Category: Safety

NYC’s Gun-Detecting Subway Scanners Produced Dozens of False Positives, But Found Zero Guns

When embattled New York Mayor Eric Adams announced the trial rollout of gun-detecting machines at about 20 subway stations across the five boroughs earlier this year, he said he was impressed by the results of previous tests and predicted the use of the machines would soon become “the norm” across the subway system.As it turns out, the machines have been a bust. As ABC News reports, the machines failed to detect a single gun, but they did produce dozens of false positives.

Through nearly 3,000 searches, the scanners turned up more than 118 false positives as well as 12 knives, police said, though they declined to say whether the positive hits referred to illegal blades or tools, such as pocket knives, that are allowed in the transit system.

Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat and tech enthusiast, announced plans to pilot the portable scanners, manufactured by Evolv, at a handful of subway stations this past summer in an effort to deter violence within the subway system.

The announcement drew skepticism from some riders and civil liberties groups, who argued it was neither feasible nor constitutional to scan millions of riders who enter the subway system through hundreds of entrances each day. Violent crime is rare in the system, though the announcement came on the back of two high-profile shooting incidents.

After Adams promised for months to make the results of the test public, the New York Police Department released a four-sentence statement Wednesday night noting it had performed 2,749 scans at 20 stations during the 30-day period. In total, there were 118 false positives — a rate of 4.29%.

It’s entirely possible that none of the nearly 3,000 riders who were subject to a scan were carrying a gun. In fact, given that the subway system is supposed to be a “gun-free zone”, and lawful concealed carry holders are still few and far between in the Big Apple more than two years after the Bruen decision, I’d say that’s actually a likely scenario.

But even if Evolv can detect guns that are being carried (an open question, to be sure), it also produces a significant number of false positives. Adams said earlier this year that he wants the Evolv machines to be used at every subway station, and for every rider. According to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which oversees the subway system, there are about 3.6 million riders on weekdays. A 4.29% false positive rate would equate to more than 150,000 false positives every day. That’s utterly insane, and completely unworkable.

The bigger issue, of course, is that New York City’s public transportation shouldn’t be “gun-free zones” to begin with. It’s the primary way millions of New Yorkers navigate the city during the course of their daily routine, and preventing lawful concealed carry on buses and trains means countless residents are unable to lawfully exercise their right to bear arms, even if they have a valid carry permit.

Now that NYC’s subway scanners have proved to a bust, it’s the perfect time for the city to revisit its designation of public transit as a “sensitive place”. I know that won’t happen, but if criminals are still bringing weapons onto trains and buses, the growing number of legally armed citizens should at least be able to do the same without fear of a felony charge and several years in prison.

When Stalled By A Violent Riots, Stationary Vehicles Are Death Traps

“Safe” Inside a Stationary Vehicle?

Two weeks ago, on I90 near Cleveland, OH, the entire freeway was blocked, taken over, and completely shut down for more than an hour by a mob of street thugs who then accosted stalled motorists. No escape was allowed!

Frantic 911 calls from stranded motorists were answered with a voicemail recording!

Many naively believe they are “safe” within a locked vehicle, but auto glass represents only a “symbolic” barrier. It is easily shattered. Thus, when inside a vehicle, your only safety lies in motion! So long as you’re moving, escape from criminal violence is possible.

This is why “street takeovers,” like the one described above, are so dangerous!

When you are inside a vehicle that isn’t moving and blocked in so you can’t move, you are in extreme peril from mobs of street criminals, the very ones who manufacture the street takeover, to begin with, in an effort to trap hapless victims!

When stalled by a violent riot, stationary vehicles are death traps!

When approaching a manufactured traffic jam, turn around as quickly as you can (driving across the median when necessary) and rapidly exit, going the other direction.

We’ll see many of these incidents, mostly around metro areas, in the coming weeks and surely immediately after the election.

Arrests are rarely made, so overwhelmed police have few tactics that are effective in preventing these dangerously obstructive/paralyzing riots. Most will go on for hours, maybe days, with no effective police intervention.

Trapped victims will be at the mercy of violent mobsters, who have little to worry about.

Extreme caution, as well as adequate personal preparation, are the order of the day!

“Caution comes too late when we are in the midst of evils.” ~ Walter Scott.

