Category: Safety

Second Amendment still as relevant as in 1789

People are clamoring for oppressive and dangerous gun laws.

So-called common-sense laws like universal background checks and red flag laws that even proponents admit would not have stopped any of the shootings motivate their desire. All with hidden elements that will unfairly and oppressively affect the law-abiding and honest.

There are typically over 2,000 children each year who die from child abuse. There are thousands more who die of various preventable causes. Where is the moral outrage?

How about the thousands of teens who die needlessly of drug overdoses? Where is the moral outrage? Where are the demands for more laws regarding abuse, securing the border or stopping the influx of fentanyl, heroin and other drugs?

The purpose of the Second Amendment is not fighting our military, hunting, target shooting or even defense. The purpose of the Second Amendment is deterrence. Pure and simple.

A single armed individual can deter dozens of heavily armed law enforcement officials, as we saw recently in Texas, yet an unarmed individual is easily taken into custody at five in the morning by 20 or so heavily armed storm troopers while CNN films the entire affair.

There has been no gun confiscation because millions of firearms are owned by law-abiding citizens. This is the deterrence that the founders knew would be needed when corruption ultimately prevailed in Washington.

Corrupt politicians along with their naïve cohorts on both sides of the aisle are in a dead heat to make firearms ownership too complicated, too difficult and too expensive for the average individual.

If successful, only the elite will have armed security. The rest of us will be statistics for politicians to pontificate about when they talk down to the unwashed and ignorant masses, begging them for law and order.

I’m not willing to compromise on this because compromise is just losing at a slower rate. When it comes to individual liberty and rights there can be no compromise — especially when the proposed compromises do nothing to address the mentally ill, the evil, the criminal and those intent on doing harm.

Every proposed encroachment on our rights is just that — an encroachment with no net benefit.

While many have compromised on perversion, distortions of reality, acceptance of idiocy, alternate realities and indoctrination of their children, I for one will not compromise on the Second Amendment … period.

You’re being lied to about “mass shootings”. Here’s the truth. – and it’s loaded with USDOJ-funded research.

The latest data on mass shootings from the National Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice and the Rand Corporation.

There are no standard definitions of mass shootings. There are no easy answers.

Source

National Institute Of Justice-Rand

Article

I was interviewed on a national television show about research-based answers to mass shootings. Beyond condemning those involved, I stumbled. I knew that there were few (if any) firm answers or guidance.

That’s not the case for some doing similar interviews. Many are quick to promote firearm controls or red flag laws or suggest that there are effective answers. That’s simply not the case. The complexities and price tags for the proposals are immense.

For example, we within the justice system acknowledge our inability to keep track of convicted-fingerprinted felons and maintain accurate records. There are vast inaccuracies. Now, we want to do national or state databases for those with ever-changing mental health conditions?

It will be a logistical and financial nightmare with probable ACLU challenges. It’s not going to work beyond those committed to institutions and even then, conditions change.

As of this writing, the latest Congressional proposals are available via CNN.

It’s time to examine the best available data on the subject. Note that varied definitions of mass shootings and whether they were public (inferring unknown victims) or private (inferring known victims) will be difficult to follow. Previous research suggests that most victims of mass shootings were known to the shooter.

There are few firm conclusions based on research. Policy issues are elusive. The emphasis is on assault weapons when the overwhelming majority of mass shootings involve handguns (while noting that many mass shooters carry a variety of weapons).

You’re going to get different policy perspectives from different groups, see Politico.

Policy Solutions to Address Mass Shootings was offered by the National Institute of Justice and Rockefeller Institute of Government in August of 2021.

The Best Available Data

What “is” useful is a 2021 document from the National Institute of Justice of the US Department of Justice and the Rand Corporation (one of the best crime-related research organizations in the nation) summarizing what we know and don’t know about mass shootings. What’s below is from that document. It’s a tool kit for understanding “and” responding to mass shootings.

Most will be a bit frustrated by the lack of clarity as to what constitutes a mass shooting, who commits them, their mental health issues, and what can be done.

Those in law enforcement are exasperated by the national call for cops to be guardians, not warriors which seem wildly misplaced because law enforcement is expected to enter a mass shooting and stop the shooter, which requires endless tactical training and equipment.

In an earlier article, I point out that the great majority of what we call gun violence is street-level violent crime, not mass shooters. I suggest that the explosion of media coverage of mass shootings is somewhat misplaced; the vast majority of victims of gun violence are people of color and society has become immune to that violence.

