Category: Safety

Dem Lawmaker Unwittingly Makes Case for 2A With Bill Requiring Armed Guards at Chicago Banks, Retail Stores

An Illinois state representative this week introduced legislation that would mandate armed guards at businesses susceptible to armed robbery. The irony couldn’t be better, given that the proposed legislation flies in the face of several Democrat narratives and destroys many of their illogical claims.

The Armed Security Protection Act, if passed, would require banks, pawn shops, grocery stores, and gas stations in municipalities with populations greater than two million to employ and have on the premises at least one armed guard during business hours, as reported by Blaze Media. While the bill doesn’t mention Chicago, the Windy City is the only city in the state with a population greater than two million. How “clever.”

 

Irony abounds, here.

Congressional Democrats have long opposed arming school teachers, and the gun-grabber in chief, Joe Biden is steadfastly opposed to “hardening schools” against potential shooters. But here we have a Democrat state lawmaker, desperate to stop violent crime, proposing legislation requiring armed guards to protect money, obviously believing the adage that bad guys with guns are only stopped by good guys with guns. Yet, Democrats refuse to apply the same (correct) logic to protecting America’s school children, irrationally choosing instead to attempt to deny the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners.

Totally logical, right? Uh-huh — about as logical as the ridiculous sign below.

Incidentally, the ridiculousness of “gun-free zones” has always amused the crap out of me. Imagine a really bad dude, armed to teeth and determined to rob a specific bank, maybe close to where he lives. So, our would-be bank robber gets jacked up to rob that bank, shows up with adrenaline flowing through his veins, and comes “face-to-face” with a “gun-free zone” sign. What now?

Does the dude look at the sign, the air escaping from his balloon as he reads it, and say “Damn. I really wanted to rob this bank,” then tuck his tail between his legs and dejectedly go home to sulk? Please.

On the contrary, if the dude has a brain at all, once he sees the sign, he gets even more jacked up, and it’s go-time. And the bank in our scenario could be a gas station, grocery store, pawn shop, or any other business, or a neighborhood plastered with similar idiotic signs. But I digress; let’s get back to the Illinois story.

The Irony Continues

While Illinois Democrat lawmakers generally support more gun control and fewer guns, rather than more guns to fight runaway violent crime, the primary sponsor of the Armed Security Protection Act, Democrat Rep. Thaddeus Jones, also voted for a ban on pretend “assault rifles” (AR-15 and various other semi-automatic firearms), which Illinois Democrat Gov. J. B. Pritzker signed into law earlier in January.

And embattled Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot notoriously and delusionally blames guns for the ever-skyrocketing number of murders and other violent crimes, vs. those who pull the triggers. Last time I checked, a total of zero guns have committed murder or other crimes.

Speaking of Lori Lightfoot, as I reported last Friday, the crack crime-stopper offered a brilliant tip to Chicagoans in fear of being robbed at gunpoint: Don’t carry money. No, really — how could you make that up?

The Bottom Line

While I applaud a Democrat lawmaker introducing legislation to place armed guards at businesses susceptible to robbery, I have a helluva problem with hypocritical Democrats refusing to apply that same logic to the protection of school children, and the rights of American citizens to protect their homes and their families with the legal weapon(s) of their choice. Why the difference?

We’ve heard Democrats, including Biden, preach about not “needing” AR-15s and other semi-auto firearms. But unfortunately for the left, the Second Amendment specifically speaks to “rights,” not “needs,” and the notion of the federal government (Democrat Party) as the arbiter of who “needs” what type of firearm and who doesn’t, is anathema to freedom-loving, Second-Amendment supporting Americans across the fruited plain — Democrat gun-grabbers be damned.

No Second Amendment Would Render Us Powerless

America is on a razor’s edge. Three mass shootings within 48 hours have the usual liberal suspects exploiting the carnage to push gun control.

President Biden and his acolytes keep babbling the same platitude that is as smug as it is irrelevant. After a tragic shooting, Democrats keep bleating about how no hunter needs a semi-automatic weapon to kill deer.

This snide commentary shows a complete ignorance of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Second Amendment right of individuals to own guns has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. The right to own guns “shall not be infringed” by the government because that very government is why individuals own such guns.

The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, a charter of negative liberties that protects Americans from their own government. If the government were to ever turn inward and try to commit genocide, they would face resistance from armed citizens.

The issue is not whether America’s government would ever turn inward. What matters is that without the Second Amendment, they easily could. With the Second Amendment, their task is much more difficult.

The dark reality is that the American government only exists under a threat of death to that government. This is a collective truth, not a call to rebellion. Every one of our legal 325 million citizens can remember that they individually say and do matters. If not liberty, then death.

