Safety – Page 32 – MILESFORTIS

Gun control not a “resource” to stop mass shootings

If the idea of being involved in a mass shooting, even if that involvement is just knowing one of the victims, is a personal nightmare of yours, you’re probably right to be concerned. They’re awful and the pain of having someone taken from your life like that hurts beyond words.

Believe me, I know.

In North Carolina, a sheriff decided to stop playing around and decided school resource officers will have AR-15s to use to protect students and staff. To say some don’t like that is an understatement.

In the Charlotte Observer, one columnist put his opposition into words.

Madison County, one county over from where I live in Asheville, garnered national headlines recently with an announcement that every school in the N.C. county will be outfitted with AR-15s this school year.

This initiative embodies how many on the right today bend over backward to suggest anything but gun control as the salve for gun violence.

Madison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood wrote on Facebook, “to exhaust every resource we’ve got to ensure that our kids are safe, that when they go to school, they can learn…and they can go the playground and play, and not worry about some thug who’s going to come out onto the playground and open up on them with some type of AR-15, shotgun, pistol, whatever.”

Only Harwood didn’t exhaust every resource. If he’d done that, he would’ve been advocating for meaningful gun control — a shooter can’t open fire with an AR-15 if they can’t purchase one.

Well, that last paragraph is possibly one of the dumbest ever written in the English language.

First, understand that there are an estimated 20 million or more AR-15s currently in circulation. Does the author think that a new law will magically make them unobtainable for the average citizen? I’m sorry, that ship has long since set sail.

Further, it’s not like the AR-15 is the only weapon used to commit a mass shooting. In fact, handguns are far more commonly used for such horrific acts.

Yet an AR-15 would allow deputies to engage handgun-armed would-be mass shooters at greater range, meaning they could save lives that much sooner without having to close to handgun range. Or, if such a killer has a rifle of some type, he can at least meet them on equal ground.

Moving on…

Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban in 1994, outlawing AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles. As reported by NPR, mass shootings were down in the decade that followed, compared to the decade before (1984-1994) and the one after (2004-2014). Assault weapon bans work.

Except the study referenced used an odd definition of “mass shooting;” one that also happened to reduce tilt the findings more in the favor of the desired outcome. That NPR didn’t critically look at that study isn’t overly surprising.

But the author is starting to approach his point:

Harwood represents a bigger problem: the refusal of law enforcement in North Carolina to lead the gun control conversation.

There we go.

The problem is that Harwood and other North Carolina law enforcement officials aren’t pushing his preferred politics. Yet there are valid reasons for this.

For one, Harwood is an elected official, which means his politics are more likely to reflect the beliefs of his constituents. He’s not going to push a “gun control conversation” in a pro-gun county unless he’s looking to retire without having to announce it.

Second, it wasn’t that long ago when people like the author were screaming about defunding the police, and now they’re upset that the cops don’t seem to be on their side?

The truth of the matter is that a lot of law enforcement see what happens when good people are disarmed. They can’t stop criminals from getting guns, regardless of the laws on the books. They’ve seen how those laws completely fail every time they arrest a known felon and find a firearm on them. So, they often come to recognize that gun control isn’t going to do the trick.

They fail to push the author’s agenda simply because they know it to be a complete failure of an idea.

Putting AR-15 in the hands of school resource officers isn’t just a good idea, it’s the only sane one.

Signs Warn About ‘Deadly Force’ at Florida Schools: ‘Teachers Are Armed’
A school district in the Florida panhandle stirred controversy overnight after signs were placed around all public schools warning that staff members are armed and willing to use “deadly force.”

Signs at Florida schools stir controversy

Gulf District Schools Superintendent Jim Norton told Newsweek that the signs are placed on all entrances of each school in Gulf County as one line of defense against potential armed intruders.

“Staff members are ARMED and TRAINED,” the sign read. “Any attempt to harm children will be met with Deadly Force.”

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Giffords Says This is Gun Safety Week, So Let’s Talk ACTUAL Gun Safety

If you follow the big gun control orgs’ accounts on social media, chances are you’ve already come across a post like this one . . .

That’s right, the Giffords civilian disarmament operation has unilaterally declared this Gun Owners for Safety Week and are using it to push their message of gun control under the guise of “gun safety” and “standing up to the gun lobby.”

So, in the spirit of Gun Owners For Safety Week, I think we need to amplify responsible gun ownership, too. That’s always a good idea. If you aren’t already familiar with them, here are the four rules of gun safety that every gun owner should know and practice.

But we all know that groups like Giffords aren’t really concerned about actual firearm safety as much as as they are control those who own guns. Even if every single armed citizen was the very model of gun safety, never doing anything even remotely questionable and only using firearms outside of a range for and clear-cut cases of self defense, that still wouldn’t satisfy them.