Continue reading “”

Guns Kill People, and Tyrants with Gun Monopolies Kill the Most
In the long term, disarmament often leads to mass murder by government.

My forthcoming article in the Gonzaga Journal of International Law examines the comparative risks of too little gun control and too much gun control. Here’s the abstract:

What are the relative risks of a nation having too many guns compared to the risks of the nation having too few guns? Comparing and contrasting Europe and the United States during the twentieth century, the article finds that the United States might have suffered up to three-quarters of million excess firearms homicide over the course of the century—based on certain assumptions made to maximize the highest possible figure.

In contrast, during the twentieth century Europe suffered 87 million excess homicides against civilians by mass-murdering tyrannical governments. The article suggests that Americans should not be complacent that they have some perpetual immunity to being subjected to tyranny.

The historical record shows that governments planning mass murder work assiduously to disarm their intended victims. While victim resistance cannot necessarily overthrow a tyrannical regime, resistance does save many lives.

Part I describes tensions in some treaties, declarations, and other legal documents from the United Nations and the European Union. On the one hand, they recognize the legitimacy of resistance to tyranny and genocide; on the other hand, the UN and EU gun control programs seem to make armed resistance nearly impossible.

Part II contrasts homicide data for the United States and Europe during the twentieth century. First, data about homicides from ordinary crimes are examined. Based on certain (incorrect) assumptions that bias the figure upward, if the U.S. had the same gun homicide rate as Europe’s, there might have been 745,000 fewer deaths in America during the twentieth century.

Next, Part II looks more broadly at homicide, to include homicides perpetrated by governments, such as communist or fascist regimes. In Europe in the twentieth century, states murdered about 87.1 million people. Globally, governments murdered well over 200 million people. The figure does not include combat deaths from wars.

As Part III explains, totalitarian governments are the most likely to perpetrate mass murder. The Part argues against the complacent belief that any nation, including the United States, is immune from the dangers of being taken over by a murderous government. The historical record indicates that risks are very broad. Globally, only eight  nations maintained democratic self-government for the entire twentieth century. The refusal of many Republicans in 2020 and many Democrats in 2016 to accept the presidential election results is one of many signs that American democracy is presently in peril.

Part IV shows that governments intent on mass murder prioritize victim disarmament because they consider it to be a serious impediment to mass murder and tyrannical rule.

Finally, Part V examines the efficacy of citizen arms against mass murdering governments. Citizen arms are most effective as deterrents. However, even without changing the regime, armed resistance can accomplish much and save many lives, as the twentieth century shows. Examples include Jewish resistance to the Nazis, Armenian and Assyrian resistance to the Ottoman Empire, Tibetan resistance to Chinese Communist invasion, and the Nuban resistance to the Sudanese regime.

The Conclusion suggests that the UN and EU should adopt a more balanced gun control policy, recognizing the value of citizen arms in protecting the public from tyranny and mass murder.

The article does not argue for or against particular gun control laws, other than gun registration; as the article shows, gun registration often facilitates gun confiscation.

Well, when all they have is deceit

The Left’s Artificial Inflation of Mass Shooting Numbers

Left-leaning media outlets like CNN and The Washington Post claim there have been hundreds of mass shootings this year alone. The real numbers are much lower.

The figures they use are based on data from the Gun Violence Archive which currently clocks the number of mass shootings in 2022 at 251, on par with the number of shootings on their record this time last year.

The FBI does not have numbers yet for 2022, but in 2021 they reported 61 active shooter incidents. Only 12 of those were considered mass killings according to the federal definition which says three or more deaths constitute a mass killing. The GVA, on the other hand, reported 692 mass shootings in 2021. That’s more than 11 times greater than the FBI’s official recorded number.

The culprit of the difference between the two agencies’ numbers is that the FBI gathers data on active shooter incidents and the GVA counts mass shootings. The two terms have slightly different definitions. However, the FBI’s active shooter data contains comparable information to the GVA’s mass shooting data.

In fact, the difference between how the FBI defines an active shooter and how the GVA defines a mass shooting reveals how the larger numbers provided by the GVA’s data collection criteria can be twisted by the left to spread fear and further their gun-grabbing agenda.

The GVA says a mass shooting occurs when there are “Four or more shot and/or killed in a single event [incident], at the same general time and location not including the shooter.” They also note the way they collect their mass shooting information (via GVA):

GVA uses a purely statistical threshold to define mass shooting based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter. GVA does not parse the definition to remove any subcategory of shooting. To that end we don’t exclude, set apart, caveat, or differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot.