Our First Amendment allowing us to challenge ideas and people exists only because of our Second Amendment. As Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar stated, “The framers recognized that self-government requires the people’s access to bullets as well as ballots.”

This is no antiquated concept in modern America. We have approximately 77.49 million adult gun owners. 2020 reflected the highest number of firearm sales in history, with 39,695,315 background checks for the sale of firearms and explosives. Americans own over 436.4M million guns . These are comforting facts.

Your individual conversations, vote and money matter as much as anyone else’s, all backed by the threat of the government’s demise. That is part of America’s shadow, never to be forgotten.

The United States, Mexico and Guatemala are the only three countries in the world that currently have a constitutional right to own a gun. Six other countries had a constitutional right to bear arms but repealed those laws.

America is the only country with a right to keep and bear arms without constitutional restrictions. Our Second Amendment is rare and exceptionally good.

This is why leftists remain set on trying to limit guns. Only then can Americans be fully controlled. That is not our way nor our agreement.

Every regime of death began by removing guns. The philosophy of the power of owning guns and knowing why we have them is at its essence as important as the guns themselves.

Our Second Amendment backing our First Amendment right to call out hypocrisies and lies is America’s own nuclear balance. Our government points its warheads at us. We in an act of detente point back ours collectively.

There is an inherent understanding, even in places led by tyrants: that those who go too far and try to implement tyranny in America, will one day see their power usurped, and their reign ended. This is detente for our people, not a darker position of violence. We must never forget the shadow side of our Second Amendment and its darker threat of death as a real tool for maintaining the balance of power in America.

God forbid we ever need to even think about using our arms, as citizens, against government. The Second Amendment thus still remains as a a useful reminder to those who lead us, why the Amendment was crafted in the first place – by our Founders.

Guns Don’t Kill People . . . People Kill People

Three recent mass shooting incidents in California have “gun violence” in the news again.  And most assuredly loud calls for banning guns will also be heard.

Tragedies like these three incidents make me think about a line from the 1953 film “Shane.” In the movie the lead character Shane famously remarks to Marian Starrett, ‘A gun is just a tool, Marian.  It’s no better or worse than the man using it.’

While this is true, it’s only true up to a point.  Guns are tools but they are not ordinary tools.  They were invented as weapons of war.  But they do  serve necessary and useful purposes as well.  Guns are used for hunting and other sport. They are also used for self-defense.

Guns

A number of television shows depict the reliance people here in the U.S.  have on hunting as a means of providing food.   The biathlon, in the Winter Olympics, and target and skeet shooting (clay pigeon shooting), are also  popular sports among gun enthusiasts.  And as the Heritage Foundation points out:

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost every major study on defensive gun use has found that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year.”

Case in point: On July 17, 2022 a man lawfully carrying a firearm shot and killed an “an assailant suspected of fatally shooting three people and injuring two others in an Indiana mall on Sunday evening.”  The incident took place at the Greenwood Park Mall just outside Indianapolis.  Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison called the man a “hero.”

And this brings us back to Shane’s point – a gun is no better or worse than the man (or woman) using it.  So let’s not get emotional or delusional about guns.  As the adage says, “Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.”

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Another problem with Gun Violence Archive’s numbers

Supporters of gun control love to use Gun Violence Archive as an authoritative source on the number of shootings we have in this country. The number of mass shootings as compiled by the site–a number that doesn’t reflect what most people think of as a mass shooting, it should be remembered–is presented uncritically by the media.

It happens all the time, and in the wake of two shootings in California, it’s happening yet again. While we know plenty about those two shootings and will likely learn more as we go forward, proponents of gun control site Gun Violence Archive’s total number of mass shootings to show it’s more than those two incidents.

Take this editorial as just one example.

History is full of horrific events in which we shake our heads and ask, “How did that happen? What were they thinking?”

The Holocaust and slavery are two prime examples.

It begs the question of what is transpiring today that will be regarded by future generations as deplorable. That historians will record with the hope that they will never be repeated.

Climate change, yes. And then there is gun violence.

California has had three mass shootings in the last four days. Seven people were killed and one injured in Half Moon Bay on Monday. One person was killed and six injured at an East Oakland gas station later that evening. Eleven people were killed and nine injured in Monterey Park on Saturday.

We are not even at the end of the first month of 2023. Yet the Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay shootings bring the number of mass shootings (in which four or more people were killed or injured) to 39 this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That follows the 647 mass shootings recorded in 2022 and 690 mass shootings in 2021.

Of course, what follows is the true-to-form call for gun control we typically see from many editorial boards.

Now, in the wake of two deadly mass shootings, I sort of get it. However, they’re not just holding those two incidents up as why we somehow need gun control. They’re holding Gun Violence Archive’s numbers up as well.