That’s why they’re pumping messages like this one . . .

The real goal here, of course, is to push and pass restrictive laws — think: universal background checks, gun owners licensing, waiting periods and “safe storage” mandates — to the point where lawfully-possessed guns aren’t only mostly useless for armed self-defense, but are utterly worthless against a tyrannical government, too.

Reducing their usefulness as defensive tools against the kind of criminals the average citizen is likely to encounter is just a happy side effect of their real objective: making life safer for illiberal governments and their enforcers.

But they know we know this. They’re not trying to change our minds here. They want the general public — the majority who don’t know much about the issues surrounding firearms and gun rights — to rethink what “safety” is. Instead of being about the practices an individual should adopt for basic firearm safety, they want people to think that “gun safety” comes from the imposition of “commonsense” gun control laws.

They want John and Jane Q. Public to think that gun owners don’t give a damn about safety, when precisely the opposite is the truth. We all started out dumb about guns at some point and were corrected by a parent, an instructor, a range safety officer, or a mentor. Some of us have had worse experiences that woke us up. But the general public hasn’t had that experience. They don’t know (and don’t want others to know) how seriously safety is taken as a normal part of the gun culture.

That’s why a lack of basic, fundamental gun safety practices isn’t tolerated in the gun-owning community.

To spread that message even further, we need to be reminding people of three things:

What actual gun safety really is
That we take it seriously
That passing laws can’t make bad owners or criminals into good ones

What Real Gun Safety Is

Real gun safety doesn’t come from collective action. It doesn’t come from laws. It doesn’t come from firearms design (assuming the design isn’t seriously defective). It doesn’t come from your gun shop, or even from a firearms instructor. Ultimately, gun safety lies in the hands of the individual holding a gun. Everyone else can do everything right, but if you as the owner don’t adopt safe practices, none of that matters one little bit.

negligent unintentional discharge training range — Courtesy Jeff Gonzales

That’s why, long ago, various groups of firearm owners and gun-carrying professionals came up with safety rules which we’re all expected to know and practice. While the exact wording differs, the Four Rules cover things really well . . .

“The Four Rules of Gun Safety”

If you take any basic class given by a reputable instructor, you will start off with gun safety before ever going to the range. Beyond what’s contained in the Four Rules (or the NRA’s 3 rules, if that’s what you learned), there are other safety considerations to know including . . . .

The gun needs to be safe to operate
You need to know how to use it safely
Use the correct ammo
Wear eye and ear protection
Never use alcohol or drugs while shooting
Keep guns away from unauthorized people (children, thieves, etc.)
Range safety procedures and rules

As a community, we take these rules seriously. To be told by gun control advocacy operations — of all people — that they’re the ones who really care about firearm safety is not only false, it’s downright insulting. We need to make sure everyone hears this.

Why More Americans Are Becoming First-Time Gun Owners
Many Americans are turning to firearm ownership for many different reasons – much of it having nothing to do with politics but a need to protect themselves.

Why Is Gun Ownership Up? Expert Analysis and Some Personal Stories: Following the start of the global novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic in early 2020, firearms sales steadily picked up. By the end of the year, 2020 had seen the strongest sales of guns in the history of the United States. It was driven significantly by many “first-time” buyers – those who had never previously owned a firearm.

According to data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearms industry trade association, there were some five million first-time gun buyers in 2020 – while other statistics put the number significantly higher. What is also notable is that in the months that have followed, many of those individuals have become repeat customers, with nearly 23 percent of retailers reporting that those new owners made a second firearm purchase in 2021.

The impact of the pandemic, followed by summer 2020’s wave of violent protests that coincided with calls to “defund the police” and then the election of Joe Biden to the White House, can’t be overstated. By comparison, just 2.4 million Americans became new gun owners in 2019.

Sales Remain Strong in 2022

As the country settles into a “post-pandemic” new normal, firearm sales have fallen this year, but still remain above pre-pandemic levels. Gun sales this past spring saw year-over-year declines, yet are outpacing 2019 and all years prior. More significantly, the trend was reversed in June, which had the first year-over-year increase of 2022 – with firearm sales up 7.7 percent compared to June 2021.

“The June 2022 data are of interest in that they reflect this calendar year’s first year-over-year increase in firearms unit sales,” explained Small Arms Analytics (SAAF) chief economist Jurgen Brauer. “This increase possibly was due to the discussion regarding additional federal firearms legislation that some customers may have viewed as detrimental to their interests even as the industry as a whole has been not wholly unsupportive of the final bill signed into law by President Biden.”

The passage of new gun safety legislation, the first in nearly 30 years, likely spurred the spike in sales earlier this summer. Moreover, according to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), there have now been 36 straight months of sales in excess of one million units.

