Category: Safety

ONCE AGAIN FOR THE GUN CONTROLLERS IN THE BACK:
IT’S THE CRIMINALS

New York’s gun laws are a mess. Antigun politicians passing them don’t have a clue. Worse yet, the people facing consequences are law-abiding New Yorkers.

They’re also the ones facing danger. Case in point – New York City’s Democratic Mayor Eric Adams recent reveal. The mayor told media, “When it comes to guns, this year, 2,386 people were arrested with a gun. Of those, approximately 1,921 are out on the street.

“This year, 165 people were arrested with a second gun charge,” Mayor Adams added. “Of those, 82 — out on the street. Not one arrest but two gun arrests — back out on the street.”

Does He Listen?

Mayor Adams won election on a “tough on crime” message. He said he would carry his own firearm and forego using the mayor’s personal security detail. “We cannot have a city where people are afraid to walk the streets,” he proclaimed early in his tenure.

He’s now singing a different tune. “How do you take a gun law seriously when the overwhelming numbers are back on the streets after carrying a gun?” he unironically asked media.

New Yorkers know criminals don’t take laws seriously. That’s why law-abiding New Yorkers have been screaming for years as gun control politicians in Albany impose stricter gun control laws on them, not criminals.

New Yorkers rejected restrictions and legally purchased firearms in record numbers, despite the state’s restrictive and burdensome process to obtain a handgun permit. Since 2020, nearly 1 million New Yorker’s have passed an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification to buy a firearm. Industry research continues to show “self-defense” is the number one reason buyers walk out of a retailer with a new purchase. That’s especially true of African American women, in New York City and across the country.

Soft on Criminals, Hard on Industry

New York’s backwards gun control laws are only half the problem. Soft-on-criminal prosecutors refusing to hold criminals accountable allow the cycle to continue. Notorious criminal sympathizer Chesa Boudin was given the boot and recalled as San Francisco’s District Attorney. Nearby Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon possibly faces a similar fate.

Manhattan’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg is cut of the same cloth. His office refuses to bring charges against repeat criminals, allowing them to walk back out on the streets and terrorize victims.

In New York, it’s not just about Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Adams and DA Bragg’s collective failure to address crime and keep New Yorkers safe. Democratic Attorney General Leticia James joined to do her part to crush New Yorkers’ Second Amendment rights by suing gun companies for the crimes unrelated to the lawful sale of the firearm.

“There should be no more immunity for gun distributors bringing harm and havoc to New York,” AG James said.

Her premise is a lie, of course, exactly like those repeated ad nauseum by President Joe Biden and gun control pundits. They prefer deflecting blame on a lawful and Constitutionally-protected industry from those actually responsible for gun crimes. It’s the reason for the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). President Biden and others have repeatedly been fact-checked about their false claims.

New Yorkers wanting safer communities must feel like they’re in a madhouse. Their state’s highest elected officeholders dismiss criminals as the root of the problem. They then pass more flawed and unconstitutional laws, while refusing to hold criminals to account. The result is a circular blame game.

One thing New Yorkers can do to change the game in their favor is #GUNVOTE® this November. They can send a clear message to the antigun politicians in New York their rights – and their safety – aren’t a game.

The Post-Bruen New York and California Punitive Gun Control Laws are Clearly Unconstitutional

After Bruen, a notable noncomplier is New York Governor Kathy Hochul. She also follows in the footsteps of her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. Both passed their big gun control bills by sending a “message of necessity”—a maneuver to prevent legislative hearings and to deprive legislators of time to read a bill before they vote on it. As the New York State Sheriffs’ Association explained:

The new firearms law language first saw the light of day on a Friday morning and was signed into law Friday afternoon. A parliamentary ruse was used to circumvent the requirement in our State Constitution that Legislators—and the public—must have three days to study and discuss proposed legislation before it can be taken up for a vote. The Legislature’s leadership claimed, and the Governor agreed, that it was a “necessity” to pass the Bill immediately, without waiting the Constitutionally required three days, even though the law would not take effect for two full months.

The Sheriffs’ Association criticized “thoughtless, reactionary action, just to make a political statement,” and “the burdensome, costly, and unworkable nature of many of the new laws’ provisions.” “We do not support punitive licensing requirements that aim only to restrain and punish law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

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And she scolds the interviewer right back

NPR Scolds Mother Who Bought Gun for Protection in High-Crime City: ‘Why Not Just Call the Police?’

NPR reporter Scott Simon spoke with a mother who said she bought a gun for protection in Aurora, Colorado, and he asked her, “Why not just call the police?”