GVA believes that equal importance is given to the counting of those injured as well as killed in a mass shooting incident.

The FBI does not define Mass Shooting in any form. They do define Mass Killing but that includes all forms of weapon, not just guns.

In that, the criteria are simple…if four or more people are shot or killed in a single incident, not including the shooter, that incident is categorized as a mass shooting based purely on that numerical threshold.

Note that the GVA definition of a mass shooting does not have a threshold number of deaths required to define an incident of gun violence as a mass shooting.

The FBI defines an active shooter as follows (via FBI):

One or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.

The FBI also looks at the inclusion of the following features to determine whether or not an incident is an active shooter event (via FBI):

Shootings in public places, shootings occurring at more than one location, shootings where the shooter’s actions were not the result of another criminal act, shootings resulting in a mass killing, shootings indicating apparent spontaneity by the shooter, shootings where the shooter appeared to methodically search for potential victims, shootings that appeared focused on injury to people, not buildings or objects.

In their reported numbers of active shooter incidents, the FBI does not include incidents of gun violence that result from the following (via FBI):

Self defense, gang violence, drug violence, contained residential or domestic disputes, controlled barricade/hostage situations, crossfire as a byproduct of another ongoing criminal act, an action that appeared not to have put other people in peril.

These criteria make the FBI’s definition of an active shooter much more exclusive. Because of the GVA’s broad definition of a mass shooting, they would count incidents fitting the above descriptions as mass shootings so long as four or more people were injured or killed.

In other words, if someone was attacked by multiple criminals and shot the attackers out of self defense, the GVA would consider it a mass shooting. If four or more people were shot in an incident of gang violence, the GVA would consider it a mass shooting, and so on.

These sorts of shootings are no less significant, but by labeling every incident of gun violence affecting four or more people a “mass shooting,” the Left makes it sound like acts of violence on the same scale as Uvalde or Buffalo happen every day.

The term mass shooting has strong connotations that are not applicable to most of the shootings in the GVA’s numbers. As Katie wrote, referring to something as a mass shooting implies a lot more than the number of people shot.

All violent crime should be cause for concern and the GVA’s numbers reveal violence is no small issue in the United States. But untruthfully referring to so many of these incidents of violent crime as mass shootings is just a fear-mongering tactic used by the Left to push their agenda of greater government control over law abiding citizens.

The Power to Tax and Regulate Guns is the Power to Disarm Women and Minorities

The world has changed. Racial minorities are buying guns for lawful self-protection more than ever before. Urban women are the fastest growing segment of legal gun owners. That is wonderful news and long overdue. Tempering that good news are the unfortunate conditions in our inner cities that may have provided new motivations to own a gun. Recently we’re seeing gun-prohibitionist Democrats propose huge taxes on guns just as minority members of society become gun owners. We’ve seen this political behavior before, and politicians repeat behavior that works. It looks like Democrat politicians are doing it again, and racism and political advantage are always wrapped in the excuses of public safety.

Home Defender by Oleg Volk, image used with permission

Continue reading “”

Because the AR-15 Can Deter a Mob
Americans deserve the chance to protect themselves from rampaging mobs and (God forbid) the government itself if tyranny arises.

*****

Now to the point. This is not a piece about dealing with misinformation. Official efforts to combat “misinformation” are laughably political and partisan. This is about gun control. Why do Americans need AR-15s with a high capacity magazine? Because too often, mobs inflamed by planted rumors are allowed (even encouraged) to rampage through American communities. Ask Kyle Rittenhouse. The AR-15 is a jury-approved tool of self-defense against a mob of attackers.

Mobs like these don’t materialize in a vacuum. Tyrants, dating back to the Romans, have employed mobs to influence politics. Mussolini, Mao, Hitler, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran, all developed an “on and off” switch for their street goons. And no, it’s not different when the mob is inflamed by social justice concerns. Every mob since before the Romans claims to be fighting for justice of some kind.

