officer, because I know that’s got to screw with a person’s head.

They’re not going to measure the barrel diameter before acting because they can’t.

However, there’s another reason why officers shouldn’t be getting blasted by ignorant people when something like that happens. That reason is that BB guns aren’t harmless.

Initial information informed deputies that an adult male, later identified as 33-year-old Geovanni Malacara-Hernandez, had been injured from an accidental discharge of a pellet or BB gun involving a young child.

Once deputies, Othello EMS and Adams County Fire District 5 arrived on scene, they began performing life-saving efforts “for a prolonged period of time,” according to the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. Malacara-Hernandez was then transported to Othello Community Hospital where medical personnel continued performing life-saving measures.
Unfortunately, Malacara-Hernandez succumbed to his injuries and died.

Police are investigating.

Now, there’s not much more available in this story other than what I’ve just shared, so we don’t know the specifics of whether it was an actual BB gun, a pellet gun, or what the weapon was specifically. Pellet guns are useful for hunting small game, which means they’re capable of putting down things a bit larger than a squirrel or rabbit. BB guns typically aren’t, but there have been reports of fatal shootings with them.

These aren’t toys. Yes, we buy them for kids, but responsible parents tend to treat them like firearms, and for a very good reason. They can injure or kill someone.

No, they’re not as deadly as actual firearms, but that’s beside the point.

So, when you consider this, think about a police officer rolling up to a suspect, only for that suspect to produce a BB gun. Either the officer knows it’s a BB gun or he doesn’t. In most cases, he doesn’t, but let’s say he does this time. Should he just assume that he’ll be the rule rather than the exception who gets killed with an air pistol? Should he simply let himself get shot and pray that the odds are in his favor?

What about the armed citizen? We can find ourselves in the exact same position.

I’m not talking about the legality of anything, mind you. I’m not an attorney, and while I’m an opinionated cuss about all kinds of things I probably should remain silent on, I’m not trying to delve into what will happen in a court of law.

I’m talking about what should happen in that courtroom. What should happen is that, whether police officer or private citizen, anyone who points a BB gun at someone should be shot in self-defense, because it’s not a toy they were pointing at the good guy with a gun. It actually shouldn’t get to that courtroom, because like it or not, a BB gun is a lethal weapon, much like a skateboard or a baseball bat can be lethal weapons, even if we buy them for our kids.

School president cites study finding guns don’t increase crime to oppose campus carry.

UPDATED – President Elizabeth Chilton’s opposition to campus carry included a study that found no link to increased crime

New Hampshire lawmakers should vote down campus carry because some people might feel less safe, according to a university president.

Editor’s note: The article has been updated to show the legislation is dead.

Legislators were considering House Bill 1793, which would prohibit public universities from regulating guns on campus and establish a commission to study campus carry. The bill officially died last Thursday, however.

According to a student government survey cited by The New Hampshire, a majority of respondents said they would be less likely to attend UNH if campus carry were allowed. In response to the perceived campus climate, the student senate passed a resolution opposing the bill.

President Elizabeth Chilton also took an institutional stance against the law, sending out both a campuswide message and testifying to the state senate judiciary committee. She (pictured) submitted testimony along with Don Birx, president of Keene State College and Plymouth State University, and Mark Collopy, the police chief for UNH.

They said “research from states that have adopted campus carry has found increased fear of crime, lower perceptions of campus safety, and reduced confidence in campus police.”

But neither study found a link to actual crime and campus carry.

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Missouri schools could hire armed ‘rangers’ under bill sent to governor

A bill to create a new faction of school protection officers with “physical fitness superior to a U.S. Marine” got final approval from Missouri lawmakers in the final days of the legislative session.

The legislation seeks to allow schools to hire volunteer or paid guards called “Missouri Rangers” who could carry a gun on school grounds.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. David Gregory of Chesterfield, told senators he wanted to give schools “a choice to have a higher trained armed guard.”

He compared current protection-officer requirements to that of a “Walmart guard with a gun.” Currently, schools can appoint teachers and administrators as school protection officers, allowing them to carry a gun or “self-defense spray device” with training and a concealed carry permit.