The mother, Misheika Gaddis, told Simon she bought a 9mm pistol because she is a single mom home alone at night with her eight-year-old son, and she is pregnant with another child as well.

Gaddis explained that she decided to buy the pistol–her first gun–because of the crime near her apartment and her experience of coming home from work to find people congregating near her door whom she did not know.

She said:

So there was a couple of nights where I’d come home, and there would be people in the hallway, like, really close to my door. And the way my apartment building is set up is if you don’t know anybody up there, you shouldn’t be upstairs. There were a couple of nights I felt like I probably needed some protection or probably should have let somebody know I was going in late. But I didn’t think about it until there were people standing way too close to my door.

Later in the interview, Gaddis noted: “I stay pretty close to a high school that actually had a shooting sometime this year. Then there’s someone that, like, rides through the neighborhood, and they just let off shots. You can hear gunshots every night.”

Simon asked her what would have to happen in order to spur her to grab the gun and use it in defense of herself and her son.

Gaddis responded by suggesting she would grab the gun if someone was kicking in her door or if she heard the little bell on the back of her apartment door ring.

Simon responded by asking, “Why not just call the police?”

Gaddis noted that she has had to call the police in the past and the dispatcher asked her so many questions that the time it took to answer the questions, in addition to the time it took police to arrive, was just too great. She stressed that the moments she spent waiting were time in which she was vulnerable.

Well, ‘when seconds count, the police are only minutes away‘, still applies, even for this. For if THE SCHOOL STAFF doesn’t have access to the guns, those minutes until the police arrive – and if they actually decide to actually do anything except stand around making sure their hands are sanitary- simply means more time is wasted and more people get murdered

AR-15s put in all Madison County schools to enhance security in case of active shooter.

MARSHALL – In response to the Texas school shooting that left 19 children dead May 24, the local school system and Sheriff’s Office are rolling out some beefed up security measures in 2022-23, including putting AR-15 rifles in every school.

Madison County Schools and Madison County Sheriff’s Office are collaborating to enhance security in the schools for the upcoming school year after the Uvalde, Texas, tragedy revealed systemic failures and poor decision-making, with responding police disregarding active-shooter trainings, according to a report from the Texas state house.

“Those officers were in that building for so long, and that suspect was able to infiltrate that building and injure and kill so many kids,” Sheriff Buddy Harwood said. “I just want to make sure my deputies are prepared in the event that happens.”

Madison County Schools Superintendent Will Hoffman said MCS administration has been meeting regularly with local law enforcement officials, including Harwood, to discuss the updated safety measures.

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Just to point out, as has been pointed out before, each one of these cities is run by a demoncrap administration. If that doesn’t tell you something, nothing will.

Per Capita Murder Rate

Which city has the highest per capita murder rate?  Chicago?  New York?  Not even close.

A new study of cities over 200,000 people shows a surprising list of cities.  Here is the top 10.

 

New Orleans.  Louisiana’s very own third-world hell hole.  The current city administration seems bent on making New Orleans the most dysfunctional city on the North American continent.  Before hurricane Katrina, I enjoyed going to New Orleans for a weekend away.  Great food, good culture.  Nowadays I wouldn’t go to New Orleans on a bet.

I’ll take ‘Almost Everything’ for $500, Alex

What the News Media Gets Wrong About Guns & Armed Defense

We know that the news media distorts our view of the world. We see it every day in the way the mainstream media selects and edits their stories. I’m sure you see unusual things in the news that I miss. That is because each of us sees this media distortion most clearly in the individual subjects we know best. For the last decade, I’ve studied what our neighbors do with guns. I see where the news media dangerously twists the truth about armed defense. As ordinary citizens, we need to know more about the world than to be simply fed a copy of the police report after a crime. In fact, ordinary citizens keep their families safe every day but the media sells us a different story. Here is what the mainstream media won’t say.

Evil exists. We face real dangers. The world is simply not the way we want it to be. On average, someone in our family will be the victim of a violent crime during our lifetime. Merciless criminals use force to take what they want and the police are not there to stop them. It is not safe to be defenseless, not even at home. To begin, we face about 30 thousand home-invasion robberies a year, and two thirds of sexual assaults begin with a home invasion. Being unable or unwilling to defend the people we love is not a virtue. Those truths sound obvious to me, but they are absent from our contemporary news.

The media wildly over-reported stories where we were victims of violent crime. At the same time, the media horribly under-reported the many stories where we successfully defended ourselves. It is almost as if the news media didn’t want us to know that we faced dangers and saved lives.