Recall that Kamala Harris rather conspicuously pledged to “stand by” Kenosha rioters and helped raise money for Minneapolis rioters who burned down an entire police facility. Biden excused the Kenosha riots on the grounds of “the original sin in this country . . . slavery, and all the vestigages of it.” One should not hold one’s breath for help from the Biden Administration if one’s city descends into chaos.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey and Kyle Rittenhouse have demonstrated that the AR-15 with a conspicuous high-capacity magazine is the appropriate tool to deter a mob (in the case of the McCloskeys) and may be wielded as a legitimate instrument of self-defense (in the case of Rittenhouse). And, as I pointed out in 2020,

Americans can also see that powerful rifles are turning up in the possession of violent rioters and looters. In this video, one can clearly see Raz Simone, then a noted leader within Seattle’s ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,’ handing out an expensive, tricked-out AR-15 to a complete stranger.

Simone somehow went from an Airbnb host to a Tesla-driving, arsenal-distributing mogul in the space of a few weeks. As shown in this video, a militant left-wing militia group called NFAC . . . staged an armed protest in Kentucky during which an accidental discharge wounded three people.

Unfortunately, we live at a time when social and legacy media help agitators spread lies to incite mob violence. And for a variety of reasons, one may not be able to count on law enforcement to engage a violent threat. Once the threat materializes, it’s possible that the police will “maintain a perimeter” while “waiting for equipment and backup,” while people continue to die. Jurisdictions governed by the Left have been particularly brazen about selective protection based on politics. The University of California recently was forced to settle a lawsuit charging that UC Berkeley withheld security and protection from conservative speakers.

Americans deserve the chance to protect themselves from rampaging mobs and (God forbid) the government itself if tyranny arises. And they should not take for granted that their Republican representatives will stand firm to protect these rights.

Things are different now. Gun confiscators are willing to weather the backlash of moderate gun owners to achieve their greater objectives. Indeed, the hopeless condition of their midterm prospects leaves them with little to lose. It’s in the air. The NRA is bankrupt and compromised. Anti-gun forces (not all of them Democrats) control Congress and the White House. And before you count on the Supreme Court, remember the mob now knows where each of the conservative justices live. The Second Amendment has never been in greater peril.

Constitutional Rights vs. Ideological Rights

On 31 July 1982 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign, and domestic. Today I am the Executive Director of the American Constitutional Rights Union (ACRU).

As a career military serviceman and combat veteran, I believe the oath that I took then has no statute of limitations.  As a Member of Congress, that oath was my guiding principle and light, as the Constitution is our rule of law.

The U.S. Constitution was established to restrain the powers of the federal government.  As a matter of fact, when you read Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution you will find the (18) enumerated duties of the legislative branch, the most powerful of our three branches of government.  Article II and Article III lay out the duties, qualifications, duties, responsibilities and scope of the executive and judicial branches.  Our founders intentionally described and limited the federal government.

Unfortunately, the left does not subscribe to these limitations.  Today there exists competing philosophies of governance — constitutional conservatism and progressive socialism. Leftists do not believe in the absolutism of the Constitution, our rule of law, and certainly not the ideal of constitutional rights. Leftists believe in the dangerous concept of ideological rights.

The left in America embraces an ideal that is the antithesis of our constitutional rights. They believe their ideology defines our rights.  They believe they can grant and take our rights away.

I find very disconcerting the repeated assertion by the current occupant of the oval office, Joe Biden, that no amendment to the Constitution is absolute.  His current focus is the Second Amendment, whose language is quite simple and forthright.  His line has been parroted by many progressive socialists, elected officials and media pundits.

The Second Amendment is part of our individual Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. It is established in our founding documents, along the principle of natural rights theory, that our unalienable rights and all individual rights come to us from our Creator God, the Judeo-Christian God. They do not emanate from the government, and that is codified in our Declaration of Independence which Thomas Jefferson referred to as the “laws of nature and nature’s God”.

Here we have the President of these United States of America who took an oath to uphold the Constitution declaring our constitutional rights are not absolute.

The left tells us that we have a right to healthcare. We have a right to free college education. We have a right to change our gender.  None of these are enumerated rights, but they are ideological rights of the Left.

Once upon a time, during the Carter administration, the Left told us that every American had a right to own a home. They passed legislation called the Community Reinvestment Act which led to the subprime mortgage crisis and financial meltdown some 30 years later.  Just last week a Democrat Congressman from Rhode Island publicly stated that he deemed constitutional rights as bovine excrement. Yes, a US Congressman who is supposed to have taken an oath to the Constitution says constitutional rights are BS!

Now you can see why we need an organization called the American Constitutional Rights Union?

If no amendment to the Constitution is absolute, then I guess the left wants to make me a slave again? Recall, Democrats did not support the 13th and 14th Amendments. Today, this same group, who now embraces socialism and Marxism, is promoting economic enslavement.

