Category: Safety

Do the Gun-Grabbers Really Want to Save Lives?

My first impression is ‘No’.

We often find ourselves arguing statistics with anti-gun people. Let’s put the conversation into perspective. I will give you some statistics and I’ll also expose the anti-gun left’s real motives for gun control. First of all, don’t you think that if someone really wanted to save lives, they would focus their attention on an area where the most lives are lost? If you’ll notice, Anti-Gunners miss that piece of logic and gravitate toward any justification for gun control laws regardless of its inability to save lives.

The gun grabbers like to use the number of 30,000 to 40,000 gun-related deaths per year but if we take out suicides, which are 60% of those deaths and we take out law enforcement-related deaths, we’re left with about 14,880 gun-related homicides. Let me add something here. After seeing the results of Australia’s gun ban, we know that suicides do not go down in the absence of guns. People find other means; just in case there are some Anti-Gunners out there still trying to blame suicides on guns.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The majority of those gun-related homicides are gang-related. So, let’s say we didn’t have the gang problem we have in this country. If we take out gang/gun murders the number of gun-related homicides shrinks to 2,976 per year in America. here’s another interesting fact that the anti-gun left doesn’t want you to know. The majority of gang-related violence occurs in Democrat-run cities across this country, which by the way are highly gun restricted and often allow violent Illegals safe harbor. Which means, the good people living within those cities are denied their right to protect themselves against the human violence that Democrats encourage with their bad policies. Now let’s compare 2,976 gun-related homicides to some other things that the anti-gun left could be working on if they really wanted to save lives.

  • 2,976 gun-related homicides, consisting of many different causes. None of which are caused by “the gun.”
  • 11,000 lives lost per year in America to drunk driving accidents.
  • 47,000 lives lost per year in America due to suicide, (bipolar disorder and schizophrenia being two of the leading causes of suicide.) Not guns. Remember, take away the guns and that number doesn’t change.
  • 330,000 lives are taken per year in America by people committing abortion. One of the biggest causes of preventable deaths in America is abortion. Didn’t the gun-grabbers say they wanted to save lives?

Now let me give you a piece of information that the anti-self-defense crowd doesn’t want you to know. How many lives do you think are saved every year because of guns?

  • 2,500,000 lives are potentially saved every year in America because of guns. These are called Defensive Gun Uses (DGU’s). Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean good guys killing bad guys. This most often means just the mere presence of a gun deters a bad guy. 46% of those lives saved are women. This is from a study that was done by Gary Kleck, a Florida criminologist and backed by data from the CDC.

*[Data collected from Pew Research Center, FBI Statistics, Armed Resistance to Crime Report (Kleck/Gertz), Center for Medical Progress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.]

Why do you think the gun grabbers never share this information? Some would argue that they don’t really care about saving lives as much as they care about disarming their fellow citizens and preventing them from independently protecting themselves and their families.

Gun control is a top-down method that puts the government in charge of the lives and safety of people under the guise of “public safety.” It’s the first step in stealing the freedom our founders fought for. The anti-gun left has already decided that they are willing to give up their freedom to government.

The problem is, they can’t have their government-controlled Utopian society unless everyone gets on board. Real Americans are clearly not getting on board. In fact, just the opposite is true. People across the country are fighting back as the left-wing ideology tries desperately to embed itself into traditional America. Gun control is a way of forcing you into dependence whether you like it or not.

We’re never going to cure the evil in the hearts of killers but thanks to our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of firearms, we can stop them.

So, to the gun grabbers, do you really want to save lives? Then get to work on the real causes of human-violence and help us restore our gun rights so good people can protect themselves. Help us save lives, rather than ending them before they get a chance to take their first breath.

The 2nd Amendment is not a privilege. It’s your right.

Oklahoma State Senate passes bill making it easier to arm teachers

The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that could make it easier for Oklahoma teachers and school personnel to carry a firearm at school.

The bill by Republican Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, and Rep. Sean Roberts, R-Hominy, would change requirements for teachers to be able to be armed at school.

Bullard said the rural school districts in his area want the legislation because it could take a significant amount of time for law enforcement to respond to a mass shooting on campus.

“We have students right now that are vulnerable if someone walks in with a gun,” he said. “It’s a manslaughter and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Teachers would no longer be required to complete a 240-hour Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training certification course in order to be armed at school. Bullard said the requirement is cost prohibitive and time intensive to a point that it deters teachers from participating.