School protection officers must undergo a minimum of 112 hours of training, according to a Department of Public Safety rule. The state also has school resource officers, which are law enforcement officers with an additional 40+ hours of training related to school safety.

Gregory’s legislation proposes a maximum of 160 hours of training, specifying that the program must include lessons on “close-quarter combat,” bomb and arson training, de-escalation and others.

Prior to training, rangers must pass a physical fitness test. For those 35 and younger, they must “complete a minimum of 40 pushups in less than one minute” and be able to run 1½ miles in less than 12½ minutes. The legislation asks the state’s Peace Office Standards and Training Commission to identify lower standards for older applicants.

The bill’s first pass through the Senate brought little opposition, garnering the support of groups like the St. Louis County Police Association in its first committee hearing. In early April, just two senators voted against the proposal, but Senate Democrats unanimously voted against it when it returned to the chamber last week with less than a day before session adjourned for the year.

House Democrats unanimously rejected the proposal, uncomfortable with the proposition of having more firearms in schools.

“The answer to guns in schools is not more guns in schools,” said state Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs, a St. Louis Democrat, advocating instead for mental health support for students.

Their arguments did not sway House Republicans, who unanimously voted in support of the bill.

State Rep. Burt Whaley, a Republican from Clever, has experience training school staff on what to do in case of a shooting. The key benefit of having a ranger, he said, was being able to quickly respond to threats.

In one school he trained, the local law enforcement estimated that it could take up to 45 minutes for them to arrive.

“It is typically another person with a gun that knows how to use it, that’s trained how to use it … they’re usually the ones that are able to subdue (a threat),” he said.

The bill follows other proposals passed last year addressing security concerns, like laws directing schools to share emergency operations plans with local law enforcement and report school safety incidents to the state’s education department.

Some of the provisions passed in last year’s legislation have yet to be implemented because of a lack of funding, such as a requirement to equip schools with bleeding control kits and train staff on how to apply a tourniquet.

Gov. Mike Kehoe has until mid-July to sign or veto bills before they become law.

Tennessee Legislation Expanding Castle Doctrine Protections Awaits Governor’s Approval

The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –

Legislation that lowers the standard for use of deadly force on private property, expanding Castle Doctrine protections, is awaiting Governor Bill Lee’s approval.

Tennessee lawmakers passed HB1802/SB1847, sponsored by Representative Kip Capley (R-Summertown-District 71) and Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald-District 28), after intense debate.

The legislation allows for the use of deadly force if a person “reasonably believes deadly force is immediately necessary to prevent the other’s imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or aggravated cruelty to animals” in the event the person using deadly force cannot protect their property any other way or if the use of force by other means would expose them or someone else to risk of death, serious bodily injury or grave sexual abuse.

Shooting someone in the back is not justified under the bill’s protections and Tennessee’s current self-defense standards are not erased by the legislation, still requiring a threat involving serious bodily injury or death.

To fall under self-defense statutes, an amendment clarified that in using deadly force, a person must not be engaged in conduct that would constitute a felony or Class A misdemeanor, such as inviting someone onto your property to sell you illegal drugs, and is present where they lawfully reside.

When the bill passed in the Senate, it did not include the House amendment and had to be returned for concurrence, but the legislation is ready for Lee to take action on, and is slated to take effect July 1st, 2026.

Which Country Has the Worst Gun-Related Violence? It’s NOT the U.S

By Dave Workman

The nation with the highest total gun deaths—in spite of what you may have read or heard—is not the United States.

According to a report at How Stuff Works, basing its findings on data from the past, it’s Brazil, where more than 49,000 gun-related deaths were reported in 2019. And, as this report noted, “Determining what country has the most gun violence depends on how you measure it, whether by total gun deaths or gun death rates per 100,000 people.

“Globally,” the narrative added, “firearm violence varies widely between countries and is shaped by factors like gun laws, economic conditions and access to firearms. While some nations have the highest total gun deaths, others have the highest rates of firearm homicide.”

