Category: Safety

These 12 Incidents of Defensive Gun Use Prove Armed Civilians Make Situations Safer

I testified earlier this month at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Chicago on underlying causes of the spikes in gun violence in that city and around the country.

Although Sen. Dick Durbin’s interruptions of my opening statement stole the show in many respects, it shouldn’t be overlooked that the Illinois Democrat also solicited disparaging remarks on the right to keep and bear arms from another witness—Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown.

In direct response to one of Durbin’s questions, Brown remarked that armed civilians make police officers’ jobs more difficult, and that he never has seen a lawfully armed civilian make a situation safer.

This was certainly disappointing and should not take away from Brown’s important points with respect to underlying problems  of prosecutorial leniency and anti-police sentiment that devastates police morale.

But Brown also is quite mistaken about the reality of defensive uses of firearms. Americans—including those residing in Chicago—routinely use their guns to defend themselves and others from crime, rendering themselves and their communities safer from violence.

Almost every major study on the issue has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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BLUF:
Millions are still moving along the path from reflexive support for gun control to passionate support for the right to bear arms. These voyagers are rapidly changing our culture. Last month’s public opinion polls are already out of date. The shift away from supporting gun-control is accelerating. The shift toward passionate and committed defense of citizen self-defense will be deep and lasting.

The Ruling Class won’t be able to stop it.

Why Political Moderates Walked Away from Gun-Control

Most of us have fired a gun at least once. Many of us have a gun in our home today. Gun ownership has increased steadily over the decades and is now common. Running counter to that trend, Democrat politicians became increasingly hostile towards gun owners in the last ten years. The Democrat party took that position while public opposition to gun-control grew. Today, democrat voters want gun-control as much as ever, but we saw the undecided middle and political independents step off the gun-control bandwagon. Here is why they abandoned the idea of gun-control.

The world became more dangerous.

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‘The Second Amendment wears lipstick’ — Study shows gun ownership among women on the rise

CLEVELAND — The number of women who own a gun is on the rise. A recent study from Harvard University shows that 42% of gun owners in the country are women. That’s a 14% rise over the last five years. The same study found nearly 3.5 million women became gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021.

“It’s a responsibility. It’s a huge responsibility,” said Amanda Suffecool.

Suffecool calls herself an “accidental activist.” A firearms instructor and radio host, Suffecool is also an advocate for gun rights in America.

“Unfortunately, the world is not the warm, fuzzy place it used to be,” said Candy Petticord.

Petticord is also a firearms instructor and a mom of 12. She started shooting five years ago.

“I woke up,” she said when asked why she decided to buy her first gun. “I realized yes, I’m the mom. I’m the caregiver but I’m also the protector when my husband is away. So the kitchen knives, forks and spoons weren’t going to do the job.”

In the Harvard study, a quarter of the woman who own a firearm said self-defense was the reason they wanted to buy a gun. In another study from the female gun ownership group A Girl and A Gun, the women they surveyed gave many reasons. The top included the cultural upheaval in the Summer of 2020, the 2020 elections, lack of law enforcement resources, and uncertainty because of the pandemic.

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Idealism is Killing Our Kids at School

Imagine this scenario for a moment. Pretend that we’re at a parent-teacher conference and the child is having problems at school.

T- I’m concerned that your child doesn’t study.
P- Children shouldn’t have to study.

T- I’m concerned about your child’s musical ability. Your child doesn’t practice his instrument for music class.
P- Children shouldn’t have to practice in order to make music.

T- I’m concerned about your child’s physical development. Your child doesn’t put in any effort in PE.
P- Children shouldn’t have to put in effort in their physical education class.

To most of us, this parent is such a naïve idealist that the exchange sounds ridiculous. If this discussion were real then we would be seriously concerned about this child’s future.

I don’t want to be the one who tells you the truth about Santa Claus, but we can agree that the world isn’t the way we want it. Sure, I wish there were a way we could build insightful minds and athletic bodies without effort. We all want that, but Utopia isn’t an option. Refusing to do the work hasn’t moved us toward that ideal. Refusing to do the work has only left us weak and ignorant. That wastes lives.

Now let me add another line to the dialogue, a conversation that I’ve actually heard.

T- I’m concerned about your child’s physical safety at school. We want to train school staff so they can stop violent attacks in school and then treat the injured.
P- Staff and students shouldn’t have to worry about violent attacks in school.