Instead, under House Bill 2336, school personnel who undergo the eight-hour concealed carry class or the 72 hours of armed security guard training would be eligible to carry on campus at K-12 schools. The personnel also would have to go through “campus-specific active shooter training” as stipulated by local law enforcement agencies.

The campus-specific training would vary based on a school’s size and layout and would be intended for law enforcement to work one-on-one with teachers or school staff who intend to be armed, Bullard said.

Senate Democrats said the legislation could result in teachers having various levels of training depending on which district they teach.

How Venezuela’s Good Citizens Were Disarmed is a Lesson For Us

When I was a little girl in the early 1990s, my father worked in the energy industry and often flitted off to South America. He brought us back postcards and chucherías from this faraway land of Venezuela, describing it as the most picturesque nation in Latin America. The nation was then awash in oil wealth, the highest growth rate in the region, boundless education opportunities, fine foods and world-class beaches.

It seemed a mystical paradise where nothing could go wrong. Until it did.

When I stepped foot into the embattled nation a year ago to cover the burgeoning humanitarian crisis, none of my experience in war zones prepared me for the calamity that seemed to get worse with every step across the Colombian border. Venezuela had sunk into a violent humanitarian crisis. There was next to no rule of law…….

Cúcuta, a city straddling the Colombian and Venezuelan border, had become the stuff of nightmares: a microcosm of the conflict burning Venezuela alive. Its citizens had become unable to defend themselves or their families from danger and economic ruin.

And the Venezuelans are the first to tell you that so many of them willfully surrendered their right to bear arms in the lead-up to the 2014 crackdown. They told me this as clear words of warning.

“Venezuela is paying the price for the gun ban. The civilians are unable to defend themselves from criminal actors and from this Maduro regime’s abuses,” activist and university teacher, Miguel Mandrade, 34, said from the fog-laden, barren city of San Cristobal. “The uprising would have taken a different path and a different result if civilians had the right to defend themselves with the firearms they once owned.”……..

Some 4 million have fled the profoundly impoverished nation that, as this was being written, was still led by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro. Meanwhile, the millions left languishing inside Venezuela’s borders are starving and without critical services and medical care. Homicide and crime rates are escalating as the inflation rate soars. The government has unleashed its forces and proxy militias to wage war on a troubled and defenseless population.

But the trigger of gun prohibition wasn’t pulled in an instant. Over several years, Venezuelan authorities chipped away at individual gun rights.As they did so, crime rates crept higher and higher.

How They Lost Their Freedom
In 2002, Caracas enacted its first effort to restrict gun ownership, placing the National Armed Forces as the body to oversee the regulation of all firearms. In 2011, then-President Hugo Chávez launched a public disarmament campaign as part of his Presidential Commission on Disarmament, which was supposedly aimed at reducing gun violence. Resolutions were cemented to prohibit possessing guns during cultural and sporting events, as well as on public transportation and construction sites. A 12-month moratorium was also put in place with regard to issuing gun permits.

The following year, Caracas banned the commercial sales of guns and shuttered the doors of firearms stores across the country. It was mandated that only military, police and security forces could legally own and buy guns.

Then, in 2012, Maduro signed into law the Disarmament and Arms Munitions Control, which carried the explicit objective to “disarm all citizens.” Chávez initially ran a months-long amnesty program urging Venezuelans to swap their arms for electrical goods; however, only 37 surrenders were recorded, while more than 12,500 guns were seized by force.

The government held grandiose decimation displays in the streets by bulldozing firearms en masse in front of large crowds in a bid to demonstrate their commitment to supposedly end gun violence.

In 2014, a further 26,000 firearms were confiscated or crushed—coincidentally, Venezuela clocked in as having the world’s second-highest homicide rate that very same year. Each year that the gun-control reins were pulled tighter, murder rates increased.

In 2001, according to gunpolicy.org, 6,568 homicides were recorded in Venezuela. By 2014, that number had jumped to 19,030.

Not-so-coincidentally, the black market in weapons also began to boom, with an estimated 6 million illegal guns in the country.

