Category: Safety

karol markowicz with SBR

How I became a gun person

It was Shani Louk’s mangled body that was keeping me from sleeping. She had been beautiful and bright, a real person, having a good time on a warm night. Then she was dead, her body mistreated, the girl gone. She could have been me. I used to dance all night at festivals under the stars too. She could be my daughter, in a few years, heading to a field to hear the music.

Or it was the Bibas family. I also have redheaded children. That could be me clutching my ginger boys, distraught, afraid, missing.

The days and months after October 7th caused sleeplessness like I had not experienced before. Wide eyed, middle of the night, a stress knot in my chest, a tightness I had never known.

When the panic of the first few days subsided, my sleeplessness took on a new pattern. It wasn’t fear or despair anymore. It was anger. “How could they have been so defenseless,” I’d ask myself in the dark, sick with the knowledge that our family would have been just as helpless as any family that day. They were me, I was them.

Inbar Lieberman was a name I’d come to repeat to myself. Inbar was 25 years old on October 7th and head of security at Nir-Am, a kibbutz near the Gaza border. On that day, Lieberman heard explosions nearby and ran to unlock the armory. Her quick thinking, but also specifically her weaponry, saved her kibbutz. Nir-Am suffered no losses that day.

I had long been a supporter of the Second Amendment but it had been entirely theoretical. I was born in the Soviet Union, came to the United States as a small child and embraced everything it meant to be American. You should absolutely have the right to own a gun. We are a free country of free men. The only way to maintain that freedom, as history has shown so often, is to be armed. I fully believed this. But growing up in Brooklyn meant I didn’t know anyone who actually exercised this right. If something happened, you were meant to call for help and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, I had the opportunity to test this call for help. In the last five years, my public image has increased and I have received several threats. I had gone to the police in Brooklyn for one explicit death threat, texted to my phone, but was told there wasn’t much they could do. I had walked into the police precinct ready to spend some time there, give a statement, help with clues. I was outside five minutes later. They didn’t even take down my information. No one was coming to save me.

When our family moved to Florida three years ago, I planned to get more serious about shooting and eventual gun ownership. But we got comfortable in Florida quickly. We felt secure and safe. My husband and I meant to go learn to shoot but never quite got around to it. Everything was so peaceful, it was hard to motivate towards owning guns. October 7th was the reminder: Peace ends quickly.

I knew Jews were changing on guns even before the 7th, I had written about it. But I myself had not changed yet. I had shot a gun only once before, four years prior, on my friend Will Cain’s property in Texas. He had shown me how to hold his shotgun correctly, that it wasn’t a bazooka to rest on top of my shoulder. It was fun but I had seen it as an outdoorsy activity like fishing or golfing. Thinking about shooting as a mechanism for saving our lives is a different sensation.

By October 13th, we were at the gun range. A girl walked out of the shooting area with a huge Star of David necklace and a Chanel bag. My people had gotten the message loud and clear.

In my Florida conservative media world, it was easy to get a better understanding of guns. Buck Sexton and his brother Mason took me to an outdoor course to practice with a variety of weapons. John Cardillo took us gun shopping for the first time and introduced us to the owner of an excellent gun store. Our “gun guy,” Manny, is mild mannered and an extremely polite gentleman. He could be your accountant but he sells the finest weaponry and shoots machine guns with a smile on the weekends. His calm and patient demeanor was helpful when we tried to figure out what we needed. He understands that we are afraid. He has seen a serious uptick in Jewish customers since the 7th.

Manny’s explanations are rational. He isn’t a loose cannon. He told us if you have the option to get away from a confrontation, that is always best. If you can not, you must be ready. He is blunt. He says things like “your handgun is there to get you to your real gun.” We internalized all of his advice. We have guns now, plural.

Once you become a gun owner, so many wrong ideas around guns come into clear focus. “Gun free zones” were always kind of funny, a bad guy will obviously ignore a sign as quickly as he will any number of laws, but they become absurd when you know the only time you’re going to know a good guy is carrying in a gun-free zone is when you’re thanking him. Or the idea that some guns should be illegal. None of the data on banning certain guns makes sense. Most gun deaths happen with handguns and over half of those are suicides. No one is taking my AR-15 because they want to “do something” about guns. And anyway, that gun was lost in a boating accident.

The gun owners we know take training very seriously and so do we. A gun is not a purchase you make and then stick in a drawer for a rainy day. Much like driving a car, learning how to shoot a gun takes practice and requires muscle memory. Unlike driving, a regular activity you do on good days and bad days, if the day ever comes that you will need to use your gun, it will likely be the worst, most stressful day of your life. The idea behind training is to get to a point where your muscle memory will take over, in chaos and fear, and you will know exactly what to do should it ever be required.

The more you train the less the whole thing feels like a joke. It stops being “tee-hee, I own a gun” and becomes a far more practical thing that you just do. How will you carry it? What feels comfortable? This gun or that gun.

“I thought you felt safe in Florida. Why have guns?” a visiting friend from Israel asked us. We do feel safe in Florida, especially as we watch the eruptions of Jew hatred in our old city. But the idea that New York City could become a hotbed of Jew-hatred was once far-fetched too. It’s exactly the “it could never happen here” feeling that has lulled so many Jews before me into complacency. We have not just been killed by our enemies in places like Israel. We’ve been killed by friends and neighbors, in Spain, in Poland and so on. Our guns say: not us, not this time.

There is no reason for a Jew not to be armed in 2024. So much of Jewish culture revolves around being the helper. We expect people to help those in trouble. We count on armed people to step in. When the call comes “someone should do something!” we don’t plan to wait around. That someone will be us.