And yet, what do we know about any of those shootings?

Well, we know three or more people were injured at those shootings–the low standard the site uses to categorize something as a mass shooting in the first place, which includes gang warfare, drivebys, and so on–but little else.

If we’re going to have a conversation about how we need gun control, about how certain guns shouldn’t be allowed in private hands, or how certain people should be legally barred from buying guns, shouldn’t we also need to know about any of those hundreds upon hundreds of so-called mass shootings?

I ask because I know statistically where most of those weapons came from, and it’s not from lawful gun sales.

How can you say that the gun laws are insufficient when so few of these hundreds of “mass shootings” were carried out with a lawfully-obtained firearm in the first place?

See, Gun Violence Archive is a favorite among the media and anti-gun set (but I repeat myself), yet it only shows part of the picture. To cite their numbers without important context on where those guns were obtained amounts to little more than trying to view a masterpiece by only looking at one single bit with a microscope.

It’s not a full picture by any stretch.

And it matters because while actual mass shootings make headlines, the real violence problem in our country happens in our inner cities. They get counted by Gun Violence Archive to try and push gun control when all the gun laws in the world aren’t going to help.

I wouldn’t say she purposefully lying. She just likes that paycheck too much to actually do any research on her own for the facts of the matter.
She reads from out of a notebook that has all the approved answers for probable questions already provided for her. And if it doesn’t have an answer for her to parrot, she always uses one of two or three standard ‘boilerplate’ deferrals she’s memorized.

FACT CHECK: WH Press Sec. Falsely Claims ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Reduced Mass Shootings

CLAIM: White house press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed the result of the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban was that “mass shootings went down.”

VERDICT: False.

Jean-Pierre opened Tuesday’s press conference by talking about the mass shootings that have been occurring in California, the state that has more gun control than any other state in the Union.

Ironically, one of California’s gun controls is an “assault weapons” ban.

Nevertheless, Jean-Pierre pushed for an “assault weapons” ban at the federal level, saying, “The last time we had an ‘assault weapons’ ban on the books, thanks to the President and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) leadership, mass shootings actually went down.”

Jean-Pierre’s claim is 180 degrees out of sync with the information discovered and published by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

Breitbart News reported the NIJ’s findings, which were originally published just as the “assault weapons” ban was coming to an end. The NIJ made clear that the ban could not be credited with any reduction in crime.

The Washington Times quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, author of the NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

The NIJ report continued, “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” It put matters into perspective by pointing out that “assault weapons” were “rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.”

Breitbart News noted on January 18, 2013, that “’assault weapons’ were tied to less than .012 per cent of overall deaths in America in recent years (2011)”. This point is poignant, in light of the NIJ report showing “assault weapons” were “rarely used” in crime to begin with. The guns are bulky and difficult to conceal, making them a bad choice for criminals seeking to avoid detection.

Also, the January 21 Monterey Park attacker used a pistol, and NBC Bay Area’s Christine Ni noted that the January 23 Half Moon Bay attacker appears to have used a handgun as well.

Jean-Pierre’s claim that the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban reduced mass shootings does not square with the Department of Justice’s NIJ report.

Near everything on the gun grabber’s list of laws and not a one of them actually do anything to stop those bent on mayhem and murder.

Newsom: Second Amendment turning into “suicide pact”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is lashing out at gun owners, the firearms industry, and even the Founding Fathers as he tries to spin another failure of the state’s gun control laws into an attack on the Second Amendment.

Speaking to CBS News on Monday evening, Newsom claimed that while he has no “ideological opposition” to “responsible” gun owners, at least in theory, the shootings in Monterey Park demand a further crackdown on the right to keep and bear arms.

“Nothing about this is surprising. Everything about this is infuriating,” he told “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell on Monday. “The Second Amendment is becoming a suicide pact.”

Newsom clarified that he has “no ideological opposition” against people who “responsibly” own guns and get background checks and training on how to use them.

But he told O’Donnell that current regulations are falling short.

Maybe because the gun control laws Newsom favors are aimed at legal gun owners instead of violent criminals?

Newsom mentioned the role of mental health in mass shootings, but he singled out gun access as a factor exacerbating the problem.

“I’m really proud of the work we’ve done in this space, but we’ve had decades of neglect,” he said. “But respectfully, I will submit that regardless of the challenges it relates to behavioral health, there’s not a country in the world that doesn’t experience behavioral health issues.”

And there’s not a state in the U.S. that regulates and restricts gun ownership to the extent that California does, and yet according to the FBI it was California that had the most most active shooter incidents in 2021. Part of that may simply be an artifact of California’s large population, but it’s also evidence that restricting a constitutional right to self-defense in the name of public safety doesn’t stop committed killers nearly as effectively as it prevents peaceable gun owners from exercising their 2A rights.