If the left in America is able to define our rights based upon their ideological agenda and have it enforced by the rule of the mob…America faces dark days ahead. And if the Left is successful in disarming the American populace, their sponsored mob, Antifa, will leverage coercion, threats, intimidation, fear, and violence against anyone not in compliance.

If the progressive socialist left does not like our Constitution, they can go through the amendment process. Passing ideologically based laws, or issuing edicts, orders, mandates, and decrees, does not override our constitutional rights.

Recall, our respective States would not ratify our constitution until it had an individual Bill of Rights. The 10th Amendment clearly states, “All the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the States and to the People.” If the 10th Amendment is not absolute, then the leftists in America become the repository of all power in America.

America is the longest running Constitutional Republic because of individual constitutional rights…not rights based upon progressive, socialist, statist, Marxist ideology.

Steadfast and Loyal.

Feminist Naomi Wolf takes the red pill and takes the first tentative steps on the path to see reality

BLUF
Without the brilliantly-conceived and clearly-worded Second Amendment, without the deterrent to state and transnational violence of responsible, lawful, careful and defensive firearms ownership in the United States of America, it is clear that nothing at all will save our citizens from the current fates of the people of China, Australia and Canada; including the children; who are facing — unarmed, defenseless as their parents sadly are — even worse fates, perhaps, still ahead.

Rethinking the Second Amendment

I wrote this essay some weeks ago, but I kept waiting to publish it til tragic mass shootings were no longer in the news. But that day looks as if it will never come, so I am publishing it anyway, with grief and mourning for those lost to gun violence, as we must nonetheless have this difficult conversation.

The last thing keeping us free in America, as the lights go off all over Europe- and Australia, and Canada – is, yes, we must face this fact, the Second Amendment.

I can’t believe I am writing those words. But here we are and I stand by them.

I am a child of the peace movement. A daughter of the Left, of a dashingly-bearded proto-Beatnik poet, my late dad, and of a Summer of Love activist/cultural anthropologist, my lovely mom. We are a lineage of anti-war, longhaired folks who believe in talking things out.

By the time I was growing up in California in the 1960s and 1970s, weapons were supposed to have become passe. When I played at friends’ houses in our neighborhood in San Francisco, there were posters on the walls: “War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.” Protesters had iconically placed daisies in the rifle barrels of unhip-looking National Guardsmen.

We were obviously supposed to side with the daisies.

Weapons were archaic, benighted — tacky. A general peace was surely to prevail, in the dawning Age of Aquarius.

Continue reading “”

Food security is national security and a crisis is coming.

I first drove the semi on my family’s farm when I was around 12 years old. My dad and I were leaving the field with a full load of corn, when he told me to take the wheel, giving his only advice before climbing down: “Make your corners wide.”

From my family’s farm to the State Committee for the USDA Farm Service Agency to the House Agriculture Committee, I have worked in agriculture in some capacity since I could walk. Now as South Dakota’s governor, I serve alongside a third-generation cattle rancher, Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden. We are the only farmer-rancher pair to lead a state’s executive branch, and we are both deeply concerned: America’s food supply system is at risk.

To keep our food supply consistent and affordable for all families, it is essential that no one else controls it. When another nation controls your food, it controls you. Our leaders recognized this threat and put in place risk management tools and programs to ensure Americans would never go hungry because of a foreign entity’s influence.

But for years now, foreign countries have been investing in our food supply chain, buying up the chemical and fertilizer companies that make American agriculture possible. Purchasing processing facilities, they have introduced vulnerability into the food supply chains Americans rely on to eat. Today, China is buying up millions of acres of land across the United States, following the same blueprint they have used in other countries for years.

While Americans have awakened to China’s military expansion and its grab for critical minerals worldwide, we have not yet realized our strategic vulnerability when it comes to our nation’s food supply.

Continue reading “”

THE Red-Headed libertarian™ Profile picture

The Second Amendment was inspired by British plans to disarm every American.

A part of you probably already knew this, but didn’t have the details.

I’m about to chill you to the bones And give you every piece of evidence you need moving forward. So buckle up.
It began In 1768, “the freeholders” led by John Hancock and James Otis, met in Boston at Faneuil Hall and passed several resolutions. Including “that the Subjects being Protestants, may have Arms for their Defense.”

The royal governor rejected this proposal.