“We aren’t ‘gun-people,’” some people say. There’s some pride in it. Who, me? Oh no, I don’t own guns, I’m not that kind of person. But unsaid is that the not-a-gun-person expects someone else with a gun to come and protect them at just the right moment. They count on police, security, military to come and help in a real crisis. The not-a-gun-person can never step up and stop a violent attack on someone, they can never protect others, can never be the hero themselves. They can save themselves, maybe, but they’ll never be the one that everyone turns to at a time of emergency. There’s something intrinsically anti-Jewish about this. We have an obligation to each other but the anti-gun Jew can’t meet it. That should be a source of shame not pride. You’re not just a not-a-gun-person. You’re a can’t-help person.

What I want is for my kids to say something else. Yes, we are gun people, actually. I want my kids to grow up shooting, to be good at it, to be comfortable with it, to know their role is not to wait for someone else. We’ll also deter. We send the most peace-bringing message of all: We own guns, we train with guns, we have an arsenal, you do not want it with us. We will help others, we will be the people that step in.

Dylan Sprouse ‘Tackles’ Trespasser and ‘Holds Him at Gunpoint’ After Wife Barbara Palvin Spotted ‘Creepy Guy’ at $2 Million Property

Actor Dylan Sprouse reportedly tackled an intruder and held him at gunpoint after the man allegedly broke into the $2 million Hollywood Hills property the “Suite Life” star shares with wife Barbara Palvin.

Law enforcement officials received a call from “Victoria’s Secret” model Palvin, 32, at around 12:30 a.m. on April 17, according to the Los Angeles Times, which reports that the fashion star told authorities she had seen a “creepy guy” outside of their Los Angeles home.

Palvin is understood to have reported the incident as a potential robbery.

Although the police have released little information about the circumstances of the arrest, unnamed sources told TMZ that Sprouse, 33, had tackled the trespasser and then held him at gunpoint until the police arrived and took him into custody.

The unnamed suspect is not thought to have entered the couple’s home.

Police told the outlet that the suspect was taken into custody and there were no injuries.

Neither Sprouse nor Palvin has publicly commented on the invasion, which, according to TMZ, is not the first time someone has tried to gain access to the couple’s home.

Law enforcement sources told the outlet that “the situation was more like trespassing than a full-blown attempted burglary.” However, no further details about any potential charges have been shared.

Continue reading “”

The Most Important Lesson of the Iran War Is to Buy Guns and Ammo

It’s remarkable how the real world always illustrates the Founders’ wisdom, graphically and undeniably. Take the current situation in Iran. It’s a country with a great history, full of intelligent people run by a bunch of backward, semi-human savages with a ridiculous apocalyptic theology that is so brutal it killed 30,000 or so of its own people a few months ago just to stay in power.

And now it’s still in power, at least over its own people, despite the United States and Israel righteously devastating its conventional military capabilities. You can sync its navy, shoot down its Air Force, and smash its missiles; the power on the ground requires contending power on the ground. Our glorious alliance with Israel – suck on that podcast dorks – cannot kill every goat molester with an AK-47 and a conviction that the more he murders, the more virgins he gets.

That job belongs to the people of Iran, and unfortunately, they don’t have the tools to do it. They are disarmed, and therefore, they are serfs, not citizens, much like the English and Australians. In Iran, the answer to the problem of securing freedom and justice is the same as it is here in America and everywhere else:

Guns.

Guns are freedom. Guns are liberty. Guns are the last bulwark – a real one, not one that enjoys watching the pool boy cavort with his wife – of freedom. Of course, it’s not actually guns that secure freedom. It’s violence. Some dumb people will tell you violence never solves anything.

The only people who can tell you violence never solves anything are people for whom the problem of violence has been solved by other people who know what the hell they’re talking about and who use violence to solve the problem of violence.

Continue reading “”

Elitist Chicago Doc: Average Citizens Don’t Need Armed Self-Defense Because the Poor ‘Don’t Benefit’ From Guns

Dr. Anthony Douglas, the smug University of Chicago trauma resident and arrogant mastermind behind Illinois’ Responsibility in Firearms Legislation (RIFL) Act, stepped up in a legislative hearing last week and belched up a heaping helping of elitist bile blended with a soupçon clinical detachment: “I think poor people don’t benefit from owning firearms,” he pronounced.

What the little people need, the good doctor says, is more “education and resources.” Translation: more tax dollars funneled to “non-profits” with little to no return on the taxpayers’ investment.

Besides, the physician and gun-control researcher claims it isn’t good guys or gals with guns who stop evil predators…all evidence to the contrary. As such, it really should be harder for the poors to get their hands on firearms to defend themselves and their families.

His solution, then, is pricing guns out of reach of law-abiding, responsible citizens who lack bodyguards, private security details, or live in gated enclaves. In Murder City, USA—Chicago—where gang thugs roam free, that’s not social policy, that’s sadistic malpractice.

Was this clown high? Does he have a full punchcard at the local dispensary? Because this delusional drivel sounds like it was baked in a dorm room cloud of weed.

Let’s drag his elitist fantasy out into the reality that is Chicago, the city that’s been mercilessly documented by Wirepoints.org through FOIA records from the Chicago Police Department itself.

High-priority 911 calls—Priority Level 1 and 2, the ones defined as “imminent threat to life, bodily injury, or major property damage”—are the exact emergencies Chicagoans face every day: shots fired, person shot, assault in progress, armed robbery, domestic battery. In 2019, before the progressive crime wave fully metastasized, 19% of those urgent calls had “no officers available” for immediate response.

By 2021, Wirepoints found that number had exploded to 52%—406,829 high-priority incidents in which dispatchers literally had zero cops to send. In 2022 it hit roughly 60%.