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If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State.
–Alexander Hamilton

*gasp* Horrors!

Can you shoot someone in self-defense inside your home in Missouri?

MISSOURI — Twenty states have castle doctrines while even more have stand-your-ground laws, but what constitutes legal self-defense can still vary across these states.

For Missouri, both the castle doctrine and the stand-your-ground law say the law permits protecting oneself (or a third party, with exceptions) with deadly force should a person feel it is necessary.

Missouri Castle Doctrine Law

The “castle doctrine” is not a defined law that can be invoked, but rather a set of principles that may be incorporated into the defense of one’s self while on owned or leased property, as well as the defense of said property (e.g. vehicles, the home itself) or third parties (family) also present at the time of the threat.

Simply shooting a trespasser on your property can lead to criminal charges since not all trespassers are violent; the resident must be faced with a threat first. According to Missouri Revised Statutes 563.031:

[Protective] force is used against a person who unlawfully enters, remains after unlawfully entering, or attempts to unlawfully enter a dwelling, residence, or vehicle lawfully occupied by such person.

Castle doctrine does protect guests at a home where a break-in occurs, should they act with deadly force. But if a break-in occurs at a residence where you were not invited, you cannot use deadly force against that trespasser under castle doctrine.

Missouri Stand-Your-Ground Law

“Stand-your-ground” laws roughly define how an individual can defend themselves when faced with an imminent threat anywhere else; imminent being a keyword here because even threatening words towards a defending person can lead to a justified homicide.

But words made days or weeks ago cannot be acted upon in a self-defense manner.

Stand-your-ground states do not require the defending actor to retreat or remove themselves from the situation prior to applying defensive force. In contrast, some states like Arkansas, have a “duty to retreat” first while in public before defending.

Recent Developments

Last February, Senate Bill 666, sponsored by US Rep. Eric Burlison, would have strengthened Missouri’s stand-your-ground law by essentially giving shooters acting in self-defense the benefit of the doubt, thereby flipping the burden of proof and forcing police to have probable cause before arresting them.

The military has used 62 grain 5.56mm RRLP  – Reduced Ricochet Limited Penetration –  frangible bullets for both CQB live fire practice on steel targets, and ship boarding operations (where unplanned holes in hulls are a bad thing) for a long time. The ballistic gel tests I’ve seen show the ammo should be quite effective if used for home defense.

Frangible Ammo for Self-Defense and Concealed Carry

 (and the last shall be first….)

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Increased gun sales for minorities due to rational reasons

Gun sales for minorities in the United States have been surging for quite a while now. While the popular image of gun ownership continues to be older white dudes, the reality is very, very different.

More and more gun owners are women and many of those are black or Hispanic.

So why are some of them buying firearms?

Well, here’s why one of them did, and she’s unlikely to be an exception.

Andréa “Muffin” Hudson is an activist for incarcerated individuals, directs two criminal justice nonprofits, and believes prisons do catastrophic harm. She is also a gun owner.

When Hudson, 47, drives around Durham, her G2C 9 mm pistol sits beside her on the passenger seat. She carries it with her everywhere, wearing it like a “fanny pack.” She leaves her gun behind only when she goes to the Durham County Courthouse to pay cash bonds.

Hudson lives with her son, 18, and daughter, 28. Her round cheeks frame her easygoing smile as words flow out, her deep voice suited to the seriousness of her work.

Each room in Hudson’s house has a gun in it. Even the bathroom.

“So if you’re in the bathroom, and somebody breaks in while you’re in the bathroom, you can protect yourself,” she said, laughing. “You know, I watch a lot of movies.”

…

Donald Trump’s presidency inflamed deep-seated racial animosity, lent new muscle and momentum to white nationalists, and stoked the fears of people like Hudson. She bought her first gun in 2017.

“I got it because Trump won, became president, and people were acting erratic,” said Hudson, who is Black. “I was thinking that folks were going to start doing stuff to harm other people. I was thinking about The Walking Dead and Armageddon coming, and I wanted to give us a fighting chance to survive.”

Now, a lot of people would read that and roll their eyes. They’d argue that white supremacy isn’t nearly the threat the media makes it out to be.

Here’s my take: It doesn’t matter.

If you think there’s a potential threat to you and yours, it behooves you to arm yourself and prepare to defend your life and the lives of your family members. That means buying guns.

Yes, it may not be as big of a threat as it feels, but most of us are unlikely to be the victim of a violent crime, either, yet we still carry a firearm.