FPC WIN: Federal Judge Blocks New York Carry Ban

BUFFALO, N.Y. (October 10, 2024) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that the United States District Court for the Western District of New York has granted partial summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs in FPC’s Christian v. James lawsuit, permanently enjoining the state’s law banning guns on all publicly-open private property without express consent of the owner, and denied the state’s request for a stay of that decision. The opinion can be viewed at firearmspolicy.org/boron.

“This is yet another important victory for Second Amendment rights and another major loss for New York, authoritarian governments, and radical anti-rights organizations like Everytown and Giffords. We will continue to fight forward as we work to restore the full scope of the right to keep and bear arms throughout the United States. Hopefully Kathy Hochul is ready to write another check for legal fees,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

Just yesterday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that, after the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, the State “doubled down” on its anti-rights agenda. In a statement yesterday, she said that “[the State] came up with legislation. And we have a prohibition on concealed carry weapons in sensitive places. I personally think every place is sensitive[.]” However, today’s decision again shows that Governor Hochul couldn’t be more wrong.

“Regulation in this area is permissible only if the government demonstrates that the new enactment is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of sufficiently analogous regulations. New York fails that test here,” the Court said in its opinion today. “Indeed, property owners have the right to exclude. But the state may not unilaterally exercise that right and, thereby, interfere with the long-established Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who seek to carry for self-defense on private property open to the public.”

DeSantis Declares No Orders for Closing Gun Stores Ahead of Milton

If Hurricane Helene was all we had to deal with, that would have been plenty for the year. Unfortunately, now Florida is bracing for Milton, which is expected to reach category four status and then slam into the state.

With all the death and devastation hitting a part of the country that pretty much never has to worry about hurricanes, a lot of stories have gotten lost in the shuffle. We covered the situation in Okeechobee, Florida where the police chief illegally decreed that gun stores must be closed. No one stopped what they were doing because of the decree, mind you, and it wasn’t enforced–the chief says it was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened–but it was still a thing.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking steps to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued an emergency declaration ahead of  Hurricane Milton that prohibits Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie from exercising his authority to suspend or limit gun sales.

The preemption of Guthrie’s authority is unprecedented and even highlighted in the news release that went out with the executive order declaring an emergency:…

Florida law allows the emergency management director to prohibit citizens from carrying guns and selling guns and ammunition during an emergency, but Guthrie has not taken such action as far as available records show.

Except that it doesn’t.

It provides for emergency management directors to prohibit the carrying and selling of firearms when there have been acts of violence or defiance of lawful authority. That simply doesn’t exist here, so no, Guthrie doesn’t actually have the authority to do so. The fact that he hasn’t doesn’t mean he won’t, and after what happened to Okeechobee, well, DeSantis is taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen this time.

“But this is unprecedented!” the writers declare.

Sure, it’s unprecedented, but that’s because no one figured they needed to spell it out specifically before. Prior to Okeechobee, no one in Florida thought that someone would try to prohibit the lawful carry of a firearm or the sale of one in the lead-up to a hurricane. Sure, I could see them doing it during a riot or some kind of uprising, but for a storm?

Yet someone did, and DeSantis clearly wants to make sure there’s not a repeat.

Yes, officials said it was a mistake, that they didn’t mean to sign any such order and it was never enforced, and so on. That doesn’t mean someone else won’t try to do it simply because they don’t like guns.

I don’t think Guthrie would do so–he was appointed to his job by DeSantis, so, probably, he’s not exactly a gun control enthusiast–but this also shields him from criticism if something goes sideways and someone gets shot during the storm or the immediate aftermath. It’s unlikely we’ll see widespread violence or anything, but we also know how the news media gets.

No, DeSantis did the right thing and media hysterics are nothing but an attempt to try and pretend this is something that it’s not.

People need to be able to buy guns right up until the stores close because the stores’ management decides its time to close. DeSantis making sure there’s no repeat of Helene and Okeechobee is just good sense.

Comment O’ The Day:
If they were innocent, they would’ve called in about being shot at

Investigation underway after shots fired at Burnet County church
According to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office, a member of the church’s volunteer security team fired multiple rounds during the incident.

BURNET COUNTY, Texas — Law enforcement is investigating after an incident at a Burnet County church on Sunday morning where multiple shots were fired.

According to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to the Church at the Epicenter at 2401 N. U.S. 281 around 10:30 a.m. after a 911 call. A man reportedly called 911 and requested police at the church before hanging up.

Deputies arriving on the scene determined a member of the church’s volunteer security team had fired shots.