Through all of 2023, 56% of high-priority calls—437,000 of them—sat in backlog with no units available. Even in 2024, through mid-May, getting a response was still a coin-flip 50%: 127,000 out of 256,000 urgent calls in which nobody came.

That’s not “delayed,” that’s “we have no police available to send to you.”

Wirepoints documented thousands of “assaults in progress,” “batteries in progress,” “person with a gun,” and “shots fired” calls where callers were told to shelter in place while the city’s response system collapsed. In some districts, entire shifts passed with zero proactive patrol time because every available cop was already buried in backlogs that stretched 30 minutes, an hour, sometimes as long as four hours. Chicago’s own inspector general has long since confirmed the department can’t even log arrival times for huge chunks of emergency calls.

So Dr. Douglas’s prescription isn’t compassion, it’s pure, venomous elitist contempt. He (allegedly) stares at blood-soaked gurneys every shift, but still demands that we disarm the victims instead of the criminals—or fix the catastrophic policies that left over half of emergency calls with “no units available.” He wants to tax gun makers into oblivion so that self-defense becomes a rich man’s luxury that only hypocrites like him can afford.

Spare us the sanctimonious impacted fecal matter, Doctor. The poor in Chicago aren’t sipping lattes in faculty lounges debating “resources.” They’re barricading their doors and praying they make it to and from work safely and survive day to day while the failed system in which you have so much faith leaves them twisting in the wind.

They have and need the same constitutional right to armed self-defense that you take for granted from the comfort of your bubble. In the real Chicago, where cops aren’t available to show up half the time, that arrogance and contempt leaves innocent people to be victimized and slaughtered.

The Center Square has the full testimony. Read it and seethe . . .

A proposed bill gun owners say will price lower income buyers out of the market continues to get attention at the Illinois state capitol.

Opponents of House Bill 3320 estimate the Responsibility in Firearms Legislation, or RIFL Act could tack on thousands of dollars in taxes to one firearm purchase, and that would price lower income people out of exercising their Second Amendment rights.

Advocates for the bill, like Dr. Anthony Douglas, said there’d be minimal added cost.

“I think poor people don’t benefit from owning firearms,” Douglas said during a House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force subject matter hearing of the bill Wednesday. “I think more people benefit from access to education, access to resources.”

State Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Harrisburg, said that’s an elitist opinion and people of lesser means want to be able to protect themselves.

“The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States guarantees that to them,” Windhorst said. “And it’s really not our place to say, ‘well, we think you’re better off not having this thing,’ which is the tone of this committee.”

BLUF
The Second Amendment’s purpose is to ensure that people can meaningfully defend their natural and unalienable rights, including the right to life. No policymaker can claim to take this protection seriously while, in practice, proudly limiting victims to a 3-inch knife in a gunfight.

Gun Control Advocates to Victims: Just Bring a Knife to the Gunfight.

Last month, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., a gunman opened fire in a classroom full of ROTC cadets. He killed the ROTC instructor and injured two others before several cadets subdued him — with one cadet using a knife to stab him to death.

To rational people, the shooting clearly evidenced the combined failure of gun control and soft-on-crime policies to protect innocent victims. The perpetrator, who’d been convicted of terrorism charges in 2016, was supposed to be serving an 11-year prison sentence but had been released early under a drug treatment program for which he was supposed to be ineligible. He’d then simply ignored the state’s laws regarding gun possession by felons, background checks, and carrying guns on college campuses, all on his way to ignoring laws prohibiting murder and acts of terrorism.

The responses from many anti-gun public officials were telling: in their view, the attack on disarmed college students clearly evidenced a need to further restrict the right of innocent victims to keep and bear arms in self-defense —and suggested that armed self-defense isn’t that important in the first place.  After all, as one Virginia Democrat insinuated, if the cadets at Old Dominion could subdue their assailant without a gun, why can’t you?

All of it missed the point entirely.

Despite what gun control advocates would have you believe, the right to keep and bear arms plays a vital role in public safety. Americans use their firearms to defend themselves and others far more often than many people realize. Even the notoriously anti-gun Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has acknowledged that most studies on the issue find that between 500,000 and several million defensive gun uses occur every year in the United States. An extensive 2021 national survey conducted by a Georgetown professor further substantiated this reality, concluding that Americans used their firearms defensively an average of 1.2 million times a year.

Continue reading “”

Gun rights are women’s rights

In 1991, Suzanna Gratia Hupp was having lunch in a crowded cafeteria and had to watch as a gunman executed victims one by one, including her own parents. She reached for her purse to grab her revolver, only to realize it was sitting outside in her car — she’d left it behind to obey Texas gun laws. In her testimony, she later wrote, “The only thing the gun laws did that day was prevent good people from protecting themselves.” If Hupp had been armed, she might have been able to stop George Hennard, who murdered twenty-three people.

In cases like Suzanna’s, it’s easy to see how a gun could be necessary to defend against an armed assailant. However, living in Claremont, California, we rarely think about needing a gun on college campuses. Locked dorms, campus security and tight-knit communities make us feel safe. But that safety won’t extend beyond graduation. Outside the shelter of a college campus, Hupp needed protection and didn’t have it. While anyone could have been in her position, her experience highlights the necessity of access to and training with a firearm. When Hennard opened fire, a defensive gun could have drastically changed the situation. Without one, Suzanna could do nothing but try to escape.

While anyone may need a gun to protect themselves after undergraduate life, women are especially in need of such protection because of our physical weakness when compared to men. Men are, on average, physically stronger than women. Biological differences in muscle mass, bone density and testosterone levels consistently result in greater strength among men. Research shows that even untrained men are stronger than athletically trained women. As a wrestler and judoka, I’ve had a lot of experience with these differences. While I’ve had wrestling wins against boys, almost every male in my same weight class has been stronger than me.