So this petition was circulated under the pseudonym “A.B.C.” (Who was more than likely Sam Adams)Image
Shortly after Sam Adams’ petition was circulated, per the Boston Evening Post, (Oct. 3, 1768) British troops took over Faneuil Hall.

And per The New York Journal, (Feb. 2, 1769) they ordered colonists turn in their guns.Image

Continue reading “”

BLUF
Disarmament, national or personal, is not a moral stance, but the abandonment of morality.

Gun controllers have had a field day with the inaction of the Uvalde cops, but it never occurs to them that’s who they are, standing around, wringing their hands and waiting for someone to tell them what the plan is, so they don’t have to make any difficult choices in the face of a crisis.

Gun control is the moral idiocy of the irresponsible blaming those who have taken responsibility.

The Moral Idiocy of Gun Control
Is it more moral to own a gun or to pay someone else to do it for you?

I was chatting with a horrified Swedish visitor who described a visit to Nevada.

“There was this grandmother, an elderly lady, and she took out a gun from her purse,” he told me, shaking his head.

We were having this conversation in a city which had racked up 77 shootings in just one month.

Few New Yorkers legally own guns. The NYPD has issued around 40,000 handgun permits in a city of over 8 million. That’s around one handgun for every two-hundred New Yorkers.

Don’t assume that the parts of the city with the most guns are the most dangerous.

The vast majority of handgun permits are in Staten Island, which has the lowest crime rate in the city, as opposed to the Bronx, with the highest. Manhattan has few legal guns relative to its population while the white working class areas of Brooklyn have some of the most legal guns.

The Daily News, which interviewed a criminologist as part of its anti-gun crusade, found that he was “puzzled”. “Some people see a mugging in the Bronx, and they want to get a gun on Staten Island,” he argued. “That’s not rational, but some people really want guns.”

Perhaps one of the reasons that there are fewer muggings in Staten Island is that more of the folks there can prevent them. Muggers, like most predators, prefer victims who don’t fight back.

Continue reading “”

I know how to stop a looter and that looter still won’t spend a day in prison!

One Man’s Case Shows Why the Looting Isn’t Going To Stop Any Time Soon: Serial looter committed serious crimes, never spent a day in prison.

Two George Soros-backed prosecutors in suburban Washington, D.C., bounced a serial looter who committed multiple grand larcenies and assaulted a cop between their offices for years without a felony conviction.

Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano (D.) and Arlington County commonwealth’s attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti (D.) since 2020 dismissed or declined to prosecute a 25-year-old Maryland resident for nearly a dozen charges related to larceny. The looting incidents amounted to thousands of dollars in stolen merchandise and include felony offenses, including two grand larcenies and one assault on a police officer, making the offender eligible for years behind bars. The prosecutors found the looter guilty of just a few misdemeanors. No verdict levied more than a few hundred dollars in fines, and he served no time in prison.

The out-of-state offender, Ronald Thomas, spent virtually no time in jail after his arrests thanks to bail reform policies instituted by Descano and Dehghani-Tafti. At least five times he was charged for committing crimes in one jurisdiction while on pretrial release in another. He was twice charged for committing larcenies within a day of having similar larceny charges dropped—with one of those incidents happening in the same county.

The case exemplifies the degree to which lightened sentencing can embolden repeat offenders. Studies have shown that releasing defendants before their trial increases crime. A few years after Cook County, Ill., instituted bail reform, a 2020 study by the University of Utah found a 45 percent increase in the number of released defendants who were charged with committing new crimes and a 33 percent bump in released defendants charged with violent crimes. Continue reading “”

The state with the most restrictive gun laws had the most active shooter incidents last year

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is out with a new report on active shooter incidents across the United States last year, and there are some significant findings worth talking about, including the fact that several of the incidents were stopped by armed citizens.

The report details 61 “active shooter incidents” last year, which the agency defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in ai populated area.” Specifically excluded are acts of self-defense, gang and drug-related shootings, and domestic incidents, as well as “crossfire as a byproduct of another criminal act”. And while gun control activists invariably point to these types of attacks as justification for their attempts to criminalize the right to keep and bear arms, the report’s data suggests that gun control doesn’t serve any sort of preventative benefit to stopping these attacks.

According to the report, the most restrictive state in the Union when it comes to gun control laws also led the way in the number of active shooter incidents. California had six such incidents last year, more than any other state, though Texas and Georgia were close behind with five such incidents reported in each state. Active shooter incidents were reported in 30 states altogether, up from 19 states in 2020, with a total of 243 Americans killed or wounded in the attacks.

