Category: RKBA

Church Pastor Sees Crime, Offers Gun and Self Defense Class

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) — The recent crime wave is pushing a local pastor to organize a series of classes to keep churchgoers safe.

Church is typically the place you attend to find peace. But there is a lot of unrest nationally and locally with pockets of criminal activity. So, the leader of one faith facility wants to make sure that his congregation and the community are ready.

“This is my family and I will do everything to protect them,” said Macedonia Church of Augusta Pastor Gregory Fuller.

He may teach people about how to guard their faith each week.  But he will soon offer three classes focusing on how to escape the trials of life, an unlikely encounter with crime.

“Hearing about the lady who was attacked at the Augusta Mall. The elderly lady attacked, robbed and then hit.  That really let me know that we need to do something to protect our women, in particular,” he explained.

Pastor Fuller said some of his members were harassed and threatened in town.  And with the increase in other crimes, Macedonia is rolling out Gun Safety, Women’s Self Defense and Fire and Fellowship gun range style classes, teaching people how to use a weapon, store it and thwart off an attacker without one.

“Most of my calls are from the local gun club that I teach at,” said Amontre Adams, Black Marshal Precision, LLC. Firearms Instructor. “They help me promote my classes.  But now, I’m seeing a bigger increase of people outside of the gun club contacting me.”

While there is a big interest in firearms, Adams told us people need to seek out classes to know exactly what they are doing.  But despite preparation, when the time comes, it could all backfire.

“When it hits the fan, you will devolve back to your lowest level of training,” Adams said.

The three free events:

  • Gun Safety – Macedonia Church of Augusta – July 23rd – 10:00 am
  • Women’s Self Defense Class (FLAG “Fight Life A Girl”) – Macedonia Church of Augusta – July 30th – 9:00 am- 12:00 pm
  • Fire and Fellowship to practice shooting firearms – Name and directions provided upon registration – August 6th – 9:00 am – 11:00 am

Well, even though it’ll go nowhere, it is a nice gesture.

Sen. Daines Introduces Bill To Give Gun Owners Freedom To Carry Across State Lines

Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines introduced legislation Monday that would allow for those who live in a concealed carry or Constitutional carry state to carry their concealed firearms in other states.

The legislation, first obtained by the Daily Caller, is titled the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. The bill would ensure a Montana resident can legally conceal carry a gun into a state where the state’s own residents can conceal carry. This bill also allows for individuals with a state-issued concealed carry license to conceal a gun in any other state, as long as the permit holder follows the laws of that state.

READ THE BILL HERE: 

 

It’s not guns. It’s the hands the guns are in.

Countries with strict gun control hit by recent mass shootings and gun violence
Denmark, South Africa, and Sweden have all attempted to combat gun violence despite strict restrictions

South Africa, Denmark, and Sweden have been combating a wave of gun violence and mass shootings despite strict gun control laws in all three countries.

South Africa was the latest to see a mass shooting, with at least 19 people being killed in two separate shootings last week in Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg. In Johannesburg, 15 people were killed and many more injured when a gunman opened fire on patrons in a bar. A similar scene played out the same night in Pietermaritzburg, where two men entered an area bar and opened fire on patrons there, killing four people an injuring eight.

The two shootings happened despite tight gun regulations in the country, with GunPolicy.org rating South Africa’s firearms regulations as “restrictive.” Civilians in the country are not allowed to possess semi-automatic weapons without a special endorsement, while handgun ownership is permitted but only after obtaining a license under specific circumstances.

South Africa’s strict restrictions have led to a large black market for guns in the country, with almost 13,000 people being arrested in the country for illegal possession of firearms in 2020/2021, according to the Associated Press. 

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Not surprising for demoncrap tyrants

Politicians Defy the Supreme Court’s Ruling on the Right To Bear Arms
Several states are retaining subjective criteria for carry permits or imposing new restrictions on gun possession.

After the Supreme Court upheld the right to bear arms last month, some states promptly complied with the ruling by eliminating subjective requirements for carrying a gun in public. But other states are either dragging their feet or refusing to acknowledge the decision’s implications.

The Court said New York had violated the Second Amendment by requiring “proper cause” to carry handguns for self-defense, a standard that gave local officials wide discretion to reject carry-permit applications. But anti-gun politicians have other tricks up their sleeves, including similarly vague standards and bans on firearm possession in specific locations, that will invite further litigation to vindicate a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution.

New York responded to the Court’s rebuke with a law that eliminates the “proper cause” requirement but specifies a long list of “sensitive locations” where gun possession is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison. Those restrictions will make it impractical or legally perilous for many permit holders to actually exercise the right recognized by the Court.

In addition to listing myriad places where permit holders may not carry firearms, New York’s law bans guns in all private establishments open to the public unless they post conspicuous signs announcing that they are deviating from the default rule—a step many business owners will be reluctant to take. A bill backed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta takes a similar approach.