Competing against men in wrestling and judo is difficult, but the stakes are much higher in the real world, where there aren’t any rules to the game.

Gun rights are women’s rights because they provide a means for women to defend themselves in a world of physical inequality. I might be able to throw a man in judo while under strict guidelines, but out on the street, there’s no gi to grip, and he may have a punch that I can’t defend against.

Women need access to guns to even the playing field when faced with physically stronger assailants. Consider the 57-year-old woman living in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, who was raped by Ronnie Preyer in October 2008. When this registered sex offender came back five days later to assault her a second time, she used a 12-gauge shotgun to kill him in self-defense. Take Melinda Herman, a Georgian wife and mother who protected her nine-year-old twins while her husband was at work, when Paul Slater, a thirty-two-year-old with an extensive criminal history, broke into her house with a crowbar. She shot him, saving her life and the lives of her children. Similarly, in Richmond, California, eighty-four-year-old Gustava Harvey fired a .38 caliber revolver when an intruder kicked down her door; the gunfire alone caused him to flee.

A gun neutralizes physical strength differences — what matters is not size, but the ability to act. There are numerous accounts of women of all ages protecting themselves, their children and their homes through the use of guns. Without a gun, these stories could have ended very differently. Without a weapon, women are forced to rely on physical strength they do not have; with a gun, they gain the immediate and equal capacity to defend themselves.

Many advocates for gun control believe that more guns inherently increase crime, suggesting that increasing gun ownership among women would be associated with more overall crime. However, there is little evidence to suggest that this would be the case. Women are significantly less likely than men to commit violent crimes overall. Men commit roughly 75-80 percent of violent crime and about 88-90 percent of homicides.

Furthermore, the “guns cause crime” view ignores evidence that firearms are also used defensively, often preventing crimes before they escalate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that defensive use of guns is at least as common as offensive use by criminals, and an estimated 500,000 to more than 3 million defensive gun uses occur annually. Defensive gun use, whether through firing or simply brandishing, can deter attackers and stop violence in real time — exactly the way women are most likely to use guns.

Gun control advocates also often argue that if no one had guns, violence during crime would decrease and women would be safer. However, this ignores the reality that certain types of violent crime can worsen in countries with strict gun control. Burglars in the United States are far less likely to target occupied homes than burglars in the United Kingdom.

Research suggests that this is largely due to fear of encountering an armed resident. In the United States, only 13 percent of burglaries occur when people are home, while in England and Wales, this number is 59 percent. Removing guns does not remove violence, and even in countries where guns are strictly regulated, women remain disproportionately victims of physical and sexual violence. Removing guns eliminates one of the few tools women have to effectively resist violence.

Ultimately, guns provide women with a practical and immediate means of self-defense against physically stronger male attackers. The defensive use of firearms can deter crime, interrupt attacks and reduce the likelihood of victimization. Women are statistically less likely to commit violence and are well-positioned to use firearms responsibly for protection.

With 52 percent of women in the United States being single and 56.8 percent of women working in the labor force, women are exercising their independence in an age of increased equality. Thus, being able to protect oneself through self-defense is a condition for equality. As many women at the 7Cs prepare for their careers in the outside world, they must consider how to protect their homes and livelihoods from threats. As Andrea Dworkin wrote, “women have the right to fight back.” I am a woman, and I neither want to be victimized by men or subordinate myself to men for protection. Feminism must include the right to self-defense, and that means supporting women’s access to firearms.

Grace Rutherford PO ’28 believes in the right to protect herself from imminent danger.

Hysteria Reigns Following Hegseth’s Announcement

When I was in the Navy, I lived on base but, like most service members, my social life was off base. At Portsmouth Naval Hospital, at least when I was stationed there, going out the main gate led to a plethora of options. Straight ahead took you toward the bulk of the city. Turning left took you to an old part of the town with historic buildings and one really great pub, among other things. Hang a right, though, and you’d best have your next of kin on standby.

I didn’t have a gun back then, and I kind of wish I did, but with living on base, it wasn’t really much of an option. There were ways to own one, but to carry it anywhere? Forget it.

Later, I worked at Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany as a contractor. I had to drive through some sketchy areas, but carrying a gun to and from work wasn’t an option. I just had to pray that I wouldn’t be one of those unfortunate souls whose luck ran out. Thankfully, I wasn’t, but it was dumb that I had no other options.

Now, things have changed following Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s announcement on Thursday that bases were no longer gun-free zones.

Unsurprisingly, though, some people are having absolute hysterics about it.

“Troops can now request to carry their own personal firearms on base for personal protection, without having to explain why they need to protect themselves on base,” wrote Reuters chief national security correspondent Phil Stewart.

“If someone is not safe on a military base with armed guards, fences, walls, a personal police force, everyone who comes on base has their id checked, needs a sponsor if non military then we are truly screwed as a country,” wrote California congressional candidate Eric Garcia.

“Hegseth is telling us here that God gave us our legal rights as Americans including gun rights,” wrote USC Center on Communication Leadership and Policy senior fellow Barbara Starr. “He might be interested in some of the military concerns about the relationship between having personal weapons on base and suicide rates.”

“Obsessed with every culture war issue while an actual war is stalled out overseas and his boss just gave a complete belly-flop of a speech on it,” wrote The Atlantic staff writer and former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols.

I swear, it seems Nichols gets more insufferable as the days go by.

Continue reading “”

‘Gun Free’ Zones Herd Citizens Into Physical and Legal Danger.