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BLUF
the gun debate in America is simple to resolve: keep your guns.  It’s the smartest and freest choice — smartest because the I.Q.-heavies of 1776 deemed it necessary to maintain a free nation, and freest because freedom was their aim.  If you fear guns, the choice is equally simple: don’t own one.  You have that choice.  However, if you support gun confiscation, you remove that choice from your fellow citizen, leaving him more vulnerable.  If your fellow citizen is victimized by a criminal, morally speaking, the policy you supported spilled his blood.

By the way, did you catch the irony?  By making hundreds of millions of law-abiding citizens more vulnerable, anti-gun activists embolden criminals to commit more, not less, crime.  Talk about a miss.

What’s a Gun Got to Do with It?

A May 2022 The Hill article entitled Here Is A List of 27 School Shootings That Have Taken Place This Year underscores the fear many have regarding gun ownership.  But why is protecting one’s person, family, property, etc. in the face of evil threatening and not prudent?  After all, isn’t peace most ensured when strength is most projected — or, as Reagan put it, “peace [comes] through strength”?  In other words, doesn’t common sense inform us that criminals exploit vulnerability?

The arguments for gun control are familiar to most.  The anti-gun stance is that no guns means no mass shootings at schools less violent crime generally.  In support of this position, the figure of fewer deaths by guns in nations where guns have been banned is often cited, while violent deaths by other means are typically ignored.  Alternatively, the pro-gun position draws attention to 1) declining violent crimes in America for nearly three decades (Antifa/BLM riots, state D.A. criminal leniency, federal prison purges, etc. are altering this trend); 2) armed citizens for criminal deterrence; and 3) on-the-scene armed citizens preventing crime and apprehending criminals before police arrive.  Think of the recent Indiana mall “good Samaritan.”  In this article, we’ll explore the anti-gun side.

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Portland mayor admits homicides have increased 200% over last year

One of the bitter ironies in the gun control debate is playing out right now in Oregon, where years of progressive policies have led to a huge spike in shootings and homicides and gun control activists have successfully used that staggering rise in violent crime to put a voter referendum on the ballot this year promising increased public safety at the expense of the right of self-defense; outlawing the sale, transfer, and possession (in most circumstances) of “large capacity” magazines, imposing a new “permit-to-purchase” requirement on all firearms, and creating a state-run database of all permit holders.

Legal gun owners aren’t the drivers of Portland’s crime spike, but that’s not stopping these anti-gun advocates from blaming them for the actions of criminals, even though most folks might point to the city’s opposition to policing as a bigger factor in the increasing dangerousness of Portland’s streets.

It was just a little more than two years ago, after all, when Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced he was disbanding the police department’s gun violence reduction team, and in the months afterwards violent crime and shootings soared across the city. A little more than a year later Wheeler reversed course and launched a new Focused Intervention Team with the same mission, only to find a lack of volunteers within the Portland Police Bureau eager to sign up for the job. After months of struggles the FIT unit hit the streets in January of this year, but so far it hasn’t had much of an impact. As Wheeler acknowledged during a recent interview with public radio program Here & Now, homicides in the city are up a staggering 200% over the past year, and are double the national average.

“We engaged an organization to do a study, and what they concluded for the city of Portland is that more than half of the shootings involved group or gang activity. There’s a very small population of people, about 200 people in our city driving the vast majority of gun violence in Portland. And black teen and adult men continue to be disproportionately impacted by shootings and homicides. They represent nearly 47% of suspects and victims in these shootings, but they only make up 6% of the city’s population.”

If a tiny fraction of Portland’s 650,000 or so residents are driving the “vast majority” of violent crime in the city, it makes even less sense to impose new gun control restrictions on millions of law-abiding Oregonians, but Wheeler is also insistent that an increase in gun sales is to blame for the violence in his city.

“The ‘why’ of it is an increase in purchasing of firearms, disinvestment in communities that are struggling even more than ever under the impacts of COVID, and tensions are really high and people are settling their disputes with firearms. We had one shooting earlier this year where three adults settled a fight that they had during lunch at a really nice restaurant in a nice part of the city with gunfire.”

If the “vast majority” of gun violence is stemming from about 200 people across the city, then it shouldn’t matter how many people lawfully purchased firearms over the past couple of years, but Wheeler is largely following the Democratic playbook in targeting guns and not the trigger-pullers. I say largely because Wheeler told Here & Now that with his latest proclamation of a state of emergency over “gun violence,” the city does indeed want to focus on “those who we know are directly impacted by gun violence,” but only through “non-law enforcement interventions.”

While Wheeler and other Portland progressives are loathe to use police against the most violent and prolific offenders in the city, they’re fully on board with creating new non-violent, possessory crimes out of our right to keep and bear arms… crimes that will be policed not by community activists but by law enforcement officers.