The church member told deputies he had confronted two suspicious men outside the church, and one of them presented a rifle. The church member allegedly fired multiple rounds, causing both men to enter a white minivan and flee the scene, driving northbound on U.S. 281.

There are no known injuries at this time.

The Lampasas Police Department said it has called in additional staff and supervision to patrol the city and churches.

“We have coordinated with other local law enforcement agencies to be on high alert and ready to deter or respond immediately to any incidents that might occur,” the department said.

The Burnet County Sheriff’s Office is working with state and federal agencies on the investigation.

No other information is available at this time.

Local law enforcement agencies reassure residents after reports of attempted shooting at church in Burnet County

(KWTX) – Multiple local law enforcement agencies are reassuring residents after reports of an attempted shooting at a church in Burnet County.

The Burnet County Sheriff’s Office says on Oct. 6, at around 10:30 a.m., deputies were sent to the Church at the Epicenter in reference to a welfare check after an unknown 911 call.

Burnet County Sheriff’s Office says dispatched informed deputies that a man called 911, provided the address of the church, requested police and then disconnected.

When deputies arrived, authorities say it was clear shots were fired and that all shots fired came from a member of the church’s volunteer safety team.

The safety team member told deputies that he found two suspicious men outside the church, and one of the men had a rifle with him, according to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office.

Shortly after, the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office says the safety team member shot multiple rounds, causing the two men to enter a white minivan and flee the scene northbound on US 281.

After hearing about the incident, multiple law enforcement agencies across Central Texas took to social media to reassure their residents of precautions they’re taking to keep residents safe.

The Bosque County Sheriff’s Office says their deputies routinely patrol church parking lots during services in Bosque County but in light of the incident advise having additional people and security teams to increase the likelihood of potential threats being deterred.

They encourage church leaders and security teams to review their safety plan and step up security efforts moving forward.

Additionally, the Lampasas Police Department took to Facebook to inform residents that no related incidents occurred in or around their city, but that police will remain on high alert throughout Sunday afternoon.

Lampasas police say out of caution they called in additional staff to patrol the city, specifically churches, and have coordinated with other law enforcement to be on high alert should any incidents occur.

Judge Refuses to Block Concealed Carry on Public Transportation

A United States District Court judge refused to stay an injunction against an Illinois law blocking the carrying of firearms on public transportation.

Last month, in a case brought by the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that the Illinois law banning firearms from being carried on public transportation by concealed carry holders was unconstitutional. The judge granted an injunction to the plaintiffs, blocking the enforcement of the law. Illinois vowed to appeal the judge’s ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Illinois would then ask U.S. District Court Judge Iain D. Johnston to stay his ruling pending an appeal by the defendants to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The state tried to appeal to the judge’s emotions by citing a recent shooting on public transportation, but this move would backfire. Only days after the judge’s decision, a person shot and killed someone on local public transit. The state tried to exploit the situation to prove how dangerous public transportation is without its restrictive laws against carrying concealed firearms.

The judges asked the defendants if the person who did the shooting was a concealed permit holder. The state could not answer the judge’s simple question. The judge was unhappy with the state’s lack of knowledge and read them the riot act. If the shooter didn’t have a concealed carry permit, he would have been in violation of the law, no matter if the judge sided with the state and never issued an injunction. The shooter turned out not to be a concealed firearms permit holder. Instead of the judge being swayed by the state’s argument to issue a stay, it seemed to make the Trump appointee even more determined not to give into the state’s demands.

Illinois tried to argue about interest balancing and why it should get a stay. Interest balancing weighs the rights of the people against the wishes of the state. Illinois tried to argue that “public safety” outweighed an individual right to bear arms. In the past, states would use this defense to push back against lawsuits filed by pro-gun organizations. States stopped using the tactic after the Supreme Court’s Bruen opinion. In that case, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said that the “Second Amendment is not a second-class right.” SCOTUS stated that courts could not use interest balancing in determining if a law was constitutional. Only the history, tradition, and original text of the Second Amendment from the founding era can be used by the courts to decide if a gun law is constitutional.

The Illinois law was a response to the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision. It seemed like the state, through its argument for a stay, was once again thumbing its nose at the high court and its conservative majority. Even if a district judge is a liberal who disagrees with the opinion of SCOTUS, they are still bound by its ruling because the District Court is inferior to the Supreme Court.