More First-Time Buyers

Gun sales have continued to remain strong in 2022, and a driving factor is once again those first-time buyers – who are increasingly more diverse than ever.

Instead of the “redneck” firearms enthusiasts – which is how gun control groups have long painted Americans who support the Second Amendment – new data found that in 2021, some 33 percent of first-time gun buyers were women, while the number of African Americans purchasing firearms increased by 44 percent, and Hispanic Americans who purchased a firearm jumped by 40 percent.

“Gun owners no longer fit into the tiny little boxes gun control groups wish to put us in,” said NSSF director of public affairs Mark Olivia. “Today’s gun owner is younger, more urban, and more representative of the different demographic groups we see across America.”

Clearly, more Americans are exercising their Second Amendment rights, something President Biden and the gun control groups will eventually have to accept.

What Two First-Time Gun Owners Told 19FortyFive

We reached out to several new gun owners to get their perspectives on why they made the decision they did. Two new owners agreed to speak to us on the condition they not be named and that we respect their right to privacy and not share any identifying information.

Smith & Wesson Model 610. Image: Smith & Wesson.

One new gun owner based in Maryland explained he purchased a simple .38 revolver to protect his convenience store, which was robbed twice in the last year. “I was tired of working so hard to only have my profits stolen from me,” explained the shopkeeper, a third-generation small business owner. “I hate guns to be honest, but I need to protect my countless hours of hard work and provide for my family. They need to know I will come home every night to them. A firearm makes me feel I can do that.”

Another store owner, operating a small deli in Ithaca, New York, explained to 19FortyFive that she purchased a firearm for her home and business for self-defense. “The riots and chaos of 2020 really have me very concerned. My choice to purchase a gun does not have anything to do with politics – I am a registered Democrat, to be honest. I just want to feel safe.”

Two Carry Permits Confirmed Issued in New Jersey

New Jersey – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Garden State is known for being an anti-civil rights wasteland. Firearm possession in the state is by exemption or permits. Up until recently, the permitting regulating the possession of handguns and pistols was an out-of-reach unicorn. Handgun and pistol owners had to largely rely on exemptions of the law, as NJ Rev Stat § 2C:39-5 b (2021) states one must first obtain a permit to carry prior to possessing a handgun. However, now in our post NYSRPA v. Bruen world, obtaining a permit to carry is possible.

Social media sites have been buzzing with people applying, allegedly getting denied, and also some rumors of permits to carry actually getting issued. To say a lot of rumors have been abound would be an understatement.

There’s plenty of counterproductive talks, such as people “in the know” going off when the uninitiated refer to the New Jersey permit to carry as a “CCW” or a concealed carry permit. The fact that NJ makes no distinction between open or concealed carry and said permit is referred to as a “permit to carry” is not cause for berating those that quickly refer to the permit as a CCW or a concealed carry permit. A collective sigh of relief should be exhaled by all persons in this fight, and while some kind of corrective rudder is not a bad thing, let’s not act like we don’t know what people are talking about.

There’s also been a ton of counterproductive talks about what is required to rope and wrangle one of these one-horned horses in the land of one thousand diners. I have spoken to two verified permit-to-carry recipients in New Jersey and want to share that information.

The first thing we should divert our attention to is a document on the New Jersey State Police website called: “Permit To Carry Instructions“. While the document is not necessarily the best, it does outline the needed steps to take to apply for a permit to carry in New Jersey. It’s important to note that New Jersey, at this time, also does not make a distinction between resident and non-resident permits. Non-residents are to apply to the closest State Police barracks that are not on a toll road to where the applicant would be entering the state.

The first recipient of a New Jersey permits to carry that I spoke to was Jamie DeAngelis. DeAngelis lives in Warren County, in Hackettstown, New Jersey. DeAngelis told me that he dropped off his completed application on July 26th at his police department. The local range where DeAngelis shoots, RTSP in Randolph, he said, had the complete process of what to do from beginning to end on their web page.

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Gov. Greg Abbott deploys Chuck Norris to help stop the next school shooting

Texas is turning to Chuck Norris to help stop the next school shooting.

With school restarting around the state, Gov. Greg Abbott is touting a safety program that calls on parents, teachers and students to report suspicious activity on the state’s iWatch website.

To promote the reporting system, Abbott has tapped 82-year-old former action movie star Chuck Norris to star in new public service announcements promoting the system.

“Parents, teachers, and students deserve to feel safe and secure returning to school this fall, and who better to help spread the message about the iWatchTexas reporting system than ‘Texas Ranger’ Chuck Norris?” Abbott said in a statement to the media on Tuesday.

Norris was the star of the television series Walker Texas Ranger which ran from 1993 to 2001.

In the new PSAs, Norris says he loves bringing bad guys to justice.