I wish this was a fantasy story, but that summarizes the complaints I’ve read about protecting our children.

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Comment O’ The Day
If the environment is more favorable for criminal activity (no cash bail, cheering on property destruction, refusal to prosecute, defunding police, etc.), it should come as no surprise that there will be an increase in demand for guns, both from criminals who seek to exploit the favorable conditions for their endeavors and also from law-abiding citizens who seek to defend themselves from lawlessness.

Only any idiot would think this is a chicken/egg paradox

The Paradox of the 2020 Gun-Sales Spike

In a City Journal piece over the summer, I cast some doubt on the idea that 2020’s massive homicide spike — a 30 percent increase — had been driven by strong gun sales. America has so many guns that even a really strong year for sales doesn’t boost the supply that much, and most crime guns tend to be fairly old anyway.

Most interestingly, places with the biggest gun-sales spikes didn’t also have the biggest shooting spikes, according to a then-new study in Injury Prevention. I further noted, however, some NYPD numbers suggesting that while guns purchased less than a year ago accounted for 10 percent of crime-gun traces in 2019, they were 18 percent in 2020. 

Now we have national data to update both the geographic and the gun-trace findings. Oddly enough, they both hold up. Comparing all of 2020 with all of 2019, the states with the biggest gun-sales spikes were not the same as the states with the biggest homicide spikes. But nationwide, new guns did show up quite a bit more in police departments’ gun traces. 

Here’s a simple, per capita way of comparing changes in homicide rates with changes in gun sales (as measured via background checks for gun purchases, with a few states with quirky data excluded). There’s no obvious connection between the two, and the picture is the same when you plot the percentage change in one variable against the percentage change in the other.


The new trace data, however, are less kind to the latest additions to America’s gun stock. In 2019, about 20 percent of traced guns had been purchased less than a year prior; in 2020, this rose to about 30 percent. (The Trace has some more ways of cutting these numbers here, as does my colleague Charles Fain Lehman here.)  Continue reading “”

 

BLUF:
More than 36 million Americans blew a big fat raspberry at Biden and his gun-banning squad, according to NICS background checks, and that only includes the first 11 months of 2021. It does not include private firearm sales, which are still legal in free states……..
In short, gun sales have skyrocketed. Ammunition sales have skyrocketed.
Public opinion is shifting, the polls are showing, as more and more Americans realize the utility a firearm can offer…………..
This is, however, not the time to celebrate. We are only one executive order away from yet another infringement. Our right to keep and bear arms requires eternal vigilance.

Remain vigilant, friends.

Analysis: Why we will win America’s hearts and minds

These are the most perilous times many Second Amendment watchdogs have ever seen. Our right to keep and bear arms is under constant assault by a troika of would-be infringers: the Biden-Harris administration — the most anti-gun group of bullies to occupy the White House in modern times — the legacy media, which is aids and abets Biden’s every whim regardless of its constitutionality, and the anti-gun industry, which provides the playbook and orchestrates the campaign.

Still, there are glimmers of hope. The light at the end of the tunnel may be dim, but at least it’s visible.

At least for now, things appear to be changing, albeit slowly. Thankfully, a growing number of Americans has stopped listening to the anti-gun forces. In other words, regardless of what Biden, Murphy, or Giffords are saying, the liberal bubble has been pierced by the truth, and worried folks are buying guns.

Over the past months, I’ve talked to dozens of new gun owners. Many described themselves as liberal or formerly liberal. Here’s what they are saying about why they broke ranks with the gun banners and bought guns

Root Cause

New gun owners revealed near unanimity for the main reason they purchased a firearm: the surge of violent crime.

Smash-and-grab robbery gangs, well-publicized home-invasions and the newest media buzzword “follow-home robberies.” have folks terrified they will be ambushed in their home or on their doorstep, in zip codes where these types of crimes are not supposed to happen.

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Did King County, WA Prosecutor’s Office Just Illustrate Gun Law Failures?

A report from the King County Prosecutor’s Office late last month showing the uptick in gun-related violence in the county that encompasses far-left Seattle only further amplifies the assertion from Evergreen State gun rights activists that gun control laws adopted by citizen initiative, and by the Seattle City Council over the past six years have had the exact opposite effect they were supposed to have.