However, for those like Hudson who do have these concerns, I’d offer a suggestion. If you feel this way, you should start pushing the lawmakers asking for your support to oppose gun control.

After all, if you’re a minority and you’re worried about racial strife, who do you think is most likely to be targeted by gun control? If this is such a racist nation, why wouldn’t black and Hispanic gun owners be the target of anti-gun efforts?

If racism is such a prevalent concern, then why not work to make it impossible for those racists to disarm you and eradicate your ability to defend yourself?

Arming up in response to your concerns over a threat isn’t just rational, it’s smart. Yet you should also be prepared to dig in and fight to preserve the ability for everyone to do the same thing.

ARE YOU PREPARED?
BE READY FOR THESE FIVE CATEGORIES

Where’s the danger? Those who carry a weapon in public are constantly asking this question. We’re always in what Jeff Cooper popularized as Condition Yellow. No threat has been recognized, but we’re actively alert for anything that might come up. Once a potential threat has been identified, we move to Condition Orange and begin planning for an attack. We evaluate the threat, the availability of cover and concealment, look for other threats and evaluate the overall environment in case we need to use lethal force. Condition Orange is a critical stage because you’ve identified the threat and must prepare. I propose some threats are already known to us, but most are not adequately prepared to respond.

Threats come in many forms. We can’t always know where they will come from. When we do, however, we’re always better off if we have already prepared rather than waiting until it is staring us in the eyes. A prepared response is always better than an improvised one. This is especially true when the threat is deadly. Massad Ayoob has an oft-repeated phrase for this: “Know where the threats are most likely to come from and have a proven strategy prepared to counter it.” You can’t prepare for everything, so you’ve got to prioritize.

Learning the most common instances where lethal force was used can give you valuable information about where your focus should be. I was listening to the Armed Attorneys (YouTube) discussing this recently. According to them, civilian uses of force cases (as opposed to law enforcement) overwhelmingly come in five categories:

 

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What the Media Can’t – Or Won’t – Tell Us About Armed Self Defense.

Don’t confuse the news with the truth. The corporate news media is in the business of delivering eyes and ears to their advertisers. That is how they earn their money. The assignment editors, reporters and the copyeditors are not against honesty and proportion, but cash comes first. That means they are biased in their reporting. They must ignore the common but important stories in order to leave room for the shock and outrage that keeps us watching and listening. I study armed defense. Ordinary citizens like us defend ourselves, our family, and innocent strangers every day. You wouldn’t know that from watching the news. This is why the corporate media does such a bad job of reporting.

To be fair, we have our own biases. Most of us think that armed defense looks like something from a John Wick movie or from the Matrix. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I have to describe what ordinary people do because most of us are not even familiar with the terms.

John Wick

Armed defense is when the intended victim of a violent crime uses a firearm to deter or stop the criminal.

That includes something as simple as grandma shouting for an intruder to go away because she has a gun and that she called the police. The police might not classify it as a defensive gun use, but grandma thinks it was. She thinks the home-invasion robber changed his plans because she had her firearm. The criminal thinks grandma’s gun was important too.

Armed defense is when an armed mom is crossing the parking lot late at night. She tells her kids to get back in the car, she turns toward three young men, and puts her her hand into her purse. She yells “Stop!” and the three young men change direction. They get back into their car and drive away.

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Will Phobias About AR-15s Keep Schools From Adopting This Innovative Product?

Time is of the essence in mass public shootings. Civilians and police stop a lot of mass murders by carrying handguns, but sometimes you need a larger round than is available in a traditional handgun. It often simply isn’t practical to carry around a rifle. And school staff might not have time to run to a locker to retrieve the needed gun.

Andrew Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter, Meadow, died in the 2018 Parkland school mass murder that left 17 people dead, is fighting to give school districts the tools they need. Byrna, a company that makes innovative self-defense tools, has donated eight backpacks containing collapsible AR-15s to Pollack’s “Meadows Movement” nonprofit. These guns fire .223 caliber rifle rounds and are more powerful than traditional handguns.

On January 4th, Pollack will give the backpacks to the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office for use by school resource officers (SROs) and Will Hartley, superintendent of Bradford County Schools.

“The folding rifle is easy to carry throughout the day for a school resource officer inside the bulletproof backpack,” Pollack said. “The seconds to get minutes lost retrieving a rifle from a locker vs. pulling the bulletproof backpack into a vest and having the rifle on hand equates to the number of lives that could have been saved.”

The school superintendent echoes his comments. “I wish more people could have it,” Hartley notes. “Because if someone comes on your campus and they have a long gun, we need to be able to meet their force with the same kind of force.”