New York’s law retains a requirement that permit applicants demonstrate “good moral character,” an assessment that includes perusing their social media posts. Bonta likewise maintains that California’s “good moral character” standard remains constitutional, and he suggests that controversial opinions could be disqualifying.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment specialist, thinks such a wide-ranging inquiry is “clearly unconstitutional.” Volokh notes that “the government can’t restrict ordinary citizens’ actions—much less their constitutionally protected actions—based on the viewpoints that they express.”

Although Massachusetts dropped its “good reason” criterion for carry permits, it still requires that an applicant be “a suitable person to possess firearms,” a standard that leaves considerable room for subjective judgments. The same vague requirement applies in Connecticut, where Attorney General William Tong has promised to resist any changes to the law.

Delaware requires that a carry-permit applicant demonstrate “good moral character” and “a good reputation for peace and good order.” The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), an industry group, reports that Delaware officials are taking a “wait and see” approach, meaning the law probably won’t be changed without additional litigation.

In Rhode Island, the attorney general “may issue” a carry permit based on “a proper showing of need,” while local licensing authorities “shall issue” a permit “if it appears” that the applicant is “a suitable person to be licensed” and either “has good reason to fear an injury to his or her person or property” or has “any other proper reason” to carry a handgun. Attorney General Peter Neronha seems to think his state’s rules are different enough from New York’s that no reform is necessary.

“This Case Involves a Religious Psychic Trying to Break a Family Curse by ‘Cleaning’ ‘Dirty’ Money”
By contrast, Hawaii Attorney General Holly Shikada last week said a concealed-carry applicant in that state will no longer be required to show he represents “an exceptional case” and has “reason to fear injury” to his “person or property.” Maryland and New Jersey recently dropped similar requirements: “good or substantial reason” in Maryland and “justifiable need” in New Jersey.

Even before the Court’s ruling, the vast majority of states either did not require permits for carrying firearms or had “shall issue” carry-permit laws, meaning applications generally were approved as long as gun owners met objective criteria. Those policies recognize, as the Court did, that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” cannot be treated as a privilege for the lucky few.

Some politicians still seem determined to reject that point. They will not respect their constituents’ rights until new constitutional challenges force them to do so.

The dishonesty of the gun control mob

It’s so predictable, maybe we should start calling it “Gun Control Day.”

Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” it happens again and again after a mass shooting, like the one at a July Fourth parade near Chicago that killed seven people and wounded two dozen.

The professional anti-gun mob — i.e., liberal Democrats and the major media outlets — immediately spring into action and exploit the tragedy as much as they can.

As they did this past week, they automatically blame guns, renew their calls for stricter gun reforms or dream about completely outlawing the private ownership of guns.

It doesn’t matter if the mass shooter was crazy, a terrorist or just plain evil, the gun control nuts are as unrealistic and dishonest as they are predictable.

If we’d only outlaw handguns and “weapons of war” like the semi-automatic AR-15, they cry again and again, these bloody mass killings and street shootouts would virtually disappear.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

But in the real world, the one we 330 million Americans live in, there are nearly 400 million guns in the hands of private citizens.

Guns of all kinds are virtually in every corner of America, thank the Lord.

About 44 percent of U.S. households contain at least one, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey.

About 32 percent of people older than 18 own a firearm — that’s 81 million people.

About 42 percent are female, 58 percent male. About 25 percent of Blacks, 28 percent of Latinos and 34 percent of whites own guns.

The average gun owner owns five firearms. Handguns are the most common type, but 30 percent of gun owners — 24.6 million individuals — have owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle that looks like an assault weapon.

About 20.7 million gun owners have a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public, and that number is growing, notably among Black women.

The gun-controllers like to mock conservatives who say guns don’t kill people, people do. But last time I checked, Glocks and AR-15s don’t pull their own triggers.

Fewer than .005 percent of America’s 400 million guns were used to commit a murder in 2021.

Only about half of the year’s 20,000 homicides involved handguns — and far more people were killed by knives, fists and rocks than rifles of all kinds.

We know who — not what — is responsible for most of America’s gun violence.

It’s not law-abiding gun owners. It’s criminals, gang members and other lawbreakers who laugh at the idea of abiding by any tougher gun law.

The liberal media are generally quiet about the gang-related gun violence that kills dozens of young black men each weekend in cities across the country.

They don’t give us Monday morning body counts from deadly places like Chicago — where 70-plus people were shot and killed during the July Fourth weekend.

In case you haven’t heard, over the holiday weekend, at least 220 Americans were shot to death and about 570 were wounded, according to the GunViolenceArchive.com, which documents each incident.

It’d be nice if the country’s top journalists would do their jobs and challenge the gun control mob when they say they want to rid America of guns.