Beginning in 2014 with the passage of Initiative 594—the so-called “universal background check” measure requiring background checks on all firearm transfers—and continuing with the adoption of a special gun and ammunition tax in 2015, gun control efforts were presented to voters as tolls to reduce so-called “gun violence.”

But the Prosecutor’s office has released data showing the opposite has occurred. Despite the background check initiative, the gun and ammunition tax and more recently, passage in 2018 of Initiative 1639, which prohibits the sale of modern semi-auto rifles to anyone under age 21, plus mandates a training requirement and classifies all semi-auto rifles of any caliber, including rimfires, as “semiautomatic assault rifles,” more people are getting shot and more shots are being fired.

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My first squad leader in the Army was a font of personal advice.
One I liked a lot is: “Experience is the best teacher and the best experience is someone else’s, because it’s usually less expensive and less painful.”

Lessons Learned From The Rittenhouse Situation

Kyle Rittenhouse did nothing wrong.

I’m going to start by saying this here and now, lest there be any confusion. While he made some decisions I might question later on here, I don’t think that he was necessarily wrong for making those decisions. I have the benefit of hindsight at work here, and I’m not interested in second-guessing him.

However, I do think that cases like his give us all a great opportunity to learn, so that’s what I did.

Here are a few of my takeaways from his case.

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The Truth is Out on Constitutional Carry’s Impact

There’s an old Monty Python sketch in which a theatrical radio narrator desperately tries to make an exceedingly boring story sound suspenseful and melodramatic. “June the 4th, 1973,” the voice says, “was much like any other summer’s day in Peterborough, and Ralph Mellish, a file clerk at an insurance company, was on his way to work as usual when … dah dum dum … nothing happened!”

The story of the widespread adoption of permitless concealed carry—broadly known as “constitutional carry”—has been similar in nature to the tale of Ralph Mellish.

Despite endless attempts to turn the development into a Wagnerian opera, we are now reaching the point at which nearly half of America’s 50 states have nixed their carry-permitting requirements, and still … dah dum dum … nothing has happened.

There has been no associated spike in related crime in these states. There has been no increase in armed confrontations. There hasn’t even been a rise in the number of bureaucratic infractions. There have been no negative consequences at all, but now more Americans can protect themselves until the police arrive.

And yet, each and every time a new state looks to nix its permitting systems, the usual voices still cry “disaster!” As I write, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is considering adding Pennsylvania to the list of constitutional-carry states, and, in response, their Democrat governor, Tom Wolf, is alleging all the same things gun controllers have since the late 1980s. “I will oppose any bill that reduces gun-safety measures,” Wolf vowed recently, while describing the proposal as “removing gun-safety protections and making it easier to carry a gun.”

At a certain point in American history, one might have forgiven politicians for claiming such things. By the mid-1970s, the Second Amendment was being ignored as a matter of routine, and when, in the following decade, a serious push to fix this began, nobody was quite sure what would happen. It was, of course, always far-fetched that, when faced with the restoration of their rights, Americans would turn their cities into the “Wild West,” but at least those who were making such predictions could point to the novelty of widespread concealed carry as a justification for their concern.

But now? In 2021? With 30 years of evidence to rely upon, these claims are absurd.

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Killadelphia Update

Last year, the per-capita homicide rate in Philadelphia was worse than Chicago. It takes a lot of effort to be worse than Chicago, but Philadelphia — a/k/a “Killadelphia” — is up to the challenge, and is now on pace to break the city’s all-time annual murder total of 500, a record set in 1990 at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic. Basically, you could put police crime-scene tape around the entire city; every sidewalk in Philadelphia is covered in chalk outlines of slain victims.

OK, maybe I got a little carried away there, but it’s difficult to exaggerate how deadly conditions are in Philadelphia now:

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said on Monday that whoever was responsible for killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child as she was unloading gifts from her baby shower will face two counts of murder.
The victim, identified as Jessica Covington, 32, was shot 11 times in the head and belly on Saturday night in what police believe was a targeted shooting.

Deputy Police Commissioner Christine Coulter demanded that progressive DA Krasner take action amid a massive surge of gun violence.
‘Children are getting shot, unborn children getting shot, what is the city doing about this?’ she asked.