For now, Illinois will remain enjoined from enforcing its concealed carry ban on public transportation. The state is expected to go to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the judge’s ruling. This case taught lawyers everywhere that emotions cannot persuade some judges and that those judges will stand firmly behind the Constitutional rights of Americans.

‘We never have anything ever happen in this neighborhood, ever.’

Normalcy Bias:
The normalcy bias describes our tendency to underestimate the possibility of disaster and believe that life will continue as normal, even in the face of significant threats or crises.

The Graham Combat Killhouse Rules:
1. NOBODY IS COMING TO SAVE YOU.
2. EVERYTHING IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
3. SAVE WHO NEEDS TO BE SAVED.
4. KILL WHO NEEDS TO BE KILLED.
5. ALWAYS BE WORKING.

Neighbors share concern after police say homeowner shoots intruder in southwest Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Several neighbors shared their concern with 8 News Now Thursday after police said a person shot and killed a man trying to break into their home in the southwest Las Vegas valley.

“I was shocked,” Jennifer Sauberan said. “Because it’s a very quiet neighborhood.”

Sauberan, who told 8 News Now she has lived in her neighborhood near Torrey Pines Drive and Flamingo Drive for decades, was startled by a crime scene on her street.

“I was just thinking oh my God what if I hadn’t come back the night before?” Sauberan said. “It could have been my house.”

During a news conference, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Homicide Lieutenant Jason Johansson said the homeowner called 911 around 7:40 a.m. stating that a strange man was breaking windows, trying to get inside their house.

“The man was not listening to what they were telling him,” Lt. Johansson explained. “He was acting extremely irrational as they continued to tell him to leave the property.” Lt. Johansson said that’s when the man moved toward the front door and the homeowner pulled the trigger.

Officers found that man in the driveway with a gunshot wound. He later died at the hospital.

Several neighbors shared their concern with 8 News Now Thursday after police said a person shot and killed a man trying to break into their home in the southwest valley. (KLAS)
“We want to see in a situation like this,” Lt. Johansson explained of the investigation. “Where did he come from? How did he get here?”

As detectives work to piece together why this happened, Sauberan told 8 News now she will continue to do what she can to stay safe.

“I have cameras around my house now,” she explained. “I put them up more recently, but then I put in flood lights and stuff because it makes me a little bit nervous sometimes.”

Sauberan said she hopes things in the area go back to what she’s used to seeing. “It was so unexpected,” she concluded of the shooting. ‘We never have anything ever happen in this neighborhood, ever.”

Lt. Johansson said during Thursday’s news conference that there are ‘self-defense’ elements in this case.

He said he does not believe the homeowner will face charges, but the investigation is ongoing and the Clark County District Attorney will make that determination.

Defensive Gun Use Statistics:
America’s Life-Saving Gun Incidents (2024)

The Second Amendment limits the government’s power over the people’s right to keep and bear arms for the defense of our nation. However, Americans uniquely have the right to defend our lives with the most effective tools available.

A widely disputed topic between gun advocates and anti-Second Amendment advocates is the number of defensive gun uses (DGUs) each year. Fortunately, we have data to better understand the effect armed civilians have on criminality.

The following section covers everything we know about defensive gun use in the U.S.

Report Highlights:

  • Reports consistently show that there are between 60,000 and 2,500,000 defensive gun uses per year.
  • There are an average of 1,820,000 defensive gun uses per year compared to 1,100,000 reported crimes.
  • Only 2.07 million civilians regularly carry a firearm for defense.
  • Civilians are 85% more likely to use a firearm for defense than to be murdered by one.
  • The average distance in a defensive gun use shooting is three yards.

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BLUF
Ultimately, there are no easy solutions to the complex problem of school shootings. But we can make our schools far safer without sacrificing our fundamental freedoms

The Best Way To Prevent School Shootings Is Armed Staff

In the wake of tragic school shootings like Apalachee High School in Georgia, our nation grapples with a critical question: How do we best protect our children?

Sadly, too often, the debate devolves quickly into partisan talking points. The Biden-Harris administration seized on this tragedy to call for more laws that would restrict Americans’ right to self-defense, but which would have done nothing to stop this shooting. In fact, at both the federal and state levels, it is already illegal for a 14-year-old to purchase and possess a firearm, but, neither those laws nor others, like the Gun-Free School Zones Act, deterred this evil.

More recently on the debate stage, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris attempted to amend her clear anti-gun record, despite previously voicing support for confiscating guns as a candidate in 2020.