Never mind the homelessness, drug use, and routine violence … according to Empire State politicians, New York City’s transit system is a “sensitive place.” As such, law-abiding gun owners are not allowed to carry a firearm for self-defense on trains or buses or in subway or train stations – lest they impose some semblance of order on the anarchic scene.

In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s discretionary carry licensing regime and made clear that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry outside the home for self-defense. In their opinion, the Court acknowledged that carry may be barred at some “sensitive places,” citing “schools and government buildings,” specifically, “legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses.”

Of course, whether banning firearms in these locations is sound policy is another matter. It’s NRA-ILA’s position that government can demonstrate a location is in fact a “sensitive place” by providing weapons screening at all ingress points and armed security to protect those inside.

Needless to say, none of the Court’s enumerated “places” was akin to public transit. And only a delinquent government, like New York’s, allows a city’s subway system to deteriorate into a place for vagrants to domicile and soil with human excrement, while citizens just trying to reach their destinations fear for their health and safety.

Despite the Court’s command, in the wake of the Bruen case an intransigent New York set about prohibiting firearms in all manner of what the state dubiously defined as “sensitive locations.”

Continue reading “”

Cleared in Self-Defense, Charged for Carrying: Michigan Case Shows Why ‘Sensitive Places’ Fail

A licensed concealed carry holder in Michigan is now facing punishment not because prosecutors say he committed a crime in his defensive gun use, but because the state says he was armed in the wrong place when he needed that gun the most. That is exactly why so-called “sensitive places” laws remain one of the most dangerous and constitutionally suspect fronts in the post-Bruen Second Amendment fight.

According to Fox 2 Detroit’s reporting, Genesee County prosecutors determined that 23-year-old Christopher Gill acted in lawful self-defense after being attacked inside a restroom at Ballenger Fieldhouse on the campus of Mott Community College during a day of basketball games. Prosecutors say Gill was confronted by a group, restrained, and punched several times. During the assault, Gill managed to reach into his hoodie pocket, where he had a handgun, and fired one shot through the hoodie, striking Malik Zamir Henderson. Prosecutor David Leyton ruled the shooting was lawful self-defense.

Henderson was charged with gang membership, assault with intent to rob while unarmed, and assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder. Gill, by contrast, was not charged over the shooting itself. Instead, he was charged with carrying a concealed handgun in a sports arena, a Michigan law lists a “sports arena or stadium” among the places where a concealed pistol license holder may not carry concealed. For a first offense, Michigan law provides for a civil infraction, a fine of up to $500, and a six-month license suspension; state guidance also says the pistol is subject to immediate seizure if carried concealed in a prohibited area.

That split outcome should get the attention of every gun owner in America. The government’s position here is effectively this: yes, you were lawfully defending yourself against a violent assault, but you still should not have been armed when the attack happened because the legislature had already declared that location a “sensitive place.” That insane theory collapses the moment it meets real life. The danger to Gill did not disappear because he was inside an athletic facility. The criminal assault did not stop because the law supposedly made the venue special.

Continue reading “”

When a ‘Common Sense’ Gun Control Measure Depends on the Fantasy of Competent Government.

In a stunning admission, a Los Angeles County Superior Court has revealed that it failed to report hundreds of thousands of criminal case outcomes to the California Department of Justice—including roughly 147,000 felony convictions.

Let that sink in.

For four decades, criminal records simply weren’t entered into the background check system.

  • No alerts
  • No safeguards
  • No accountability

Just a broken government system quietly failing while politicians demanded…more gun control.

A System That Only Works If Everything Goes Right

Here’s the part they don’t want to talk about…the entire background check system depends on perfect data entry, flawless coordination, and bureaucratic competence at every level of government. And as this case proves—that’s a fantasy.

Because when records aren’t reported:

  • Felons slip through the cracks
  • Background checks return incomplete or inaccurate results
  • And the system politicians claim “keeps us safe” simply doesn’t work

Even federal officials admit the system only functions if it receives “complete, accurate, and timely information” from thousands of agencies nationwide. Clearly, that’s not happening.

The History They Don’t Want You to Know

The federal background check system—known as NICS—was created by the Brady Act in 1993 and went live in 1998.

Since then:

  • Hundreds of millions of background checks have been run.
  • Millions of Americans have been delayed or denied.
  • Tthe system still relies on error-prone government databases.

In fact:

  • Only about 1% of transactions are denied.
  • Many denials are later overturned on appeal.
  • Tens of thousands of justified denials occur each year, but only a tiny fraction are ever prosecuted.

So let’s be clear…this system overwhelmingly burdens law-abiding citizens while failing to consistently stop criminals.

The Real Purpose: A Backdoor Gun Registry

Continue reading “”

Arizona Moves Forward With K-12 Firearm Safety Education Bill

Arizona Senate Bill 1424 has passed the Senate and has passed the House Education Committee and the House Rules Committee. The bill requires school districts and charter schools to provide age-appropriate firearm safety awareness training in all grades, kindergarten through 12th grade.

The instruction is to be objective and not promote firearms ownership or any political position. The instruction is to be limited to accident prevention and personal safety awareness. It is to include guidance on safe firearms storage in homes and vehicles. The instruction is to provide guidance on what to do if a firearm is encountered, including not touching it and notifying an adult.

Inside the bill, there is a long list of restrictions on six things that may not be included in the instruction:

 3. NOT INCLUDE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

(a) A LIVE FIREARM.

(b) AMMUNITION OR SIMULATED AMMUNITION.

(c) A DEMONSTRATION THAT INVOLVES HANDLING, OPERATING, LOADING, UNLOADING OR FIRING A FIREARM.