Given Oregon’s leftward tilt, IP17 stands a very good chance of passing, though the odds of it being struck down by the courts are also strong. Regardless of what happens with the gun control initiative, however, Portland’s murder problem is going to remain in place as long as anti-gun politicians like Ted Wheeler recognize the problem is being driven by a relative handful of violent and prolific offenders but choose to target law-abiding gun owners and their Second Amendment rights instead.

Law-abiding gun owners will not harm you. But criminals will

There have been innumerable debates on gun ownership. These discussions generally address two critical factors: gun violence in inner cities and mass shootings. As a result, some Americans have called for the removal of certain weapons, such as the AR-15, from civilian ownership, and the limitation of magazines to 10 rounds as a means to combat these two problems. While I understand the desire to act quickly, we should not act in a way that makes villains of law-abiding gun owners who only wish to protect themselves and their families while simultaneously giving criminals the upper hand in their pursuit of destruction.

Can good, responsible citizens with firearms actually make a difference in life-threatening situations? A recent incident in Indianapolis demonstrates that, with training, a responsible gun owner can respond swiftly, safely and responsibly to save lives. A 22-year-old saved a significant number of lives when he eliminated a shooter who murdered three people and injured three more in an Indiana mall; the situation likely would have been much worse. Since 2021, there have been a total of 22 confirmed incidents of concealed carry permit holders employing deadly force to stop criminals in life-threatening situations. This number sounds insignificant in a vacuum; however, it is critical to consider that most shootings do not occur in places where firearm carry is permitted — for obvious reasons — thus there is generally no armed person available to stop a shooter.

As a gun owner with a license to carry a concealed handgun, I am fully aware that the use of force is an action of last resort. Firearm carriers are trained to avoid risky situations and make every attempt to deescalate whenever feasible. Nonetheless, taking a life is only appropriate if your own life is in imminent danger. I hope that I will never be in such a life-or-death scenario, but it is comforting to know that I can safeguard my life and the lives of others if necessary. After all, no sane individual goes about his or her day craving blood; rather, people carry to secure their own safety. Responsible individuals can use a weapon to prevent mass shootings and other types of deadly violence.

However, the villainization of law-abiding gun owners has prompted many Americans to distrust firearms and gun owners in general. This has occurred at the hands of government actors and gun control lobbyists who twist the facts to make people believe that guns are both dangerous and unnecessary in life-threatening situations. They make gun owners out to seem like fringe conspiracy theorists who have a deep distrust for authority.

Unsurprisingly, this could not be further from the truth. Gun owners are your neighbors, your friends and your family members. The firearms community is comprised of people you care about, and they are neither monsters nor evil; they are ordinary citizens concerned with their safety and the use of the fundamental right to defend themselves. No one should be at danger of having their rights and liberty infringed upon by criminals intent on causing bodily harm. Restrictive gun laws merely place criminals who flout the law in control.

When I recall growing up in rural South Carolina during a very difficult period in our nation’s history, I recognize that it was firearms that enabled Black people in the South to fend off the Ku Klux Klan. I consider today’s single moms and women who, in most cases, would be powerless against an assailant but could have the ability to protect themselves with a firearm. It goes without saying that members of the LGBTQ community have the right to keep and bear arms, and they most certainly ought to have the right to defend themselves if they find themselves a potential victim of a transphobic or homophobic attack. I consider the hatred of Asian people and atrocities committed against our Jewish brothers and sisters; they absolutely deserve to use deadly force against assailants who seek to harm them for their immutable characteristics. This privilege is available to all law-abiding Americans, regardless of color, religion, orientation or any other classification.

Criminals and those seeking to commit mass violence do not care if you are armed or not; they will find other ways to harm you. This has been the case since the beginning of human history. However, the question is how to strike a balance between protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens and keeping us safe from criminals. Maintaining access to weapons for law-abiding citizens is essential, and a balance must be struck between laws that screen out criminals and laws that make it difficult for law-abiding people to acquire and possess firearms.

You may not like firearms, and you may not want to possess one, but if you ever find yourself in a situation similar to the victims in that Indianapolis mall, you will wish there was a good Samaritan with a gun who could mean the difference between survival or death.

After The Shooting Stops: How does an armed citizen avoid being confused for a threat? There’s no simple solution, but there are ways to minimize that concern.

Our readers have no idea how much I appreciate them. Picture my editor breathing down my neck and wanting to know when my monthly column would arrive on his desk. Also, picture me without a single idea for that column. And then, just like the cavalry to the rescue, here comes a reader with some good questions.