Police were said to be questioning a suspect in connection with Covington’s killing on Monday, but no arrests or charges have been announced as of late afternoon.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Krasner said Covington’s killing made him ‘sick.’ He said the person or persons who took the pregnant woman’s life and that of her unborn baby will ‘very likely’ face two counts of murder.
He praised police for ‘working nonstop and doing an amazing job with this case.’

Krasner has cut the number of prosecutions for gun crime and cops are blaming him for a huge spike in shootings a homicides.
Police in Philadelphia have made a record number of arrests for illegal gun possession this year – but the suspects’ chances of getting convicted dropped to 49 per cent from 63 per cent in 2017, analysis by the found.
There have been 491 homicide victims in 2021 – a 14 per cent increase from last year’s number of 436, and 283 in 2019.
Krasner boasts on his website that he has cut incarceration rates by 24,800 years, cut supervision by 102,400 years, never used the death penalty and helped exonerate 23 people.
Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw has said that Philadelphia’s criminal justice system has become a ‘revolving door’ for repeat gun offenders since Krasner was sworn into office in January 2018.

This is the problem with Democrats talking tough on gun control. You hear them talk about “getting guns off our streets,” but they don’t want to prosecute the people who are actually committing crimes with those guns — because all the criminals are Democrats.

Dana Pico at First Street Journal has been following the grisly “Killadelphia” death toll, and Ed Driscoll at Instapundit calls attention to the role of “progressive reforms” in the nationwide crime wave:

[Milwaukee County DA John] Chisholm, who was elected in 2007, supports deferrals for some misdemeanors and “low-level” felonies in order to cut down on incarcerations. And he’s taken credit for inspiring a new wave of prosecutors in cities like San Francisco, St. Louis, and Philadelphia who have enacted similar reforms. Chisholm congratulated San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin following his election in 2019, and the pair spoke at a forum earlier this year on the status of the progressive prosecutor movement.

Chisholm and other progressives support reforms to the cash-bail system, which they say criminalizes poverty. He has acknowledged that his reform-minded approach could put murderers back on the streets of Milwaukee.
“Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into [a] treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody?” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2007. “You bet. Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.”
The Milwaukee DA said his office recommended $1,000 bail for [Waukesha massacre suspect Darrell] Brooks following his arrest on Nov. 5 on charges that he punched his girlfriend in the face and hit her with his vehicle in a gas station parking lot. The woman is identified only by her initials in court papers, which indicate they have a child together. Brooks was also charged with eluding police officers when they arrived to take him into custody.

What Democrats don’t want to admit is that crime is a people problem. It is easy to focus on guns, but the inanimate object does not kill people. Democrats have trained their media allies to mindlessly repeat the phrase “gun violence,” but my guns are not involved in violence. My podcast partner John Hoge has a rather substantial arsenal of firearms, none of which has ever been involved in “gun violence.”

Rhetoric that demonizes law-abiding gun owners is necessary to the Democratic Party agenda of absolving themselves and their constituents of responsibility. Nothing that goes wrong in Philadelphia — or Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, etc. — is the fault of the people directly involved, because those people vote Democrat. The voters who elect Democrats must be held blameless for their problems, and the blame must be transferred to scapegoats — which is why phrases like “white privilege” and “systemic racism” have entered the political lexicon.

The kind of “reforms” implemented by Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner are aimed at ending the “racial injustice” of putting criminals in prison, as if there were something deliberately unfair about the demographic profile of the prison population, as if law enforcement and the court system were letting white criminals go unpunished. Well, where are all these white murderers in Philadelphia? What has Larry Krasner done to end the “white privilege” that lets these perpetrators get off scot-free?

These are rhetorical questions, obviously. The population of Philadelphia County is 44% black and 34% non-Hispanic white. Fifteen percent of the county population is Hispanic and 8% are Asian. But these other demographic groups are not implicated in the “gun violence” epidemic that has Philadelphia on pace to set a new homicide record.

In 2020, Joe Biden officially won Pennsylvania by a margin of 80,555 votes. He got 603,790 votes in Philadelphia County.

So the dishonest blame game will continue, and the bodies of homicide victims will keep piling up in “Killadelphia,” because Democrats like Larry Krasner don’t want to arrest the criminals whose votes elect them.

David French’s Irrational Fear of Guns is No Reason to Outlaw Open Carry.