(d) INSTRUCTION THAT IS INTENDED TO TRAIN STUDENTS IN THE USE OF FIREARMS.

(e) A MORAL JUDGMENT REGARDING LAWFUL FIREARM POSSESSION.

(f) AN INQUIRY, SURVEY OR REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ABOUT WHETHER A STUDENT, STUDENT’S PARENT OR MEMBER OF THE STUDENT’S HOUSEHOLD OWNS, POSSESSES OR MAY POSSESS A FIREARM OR ABOUT THE FIREARMS STORAGE PRACTICES OF A STUDENT, STUDENT’S PARENT OR MEMBER OF THE STUDENT’S HOUSEHOLD.

The Arizona Citizens Defense League (AZCDL) supports the legislation.

An advocate for gun storage legislation made the argument that the legislature should pass a bill requiring safe storage of guns instead.  The SB 1424 is considered a partisan bill, supported mostly by Republicans, according to Legiscan.

Fatal firearms accidents have declined greatly since the 1930’s high mark. The number of firearms per person has increased about 3X during that period.

Firearms are among the many hazards children encounter as they grow up. Education, not prohibition, is the surest answer to their safety.

The bill has passed the Arizona legislature, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans. Republicans have a 17-13 advantage in the Senate and a 33-27 advantage in the House. SB 1424 might avoid a veto from Governor Hobbs (D), but it seems unlikely. Governor Katie Hobbs has earned a reputation for the number of vetoes she has given. Governor Hobbs is facing serious re-election challenges. She might sign SB 1424 to claim she is not against rights protected by the Second Amendment.

SB 1424 severely restricts what may be taught to students. This may be necessary to secure passage in a legislature with a very small Republican majority.

The bill is a step toward greater understanding of firearms safety. It makes students more aware of firearms. It has the advantage of not being overtly against the ownership or use of firearms. As “age-appropriate” instruction on firearms safety, later grade levels might include information about the legal status of firearms in Arizona. It is difficult for people to obey the law if they do not know what the law is. Firearms are among the many potentially hazardous items children encounter as they grow up.

It is far better to gun-proof the child than to attempt to create a gun-free environment.

What Are Automated License Plate Readers and Why Are People Worried? ALPRs are AI-powered cameras that automatically track specific cars, and there’s growing backlash against them.

  • Automated License Plate Readers, known as LPRs, are a growing technology used in thousands of communities around the country, though backlash against them is growing.
  • ALPRs are AI-powered cameras used to automatically track specific cars using identifiers like plate numbers, bumper stickers, roof racks, and more.
  • Flock Safety, which is perhaps the most prominent player in the space, has been under considerable pressure over data-sharing concerns.

If you’ve noticed a growing number of little black traffic cameras in your area and wondered what the deal was, we’re here to explain what they are and why they’ve become so contentious. The cameras themselves are known as Automated License Plate Readers, or ALPRs. While there are several ALPR vendors, the most prominent by far is Flock Safety, which sells to more than 5000 law enforcement agencies and more than 1000 private companies, such as HOAs.

License plate readers themselves are nothing new; law enforcement agencies have used them for years, but the more recent emergence of AI-powered cameras is an escalation. That’s because, along with reading license plate numbers, Flock’s cameras record identifiers such as the make, model, and color of every car they see. The cameras can also use things such as a roof rack, bumper stickers, or prominent dents to identify unique vehicles.

While that incredible surveillance power may be enticing to some (namely, law enforcement agencies), pushback from communities concerned about a growing surveillance state is equally passionate. Flock Safety reports that its cameras are used in thousands of towns and cities, but in recent months, there has been significant pushback from communities concerned over privacy infringements and how the ALPRs are being used in connection with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests.

An NPR story from February detailed how easy it can be for data collected by Flock to be widely shared. Flock maintains that cities control their sharing settings. “Each Flock customer has sole authority over if, when, and with whom information is shared,” the company told NPR. But that doesn’t seem to be the case in reality, with leaders from several cities citing data sharing as a reason for reducing or ending partnerships with Flock.

According to a recent article in the Financial Times, 53 cities in 20 states have either deactivated Flock cameras or rejected bids to use them. The pushback from local authorities is rising, with 38 of those rejections occurring in the past six months.

Despite the pushback from communities, law enforcement agencies have defended Flock. According to the FT, one police department in Texas searched for data from more than 103,000 devices in Flock’s network as part of a homicide investigation. “We’ve been able to solve hundreds, if not thousands, of crimes that otherwise would remain unsolved if it wasn’t for the LPR technology,” a former police chief in Georgia told the outlet.

The FT article points out that privacy activists contest that claim, arguing that there is no independent research proving ALPRs can reduce crime.

BLUF
Honest discussion requires acknowledging the data on who commits these attacks rather than filtering it through political narratives about which threats are acceptable to discuss.
If policymakers and the public want effective prevention, they must start with a clear-eyed assessment of the risks rather than with wishful thinking.

The Terror Threat Americans Aren’t Supposed To Discuss

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

Many commentators claim that Islam does not pose a threat of violence in the United States. Influencers such as Tucker Carlson often repeat this argument. Others, including then-President Joe Biden and FBI Director Christopher Wray, have argued that white supremacists represent the primary domestic threat.

Yet March alone saw multiple terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. In Austin, a terrorist wore a sweatshirt reading “Property of Allah” during an attack. In New York City, bomb throwers shouted “Allahu Akbar” while throwing a homemade shrapnel bomb. At Old Dominion University, a shooter also yelled “Allahu Akbar” and had previously been convicted of supporting ISIS. Another attacker, whose brother was a Hezbollah terrorist commander, targeted Temple Israel in Michigan, and yet another attack, involving three men of Iraqi origin, targeted the U.S. embassy in Norway. The Austin, Old Dominion, and New York City bombers and the Michigan synagogue attackers were also all foreign-born individuals who were naturalized U.S. citizens.