It’s crucial to set politics aside and approach this debate with facts.

The reality is that many of our schools remain soft targets, vulnerable to those intent on causing harm. “Gun-free zone” signs offer false security, deterring only the law-abiding. We need a multifaceted strategy that hardens schools as targets while empowering responsible adults to protect themselves and those in their care.

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President Trump needs Tier One military protection
Delta, DEVGRU (Seal Team -6) operators far superior to Secret Service.

President Donald J. Trump and the entire country have been lucky — twice — but the problem with relying upon luck as an executive protection strategy is that luck can eventually run out.

The United States Secret Service had their chance to protect our 45th and possibly 47th President. They failed miserably, two times, and a good man was murdered and three people — including the former president — were wounded because of their ineptitude.

Rather than ordering immediate firings, all the Secret Service offered an angry public was excuses. President Trump’s protective detail was “redlined” they claimed, suffering from too much overtime. As a result, a handful of unfit and inexperienced DHS agents were seconded to the President’s protective detail, but only after watching a two-hour webinar. One of the DHS agents couldn’t even holster her Glock.

While senior FBI and Secret Service officials dither, dodge and dick around over who is to blame, President Trump remains protected mostly by sheer luck and a lot of prayers.

This. Must. Change.

Trump’s sleepy Secret Service detail should be fired and quickly replaced by blue and green guys from JSOC’s Special Mission Units.

Delta and DEVGRU Tier One operators are infinitely superior to the poorly trained clock-watchers in the Secret Service. They’re faster, fitter and far more professional. They shoot with surgical precision and operate regularly on a zero-fail mission basis — a standard to which the Secret Service can only claim to aspire.

Key to our operators’ success is their training, which includes executive protection and just about everything else, and they don’t deploy alone. Both Delta and DEVGRU have their own highly specialized support elements, which include air assets, drone operators, cyber warriors and intelligence analysts, who are all experts in their fields and far superior to anything the Secret Service could ever dream of bringing to the fight.

It is clear the left will never stop weaponizing unstable individuals with their heated anti-Trump rhetoric. History has shown they’ll watch their mouths for a week or two, but then resume their “threat to democracy” hogwash en masse, as if on cue.

The Congressional investigations into the first assassination attempt will take months and likely blame only low-level supervisors who have already been allowed to retire and keep their federal pensions. Meanwhile, President Trump remains at risk.

By the Grace of God, he survived two assassination attempts. Delta and DEVGRU operators could guarantee there will never be a third.

I can’t say whether or not this Miguel De La Torre is a Christian or not, as that is the purview of God. But, I can say that he’s stuck in the dark ages where the superstition that a thing, an inanimate object has moral agency and somehow has the power to exert influence over a human mind and is what we actually reject.  This mental malady supposedly died out during the renaissance, but apparently has lingered on in the minds of the ignorant or those with a covert political agenda.

Christian Website Writer Claims Guns Cause Sin of Shooting People

Guns don’t cause crime.

I think if most people are being honest, they’ll acknowledge this fact. It might not change their views on gun control, granted, as they’ll likely rationalize it as being really about disarming the criminals or something of that sort, but they’ll acknowledge that guns aren’t causing anything. They’ll just say it’s making the issue worse.

Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is probably someone who should reside in a padded room because it sounds like inanimate objects are talking to them or something.

Normally, though, I tend to not get that worked up by anyone making the claim that guns are the problem no matter how they frame it. I disagree and will often write about my disagreement, but it’s hard to be outraged at something you actively seek out every day.

I tell you that so you understand that when I say that this made me livid, you’ll understand how rare that is.

I won’t repeat the statistics showing that the number of mass shootings in the U.S. in one year exceeds the total of all countries combined for multiple years. Facts make no difference when combating the Second Amendment ideology.

We choose not to change because we confuse our savagery with civilization. We choose not to change because we reject Christianity and other love-based faith traditions.

A foundational principle of Christianity is to put the needs of others before the self. In the first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall” (8:13, NIV).

The right to consume this gun culture is not only causing others to sin by killing the innocent but advancing the opposing message to life found in the gospel–death.

We reject Christianity and other “love-based faith traditions,” do we?

Well…let me just say that there are certain words I’m not allowed to use on this site. They’re the same words you can’t use on network TV, and for pretty much the same reasons.

Right about now, I want to use all of them.

I reject Christianity because I won’t give up my guns?