Our reader, talking about a shooting incident in a public place, asks, “How do I identify myself as a ‘Good Guy with a Gun?’” And, “How do I prevent myself from being shot by other good guys with guns?” I would suggest to our reader that you also have to reverse the thought process: How do I identify other good guys and not cause them harm? Excellent questions, but there are no easy answers.

Any time guns start going off, there are a lot of things that can happen, and many of those things are bad. Deadly scenarios place most people under the most stress they have ever experienced. Deadly encounters in a public place just mean more people, more stress, more chaos and more confusion.

Consider, too, that in any such public incident, some of those present may be lawfully armed citizens. Others may be plainclothes or off-duty police officers, while still others may be uniformed police arriving at the scene, but currently unaware of what is actually going on. And the thing to realize is that, due to the confusion and chaos, everyone there is subject to making mistakes—deadly mistakes. The fact is that we cannot simply look at a person and determine whether or not they are a lawfully armed citizen. You already know that good citizens come in all races, genders and clothing styles.

Because of all these factors, I would suggest that the first consideration, even if you are armed, is to gather you and yours and make a quick exit. Just because guns are going off nearby doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to have your gun out. Time might be much better spent finding an exit or, failing that, getting behind good cover. Once good cover is located and utilized, you can more easily identify a person who is, for whatever reason, coming toward you with deadly intent. This gives you nearly the best advantage you can hope for under the circumstances.

Still, there are times when we can’t readily exit a bad situation. We may have family members still unaccounted for and not yet located. We may have been asked by law enforcement to provide assistance. We may have been asked by those in a leadership role to provide assistance until law enforcement can arrive. Regardless, we can’t leave, and we may have to take an active part in resolving the situation.

Our primary concern should be to make as much use of cover as possible. Second, it’s always a good idea to have our back against something solid so bad guys can’t sneak up behind us (or we fail to hear a lawful command from a police officer who has approached from behind). Last, we need to do something with our defensive handgun besides holding it openly, where it might cause us to take on friendly fire.

Gunwriter and former lawman Rich Grassi recently commented on a technique that he calls the hand-on-holstered-gun ready position. Far from being a brand-new defensive technique, it is one we were practicing back in the Dark Ages when I first put on a badge. Oftentimes, when approaching a questionable situation, we had our hand on the sidearm with any holster-security devices already disengaged and a shooting grip on the pistol. It was a simple matter to draw and address the threat should that have ended up being necessary.

This same technique can work very well for the armed citizen. For those rightfully concerned about running afoul of local laws against brandishing, we are talking about a scenario where there is already a clear threat, we are just not clear exactly who the threat is and also want to ensure we ourselves are not misidentified as a threat. By getting a shooting grip on the handgun and being ready to draw and engage if the situation isn’t otherwise resolved, we are prepared to defend ourselves while being less likely to be confused for the bad guy.

Furthermore, in the aftermath of an armed encounter, whether shots have been fired or not, the aforementioned hand-on-holstered-gun ready position makes good sense. We may no longer have a specific threat to address, but we know that could change quite quickly. And it is a really, really bad idea to actually have a gun in your hand when the police show up. The hand-on-holstered-gun ready position should be made a regular part of your defensive-practice sessions.

There are no easy answers to dealing with shootings in public. Get away, if possible, and avoid having to shoot. But, when it isn’t, the goal is be to be a survivor—not a hero.

‘They Got No Clue’: 80-Year-Old Store Owner Who Stopped Armed Robbery Slams California Politicians, Bail Reform

An 80-year-old store owner in Norco, California, who thwarted an armed robbery over the weekend is taking California politicians to task after the traumatic encounter.

Convenience store owner Craig Cope slammed politicians for being clueless about the escalating crime wave in California, referencing so-called bail reform, which has been criticized for allowing career criminals back on the streets to do more damage against innocent civilians.

“I’ll probably get on the wrong side of some people here, but, uh, the politicians,” Cope told FOX 11 on Tuesday, when asked what he would tell Californians fed up with the crime wave. “There’s people out there that are not the best of people … these people that continually get let out now — it’s been really bad the last year — those people, the majority of them, go right back to what they used to do. So the crime rate is escalating, and it’s gonna continue to escalate until they start putting the people away that are doing the bad things.”

To business owners similarly frustrated, Cope said the answer is not really to “do what I did,” but to “put some pressure on the politicians.”

“You can do what I did, but what you really need to do is put some pressure on the politicians, because they got no clue what’s really going on out here in the real world,” he explained. “I could start naming names, but there are a whole lot of them that are creating major problems for business owners, but for local law enforcement, they’re creating problems for them. I’m sure they’re risking their lives, taking people into custody to see them get let out with no bail. A lot of these guys are career criminals … they need to be locked up.”