Terrorist attacks take many forms. For example, the January 2025 truck attack in New Orleans, with an ISIS flag on the truck, left 14 people dead and 47 injured. But let’s focus the discussion on one type of attack that has been extensively studied: mass public shootings. Researchers define a mass public shooting as an attack in which a perpetrator kills four or more people at one time in a public place, excluding crimes such as gang fights or robberies.

Looking at all mass public shootings from 1998 through 2025 reveals several patterns. Muslims commit these crimes at a disproportionate rate. White males commit them at a rate below their share of the population. And most shooters express no clear political ideology.

Continue reading “”

FBI Warns California That Retaliation From Iran May Be on the Way.

Iran has already retaliated with drone strikes across parts of the Middle East. Apparently, the plan for California was already in place, even before the U.S. and Israel launched their initial strikes against Iran on February 28.

Neither the FBI nor the White House has issued a comment on the matter.

ABC claims to have read the alert sent out. It says in part:

We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran. We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.

The New York Post describes it as an “army of drones” that could be launched from a vessel off the West Coast of the United States. The post also suggests that California is home to about half a million Iranian dissidents, the largest number of any state in the U.S., but it’s not clear if that’s why it was targeted specifically.

On Wednesday, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he was concerned about Iranian attacks on American soil. He said, “No, I am not.”

The Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security has said Iran and its proxies could pose a threat through targeted attacks on the US, but a large-scale attack was highly unlikely.

ABC also points out that the Mexican cartels’ use of drones at the U.S.-Mexico border has become an increasing concern for the federal government in recent months.

John Cohen, the former head of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security, told ABC that he’s concerned about drone attacks from both the West Coast and the border. “We know Iran has an extensive presence in Mexico and South America, they have relationships, they have the drones and now they have the incentive to conduct attacks,” he said. “The FBI is smart for putting this warning out so that state and locals can be better able to prepare and respond to these types of threats. Information like this is critically important for law enforcement.”

This is a developing story. 

Women in South Africa take up guns and martial arts for protection against gender violence

BRONKHORSTSPRUIT, South Africa (AP) — At the command of a female instructor, a line of girls and women, some wearing pink ear protectors, shoot five rounds at a target with 9 mm pistols as they undergo firearm training at a range in the agricultural town of Bronkhorstspruit just outside South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.

The group, some as young as 13 and others up to 65, are looking for ways to protect themselves in a country where gender-based violence is such a critical problem that it was declared a national disaster by the government in November.

“Check your grip, check your line of sight,” shouts Claire van der Westhuizen, the lead female instructor at Lone Operator shooting range, as women with well-manicured nails reload for another round.

The training course is specifically designed for women and offers practice in real-world scenarios like self-defense firing while lying on their stomachs and backs.

Femicide rates in South Africa are among the highest in the world, according to U.N. Women, the United Nations agency for gender equality. A South African study in 2022 found more than 35% of South African women aged 18 and older had experienced physical or sexual violence at some point. In most cases, the perpetrator was an intimate partner.

Joining ‘a family of support’

Sunette du Toit, a working 51-year-old grandmother, was pushed to take up firearm training after surviving a home invasion by five men who tied her up and ransacked her house, she told The Associated Press.

“I was not in a position to defend myself at that point,” du Toit said. “I had to do this (firearm training) for myself to gain my confidence back to be able to move in public, and even in my own house, without feeling vulnerable.”

She called the women’s firearm training group “a family of support.”

Firearms in South Africa are heavily regulated. Anyone who wants to own a gun for self-defense must be over 21 and pass proficiency tests and background checks.

Various self-defense trainings for women are popping up throughout the country.

“Could Be”? I don’t know what you’d call what happened in Austin anything else.

Be Armed and Ready – the Asymmetrical Battlefield Could Be Here at Home

Asymmetrical warfare means applying the strengths you have against an overwhelming enemy’s weaknesses. The goat sex pest mullahs have been utterly humiliated by America’s and Israel’s overwhelming military superiority in conventional forces, with our airplanes, drones, and other systems traversing their airspace at will after we established total air supremacy. Our ships sail the seas, unthreatened and unchallenged, while most of the Iranian Navy morphs into submarines. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have the capacity to strike back, and that doesn’t mean that we don’t have potential weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. Ours is located in the United States itself, our homeland, where we’re at. It’s already happening on a small scale, with open immigration poster child Ngdiaga Diagne shooting up a bar in Texas for Allah. We’re vulnerable here, and you are potentially on the front line of this war.

Time to be ready. Time to be armed. Time to get some.

What’s our vulnerability? Civilians, normal Americans, who Iranian proxy terrorists could murder in heaps. Until Donald Trump came back, we had four years of wide-open borders where every Third World indigent with shoes and a dream was able to sashay into our country, unimpeded and often subsidized by President Eggplant and his Democrat administration.

We know the Iranians have agents in the United States – that’s open source, and everybody gets The FBI is on full alert, now that it protects American citizens again instead of oppressing them. This is not wolf-crying. The Iranian mullahs tried to murder Donald Trump and others and have caused lots of other mischief outside their borders. Now, the Iranian jihadis are not superstars, and they’re not super-geniuses. They are cunning and relatively competent at times in doing what they do, and what they do best is attack innocent civilians.