Then explain Luke 22:36:

Then He said to them, ‘But now, he who has a money belt is to take it along, and also his provision bag, and he who has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one”

That was Christ telling the Disciples to arm themselves.

I’ll admit not everyone shares my understanding of this passage, but that doesn’t negate its existence.

Further, let’s talk about his comments on Paul, followed by his claim, “The right to consume this gun culture is not only causing others to sin by killing the innocent,,,” for a moment.

Now, Paul is talking about a specific situation that, in my understanding, is hypothetical. If something I do causes others to sin, I should stop doing that thing. Yet the author claims guns are causing people to kill folks.

That’s ridiculous.

Guns are a tool, but the actions are still the willful acts of people. Guns cause nothing on their own because they’re incapable of causing anything on their own. All they could potentially cause is displacing air. As such, this claim that guns are sinful because they cause people to sin is asinine.

I don’t pretend to be the best Christian out there, but I’m genuinely troubled by the onslaught of anti-gun Christians running around trying to pretend they’re the true believers, ignoring anything to the contrary, and now seemingly claim that guns, by their very existence, make people kill.

They’re guns, not cursed objects capable of exerting a will all their own on the possessor.

Meanwhile, people like the writer are those who seek to pervert God’s word to fulfill their own earthly agenda. Talk about sinful.

Blue States Can’t Ban Your Guns So They’ll Punish You For Using Them.

Try as they might, blue cities and states can’t seem to ban their citizens’ guns. They’ve enacted handgun bans, “assault weapons” bans, registration mandates, taxes, and levied confiscatory fees on guns, ammo, and carry permits. As a result, they’ve been challenged at every turn by those who take the Second Amendment at its word. And then Bruen came along and made the job of civilian disarmament even more difficult for aspiring tyrants.

What’s a gun-banner to do then? Simple. Make life hell for anyone who dares to use a gun they own, particularly in self-defense. Look no further for an example than what happened last night in Newton, Massachusetts.

A group of people were holding a peaceful pro-Israel rally when a Hamas supporter began yelling at them from across the street. The Hamasnik, who apparently couldn’t abide free speech being exercised in his presence, ran through traffic and assaulted one of the Israel supporters, jumping on him as his back was turned.

Watch video of the altercation here . . .

It’s hard to imagine a clearer case of self-defense after the Hamas supporter tackled a man who has been identified at 47-year-old Scott Hayes of Framingham, Massachusetts. It’s been reported that Hayes is a lawful gun owner and permitted carrier, though the police investigation is ongoing.

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No. Trying to harm me, or mine is immoral.
Not possessing the means to stop someone trying that

Catholic News Site: Gun Ownership is Immoral

Whether someone owns a firearm or not is a personal decision. I respect how people reach that decision just so long as it doesn’t involve trying to make my decision for me. That includes people who decide that they think owning a gun is immoral. If they confine that to themselves–saying it doesn’t fit with their view of morality, for example–then no worries. If they say that my owning one is immortal, then we have an issue.

Most folks have the good sense not to take that position. They might think it, but they know that they’re going to stir up some hate and discontent by openly saying it.

It’s even worse when they use the worst possible examples to justify it.

And that’s just what the former president and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service did when he decided to write a piece for a Catholic website with the headline, “Is it time to talk about the morality of gun ownership?”

It starts with this:

Imagine yourself in your house. A neighbor is banging on the front door and yelling. Or there are noises outside, a car window being smashed. What do you reach for?

Susan Lorincz reached for a gun. Embroiled in a dispute with her neighbor, Lorincz, standing behind a locked and bolted metal door, fired a bullet through the door, killing Ajika Owens, single mother of four.

Jason Lewis reached for a gun and went out at 3 a.m. to investigate when he heard noises on his street. Three teens were breaking into cars. When he yelled at the kids, he thought one of them was running toward him. He fired, killing 13-year-old Karon Desean Blake.

Lorincz is white. Lewis is black. Both victims were black. Lorincz lives in Florida, Lewis in Washington, D.C. Both were convicted in August of manslaughter and face years in prison.

The two stories are exhibits A and B in the madness that has overtaken a country in which there are more guns than people, a country which is unique among advanced countries for the number of deaths caused by guns, a country where lethal violence is considered option No.1 for self-protection of life and property.

Of course, this is a great example of cherry-picking examples to back up your position.

However, he doesn’t acknowledge the people who have used firearms to defend themselves; people who would be dead had they been unarmed. It happens more times than the alternative he presents here.