“The market works through international borders, in maritime and land areas, and the government itself has been a gun provider,” said Walter Márquez, a Venezuelan historian and former National Assembly Representative. “The government took legal weapons away from private people, disarming all those who could oppose it.”……

Venezuela is a Lesson Americans Must Understand

Venezuela serves as a reminder that gun control can serve as a gateway to despotism. Some contend that not only is Venezuela suffering the consequences of failing to fight the ever-inching gun-control measures, but also of failing to create a culture that understood the importance of having a right to keep and bear arms.

“The Venezuelan population trusted the government at all times that it would always use its authority within certain boundaries, and whenever it got out, we thought it would be solved by democratic or legal mechanisms. Our political and public behavior confirmed our cultural naivety in this sense,” said Javier Vanegas, 29, a Venezuelan teacher. “We are paying the price of not having had a strong gun culture.”

Before the 2012 changes, there were only eight registered gun stores scattered across the nation of 31 million people. The process for law-abiding citizens even to obtain a legal gun permit and a firearm was a months-long ordeal hamstrung by protracted wait lines, high costs and demands for bribes. Only one department, which operated under the Ministry of Defense, had the authority to issue civilian permits.

The collectives ruthlessly oppress opposition groups, giving Maduro a cosmetic cover. When we saw them, we ran for cover.

In late 2017, when Venezuela was in the clutches of its spiraling economic catastrophe, Maduro announced he would distribute some 400,000 arms to his patriots—claiming a U.S.-led coup was coming—and the civilian population was left as sitting ducks. Since April of that year, hundreds of Venezuelans protesting the government, armed with little more than stones and paper signs, have been shot or have disappeared in retaliation.

“If citizens had access to guns, and if they had been armed since before the arrival of Chavez, it would have been, at least, a powerful obstacle to the socialist agenda,” said Vanegas. “Socialism thrives in chaos. The perfect tool for chaos in most of Latin-America is criminality. If the people had had the tool to defend themselves, instead of resorting to more state power to end the criminality (an end the government never intended to give), then, of course, it would have made a huge difference.”

In recent years, he said, the daily life of the unarmed Venezuelan has been shaped by crime.

“People have stopped going out. Businesses and businessmen and women went broke or closed shop and left. The youth began to be fearful of spending time out in the city,” Vanegas said. “I personally had one family member and two friends kidnapped for ransom.”

The stuff of nightmares quickly became normal to the likes of Vanegas, who reflected that his complacency has been shattered as his beloved country has fallen apart. Scores of ailing Venezuelans told me that even before the protests sparked five years ago, calling the police to report a crime entailed long wait times and pressure to bribe officers not only to come, but to process the case per the book. Now, even making such a call is basically useless.

One person I met on my travels in the region whispered in hushed tones that those who dare keep an old gun beneath their bed—or those who have the finances to find one on the black market—risk the punishment of 20 years behind bars. This person confessed that he kept an old revolver that once belonged to his grandfather. He worried that if he used it to save his own life, the Maduro regime would then come to take him away to prison.

“No civilian needs…”

A common statement from the fans of government monopoly on force is: “no civilian needs such weapons”, with “such weapons” being whatever they are trying to ban. Let’s look at this statement more closely.

The Secret Service staff are civilians. Police officers are civilians. All government organizations other than the five branches of the military are civilians. Secret Service agents have access to submachine guns like the P90 above, as well as much more powerful weapons. Why? Such arms are useful in protecting lives of the people they are trying to keep alive. Quite a few regular Americans — such as stalking victims — face daily risks at least as severe as those faced by the political elite.

The same is true of Trump’s family members.

So we have plenty of examples of civilian government employees using modern guns unavailable to the rest of the population to protect themselves. In addition to government employees, corporations (“special occupational taxpayers”) can own guns denied to the general public.

These corporations are definitely civilian structures, yet they own all kinds of high-tech weaponry far exceeding mere small arms in scope. Apparently, lots of civilians have a use for modern guns. Why shouldn’t lawful individuals be able to exercise their rights the same way?

Proposed Tennessee bill would allow students to have concealed guns on campus

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – A proposed bill, if passed, would allow students to have a concealed carry gun at public higher education institutions. The idea sparked conversations inside and outside the classroom at the University of Tennessee

“It makes me a little nervous, guns, in general, make me nervous, I’m just an anxious person,” Gray, a student, said.

Some students said they were indifferent about guns on campus. Many students were for the move saying it’s a means of self-defense.

The proposal states students would need a carry permit and be in compliance with state law. Some students said lawmakers could use their energy elsewhere.