The 80-year-old hero also had a blunt message for the “bad guys.”

“This isn’t a good place to pick,” he told FOX 11.

The Daily Wire detailed Monday that Cope reacted incredibly quickly when he realized his store was being targeted in an armed robbery. Surveillance footage shows that Cope fired at the first armed suspect who entered the store before anything else could happen, sending the would-be robber and the other men fleeing.

“He shot my arm off!” one of the armed suspects is heard yelling on obtained surveillance footage.

“He saw on the surveillance — he saw them coming out of the vehicle with weapons,” said Marnie Tapia, one of Cope’s employees.

“I’m proud to call him my boss,” Tapia said. “He makes us feel better about being here, you know.”

Gun Sales in Deep Blue Massachusetts Hit Record Levels Beginning in 2020, Sparked by Fear: Report

Gun sales in Massachusetts — a state with historically low firearm ownership — have skyrocketed since 2020, due in-part to people wanting to arm themselves out of fear, according to a new report.

Many customers “haven’t fully grasped the idea of wanting to own a firearm for defensive purposes, but something brought them here,” Cape Gun Works co-owner Toby Leary told local outlet WBUR. “They feel like they’ve been spurred to do it based on what they see, or their own personal feelings about the world.”

Leary said many of his customers during the pandemic and following months told him that they did not like guns, but that fear pushed them to make the purchase, WBUR reported. Continue reading “”

New Orleans PD response time is why you need a gun

Major cities tend to favor gun control. People figure they don’t need a gun because they can just call the police. In many cases, that works. After all, larger police departments tend to have the kind of manpower were help can be just a few minutes away.

That doesn’t help if seconds count, but in New Orleans, it seems even if they don’t, you’re still screwed.

It is one of the most startling crime stats to emerge in recent months: It takes New Orleans police an average of 2½ hours to respond to a 9-1-1 call, according to a new analysis presented to the City Council on Wednesday.

That figure, calculated by the data firm AH Datalytics and presented to the council’s criminal justice committee, was determined after looking at response times for all calls — including low-priority incidents, like fender-benders or stolen cars where residents are in little danger.

The New Orleans Police Department immediately took issue with how data analyst Jeff Asher crunched the numbers, asserting that residents should focus instead on the department’s response times for emergencies, which police get to largely within minutes.

Low-priority calls are often placed at the end of long backlogs, driving up the overall average.

The problem is that what can start as a low-priority call can become a high-priority call pretty quickly. And, of course, if you’ve already been marked down as low-priority, no one is coming faster unless you can make yet another call to 9-1-1.

At least some on the city council agree.

City Council members said the situation is a crisis that demands immediate action from City Hall.

“We’re just done with the talk,” said Council President Helena Moreno. “We just have to be really honest and say that potentially, people’s lives could be at stake.”

The problem is that the New Orleans Police Department is having a manpower problem. They simply don’t have enough officers on the job to put them on the streets.

It doesn’t help that funding for law enforcement was cut in 2021 to the tune of $15 million.

Earlier this year, the police union president cited progressive politicians as the reason still more officers are leaving the city, some for lower-paying positions. After all, why work to make arrests when the bad guy is going to just end up back on the streets in no time flat?

All of this brings me to point to this as why gun rights matter.

We cannot trust the police to save us. Even if Uvalde hadn’t happened, this would be a big warning sign that maybe, just maybe, the police won’t instantly respond to your 9-1-1 call, the same call you’re counting on to keep you safe from that bump in the dark.

But if you have a gun, you have the means to protect yourself. It doesn’t matter if it takes the police two and a half hours to finally get to your door because you’ll still be alive to open it for them.

Remember that even in the best of cities, you can only count on the police to get there in time to draw a chalk outline around the body. It’s your gun rights that give you the ability to make sure the body in question isn’t yours. It’s not a difficult decision to make

When CNN Quotes Everytown Troublesome Facts Kick In

Over the weekend, CNN reported on gun control laws passed so far in 2022, adding this reference, “There is a direct correlation in states with weaker gun laws and higher rates of gun deaths, including homicides, suicides and accidental killings, according to a January study published by Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit focused on gun violence prevention.”

However, an article in the Keene Sentinel, a newspaper serving southwest New Hampshire, reveals a small problem with Everytown’s research that might raise an eyebrow, if not some serious questions. Headlined “New Hampshire paradox: State gun laws remain loose as violence rate remains low,” the story’s lead paragraph tells a different tale.

“National rankings indicate New Hampshire has some of the weakest gun laws in the nation, and yet the state also maintains a low rate of firearm violence,” the newspaper says.