Instead of asking why a then-17 year-old was there helping to guard a business and putting out fires, the question should be why the governor didn’t call out the Guard in the same way he is before this verdict. The question should be how elected officials failed to protect the community they represented and made a teenager feel like he needed to go and offer what protection he could as a substitute. My grandfather was Kyle Rittenhouse’s age when he signed up to serve on the USS Alabama in WWII. Men a year older can openly bear arms to fight overseas but not to defend their own communities when rioters are allowed to turn a town into a war zone?

Rittenhouse had every right to be in Kenosha. His father lives there. His grandmother lives there. He works there. His rifle was there too, (not driven across state lines) despite media’s best intentions to turn Rittenhouse’s short 20 minute drive from his mom’s house in Antioch to Kenosha into the modern journey of Odysseus. In fact, you might argue Rittenhouse had more of a reason to be in Kenosha than the rioters from California or Oregon.

It makes no sense that [David] French is arguing against open carry by citing the case of a teenager (the court determined he was legally open-carrying a rifle) who can’t carry concealed because a) how do you carry a rifle concealed and b) he’s too young to purchase and carry a handgun, much less carry it concealed.

No law-abiding person should feel persuaded to forfeit their rights because someone harbors an irrational fear of the inanimate object they possess. A person’s comfort level doesn’t determine the extent to which a right can be exercised. If you dislike open carry then carry concealed, but no one has the right to determine for others how they may lawfully carry.

— Dana Loesch in Kyle Rittenhouse Isn’t a Villain and There Is Nothing Wrong with Open Carry

Support For Handgun Ban Hits Record Low As Gun Violence, Sales Soar During Pandemic, Poll Finds

Americans’ support for a complete ban on handguns is the lowest on record, according to a new Gallup poll, part of a wider dip in support for stricter gun control measures as gun sales, violent crime and gun violence soared during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Less than one in five (19%) Americans supported a complete ban on handguns in the U.S., except for police and authorized persons, according to the poll of 823 adults living in all 50 states, conducted between October 1 and 19.

It’s the lowest level of support since Gallup began polling the issue in 1980 and down six points from last year, the poll found.

While no political party surveyed indicated majority support for a ban on handguns, Gallup found marked political differences—40% of Democrats were in favor compared to just 14% of Independents and 6% of Republicans—with the overall drop in support “largely attributable to political independents,” which has fallen 16 points since 2019.

A slim majority of Americans support stricter gun control laws—52%—the poll found, the lowest point since 2014 and down from 67% in 2018 after the Parkland, Florida school shooting.

Political differences are more stark regarding support for stricter gun laws, Gallup found, and near unanimous support from Democrats (91%) contrasts with less than half (45%) of Independents and fewer than a quarter (24%) of Republicans.

While more Democrats and Republicans supported stricter gun control laws this year—rising 6 and 2 points, respectively—a 15-point drop in support from Independents, coupled with a 14-point drop among Republicans the year before, drove the overall level of support down.

KEY BACKGROUND

Last year was one of the deadliest for gun violence in decades, with violent crime rising for the first time in four years. Gun sales hit an all-time high during the pandemic and nearly 23 million were sold during 2020 alone, a two-thirds jump from the year before. While sales have dropped in 2021, they remain well above pre-pandemic levels, and researchers are divided over whether the surge is responsible for the increase in violence.

BIG NUMBER

31%. That’s how many American adults say they own a gun, according to Gallup. While this figure has remained unchanged in decades, the reasons people give for doing so have. Some 88% said they own a gun to protect themselves against crime, up from 67% in 2005. Protection supplanted target shooting (70%) as the dominant reason for owning a gun, Gallup found, which gained four points since 2005. The number of Americans citing hunting as a reason for owning a gun (56%) dropped two points from 2005.

Observation O’ The Day

As near a perfect exemplar of Cooper’s *Condition White*, as can be asked for.

*You are totally unaware of your surroundings and totally unprepared for even the prospect of danger.*

My first squad leader in the Army put it like this: “Experience is the best teacher and the best experience is someone else’s, because it’s usually less expensive and less painful.”

Seattle is so dangerous, King County security will escort employees to bus, train, ferry

Downtown Seattle and Pioneer Square have become so dangerous that the King County government will now have security escort employees to the bus, train, or ferry for their commute home.