“Whose guns will you take away exactly?” the media might ask. “Everyone’s?”

“And how do you plan to do it? Are you going to go to the south side of Chicago or South Central LA, knock on doors and take people’s guns away?”

“Who will actually take the guns? The National Guard? The Marines?”

“Realistically, how many of America’s 400 million guns do you think you’ll collect?”

It’s a certainty that a whole bunch of good Americans will refuse to cooperate with the totalitarian dream of the gun control mob, but my son Cameron has a deal he wants to make with them.

“As soon as they disarm the inner city neighborhoods of Chicago, St. Louis and East LA, the rest of us will all turn in our guns. Let us all know when you’re done with that.”

Onondaga County DA on new concealed carry social media review law: “it’s unenforceable”

Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick is calling a new law set to take effect September 1st “unenforceable.” Anyone who wants to apply for a license to carry a concealed weapon in New York State will have to hand over access to their social media accounts, starting September 1st. “I thought it was somebody pranking me, but sadly it’s true,” said Fitzpatrick. He says he and other leaders in law enforcement were not included in decisions about this law. His biggest worry is how to enforce it.

“You know how much money was allocated to the sheriff’s departments in the state of New York to enforce this, and the state police? Not a dime,” said Fitzpatrick.

John Jay College Associate Professor Adam Scott Wandt says he can see where state leaders are coming from in response to signs allegedly missed from mass shooting suspects on their social media accounts; despite this, the law might not be practical. “They’ll need money, they’ll need training, they’ll need ways of enforcing the new law, and that’s something that always should be taken into account by the legislature,” said Wandt.
They will also need people to do research on all the accounts that come in. Fitzpatrick says he will meet with police departments and the Sheriff’s office in the coming weeks to figure out what they can do, but it very well could be nothing. “People are being shot out there and I’m sitting here in an office reading about your trip to Disney World? It’s unbelievable the lack of thought and foresight,” said Fitzpatrick.

Professor Wandt says the weeks and months after the start date in September will be telling, and pushback could make way to the Supreme Court. “There’s no doubt in my mind that there will be challenges in the near future to this new law. Whether or not they’re successful, is a whole other story,” said Wandt.

A spokesperson for the Governor’s office got back to CNY Central Monday, with a statement saying “Governor Hochul signed landmark legislation to strengthen New York’s gun laws and bolster restrictions on concealed carry weapons. The comprehensive new law—drafted in close collaboration with the Legislature—is devised to align with the Supreme Court’s recent decision inNYSRPA v. Bruen and provides licensing officials with relevant information to complete thorough background checks for individuals seeking concealed carry permits.” Hochul’s Office also saying this is one various tools that are now in their toolbox to determine whether an applicant can obtain a gun permit.

Where does anyone read ‘Need’ anywhere in the 2nd amendment?

An Expert Answers Democrats’ Most Burning Question: Why Does Anyone Need an AR-15?

It’s a cry we hear time and again: Why does anyone need a black, spookily-shaped, mysterious “weapon of war” — which has never been used by the U.S. military?

Contrary to frequently wild framing, the AR-15 is simply the modern iteration of a basic rifle. Take Daniel Boone’s “Old Tick Licker,” fast-forward 270 years, and you get something lighter, more capacious, more accurate, and more easily accessorized.

But why should you — or Daniel’s great (times six) grandchildren — own one? Via a recent video, gun guru Colion Noir fights that burning question with a well’s worth of water.

In case you’re unfamiliar, the Houston-based activist and attorney has hosted NRATV and spoken at the National Rifle Association’s convention; his pro-2A YouTube channel boasts over two million subscribers, and he’s appeared as featured guest on The Joe Rogan Experience as well as Real Time with Bill Maher.

As for why anyone needs an AR, Colion offers a handful of reasons — one for each finger.

But first, he makes clear, “The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights and not the Bill of Needs. … [T]here isn’t a ‘need’ requirement for which gun you can use under the Second Amendment.”

Now on to the list…

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Armed Self-Defense Is Under Attack In The U.S.A.

Is armed self-defense a basic human right? The question may seem rhetorical, even nonsensical to a rational mind. “Of course, armed self-defense is a basic human right,” you would say. Or is it?

In the countries of the EU it isn’t; nor is armed self-defense acknowledged and accepted as a fundamental human right in the countries that comprise the British Commonwealth.

But, what about the United States? Do Americans have a right to armed self-defense?

The natural law right codified in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights makes it plain that Americans do have a natural law right of armed self-defense. And the seminal Second Amendment holdings in Heller, McDonald, and, most recently, in Bruen explicitly assert that. So, why does that remain a question for us? But a question for us it is, disturbing as it is.

The Globalist elite puppet-masters and the Marxist internationalists do not acknowledge—in fact do not recognize—the right.