The report also quotes State Senate President Chuck Morse (R-Salem), who told the newspaper’s editorial board recently that gun-related violence is a problem of people, not guns.

“I don’t believe it’s a gun problem because look at New Hampshire.,” Morse reportedly stated. “We have more guns than probably any other state per capita. We have open carry, we passed constitutional carry, and we’re one of the safest states in the nation.”

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Leftist Attacks on Law and Order are Precipitating a Shift in Favor of the Right to Self-Defense

On the morning of July 19, news broke that Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg dropped a second-degree murder charge against 61-year-old, bodega clerk, Jose Alba. Earlier in the month, Alba had been arrested in Manhattan and charged with murder after defending himself from 35-year-old Austin Simon’s attack.

Alba’s saga is just one of many instances sending the same message. It is one that Soros-backed prosecutors and the left have been pushing for years: you do not have the right to defend yourself, ever.

Video surveillance would show Simon’s girlfriend berating Alba after her government issued food-stamp debit card was declined. Only moments later, Simon entered the store, walked behind the counter and shoved Alba against the wall. Simon then stood over Alba and blocked his exit.

When Alba attempted to get up, Simon grabbed him by the neck. That’s when Alba reached for a knife and stabbed Simon during the brawl that ensued. Simon died.

Alba’s bail was originally set at $250K, an outlandish number considering DA Bragg is an advocate for ending the cash bail system. In a move paralleling Bragg’s distaste for self-defense, ‘GoFundMe’ removed Alba’s page after people began donating to him.

After his arrest, it was revealed that Simon’s girlfriend pulled out her own knife and reportedly stabbed Alba during the brawl. At the time officers chose not to arrest her explaining that she was simply defending her boyfriend.

So, in the city of Manhattan you encourage your boyfriend to assault the man who refuses to let you steal from him and you have the legal license to stab him when he fights back.

Thankfully, the charges were dropped. But why were they filed to begin with? And why hasn’t the DA instructed his deputies to avoid charging victims and instead stay focused on the myriad number of violent criminals?

Alba’s mistreatment is the natural outworking of the Soros-backed prosecutors’ efforts to protect the criminal at all costs.

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Threaten? That would be the least of a bunglars worries with me.

83 Percent: OK to Threaten Intruder With Gun

If someone is breaking into your home or business, 83% of voters say that it is appropriate to protect yourself by threatening him with a gun. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that just 8% think it is not appropriate, and 9% are not sure.

The survey also found that 79% of voters believe that self-defense is a legitimate purpose for owning a gun, 69% say that hunting is, and 26% say protection against the government. Just 9% say there is no legitimate purpose for owning a gun.

Methodology
The survey of 1,200 registered voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on July 12-13, 2022. Fieldwork for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage, and political party to reasonably reflect the nation’s population of registered voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population.

‘Many, many’ Texas teachers seek to carry guns in schools, Tarrant County sheriff says

Many Texas teachers are becoming qualified to carry firearms in schools in the wake of the Uvalde mass shooting, according to Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn. Waybourn was part of a panel of politicians on Tuesday who spoke at an America First Policy Institute summit in Washington, D.C.

He joined Congressman Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt during a panel called, “Provide Safe and Secure Communities So All Americans Can Live Their Lives in Peace.” Pam Bondi and Matthew Whitaker led the session.

Donald Trump was scheduled to speak at the summit Tuesday afternoon. Bondi asked the panelists about various topics on policing and crime in the U.S.. She asked Waybourn what he thought needed to be done in schools in the wake of the deadly shooting in Uvalde. Waybourn apologized on behalf of Texas for the “epic failure of law enforcement in Uvalde.”

Waybourn said schools must be “hardened” to protect kids from shooters, mirroring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s call for action to better secure schools from potential shooters. To protect schools, Waybourn said, schools need “a good guy with a gun ready to go,” whether that person is a police officer or a “well-trained vetted staff member in that school.”

“And in Texas, many, many teachers are out qualifying today as we speak,” Waybourn said. “And they’re getting ready to go.” The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to questions about where Waybourn received his information on teachers increasingly becoming qualified to carry guns in school. In Texas, school staff can carry firearms in schools as part of the School Marshal program. Through the program, a school district applies for qualification and, if accepted, sends their selected candidate to an 80-hour training course.

Across the state, 62 school districts were qualified through the program for a total of 256 school marshals as of May, Texas Commission on Law Enforcement spokeswoman Gretchen Grigsby told the Dallas Morning News. The names of the districts and marshals are confidential. Transfer of Power A special newsletter from our D.C. Bureau focused on transition to the Biden administration.