The county’s Walking Bus pilot program was announced internally to employees on Wednesday at the downtown campus, located at the King County Courthouse. Two security escorts will walk employees from the courthouse to the King Street Station and the Colman Dock. Additionally, they will escort staff for several blocks to get to their cars or bus stops safely.

The move comes after years of security complaints from county staff due to the growing and aggressive homeless population that has consumed the neighborhoods.

Seattle isn’t safe for county workers

The pilot program launches on Nov. 15 and will offer two dedicated security escorts for the group walks.

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If more guns caused more crime, we would know it.

BLUF:
The violent crime rate fell by about 38 percent over two decades while the number of guns sold each year almost doubled. The implied number of gun owners also doubled. If anything, this data shows that firearms sales cause a decrease in violent crime.

Gun Ownership versus Crime in the US 2000-2019

I’ve seen analysis that relates guns and crime. In particular, the data looks at the growing number of firearms in civilian hands in the United States. It compares gun ownership with the rate of violent crime across the country. Unfortunately, that data is a few years old. It is easy to get raw numbers, but it is very hard to get good data. This is what I found.

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I’ve posted two of Professor Yamane’s articles here, and here that indicate he’s an ‘honest broker’ when it comes to his research. Seems some others have noticed it as well.

Wake Forest Professor Views Recent Gun Buying In Interesting Way

It seems that every time we see any research about guns, it’s focused on negative things. There’s very little research that seems to look at guns from a positive standpoint, and that is why a lot of gun rights advocates look at researches in an adversarial manner. After all, when you set yourself up in opposition to a deeply held principle, what do you expect?

That’s something that is going to play on people’s minds as researchers look at the surge in gun buying over the last two years. After all, more and more people are buying guns and a lot of folks want to know why.

A researcher at Wake Forest University, though, says he starts from a different place than many of his colleagues.

Sociology professor David Yamane is unique among social scientists in understanding American gun culture on its own terms, from the inside out, especially the normality of gun ownership and use for individuals with diverse religious, racial, gender, and sexual identities.…

Why are people buying more guns?

Over the past half-century, the center of gravity of America’s historic gun culture has evolved from hunting and recreational shooting to armed self-defense. This can be seen in the liberalization of concealed carry laws, the changes in gun advertisements, and in the many new products and services offered to satisfy the self-defense market.

Yamane isn’t wrong here. Whereas guns were once predominantly about hunting and plinking, now guns are focused primarily on self-defense. Hunting is still a large segment of the market, sure, but most hunters also buy self-defense weapons why a number of those focused on self-defense have little interest in hunting.

Interestingly, Yamane’s answer is devoid of a lot of what we typically hear. There’s no talk of fear or paranoia or racism in Yamane’s claim, that’s likely because Yamane starts at a different place when it comes to guns.

What makes your research on guns unique?

I have spent more than 10 years studying guns in America. I’m able to speak to individuals and organizations across the spectrum of opinions on guns. My work begins with the foundational premise that guns are normal and normal people use guns. This is a dramatic departure from standard social scientific approaches that view gun owners as deviant and focus exclusively on negative outcomes associated with guns such as crime, injury and death.

So, basically, Yamane admits what we already suspect, that most supposed gun researchers think we’re deviants to some degree and simply don’t care to look at how guns are beneficial.

He does things differently, which is why he’s not tripping over himself to make the case that a surge in gun buying is because of people being afraid of everything.

Now, I do think people being scared has driven a lot to buy guns. That’s not a controversial position in and of itself. Some may make the claim that it’s driven by racism–“Oh, you’re afraid of all those black people might come and kill you, aren’t you?”–but people being concerned for their own safety makes sense.

Yet without research showing that, I suspect Yamane isn’t interested in speculating.

Meanwhile, he also points out that while gun buying has increased year after year, violent crime rates fluctuate, showing that the prevalence of firearms alone simply cannot account for the violent crime rate being what it is year over year. There has to be more going on.

Frankly, he’s right and it’s nice to see someone in academia that doesn’t treat gun owners like villains.

People who believe a person so mentally defective they’re intent on committing mayhem will be stopped by a law requiring a permit to carry a concealed gun, are mentally defective themselves.
And the Reverend Doctor is retired from pastoring? Good.