“Having concealed carry, but also not having the options of suitable mental health access is not a good idea,”

Guns on campus was a hot button topic back in 2016 when lawmakers were deciding whether or not to allow faculty and staff to carry. More than 80 percent of UTK faculty, who were asked in a poll, did not want guns on campus.

The final decision was not on their side as lawmakers passed the 2016 bill.

If passed, the new bill would go into effect July 1, 2020.

Following legalized campus carry, universities report no increase in violence on their campuses

In some instances, crime actually dropped

Though popular belief holds that more guns on college campuses will lead to an uptick in gun violence, several universities have reported no such increase even after their states legalized the carrying of concealed weapons on school grounds.

According to the website of Armed Campuses, a pro-gun-control initiative that tracks firearm policies at universities across the country, seven state legislatures have broadly permitted concealed carry on public university grounds. Five more have instituted limited campus carry regimes. Ten states prohibit campus carry altogether, while the remainder either allow the university to set the policy or else mandate that the guns must be left in locked cars.

The College Fix reached out to multiple public universities in states where campus carry is legal. All of the schools that responded confirmed that they have seen no uptick in violence since their respective policies were put in place.

Emporia State University is located in Emporia, Kansas. Armed Campuses states that, in that state, “any individual 21 years or older who is otherwise legally allowed to possess a concealed handgun may do so in any public facility, or on any public grounds unless proper security measures are in place.”

Reached via email, Emporia State campus spokeswoman Gwen Larson told The College Fix that the school has observed no change in gun violence since that rule was instituted. “Emporia State did not have gun violence before the law changed, and there has been no violence since the law changed,” she wrote.

Asked if there had been an uptick in campus carry since the policy change, Larson responded that she couldn’t say.

“There is no way of knowing the answer to this question. Kansas law prohibits tracking people who are carrying concealed handguns or making inquiries about who may or may not be carrying,” she wrote.

No gun violence increase, no ‘concerns’ regarding campus guns

Utah’s Dixie State University, located in St. George, has also not seen any increase in gun murders or injuries since guns were allowed on campus there, according to campus law enforcement. Utah law has actually permitted campus carry for nearly a decade and a half.

Dixie State’s campus Chief of Police Blair Barfuss told The College Fix via email that there has been no “reported or observed increase with gun violence on campus” related to the state’s campus carry policy.

“DSU does restrict firearms in on-campus residential housing units, unless the individual possesses a state issued firearms concealed carry permit, which is allowed by state statute,” Barfuss said.

He added that the university, like Emporia State, “does not track who on campus possess state issued concealed carry firearm permits.”

“This would be very difficult to do due to DSU students coming from many states across the country. We have not seen any increase in reports of firearms on campus, and we have not been made aware of any concerns regarding concealed carry permit holders by students or staff, related to Utah state legal statute.”

The Fix reached out to Valdosta State University, a public university in Valdosta, Georgia, to inquire about its experiences with concealed carry. Armed Campuses says that state has permitted concealed carry on college campuses since July of 2017.

Campus spokesman Keith Warburg provided The Fix with a letter from Steve Wrigley, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia. That letter, dated May 24, 2017, affirms the general right to carry a gun on public campuses while outlining several locations in which guns are still forbidden, including residence halls as well as classrooms in which high school students are studying.

Asked if the university has experienced an increase in gun violence since the legalization of concealed carry, Warburg did not directly answer. Instead he provided The Fix with the school’s 2019 Annual Security and Fire Safety report. Data from that report show no increase in murder or manslaughter on the school’s campus from 2016-2018; in all years it was zero. Aggravated assaults on campus dropped from three in 2016 to one in 2018. Burglaries dropped from 22 in 2016 to nine in 2018.

The lack of evidence that liberalized campus carry laws lead to more campus violence stands in contrast to the often-heated rhetoric of gun control activists. The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, an activist group partnered with Armed Campuses, has claimed that efforts to allow concealed weapons on campus are “dangerous.” That group says it is working “to protect American’s colleges and universities.”

On its website, Armed Campuses lists a study examining campus crime rates following the passage of liberalized concealed carry laws. The study also looks at state-level and national crime statistics. The report concludes that available data “do not prove that campus carry causes more crime.” Armed Campuses did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday morning.

One Step Closer to a Batsuit for Soldiers

If they name it Nemourlon, then add it onto a powered exosuit………..