Texas has more than 1,200 school districts, including charter schools. Texas also allows staff to carry guns on campus through the Guardian Plan. Under the authority of the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act and the Texas Penal Code, school districts can grant written permission for designated employees to carry firearms on campus.

Texas politicians, such as Attorney General Ken Paxton, have urged schools to arm teachers in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, in which a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in May. Other school districts, including the Fort Worth school district, want politicians to focus on gun laws. On July 12, the Fort Worth school board asked Abbott to call for a special legislative session to pass “common sense” gun law policies to protect students from mass shootings. The America First Policy Institute is a nonprofit organization focused on a policy agenda for Republican leaders.

Mississippi board of education votes to let schools set their own gun policies

The move by the state board of education isn’t likely to lead to armed staff members protecting kids in Mississippi’s few Democratic bastions like Jackson, but now that the board has said individual school districts can set their own policies when it comes to guns on campus many smaller and more rural schools may very well decide that having a few trained and vetted volunteer staffers carrying to protect the students in their care is a good idea.

Late last week the state board of education updated a 1990 policy that barred anyone other than law enforcement from carrying on school grounds, arguing that the old policy conflicts with the state’s “enhanced concealed carry” law. That law specifically allows those with the enhanced carry license to lawfully carry in some “sensitive places” deemed off-limits to those carrying with a regular license or under the state’s Constitutional Carry law, and as of now the board says that districts can choose to permit or forbid employees with enhanced permits from carrying on school grounds.

At the boarding meeting, Erin Meyer, the education department’s general counsel, said state law provides “local school districts with the authority and discretion to determine” its weapons policies. School districts can decide for themselves whether or not employees who hold enhanced carry licenses can bring guns onto school property.

School districts must also adopt policies that apply to non-employees. A 2013 state attorney general’s opinion argued teachers or administrators can refuse to meet with armed people in a “non-public” school area. Mississippi K-12 schools are closed to the public, but a school concert, play or sporting event is open to the public, Cook said.

Patricia Ice, a volunteer with the Mississippi chapter of Moms Demand Action, a gun reform organization, urged school districts to adopt policies that limit firearms on campus.

“Allowing teachers and members of the public to carry guns in our K-12 schools is a dangerous idea that will further jeopardize the safety of students and staff alike,” Ice said. “We need the adults in the room to make evidence-based policy decisions that will actually keep our children safe, rather than making decisions that will put more guns in their classrooms and put our kids at risk.”

Ice can’t point to any issue in states where teachers and staff are authorized to legally carry a firearm on campus as a deterrent to a targeted attack against students, but Moms Demand Action has long opposed the idea anyway. In fact, Moms Demand Action and their parent group Everytown for Gun Safety helped sue to overturn Ohio’s armed school staff statutes, forcing lawmakers in the Buckeye State to craft new legislation this year ensuring that districts have the flexibility to adopt the practice if they choose.

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BLUF
This is a VERY SMALL list of the over 7,000 incidents listed at the http://SSRIStories.org website.

So IS this the ignored connection? Are these mass shooters on some sort of SSRI when they go off the reservation and dream up schemes from hell to do as much harm to others as they can while in an altered state of reality due to these DRUGS?

The SSRI Connection To Suicides, Spontaneous Murder and Mass Shootings.

Do we need MORE GUN CONTROL? Or BETTER PRESCRIPTION DRUG CONTROL?
Reason, logic and common sense should dictate the correct answer.

A mass shooting is defined as an incident where four or more people are shot. So far this year, the numbers average out to 11 mass shootings per week. 2021 saw a total of 692 mass shootings throughout the year.

Year 2022, just the first six months: – January: 41 mass shootings, 59 dead, 128 wounded February: 43 mass shootings, 40 dead, 174 wounded
March: 52 mass shootings, 47 dead, 217 wounded- April: 66 mass shootings, 75 dead, 271 wounded- May: 67 mass shootings, 87 dead, 324 wounded-June: 68 mass shootings, 78 dead, 275 wounded- These numbers accumulate to a total of 386 people dead and 1,389 people wounded.

I’m not sure how The Scotsman reporter  Rachael Davies who wrote the article on 05/07/2022 came up with May and June numbers…but hey, that’s main stream media for you!

Now let’s take a look at mass shootings in the USA before 1968 and we will go back as far as 1954. 1968 was the year massive gun control reform was passed with the Gun Control Act. One of the provisions was that no longer could a rehabilitated felon ever have possession of a firearm. Let’s look at mass shootings prior to that day and realize that firearms were taken to school by boys who were going hunting afterwards and could be seen in the back windows of their pickups. That you could easily obtain firearms from a Sears & Roebuck catalog without back ground checks at all and have one sent directly to your home with no FFL dealer involved.

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