But with this as the initial framing of his piece, writer Greg Erlandson adds:

If guns weren’t involved, if fear wasn’t a factor, if the nightmare threat scripts that run in our minds hadn’t kicked in, Owens and Blake would be alive today. Instead of a gun, Lewis might have picked up a phone. Instead of a gun, Lorincz might have called 911.

The truth is that we’ve become the monsters in our own nightmares. We buy guns for security, yet feel ever more insecure. We buy guns because we feel threatened, yet we become the threats, not just to others, but to ourselves. More than half of all gun deaths in the United States are suicides. Guns are highly efficient at one thing: projecting a bullet into a neighbor, into a kid, into one’s own head.

No one feels secure: not us, not our neighbors, not our police. So, we buy still more guns. We play out Hollywood tropes, cop show scenarios in our minds. And every now and then, innocents die.

Lorincz and Lewis never planned to kill. They never planned to spend a decade or two in prison for taking someone else’s life. But the gun became the crutch, the protection that they leaned on instead of calling the police or relying on one’s neighbors. The gun is one more symbol of our isolation masquerading as self-reliance.

So clearly, Erlandson’s position is that gun ownership is, in fact, immoral. It’s immoral. He argues that lawful gun ownership is fueling our insecurities, which leads to more people buying guns, creating a vicious cycle.

Yet he ignores the fact that as gun ownership increased year after year for decades–and guns aren’t consumables that wear out quickly, so every gun purchase generally puts more guns in law-abiding hands, often new ones–the homicide rate decreased.

Taking the life of someone who represents no harm to you is immoral. No one argues otherwise.

But I fail to see there being any inherent morality to being a victim, either. There’s no moral superiority in lying dead in a puddle of your own blood simply because you refused to have the means to defend yourself.

Including a couple of examples of manslaughter doesn’t negate the legions out there who have successfully defended themselves with a firearm and done so when their lives were legitimately on the line. Of the two examples Erlandson gives, only one of them was potentially ambiguous enough to actually be applicable to his point.

“But you can call the police.”

The police often show up just in time to draw a chalk outline around your body when someone is threatening your life.

Yes, when someone is stealing from your car, call the cops. When they’re yelling outside and you’re scared, call the police.

When they’re trying to come into your home, knowing you’re there, things are different. Would Erlander have preferred this Texas family be slaughtered by a guy with a machete as they waited for the police to arrive? That’s just one of a legion of armed citizen stories we’ve covered here at Bearing Arms since the site first launched. These are people who fall outside of Erlandson’s ideas of morality, as do I and most of you.

CDC, FBI Hiding Data Showing Good Guys With Guns Save Lives

The federal government no longer enacts the will of the people. It enacts the will of some people, most of whom seem to be unelected bureaucrats who side with an anti-gun agenda. They do not care about our rights. They simply want to see guns restricted, most likely because an armed populace isn’t one that can be run roughshod over.

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But good guys with guns cause them a problem. How can you paint the use of guns as an unmitigated evil if good people use them to stop bad people?

What’s more, the federal government has numbers that back up the claim that good guys with guns save lives. However, as John Lott notes over at The Federalist, the feds are hiding them from us.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) under the Biden Administration has sought to suppress data proving that armed citizens help prevent crime by removing its estimates of defensive gun uses from its website. For almost a decade, the CDC referenced a 2013 National Academies of Sciences report noting that people used guns to stop crime anywhere from about 64,000 to 3 million times a year.

This decision was taken after gun control activist Mark Bryant, founder of the Gun Violence Archive, lobbied the CDC to remove “misinformation” regarding defensive gun use estimates because of they are cited by “gun rights folks” to stop gun control legislation. Soon after, the CDC took down these estimates and now lists no numbers.

This is probably the most profound case of bias I’ve ever seen. The CDC has the numbers and had enough faith in them to post them, then an anti-gun activist took issue with them and said they prevented gun control from passing, so the CDC took them down.

And they wonder how the Dickey Amendment came into being in the first place.

They knew the truth and suppressed it simply because activists saw the truth as a barrier and asked them to take it down. Would they have done the same with COVID-19 numbers? Would they do the same with drunk driving deaths or childhood drownings?

Of course not. Nor should they. If they believe in the numbers enough to post them, they should have stuck to their guns on this.

But the issue isn’t just the CDC.

Oh no, the FBI has to have its own problems.