As we can see, when they come up against soldiers, they die a lot. Well, there are lots of innocent civilians here in the United States, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the Iranian Republican Guard Corps has infiltrated sleeper cells into the United States. Once activated, they have the potential to go on a murder spree unparalleled in American history, one that would make Saturday night in Chicago look like a picnic with the Muppets.

I wrote about this in my bestselling novel, published not long after October 7, because October 7 is the asymmetrical terrorist mass assault template, called The Attack. The Iranian thugs helped plan and approve the Hamas massacre of innocent Israelis (as well as some Americans), which is more of the reason that they’re getting nothing but what they deserve right now.

The idea behind an asymmetrical strike is simple. You send in minimally trained but maximally indoctrinated killers through the open border, and they wait. They wait in small groups, taking no action until activated. It’s not hard for them to get weapons into the United States, and part of the beauty is that you don’t need complex weapons.

The AK-47 family of assault rifles was designed so that Siberian peasants would have an effective weapon system they could operate, even if they came from a village still baffled by devices such as the wheel. You can buy ammunition in the United States, and magazines, and recently, it was not that hard to ship fully automatic weapons across the border. Until Trump closed it, there was no shortage of cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. The cartels would eagerly assist, for a price paid out of the pallets of cash that Barack Obama and Ben Rhodes dropped on them.

The advantages of this are obvious. Under Biden, nobody was looking for them. We didn’t do any interior enforcement. Now we famously are, and we can only hope that getting Iranian-adjacent illegal aliens out of the country is one of ICE’s top priorities. Of course, neurotic wine women and femboy libs will have a conniption over us deporting these potential terrorists, but we need to do it, no matter how hard they blow their whistles.

Just remember that the killers don’t have to be Iranian. They can be from Chechnya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Turkistan, or some other random -stan. The Iranians aren’t picky about who they work with. Iranians are Shia and Hamas are Sunni, but that didn’t stop them from getting together to murder Christians and Jews. Anybody from the Middle East who’s over here illegally, and some who are here legally, absolutely have the potential of acting for Iran if activated.

We’ve already had jihad murders here, like the Pulse nightclub and San Bernardino shootings. We hear less about them lately because Muslim murderers have had the limelight stolen by trans deviants who’ve gone on killing sprees over their pronoun gripes, but that doesn’t mean they are gone, as totally as real Americans as you and me, Ndiaga Diagnes demonstrated.

The beauty of this scenario for our enemy is that it is a quintessential asymmetrical attack. It takes the weaknesses of the Iranians, like the inability to coordinate forces, lack of logistical and administrative support, the absence of command and control, and paucity of concurrent communications, and turns those into strengths. When those don’t exist, the cells are hard to locate. If you have small groups of fanatics, whose sole purpose is to go to a given location at a given time, and kill everybody they see until they themselves are killed, you don’t need any kind of support.

They are akin to drones – meat drones that their overlords can fire and forget. And since American forces tend to look at the enemy support systems to find weaknesses, which is one of our advantages because we do it so well, you end up neutralizing the American advantage. Americans want to beat the enemy long before there’s an actual gunfight. In this way, against an Iranian enemy, an asymmetrical attack would ensure lots of gunfights, giving Iranian proxies the ability to cause significant casualties where they wouldn’t have the ability to do that otherwise.

In The Attack, thousands of these little cells are activated and strike, murdering scores of Americans before the government is able to form a coordinated response. But, as in reality, in the book, we see what I suspect we would see if the Iranians attempt something like this in real life. What we would see is normal Americans fighting back.

You see, if the homeland becomes a battlefield, we all become soldiers. We have a great counterintelligence team, and the FBI is back to protecting the American people instead of the Democrat elite. Still, they, along with our great law enforcement first responders, can’t be everywhere all the time. We citizens, can. All of us could be face-to-face with the enemy, whether another Ndiaga Diagne at a bar or a bunch of like-minded psychos in a church, a school, a shopping mall, or at a militantly cis-gender hockey game; their goal would be to bring the war to us, and our obligation would be to fight it and win it. But how do normal citizens do that?

You buy guns and ammunition. You train with them. You carry them legally. You get into the mental mindset that bad things can happen, and you need to be ready. Except in the blue states, where they put up hurdles to stop you from defending yourself, your family, your community, and your Constitution. Gavin Hairstyle and his ilk would rather you die than upset the aforementioned neurotic wine women and femboy libs who fear guns and manhood.

This admonition that you must be a warrior too is not some hooah big talk. That’s reality. As everybody knows, except liars and fools, armed citizens have long been able to intervene to stop crimes with their lawfully carried weapons. What we’re talking about here is something even more sinister than some gender goblin with a grudge over his unwanted penis shooting up a preschool; it’s terrorists shooting up everything as part of a plan to commit mass murder as terrorist retaliation against the United States for taking out their pals in Tehran.

You’ve got to be ready. If you can legally carry a weapon on you, you should, and a long weapon in the truck provides you with critical combat options if this goes down. But you should also practice with your guns. And don’t forget the other component of this – medical training and gear to stop the bleeding should you find yourself in the middle of a terrorist attack.

You didn’t ask to be a hero, but you are an American citizen, and that makes you hero-capable. It is your duty as an American citizen to do your best to protect your fellow citizens. If you can fight, you’ve got to be ready within the guardrails of your abilities and the law.

Our great troops are fighting this battle overseas as we speak. There is a non-zero chance we will have to fight this battle in America. Some people will dismiss this warning as silly. Some people will dismiss this as paranoid. They will run when it happens. You need to decide in advance that you won’t.

If it doesn’t come to fruition, that’s more than fine with us. We don’t want a fight, but, dammit, if those b******s start a fight in our home, we need to be ready to finish it.

Suspicion Confirmed; A Lone Wolf Jihadi