Pastor Blames Permitless Carry After Man Points Gun In Church

One of the many downsides of having a media class that’s largely ignorant about (if not downright hostile towards) gun ownership and gun laws is that many reporters are unable or unwilling to push back against questionable claims made by gun control supporters and those who take a dim view of the right to keep and bear arms. Case in point; a Nashville pastor believes that, were it not for Tennessee’s new permitless carry law, which took effect earlier this year, a man never would have pulled out a gun during the Sunday service at a north Nashville church last Sunday.

“This is the situation we find ourselves in, in a state that has passed laws that make it possible for persons to carry guns who have not undergone any type of background check and does not have to have any training and no permit,” said Rev. Dr. Judy Cummings, a recently retired pastor.

She says this latest incident and other gun violence should give state leaders reason to reconsider the permitless carry law.

I hate to break it to the pastor, but the guy who waved his gun around in church is currently facing 57 charges of felony aggravated assault, which is a pretty good indication that authorities don’t believe his actions were covered by the state’s permitless carry law.

To local television station WKRN’s credit, while reporters didn’t push back on Cummings’ statement directly, they at least sought a second opinion.

On the other hand, Bob Allen, who is director of training at Royal Range in Bellevue believes Sunday’s incident is not a direct cause of permitless carry.

“That has nothing to do with permitless carry. Zero,” said Allen. “That was either somebody who was either a crook or who might have been intellectually disabled — had something going on in the brain and just walked in there and pulled a gun out.”

The suspect allegedly declared that he was Jesus and made other disturbing comments that would indicate he’s not mentally well, but no matter his motivation, Tennessee’s permitless carry law wasn’t responsible for his actions. Depending on the suspect’s previous criminal history or any mental health prohibitions, it might have been legal for him to own and carry the firearm in public, but private property is another matter entirely. If the leaders of Nashville Light Mission Pentecostal Church wanted to ban guns from the premises, that’s their right, but it’s unclear if the church had any official policy in place.
Of course, it’s also downright silly to believe that someone intent on doing harm to others is going to be dissuaded because of a sign warning them that possessing firearms beyond that point is not allowed.
That may be one reason why the Tennessean newspaper reports that the pastor is considering adding a security presence during services, but didn’t say anything about whether or not the church would declare itself a gun-free zone.
With fewer than 100 congregants, hiring armed security might be a financial reach, but don’t be surprised if church members themselves step up to serve as guardians if requested.

Colt Safety Recall Regarding Modern Sporting Rifles

IMPORTANT SAFETY RECALL NOTICE REGARDING CERTAIN COLT MODERN SPORTING RIFLES

COLT’S MANUFACTURING COMPANY LLC (“COLT”) has recently discovered a potential
safety issue with certain Modern Sporting Rifles (“MSRs”). Colt is voluntarily initiating a recall to protect the safety of its customers because, under certain conditions, it is possible that some of these MSRs may discharge a second round when the trigger is released when there is a live round in the chamber.

Colt is committed to the highest standards of quality and customer satisfaction. In keeping with that commitment, during routine quality testing, Colt discovered that hammers that do not meet Colt’s specifications were installed in certain MSRs that were manufactured beginning on March 5, 2021. The issue will be corrected by replacing the hammers in affected MSRs.

The recall only covers a portion of MSRs manufactured beginning on March 5, 2021, and includes the following models: AR15A4, CR6700A4, CR6920, CR6920-EPR, CR6920MPS-B, CR6921, CR6921-EPR, CR6933, CR6933-EPR, CR6960, LE6920-EPR, LE6920MPS-B, LE6920-OEM1, LE6920-OEM2, LE6920-R, LE6933-EPR, SP633784, LE6920SOCOM.

The following chart lists all the serial numbers for those models that may potentially be subject to
the recall:

Model Marking  Serial Numbers
AR-15 A4: CAR022851 – CAR023250
CARBINE: CR036354 – CR099599
CARBINE: CR713001 – CR722100
M4 CARBINE: CR716801 – CR721500
M4A1 CARBINE: CR021580 – CR022024

To prevent the possibility of death or serious personal injury, Colt advises anyone who has purchased a Colt MSR since March 5, 2021 to stop using it immediately and visit

ColtRepairMSR.com or call Customer Service at 1-800-971-3216 to see if your specific MSR is affected.

Please note: Not all MSRs within the serial number range in the above chart are subject to this recall and this website offers easy, step-by-step instructions to determine if a particular MSR is affected.