Researchers announce new military funding in search for body armor skin that could be 300 times stronger than anything we’ve seen before.

In Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, there’s a scene where inventor Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, explains that Wayne Enterprises has created a prototype body armor for the U.S. infantry that’s as light as kevlar but bullet and knife proof. Bruce Wayne asks why it never went into production. “The bean counters figured a soldier’s life wasn’t worth the 300 grand,” Fox replies.

In real life, and with Defense Department money, researchers from Florida Atlantic University, or FAU, are using advanced polymers and carbon nanotubes to engineer a new type of body fabric that could eventually prove to be 300 times as strong as today’s state of the art, but just as light.

Hassan Mahfuz, the lead investigator on the project at FAU, says that “the whole idea is to absorb the energy and be able to dissipate very quickly so it doesn’t concentrate,” and pierce the fabric and the person inside of it.

How do you do that? As Mahfuz and several colleagues from different institutions point out in this paper, you need to create an entirely new type of treatment for nylon fabric, a hybrid mixture of a polymer that Mahfuz describes as similar to Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene and carbon nanotubes. The former has been around since the 1950s, the latter was only discovered in 1991. They’re hollow cylinders of carbon molecules, a product of nanotechnology, or the manipulation of objects at a billionth of a meter in size.

Carbon nanotubes are so strong and light (roughly 100 times stronger than steel but one-sixth of the weight) that researchers have proposed they may play a role in super springs, drug delivery, and future hypersonic weapons. Getting them to interact with ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene will be key to realizing ever higher levels of strength.

The Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office has provided about $569,000 in funding for the effort according to a release on Wednesday from the University.

“My first attempt is to increase [strength] by 25 percent” above the current state of the art within a year, said Mahfuz, who expressed confidence that he would eventually reach a 300 percent strength increase but couldn’t speculate on the timing, since research is ongoing. “As we publish, we’ll know,” he said

Alleged Al-Qaeda Terrorist Leader Arrested In Phoenix On Murder Charges.

So how  – and why – did he manage to sneak hisslef into the U.S.?

Federal law enforcement officials arrested an alleged Al-Qaeda terrorist leader in Phoenix, Arizona, late this week on murder charges filed by the Iraqi government.

Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, a 42-year-old Iraqi national was “wanted to stand trial in Iraq for two charges of premeditated murder committed in 2006 in Al-Fallujah,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.

An Iraqi judge issued an arrest warrant for Ahmed and subsequently requested Ahmed’s extradition from the United States.

“According to the information provided by the Government of Iraq in support of its extradition request, Ahmed served as the leader of a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, which planned operations targeting Iraqi police,” the DOJ added. “Ahmed and other members of the Al-Qaeda group allegedly shot and killed a first lieutenant in the Fallujah Police Directorate and a police officer in the Fallujah Police Directorate, on or about June 1, 2006, and October 3, 2006, respectively.”

The DOJ noted that the decision to extradite him to Iraq will ultimately be made by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Florida bills would allow concealed weapons at school churches, armed city officials in meetings

TALLAHASSEE — With supporters pointing to attacks on churches and synagogues, a House panel Tuesday approved a measure that would allow people to carry concealed weapons at religious institutions that share properties with schools.

The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee also approved a separate bill that would allow county commissioners, school board members and elected city officials to be armed at their public meetings.

State law generally allows people to carry concealed weapons at religious institutions, but it bars being armed on school properties. That has effectively meant that people cannot carry guns to churches or synagogues that meet at places with schools.

The measure (HB 1437) approved Tuesday would allow religious institutions to authorize people with concealed-weapons licenses to carry guns at such locations.

“Right now, if a church was located on the same property as, say, a preschool, and that preschool met from Monday through Friday, people at that church would not be allowed to carry concealed on Sunday and Wednesday night during those services, and this bill would change that,” bill sponsor Jayer Williamson, R-Pace, said.

Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey supported the proposal, saying he considers it a “property rights bill” instead of a gun bill.

You Can Now Stop Facebook From Tracking Your Activity on Other Websites. Here’s How
The ‘Off-Facebook Activity’ tool allows you to control what information about you is tracked and associated with your Facebook account.