The FBI has also shown itself to be susceptible to political pressure. The FBI defines an active shooter attack as occurring when an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area. This measure includes everything from just one person shot at, even if the target isn’t hit, to a mass public shooting. It doesn’t include, however, shootings involving other crimes, such as robbery or fighting over drug turf.

To compile its list, the FBI hired researchers at Texas State University. Police departments don’t record these cases, so the researchers relied on Google searches to find news stories about these incidents. As such, the FBI’s evidence relies on a dataset that is actively hostile to the truth.

During 2020 and the beginning of 2021, I worked as the senior advisor for research and statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice. My job included evaluating the FBI’s active shooting reports. During my time with the DOJ, I discovered that the FBI either missed or misidentified many cases of civilians using guns to stop attacks. For instance, the FBI continues to report that armed citizens stopped only 14 of the 350 active shooter cases that it identified in the ten years from 2014 to 2023.

The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), which I run, has found many more missed cases and is keeping an updated list. As such, the CPRC numbers tell a much different story: Out of 515 active shooter incidents from 2014 to 2023, armed citizens stopped 180, saving countless innocent lives. Our numbers even excluded 27 cases where a law-abiding citizen with a gun stopped an attacker before he could fire a shot.

Overall, the CPRC estimates that law-abiding citizens with guns have stopped over 35 percent of active shootings over the last decade and 39.6 percent in the last five years. This figure is eight times higher than the four percent estimate made by the FBI.

Now, 35 percent isn’t a massive number, but we need to remember that a lot of active shootings are happening in places where there are issues with law-abiding citizens being armed.

Potential mass murderers, for example, tend to favor gun-free zones for their attacks, such as schools like Apalachee High School in Winder. They also like malls, movie theaters, and other places where a large number of people are in one place and are generally disarmed by force of law. That means these incidents are less likely to be met with armed resistance not because good guys with guns don’t stop attacks but because the law makes sure there aren’t any good guys with guns.

Then we have the fact that a lot of other active shooter incidents happen in inner cities. These are often places where gun ownership is discouraged and, in the case of anti-gun states, where the government is outright hostile to the idea of citizens with guns. Before recently, getting a permit might have been impossible, thus making it far less likely a good guy with a gun could be anywhere near the scene of such a shooting.

And this is interesting because Lott wrote this well before the events in Winder.

In that case, school resource officers–good guys with guns, even if it was their job–reacted to the attack and ended the threat with an armed response. They didn’t have to kill the shooter, either. People like that tend to be cowards. Armed resistance scares them and so they surrender, run away, or just about anything else, even if the good guy doesn’t kill them.

For all the talk about gun control in the wake of Winder, I think the more important discussion is putting guns in school staff members’ hands.

Guns save lives, after all.

Reasons for Concealed Carry: My Interview with a Psychopath

By Will Dabbs, MD

In this article, Dr. Will Dabbs discusses why he carries a firearm for self-defense. The article includes discussing a real person with a serious mental illness. Real names have not been used. Nothing in this narrative is intended to disparage or stigmatize those who might suffer from any medical condition. However, it is a dangerous world. It behooves one to face potential danger with his or her eyes open to the risks they might face.

Crazy is a lyrically overused term these days. Psychiatrists institutionally despise that word. Labels are passe in today’s enlightened society. Such antiquated terminology invariably foments subconscious bias.

The reasons for concealed carry in the United States generally relate to self-defense. For each person, that reason is different and can be intensely personal.

What most people mean when they use the word “crazy” is psychosis. Distilled to its essence, this just means disconnected from reality. People with schizophrenia, for example, typically hear voices or, more rarely, see things that are objectively not real. The age of onset is typically late teens or early twenties. The experience is uniformly horrifying for all involved, particularly the patient.

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Shooting Straight with John Lott

The mainstream media likes to use federal statistics as hooks for their one-sided gun-control narratives. The thing is, many of those statistics are suspect, even those from various federal agencies. The Crime Prevention Research Center’s (CPRC) work goes deep into how factual this “official data” is.

Indeed, when I reached out to John Lott, president and founder of the CPRC, he talked about his time working as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs—a Department of Justice division that doles out about $5 billion in grants each year—during the Trump administration and about his research into crime and gun ownership. He has a lot to say about the statistics these agencies publish. As crime is an important topic in this upcoming election, we decided it was time to speak with Lott about how politically skewed these numbers from federal agencies can be.

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