Customer service agents will assist anyone who needs additional help. Our expert craftsmen are ready to upgrade all affected MSRs at our West Hartford, CT headquarters

Volunteer militia holding self-defense courses for women

DINWIDDIE, Va — On Saturday, Nov. 6, the volunteer militia Dinwiddie Civil Defense will be offering a self-defense class for women beginning at 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. with a 45 minute lunch break (enrollees must bring their own lunch). Cost to enroll is $40.

The class will cover six topics including: self defense as a state of mind, situational awareness, self defense hand to hand, self defense with non lethal weapons, self defense with lethal weapons (including information on conceal carrying) and home defense.

In-person instruction on the methods most effective in freeing oneself from a violent altercation will be given differing from many instructions which circulate in the online world.

Among the advice given by the group is not to strike a foe in a self defense situation, poorly placed blows may hurt the one doing the striking more than the receiver, the best course of option is to leave the scene as composedly and rapidly as possible, target the attacker’s hands if they are preventing a victim from leaving.

The course will also feature a presentation on recent crime statistics along with presentations by trained members of the group on how to handle hand-on-hand altercations. Some time will be spent on a range where trainees can learn how to handle and draw a gun as well as when the best situations are to use them to avoid escalating a situation.

“The reason I’m teaching this is because we have good community-minded people that are pretty well-trained, skilled and active in all sorts of security and personal protection,” said Rick Pyle, communications director of the Dinwiddie Civil Defense. “We see a lot of bad advice going around that is more geared toward getting people in trouble than helping them.”

Common forms of violence directed at women can include rape and sexual assault, various forms of harrasment and domestic violence involving an intimate partner.

According to ncadv.org, one in four women experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, use of victim services, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases. One in three women experience some form of physical violence by an intimate partner including a range of behaviors including slapping, shoving and pushing.

“The main thing that sparked this was I had several ladies around town ask me if I could teach them how to use different types of guns,” said Pyle. “A lot of advice is very poor and not practical. It assumes that a woman has been training for hours a week or is very calm at the moment.”

DCD is a community organization consisting of “community-minded” people who assist in various efforts and training in the area; much of it includes self-defense training. Some members are EMTs and the group has provided medical services in the past. The group also conducts training for outdoors preparedness such as how to set up a tent or cook one’s own food.

In February of this year, following the ice storm that left thousands without power, DCD provided upwards of 25 people to pull residents out of ditches, clear downed trees, assist those in emergency situations and provide transportation to those in need.

Those interested in taking the self-defense course for women can message DCD on their facebook page or on their telegram @dinwiddiecdf.

“Our primary focus is how to avoid putting yourself into a place where you could get hurt,” said Pyle. “If you know how to avoid certain scenarios, having situational awareness as a state of mind can help you avoid any undesirable situation.”

Not one mention that most of these places are (supposedly) ‘gun free zones‘

Where do most active shooter events occur?

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Whether Monday’s shooting at a Boise Mall constitutes a mass shooting depends on what metric is in use. However, according to available FBI data, most active shootings occur in certain places.

According to this data, from 2000 to 2019, Idaho had three active shooter events. There were 333 incidents over the time period in the United States. Some places tend to be victims of these tragedies more than others.

“We’ve all been sitting here reading about it every day in the paper, or watching it every night on the news, but it has always been somewhere else, and now all of a sudden it’s in our backyard and it horrifies us; as it should,” said Twin Falls County Sheriff Tom Carter.

The Director of Strategic Planning and Training at Campus Safety Alliance, Morgan Ballis, is well versed in active shooter situations. He is aware of says FBI data showing places of commerce are the most common for active shooters.

“When my mom survived the attack at Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Tucson, she was just going to the store,” said Ballis.

Schools are the second most popular.

“Typically what we see is that the assailant had some sort of connection to that site,” he said. “Schools, overwhelming majority are current or prior students, places of business or former employees, at times we see a romantic connection to that site.”

Currently, law enforcement is investigating why this event occurred. With all the media coverage of the event, Ballis understands the weight of consuming all the information.

“So it’s kind of striking that balance between how do I prepare myself and my family for this very rare occasion without getting to the point where know it’s all I think about, I’m becoming hyper-focused and hyper-vigilant for something that is statistically not likely to happen,” said Ballis.