Bradford County Schools is smart enough to have multiple layers of protection. Even when school resource officers are in the right place at the right time, they have a tough job. Uniformed guards may as well be holding neon signs saying, “Shoot me first.” Attackers know that once they kill the sheriff’s deputy, they have free rein to go after everybody else.

To prevent that, the Bradford County schools are part of Florida’s Guardian Program. As in nineteen other states, teachers and staff are trained to use guns to protect people. But their guns are concealed. Permit holders make guards’ very difficult job easier. If an attacker tries to kill a school resource officer, he reveals his position and makes himself a target to someone with a concealed handgun. As with concealed handgun permit holders generally, the whole point is that the attacker doesn’t know who else he needs to worry about.

Instead of a sign in front of these schools saying “Gun Free School Zone,” they are replaced with signs warning: “Please be aware that certain staff members at Bradford County Schools can be legally armed and may use whatever force is necessary to protect our students.”

But, unfortunately, there are plenty of schools around the country that haven’t learned the lessons that Bradford County has. And these backpacks, with their built-in bullet-resistant vests and ARs will help protect school resource officers from surprise attacks from behind them and will give them more potent firepower if they get into a firefight with attackers. In literally just a couple of seconds, the bullet-resistant vest can also be put on their front side.

Technically these guns are called AR-pistols rather than AR-15s, but the difference in terms is entirely arbitrary and results from nonsensical government regulations on how to define a rifle. Instead of a stock, an AR-15 pistol usually has a tube, but the two guns are functionally identical.

Pollack so believes in Byrna’s products that he is now their chief public safety officer.

It will be a shame if school districts’ phobias about AR-15s prevent them from taking advantage of this innovative product.

Dr. Lott Testifies Before House Committee
(Gives 3 Basic Facts Everyone Should Know!)

Dr. John Lott Jr., president of the nonprofit Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security last week for a hearing dedicated to “Examining Uvalde: The Search for Bipartisan Solutions to Gun Violence.”

Dr. Lott delivered a lot of information but he began with three basic facts that everyone should know about gun-related violence in America.

Here they are:

1, Over 92% of violent crimes in America do not involve firearms. The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey for 2020 shows 4,558,150 rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults, and the FBI reports 21,570 murders. Of those, firearms were involved in 350,460 rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults. Adding those numbers up, 7.9% of violent crimes were committed with firearms.

2, While the US media doesn’t give much, if any, coverage to mass public shootings in other countries, mass public shootings per capita are relatively low in the United States compared to the rest of the world. Over the 20 years from 1998 to 2017, the US had less than 1.13% of the world’s share of mass public shooters and 1.77% of its mass public shooting murders. That’s much less than the US’s 4.6% share of the world population. Since 2000, there have been nine mass public school shootings in the US. Germany had only three over that period and Finland had only one, but the United States has four times the population of Germany and sixty times that of Finland. Russia has had four such massacres, but we have 2.3 times its population. On a per capita basis, all three countries have a similar or higher rate compared to that of the US.

3, Like many other mass public shooters, the Buffalo shooter targeted defenseless people. He even wrote in his manifesto: “Attacking in a weapon-restricted area may decrease the chance of civilian backlash. Schools, courts, or areas where CCW are outlawed or prohibited may be good areas of attack. Areas where CCW permits are low may also fit in this category. Areas with strict gun laws are also great places of attack.” The national media refuses to report other explicit statements by attackers explaining why they pick the targets they do. Nor do they report the fact that 94% of mass public shootings occur in places where civilians are banned from having firearms.

If you’ll remember, the ‘joke’ name for Chicago for years has been ‘Chiraq’.
Plus I’m shocked that this unpolitically correct statistic is in the article:
“Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting…”

Seem Bill Whittle was right: “Maybe it’s the people holding the guns.”

Risk of death by gun violence is higher for men in some U.S. areas than in wartime. 

In some parts of the United States, young men face a higher risk of dying from gun violence than if they’d gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, a new study reports.

Young men living in certain high-violence ZIP codes in Chicago and Philadelphia run a greater risk of firearm death than military personnel who served in recent U.S. wars, according to findings published online Dec. 22 in JAMA Network Open.

Young men in Chicago’s most violent ZIP code were more than three times as likely to experience gun-related death compared to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, the researchers found, while those in Philadelphia’s most violent area were nearly twice as likely to be shot to death.

In all ZIP codes studied, young men from minority groups overwhelmingly bear the risk of firearm-related death, the findings showed.

“These results are an urgent wake-up call for understanding, appreciating and responding to the risks and attendant traumas faced by this demographic of young men,” said study leader Brandon del Pozo, an assistant professor of medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School in Providence, R.I.

His team examined shooting data from 2020 and 2021 in four large U.S. cities — Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia.