“But law enforcement can’t stop the bad guys if they don’t know who they are,” he says. “That’s why I wanted to tell you about iWatch, a website, phone app and service that allows Texans to report suspicious activity.”

The iWatch system has been in place for several years, but Abbott in June called for ramping up awareness of the system after the Uvalde shooting.

Like other Texas Republicans, Abbott has rejected calls from the left for more gun control measures, saying they are not the solution to mass shootings, instead focusing on mental health resources and school security measures.

The new website is: https://iwatchtx.org or people can call the state’s hotline, 844-643-2251.

Abbott said it is part of a laundry list of steps he’s taken since the Uvalde school shooting where 19 children and two teachers were killed in May. Abbott said he’s ordered comprehensive school safety reviews of all Texas public schools, more training of school-based police and the creation of a new Chief of School Safety and Security position within the Texas Education Agency.

Gun control is not the solution to gun violence in America. Here’s why
Gun control is a false hope. There are better ways we need to approach the gun violence issue in America.

After recently perusing the advertisements in my mid 1960s Boy Scout Handbook, I noticed a number of ads for semiautomatic .22 caliber rifles for hunting and shooting fun. These ads illustrate our country’s longstanding and popular tradition of gun ownership and usage.

Like it or not, we are a gun-nut nation. This is exemplified in our laws, our history, our foods, our criminality and our popular culture. First person shooter video games proliferate like rabbits.

We do like our guns, but we also hate and fear them — and with good reason. Guns are serious tools, potentially dangerous and deadly to users as well as others through carelessness.

Guns are double-edged—able to be used for good and bad, hence their association with criminality. For more than a century we have tried to control for the criminal aspects of guns, but with varying levels of success.

Failed gun control attempts

Control has landed athwart competing interests of custom and culture as well as law. As with many issues in American history and life, lines are drawn fairly hard and evenly.

Some issues with guns, like school shootings, call for immediate solutions. Yet we dither and have been doing so for decades. One consistent attempt has been to try to ban assault rifles.

Currently in the wake of recent shootings, this has become the go-to solution for many as it has been in the past.

But this is not the solution to this problem.

We tried this before from 1994-2004, and yet saw no end during that time period in mass shootings. Recently many have vilified a particular assault rifle, and wish to ban the AR-15 rifle.

Some, such as the great pundit Whoopi Goldberg or the great gun expert President Biden, have claimed the only purpose for this rifle is just to kill people. But when introduced to the American public in 1963 it was marketed as a great rifle for camping, hunting and collecting, much like the Boy Scout rifles of the 1960s.

Newsflash, all guns can be used to kill people. Years ago a student shot up his school using a relative’s target pistol. What if we do ban assault rifles, or just the AR-15 in particular?

Will mass shootings decline? No.

Most mass shootings, upwards of 65%, are committed with pistols. Few are committed with assault rifles. Sadly, since most of these mass shootings are committed at close range, the Boy Scout rifles advertised in the 1960s handbook are just as deadly.

Supposedly, the small .22 caliber bullet has been responsible for more American civilian deaths than any other caliber.

Gun control is not the solution to school shootings. We cannot magically wave away 400 million guns, some 20 million of which are assault rifles.

What is the solution then?
Simply, and sadly, we have to recognize the reality of things as they are now and harden the schools; bullet-proof glass at the main entrance and controlled access; metal detectors; and make sure all other doors lock from the inside and are locked always.

More armed personnel, police and some teachers, in the schools. For society as a whole, more people need to carry concealed. Gun control is a false hope.

They’re ‘Doing Something’ to Our Kids

What happens when you can no longer trust the people responsible for keeping your kids safe? What happens when the “Do Something” crowd only does the wrong thing?

In news that probably sounds familiar to you wherever you live, Salem-Keizer (OR) Public Schools has approved a resolution that further prohibits firearms on school grounds – at all times. Passing in a 4-3 vote, which seems like a very small decision-making group for a district of 65 schools and over 42,000 students.

As reported by the Statesman Journal:

“Salem-Keizer school board members Tuesday approved a resolution further prohibiting weapons on campus, including concealed guns. The vote directs Superintendent Christy Perry to develop and enact administrative policy to implement this…

Staff and students were already not allowed to have concealed weapons in Salem-Keizer schools. The new resolution expands restrictions to include all concealed firearms carried by campus visitors, including parents, guardians, volunteers, guest speakers, organizations renting facilities and other community members.”

But school resource officers? Gone.

But private armed security? Unarmed.

But armed teachers? Nope.

What about local law enforcement? In one of those, do-you-really-need-to-say-this moments, Perry clarified that law enforcement will still be ALLOWED to open carry their firearms onto campus in the event of an emergency. Wow. Thanks.

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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.

What Economists Can’t Tell You About the Costs of Gun Violence

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.