As of Tuesday, you can now turn off the collection and sharing of data that sites and apps send to Facebook. You might have had some idea that Facebook was keeping tabs on what you do, but I’m willing to bet you’ll be surprised by the volume of information Facebook has about you. In fact, as I wrote earlier today, even your Ring doorbell app is sharing information with Facebook.

Websites and apps use Facebook’s Pixel and software development kit (SDK) to collect information about your device and your activity, and send that to Facebook. Facebook uses that information to then show you targeted ads.

It’s why people are convinced Facebook must be listening to their conversations since they see ads in their News Feed for the very products or items they were just talking about. Here’s a newsflash: Facebook doesn’t need to listen to your conversations. It already knows so much about you, it can practically read your thoughts.

If you don’t believe me, the “Off-Facebook Activity” tool that Facebook announced back in August is finally available. Go take a look at exactly what Facebook has collected about you. You might be surprised at all of the sites and apps you use on a regular basis who are sharing information about what you do.

Here’s how to find out what sites are sending information to Facebook about you. The “Off-Facebook-Activity” tool isn’t easy to find (though you can click that link to go directly to it). If you want to navigate there, click on the drop-down carrot in the top right of the desktop version of Facebook. Then select “Settings” and “Your Facebook Information.” There you’ll find an option for “Off-Facebook Activity.”

JASON ATEN

There you’ll find a list of all the sites that are sharing information with Facebook, and you can clear your history (removing this information from your account), turn off tracking for specific sites, or disable this tracking completely. To be clear, if you turn it off, Facebook will still receive information about your activity, it just won’t be associated with your account.

also, turning off this type of data sharing does mean that you won’t be able to use Facebook to log in to other apps or sites. Never mind that you shouldn’t be using it, for this very reason, but if you are, you’ll be logged out and have to create a new login for those accounts or apps.

I don’t often give Facebook credit for considering the privacy interests of its users, but this is a welcome step in the right direction. The company has often had a hard time balancing its need to know as much as it can about you so that it can monetize that information, with the ability for users to control what information is being collected and tracked. While there are still a lot of changes Facebook will have to make before it can really claim to be a “privacy-protective” platform, this is a good start.

Concealed-Weapon Permits Have Tripled in North Carolina.

With an unprecedented number of shootings happening around Charlotte, an increasing number of residents are turning to concealed weapons for protection.

According to North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigations, concealed-carry gun permits  increased from 177,787 in 2010 to 647,553 last year. Current permit holders make up about 8% of our population – the 10th highest level in America.

All that is required to obtain the permit is an 8-hour course, a gun firing test, and a criminal and mental health background check.

The permits allows the owner to conceal their firearms in all places guns are not prohibited. It also allows NC residents to buy an unlimited number of guns with no additional background checks required for each new purchase.

Seattle Shooting: Looks Like Gun Group was Right about Gun Control Fail

“Prior to 2014, incidents of shots fired in Seattle never topped 300,” Ammoland reported. “Since 2015—the first full year following passage of the gun control measure—the number of shooting incidents has not dropped below 300.”

The story also recalled how the Seattle City Council adopted a “gun violence tax” on the sale of firearms and ammunition inside city limits in 2015. In 2016, the city posted 18 slayings of which 11 were gun-related. In 2017, the city recorded 27 murders, including 16 involving firearms. In 2018, the number was 32, according to SPD data, and 13 of them involved guns. Last year, SPD said, there were 28 slayings.

Further demonstrating gun control’s failure are the FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. In 2016, Washington reported 195 total homicides including 127 involving firearms. In 2017, the state posted 228 total slayings including 134 killings with guns and in 2018 there were 232 murders including 138 committed with firearms.

“We find it beyond ironic,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “that the exact opposite of what gun control proponents predicted has occurred. Their extremist agenda has failed to reduce gun-related crime as was implied when they pushed through their various measures.”

Virginia gun control fight sparks rush to join 2nd Amendment sanctuaries movement

Virginia gun control fight sparks rush to join 2nd Amendment sanctuaries movement

A contentious fight over gun control measures in Virginia is prompting hundreds of counties and localities around the country to declare themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”

The national movement is growing momentum as the newly-elected Democratic legislature in Virginia plans stricter actions against guns, including universal background checks and “red flag” laws that would allow officials to seize guns from people considered to pose a threat.

The push has sparked a strong reaction by those who support gun rights. Tens of thousands gathered in Richmond last week to protest against the planned action, while at least 91 out of 95 counties in Virginia have declared themselves “sanctuaries” against gun control laws passed by the state.