The investigators zeroed in on shootings involving nearly 130,000 men between 18 and 29 years of age. They grouped them by ZIP code so U.S. Census data could be used to examine demographics in those neighborhoods.

The researchers also compared the cities’ gun violence data with combat-related deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan — from 2001 to 2014 for Afghanistan and 2003 to 2009 in Iraq.

While young men in Chicago and Philadelphia had a much greater risk of firearm death, those in the most violent parts of Los Angeles and New York had a 70% to 91% lower risk than U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, the researchers said.

“We often hear opposing claims about gun violence that fall along partisan lines: One is that big cities are war zones that require a severe crackdown on crime, and the other is that our fears about homicides are greatly exaggerated and don’t require drastic action,” del Pozo said in a university news release.

“We wanted to use data to explore these claims — and it turns out both are wrong,” he continued. “While most city residents are relatively safe from gun violence, the risks are more severe than war for some demographics.”

Black and Hispanic men represented 96% of those who were fatally shot, and 97% of those injured in a shooting, according to the report.

The study authors noted that exposure to combat has been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and higher rates of homelessness, alcohol use, mental illness and substance use.

“Our findings — which show that young men in some of the communities we studied were subject to annual firearm homicide and violent injury rates in excess of 3.0% and as high as 5.8% — lend support to the hypothesis that beyond the deaths and injuries of firearm violence, ongoing exposure to these violent events and their risks are a significant contributor to other health problems and risk behaviors in many U.S. communities,” the research team concluded.

The health risks are likely even higher for city dwellers because they have a lifetime “tour of duty,” as opposed to a typical year-long posting to a war zone, del Pozo added.

“The findings suggest that urban health strategies should prioritize violence reduction and take a trauma-informed approach to addressing the health needs of these communities,” he said.

Why aren’t stalked women ever told to get a gun for self-defense?
Murder rates decline when people carry concealed handguns

Authorities say Ewen Dewitt murdered 40-year-old Julie Minogue with an ax this month in her Milford, Connecticut, home. Two of her children were home when the murder occurred. Mr. Dewitt, an ex-boyfriend, had been stalking her.

“I’m scared he’s going to kill me,” she told the police. In 2019, she had a protective order issued. Just a week before she was killed, a judge had granted her a full no-contact restraining order.

The case clearly illustrates the limits of protective orders when the stalker is intent on murdering the victim. Suppose the murderer is already facing the possibility of life imprisonment without parole for first-degree murder. How will an additional five years in prison and a $5,000 fine deter such murders?

It is an important problem. Reportedly, 76% of women murdered by someone who had been an intimate partner were stalked.

Violence prevention advocates for women have a long list of changes they recommend. These changes require women to uproot their lives.

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Among the advice: Women should change jobs, their travel routes, the time of day they leave home or work, move in with a friend or family member, change the locks on their home, or do their shopping and other chores with friends or relatives.

A few recommend that women practice martial arts such as judo, jujitsu, karate or boxing.

But the most obvious answer is missing from these lists: Women should get a concealed handgun permit and a firearm.

Men are typically much stronger than women, particularly in the upper body. Unfortunately, real life isn’t like the movies, where one woman can knock out and overpower several well-trained men. Even well-trained women often struggle to defend themselves against larger and stronger men. Men also tend to be faster runners.

A gun represents a much bigger change in a woman’s ability to defend herself. Men can readily hurt women without a gun, and if a woman is already in physical contact with the attacker so that he can take away their gun, they are already in trouble.

The peer-reviewed research by one of us shows that murder rates decline when people carry concealed handguns, whether they are a man or a woman. But a woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about three to four times more than a man doing the same.

And this message is getting across to women. Between 2012 and 2022, in states that provide data by sex, permits for concealed handguns increased 115% more quickly among women than among men. The percentage of women who say that gun ownership protects people from crime has also been growing faster than their male counterparts.

Connecticut and other states could make it much easier for stalked women to defend themselves. Even after taking the required training and applying for a permit, it “generally takes eight weeks to obtain” a permit. And that’s an optimistic estimate by the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. The Connecticut Citizens Defense League has had to file a lawsuit against three cities where the process regularly takes a year or more.

But even two months may be much too long for a threatened woman. Even women who have proved to a court that they are facing serious threats must wait to get a permit. One solution would be to allow women with court orders of protection to carry a concealed handgun while they are waiting for a permit to be issued.

Many single women with children may also find it difficult to pay $140 for a permit plus added fees for fingerprinting and training.

Connecticut’s concealed handgun permit cost is already almost three times higher than the average in other states. Despite this, 11.3% of adults in Connecticut have a concealed handgun permit — the 12th-highest state. And as crime in Connecticut has soared, the permit-possessing population has increased by 55,000 since 2019. Only 26% of permit holders in Connecticut are women, significantly less than in other states.