The FBI report notes that in 17 of the 61 incidents, law enforcement “engaged the shooter,” while there were six incidents where citizens either “engaged” the attacker or where “citizen involvement impacted the engagement.” It’s unclear to me what differentiates those two categories, because in both cases there were armed citizens who put a stop to the attack or prevented any further bloodshed.

One example of “engagement” noted by the FBI was the attack at a Metarie, Louisiana gun store in February of 2021, in which a suspect shot and killed two people and wounded two more before he was shot by multiple armed employees of the business. An example of “citizen involvement” in the FBI report was the shooting at an Agrex grain elevator in Superior, Nebraska last October when a recently fired employee left the building only to return a short time later with murder on his mind.

NSP said [the suspect] made his way into the door and shot a manager, Darin Koepke, 53, twice in the chest and the arm, the former of which was fatal. Roby said [the suspect] shot Koepke again as he lay on the floor.

The entire shooting event lasted under 20 seconds, according to NSP, and was briefly halted due to the gun jamming. NSP said [the suspect] fired a total of five rounds in the incident.

NSP said there were eight employees in the building at the time and others outside. Roby said supervisors were on scene during the shooting due to the termination and other employees were there “because they worked there.”

Roby said Koepke likely saved “countless lives” by barricading a door.

In addition, troopers say the man who returned fire did prevent it “from becoming even worse.”

Troopers say the Nuckolls County Attorney will not prosecute the man who returned fire.

…  “The Nebraska State Patrol considers all the survivors of this terrible incident to be victims,” said Capt. Jeff Roby.

Roby said NSP would not be naming the man who returned fire “and actively stopped this active shooting event. That man’s quick actions likely saved lives.”

Of the six incidents in which civilians either “engaged” or “involved” themselves in stopping the active shooter, four of them involved the defensive use of a firearm (the other two involved citizens tackling the shooter after five people were shot, and an Idaho teacher who talked a 12-year old girl into giving up a gun that she had used to shoot three people at a middle school). None of the incidents involving armed citizens took place in “may issue” states, by the way.

Just two of the 61 incidents covered in the FBI’s report took place at a school, with three other incidents unfolding at other government buildings. The vast majority of these targeted attacks took place in “areas of commerce” (32 incidents) or “business environments open to pedestrian traffic” (28 incidents).

The FBI report also notes what the agency calls an “emerging trend involving roving active shooters”; individuals who shoot in multiple locations and in some cases over multiple days, though it didn’t provide any details on exactly how many of the 61 incidents could be classified as such.

L-o-n-g unroll of a thread, but read the whole thing.

Andrew Follett says ‘the media is telling you two major lies’ about mass shootings and gun control

A thread on how the media is telling you two major lies about mass shootings and gun control

1: Other countries with vastly stricter gun laws than the US have higher rates of mass shootings.

2: US jurisdictions w/ gun laws have exponentially higher rates of gun violence

#2A 

Although events in the U.S. tend to get the lion’s share of media exposure, mass shootings are clearly a worldwide issue.

The US makes up about 1.15% of the world’s mass shootings while having almost 5% of the world’s population.

Out of 97 countries with data, the US is 64th in frequency of mass shootings and 65th in murder rate.

And rates of mass shootings elsewhere are rising faster

4 times as many per capita died in mass shootings in FRANCE as in the US. 21 times in Norway.

Continue reading “”

BLUF
The truth is that proposals for a prison society of disarmed and surveilled subjects shepherded by public employees are unworkable. The state can’t defend us from danger, and nothing obligates us to pretend otherwise. If you want to protect yourself and your loved ones, you have to do it yourself.

If You Want Protection for Your Loved Ones, Do It Yourself

Police in Uvalde, Texas, face a barrage of criticism for delays in confronting the shooter who slaughtered children and teachers last week. Officials admit law enforcers screwed up; worse, they impeded parents who wanted to intervene, leaving the crime to be ended by agents who ignored police orders. As politicians rush to leverage tragedy to advance legislative agendas, we’re reminded again that it’s foolish to place our trust in authority or to surrender our ability to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

“From the benefit of hindsight, where I’m sitting now, of course it was not the right decision,” Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, admitted of police choosing to wait for backup and equipment before intervening in a massacre that took the lives of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers. “It was the wrong decision, period. There’s no excuse for that.”