The How Stuff Works report acknowledges “The United States stands out among high-income countries for its high rates of firearm mortality. It has one of the highest gun death rates compared to peer countries and leads in civilian gun ownership.

“Nearly two-thirds of firearm deaths are suicides,” the report adds, “while gun homicide rates remain significantly higher than in other high income nations.”

Then, along comes World Population Review, again apparently relying on 2019 data, noting that Mexico has a far higher gun death rate than the U.S. (17.23 per 100,000, opposed to 4.42 per 100,000, with Brazil at 5.81 per 100,000). The data shows Mexico recorded 22,355 homicides for that year, Brazil racked up 12,266 and the U.S. reported 15,186.

Source: Statista

At this point, shouldn’t someone ask if the victims are any less dead in a lower-income nation than a so-called “high-income country.”

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DeSantis Signs Law Arming Trained College, University Faculty After FSU Shooting

A year after a gunman opened fire on Florida State University, trained college and university faculty can carry guns onto campus under a bill Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Friday.

“It puts the bad guys on the defense — they don’t know who’s going to be able to offer them resistance,” DeSantis said during a Miami press conference. “We’ve taken this more seriously than probably anyone else has … in our state’s history.”

He referred to Florida’s guardian program, a state initiative allowing schools to train certain staff or hire security to wield firearms for self-defense. It was created for public K-12 schools in 2018 following shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead. The tragedy unfolded while a sheriff’s deputy delayed confronting the gunman for nearly five minutes.

DeSantis later removed him from office.

Under the new law, HB 757, the program will be extended to colleges and universities. Staff hoping to become guardians must complete 144 hours of training — 132 hours with firearms. Although the program isn’t mandatory, college and university presidents have the power to appoint their school guardians.

“Sadly but undeniably, institutions of learning have become targets of violence in our state and other states,” Senate sponsor Don Gaetz, a Republican from Crestview, said in a written statement.

“As parents and grandparents, we want our students to be safe and secure when they are on campus. This legislation ensures our institutions will use commonsense safeguards as well as high-tech systems to prevent violence where possible and respond quickly and effectively when needed.”

The measure comes 13 months after 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner shot to death two and wounded five others outside FSU’s busy Student Union in the middle of final exams. Police shot him in the jaw three minutes after he opened fire, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Despite the speedy response from law enforcement, lawmakers agreed new reinforcements were needed. This included funding for more locks on classroom doors — after some students reported that they couldn’t lock themselves away from the shooter — and increased security measures.

Other provisions in the package signed Friday include:

  • Makes it a second-degree felony to fire a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school.
  • Promotes the use of a mobile suspicious activity reporting tool, like FortifyFL, to quickly alert law enforcement to dangerous circumstances.
  • Requires a student’s threat assessment reports and psychological evaluations to be transferred from a K-12 school to their college or university upon enrollment.
  • Mandates schools create family reunification plans, active assailant response plans, and threat-management teams.
  • Requires schools to annually conduct security risk assessments.
  • Increases training for faculty and staff to identify and respond to mental health problems.
  • Further connects students with mental health services.

Good Guy with Gun Helped Stop Cambridge Shooter

A former Marine “who was legally carrying a gun” helped Massachusetts State Police stop and apprehend a man shooting at cars in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Monday, according to Police1.

Breitbart News reported that the alleged attacker, 46-year-old Tyler Brown, opened fire on cars on Cambridge’s Memorial Drive around 1:30 p.m. CBS News noted that Brown was allegedly shooting at “passing cars” before being shot numerous times by a Massachusetts State Trooper.

On Tuesday, WHAS 11 pointed out that the officer did not act alone. They noted, “A State Trooper and a Marine veteran were nearby, jumping into action and shooting the suspect.”

NBC 10 observed that a witness said the former Marine came to her car at some point during the ordeal and shielded her so she could escape.

The witness said, “A man came, went around his car and pulled open my car door and made like a barricade. He had a gun and he told me to run, and I ran and then I just ran as fast as I could.”

Two individuals suffered life-threatening wounds from Monday’s attack.