The high cost of permits disarms the very people who most need protection, including minorities who live in high-crime urban areas.

Police are important. Protective orders can help. But if we are going to be serious about protecting women like Julie Minogue, we have to let them protect themselves.

More women buying guns to defend themselves: “The world is changing”

Calera, Alabama — At a gun range in the heart of Alabama, Gracie Barhill is getting acquainted with her month-old Smith & Wesson 9 millimeter.

“I’m young. I’m a girl,” she said. “I never know when a threat is going to come.”

The 19-year-old is taking a self-defense firearms course, “Girls, Guns and Gear,” that’s designed for women who are wary of threats.

“It’s absolutely undeniable, the world is changing and they want to be ahead of it,” said Scott Recchio, a firearms instructor at the range.

Last year, one-third of all first-time gun buyers in the U.S. were women, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The trade association said there’s been a 77% rise in female gun ownership from 2005 to 2020.

Emma Boutwell, who is also taking the women-only class, said she had never handled a gun until recently.

“I need to know how to defend myself as well,” Boutwell said.

Gun instructor Beverly Alldredge teaches the women marksmanship, gun safety and situational awareness.

Alldredge said that instructing women is different than men because “women listen better than men do.”

“Women are just quicker just to hear and take in what they are being told and applying that,” she said.

Among Black women, the firearm homicide rate has more than tripled since 2010, according to one study. Today, nearly 30% of new women gun owners are Black, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey.

Nikkita Gordon, who owns the women’s clothing line Cute and Cocky, which is designed to hide a gun fashionably, said she has self-defense plans for both indoor and outdoor scenarios.

“I think most women, specifically women of color, should have these plans,” she said.

Emails Show CDC Removed Defensive Gun Use Stats After Gun-Control Advocates Pressured Officials in Private Meeting

The Center For Disease Control (CDC) deleted a reference to a study it commissioned after a group of gun-control advocates complained it made passing new restrictions more difficult.

The lobbying campaign spanned months and culminated with a private meeting between CDC officials and three advocates last summer, a collection of emails obtained by The Reload show. Introductions from the White House and Senator Dick Durbin’s (D., Ill.) office helped the advocates reach top officials at the agency after their initial attempt to reach out went unanswered. The advocates focused their complaints on the CDC’s description of its review of studies that estimated defensive gun uses (DGU) happen between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the United States–attacking criminologist Gary Kleck’s work establishing the top end of the range.

“[T]hat 2.5 Million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” Mark Bryant, one of the attendees, wrote to CDC officials after their meeting. “It is highly misleading, is used out of context and I honestly believe it has zero value – even as an outlier point in honest DGU discussions.”

Bryant, who runs the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), argued Kleck’s estimate has been damaging to the political prospects of passing new gun restrictions and should be eliminated from the CDC’s website.

“And while that very small study by Gary Kleck has been debunked repeatedly by everyone from all sides of this issue [even Kleck] it still remains canon by gun rights folks and their supporting politicians and is used as a blunt instrument against gun safety regulations every time there is a state or federal level hearing,” he wrote in the same email. “Put simply, in the time that study has been published as ‘a CDC Study’ gun violence prevention policy has ground to a halt, in no small part because of the misinformation that small study provided.”

Despite initially standing behind the description in the defensive gun use section of its “fast facts” website on gun violence, the CDC backtracked after a previously-undisclosed virtual meeting with the advocates on September 15th, 2021.

“We are planning to update the fact sheet in early 2022 after the release of some new data,” Beth Reimels, Associate Director for Policy, Partnerships, and Strategic Communication at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, said in one email to the three advocates on December 10th. “We will also make some edits to the content we discussed that I think will address the concerns you and other partners have raised.”

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment on the decision, but none of the emails the agency released related to it did not show any attempts to obtain other outside points of view either before or after the meeting with the gun-control advocates. Hannah Bristol of the White House Office of Public Engagement did not respond to a request for comment on her role in the discussions beyond what the emails reveal. Emily Hampsten, Senator Durbin’s Communications Director, told The Reload their office’s only involvement was “simply connecting” “stakeholder organizations” with a federal agency as part of the “basic function of our work.”

The decision to remove a CDC-commissioned report from the agency’s website on gun statistics at the apparent behest of gun-control advocates may further strain its relationship with Congressional overseers, especially pro-gun Republicans who are set to take control of the House next year. The relationship between the two, already frayed over the Coronavirus pandemic, could reach new lows not seen in decades. During the 1990s, Congress put restrictions on CDC funding in response to officials openly working with gun-control groups to try and ban handguns.

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