That decision delayed the response for over an hour. Finally, a Border Patrol team that drove 40 miles to the scene defied orders and stopped the shooter’s rampage.

“Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter,” noted NBC News.

The feds weren’t the only ones willing to intervene. Instead of taking on Ramos, local police tackled, pepper-sprayed, and handcuffed parents rather than allow them to take action at which officers balked.

“The police were doing nothing,” said Angeli Rose Gomez who was briefly arrested for challenging official indecision.

“Once freed from her cuffs, Ms. Gomez made her distance from the crowd, jumped the school fence, and ran inside to grab her two children,” reported The Wall Street Journal. “She sprinted out of the school with them.”

This isn’t the first time police faced criticism for dithering in response to danger. By the time officers entered Colorado’s Columbine High School in in 1999, 47 minutes had passed allowing the shooters to do their worst before killing themselves. Columbine was supposed to spur changes in police policy, but that wasn’t apparent during a 2018 incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

Continue reading “”

Uvalde – The Case For More Guns

Democrat politicians and their Liberal media megaphones have been screaming for control since the massacre in Uvalde last week. No one needs an AR-15, they screech. The resident in the Oval Office jokes that the AR-15 is not necessary because the “deer aren’t wearing Kevlar” and lies that the 2nd Amendment is not absolute, although James Madison would beg to differ. Based on what we saw, Uvalde actually makes the case for more armed residents.

Like most Americans, I have been both furious and nauseated about the slaughter of innocent school children in Uvalde since word began spreading. I have been a police and military supporter my entire life. I have always believed the police were the good guys. In Uvalde, the police were some of the cowards. Good guys aren’t cowards. Piers Morgan in the New York Post wrote, “Uvalde shooter wasn’t the only sniveling little coward — so were the cops“:

Yet incredibly, there were up to 19 armed police officers inside the school for 70 minutes before 18-year-old Salvador Ramos finished his hellish homicidal rampage.

That’s one for each of the 9 and 10-year-old children who were murdered.

These cops were all trained to use guns to protect the public and were all carrying guns to protect the public.

But when the moment came to protect the youngest, most vulnerable and defenceless members of the public, they went AWOL.

Or rather, they stood there outside the classroom where the kids were trapped, doing absolutely nothing.

This was despite several of the desperate children frantically calling 911 on cell phones pleading for help.

Eight calls in total were made from the classroom between 12.03pm and 12.50pm when the police finally went in.

We’re told they were waiting for keys to access the classroom, tactical equipment, and an order to go in.

But it sounds to me like what they were really waiting for was a collective infusion of bravery and duty like the kind Rob O’Neill and his fellow SEALs displayed in Abbottobad, Pakistan, 11 years ago.

And it never came.

Instead, these shameful excuses for ‘law enforcement’ did nothing as 19 children and two teachers were blown to pieces at close range by a maniac with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

The cowardly cops made a cordon to keep parents back. Initially. I thought that was necessary. Can’t have Moms running into the school willy-nilly endangering others and hampering the cops who are in there to make holes in the shooter. But I was waaaay wrong. The videos of parents pleading with law enforcement to go into the school. I identify with the emotion of each of the parents in this video:

You can feel their anger, desperation, fear and frustration.

The Uvalde cops are cowards. That’s clear. The residents claim it’s a small town where everyone knows everyone. Really, it has been almost a week and we are just now finding out that Creepy Massacre Kid was a bully (not bullied), who tortured animals and threatened to rape girls. Really? No one thought to snitch on Creepy Massacre Kid?

The Twitterverse had their collective knickers in a knot because the NRA was still going to hold its convention. I’m not a big fan of the NRA because they are more interested in selling life insurance than educating the public on safe weapons handling. Watching the protesters on Twitter scream about guns made me even more furious.z

 

Why do people think behavior like that is going to convince anyone about anything?

The “blood on your hands” mob are even more wrong than usual. What we need in this country are more armed and trained citizens. When Antifa burns down a city, what do the police do? Nada. When a gunman is murdering children, what do the cops do? Nothing. Imagine a few of those angry desperate moms in the video armed. Armed with a gun, a long rifle, a window breaker. The Creepy Massacre Kid would have assumed room temperature in a few seconds.

What the heck is this waiting for a master key? Take care of yourself, my people. Don’t rely on anyone else. Cops or government. Buy a gun and take a safety class.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden says he is going to “Do something”. It won’t help you, whatever he does.