A contentious fight over gun control measures in Virginia is prompting hundreds of counties and localities around the country to declare themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”

The national movement is growing momentum as the newly-elected Democratic legislature in Virginia plans stricter actions against guns, including universal background checks and “red flag” laws that would allow officials to seize guns from people considered to pose a threat.

The push has sparked a strong reaction by those who support gun rights. Tens of thousands gathered in Richmond last week to protest against the planned action, while at least 91 out of 95 counties in Virginia have declared themselves “sanctuaries” against gun control laws passed by the state.

Other localities around the country are now joining Virginia, even in states such as Mississippi that are not contemplating gun control measures. At least 83 counties nationwide have declared themselves as Second Amendment sanctuaries this month, following at least 131 last month, according to a count of local media reports conducted by The Hill.

They join hundreds of other localities that have already made the declaration, growing a movement that takes its name from cities that have declared themselves as “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants, providing protection against the stricter immigration laws enforced by the Trump administration.

“When a state starts denying the constitutionally protected rights of its citizens, then it is completely legitimate for officials at lower levels to step in and protect citizens,” said Erich Pratt, the senior vice president of Guns Owners of America.

Gun Owners has served as a leading national organization of the movement, helping localities draft legislation as well as organizing citizen petitions.

Localities declaring themselves as sanctuaries hail from a broad range of states, from those seen as having stronger protections for gun owners such as Kentucky and Texas to those seen as having stricter gun control laws such as Illinois, New Jersey and Oregon.

Just this week, DeSoto County became the first county in Mississippi to pass a resolution protecting itself against gun control laws, declaring itself a Second Amendment “safe haven” to avoid the connotation of the word sanctuary with the immigration movement.

State Rep. Dana Criswell (R) provided the petition to the DeSoto County government, saying he did so after multiple constituents asked for it.

“It is 100 percent driven by the events that are happening in Virginia,” Criswell said. “That has really scared people that events like that – they see gun owners there under a very direct attack.”…………

Gun applications in New York Jewish community spike to nearly 1,000% after Hanukkah attack

Applications for gun permits are surging in New York’s Rockland County after five Orthodox Jews were stabbed at a Hanukkah celebration at a local rabbi’s home.

The Rockland County Clerk’s office reported a nearly 1,000% increase in gun permit applications in the week following the Dec. 28 attack. The county clerk received 65 new gun permit applications, according to the New York Post. Before the attack, the office received an average of about six applications a week.

All but five of the new applications originated from the town of Ramapo, where the attack took place. Ramapo contains several heavily Jewish communities.

“A lot of people are worried, especially the large Hasidic and Jewish community in Rockland County,” said Erik Melanson, who owns Precision Gunsmiths in Rockland County. “I have had rabbis come in. Some of the rabbis already have concealed carry [permits].”

U.S. sending home 21 Saudi cadets, NAS Pensacola shooting an ‘act of terrorism.’

We don’t have to treat the Saudis with kid gloves anymore now that our technology is able to better process our own massive petroleum reserves

WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr said Monday that the Saudi Arabian shooter at Naval Air Station Pensacola was “motivated by Jihadist ideology.”

Barr says 21 Saudi military students are being removed from the US training program and returning home.

Barr and FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich announced the findings of the criminal investigation in a press conference at the Department of Justice.

Many of the 21 cadets being sent home had contact with child pornography and possessed jihadist or anti-American material, Barr said. None is accused of having advanced knowledge of the shooting, which Barr said was motivated by “jihadist ideology” and has been classified as an act of terrorism.

Hero Jack Wilson Will be Awarded “Governor’s Medal of Courage”
While Democrats are memorizing Iranian terrorists Republicans are rewarding American heroes.

While Democrats are memorizing Iranian terrorists Republicans are rewarding American heroes.

Governor Greg Abbott will present the “Governor’s Medal of Courage” to the brave man who stopped a gunman during a deadly shooting at a church in North Texas last month.

On Monday, January 13th Gov. Abbott will host Mr. Wlson at the Governor’s Mansion to present him with the Governor’s Medal of Courage. The medal is given to civilians who display “great acts of heroism by risking their own safety to save another’s life.”

It is the highest award given to civilians by the Governor and nobody deserves it more than Jack Wilson.