Of course, it should not matter what these creatures think. But as long as Americans vote their proxies into public office, the right of armed self-defense remains, in practice an open question in many jurisdictions across the Country, despite the clear meaning of the Second Amendment and irrefutable U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The fact remains that in the U.S. the natural law right of armed self-defense is not to be denied, ignored, dismissed, or abrogated.

The right of armed self-defense is itself subsumed in the broader category of the right of self-defense for personal survival, by whatever means.

Armed self-defense simply means that a person has the natural law right to possess the best means for ensuring both his physical survival and his autonomy of self against those forces that dare crush body, or mind, or spirit. For centuries that best means of self-defense was a firearm. And it remains so.

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New York Tells Supreme Court ‘Thank You, Sir. May I Have Another?’

New York has made a return appointment for Constitutional scrutiny of their gun-carry laws.

Almost immediately after the Supreme Court struck down the state’s previous law over the subjective nature of its “proper cause” clause, New York is back with a beefed-up and even more subjective “good moral character” clause. In addition to requiring multiple references, the newly-passed standard for issuing gun-carry permits includes a social media review. Instead of relying on objective standards, such as an applicant’s record of convictions or mental health commitments, the state is doubling down on the subjective judgment of its permitting officials.

Instead of judging whether somebody has “proper cause” to carry a gun based on specific threats to their life, state officials will now judge whether or not they are of “good moral character” based on their tweets and Facebook posts. It’s difficult to see how the outcome will be any different.

It’s difficult to see how the legal fight will be any different either. Except, perhaps, how quickly New York loses.

New York is defying the Supreme Court. And it’s not trying to hide that fact.

“With this action, New York has sent a message to the rest of the country that we will not stand idly by and let the Supreme Court reverse years of sensible gun regulations,” Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado said in a statement.

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BLUF
Republican voters deserve better than this. They deserve leadership in Washington that cares about more than just the next news cycle. Mass shootings are, unfortunately, inevitable until the nation gets ahold of the mental health crisis gripping isolated, depressed young men. The foolish decision to pretend as if passing some federal law would stop them has only backed Republicans further into the corner. Will any lessons be learned? Don’t count on it.

Republicans Play the Fool After Compromising on ‘Gun Control’

With the recent mass shooting in Highland Park that took the lives of seven people, a renewed call for “gun control” from Democrats has begun. That comes just weeks after Republicans lined up to sign on to a gun control bill (now passed into law) with the idea that doing so would provide common ground on the issue.

As predicted, though, that didn’t even buy the GOP enough goodwill to make it through the next mass shooting, much less did it put the issue to bed for any length of time. Here’s what I wrote when Sen. John Cornyn was first announced to be negotiating with Democrats on gun control.

Here’s the thing, though. When whatever red flag laws that get passed fail to stop the next mass shooter, the call to “do something” will only grow louder. And the next “something” will be an even further encroachment. I understand the desire to act in good faith and attempt to take some of the heat off, but Republicans have to understand that the Democrat push for gun confiscation and an “assault weapons” ban will not stop with whatever compromise legislation arises here.

That leaves the obvious question for Republicans: Is it smart to give ground when the end goal of the Democrats is being telegraphed to you? I know my answer.

In the case of the Highland Park shooter, he had every red flag imaginable and Illinois’ red flag law still failed to stop him from obtaining guns. That was always the problem with any GOP compromise on this issue. When you concede ground, all you are doing is providing gun control proponents fodder to say “See, your solutions didn’t work so we need to do it my way now.”

I also shared similar thoughts on social media after the text of the then-bill was leaked.

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Gov. Hochul: Here’s What the Data Actually Says

It only took 30 seconds, that’s all. New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul held a press conference calling back her state’s legislature for an “extraordinary” session to pass more gun control after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s restrictive and subjective “may issue” pistol permit license scheme.

In 30 seconds, she vocalized why her gun control agenda is destined to fail.

Failed Approach

Gov. Hochul exclaimed, “I’m absolutely shocked,” after the Supreme Court held in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding Americans to carry a firearm in public for self-protection. She shouldn’t be. It only takes a simple reading of the actual amendment.

She called her state’s Democratically-controlled legislature back to Albany to restrict where licensed conceal carry permit holders can lawfully carry their firearms. The new laws include even more restrictive provisions like background checks and a state database for ammunition purchases, increased training requirements to obtain the permit, a mandatory sit-down, in-person interview and even requiring applicants to submit social media accounts for content review.

“Do you have the numbers to show that it’s the concealed carry permit holders that are committing crimes? The lawful gun owner will say you’re attacking the wrong person,” asked Albany-based CBS 6 News anchor Anne McCloy. “It’s really people that are getting these guns illegally that are causing the violence, not the people that are going to get the permit legally and that’s the basis for the whole Supreme Court argument. Do you have the numbers?”

“I don’t need to have numbers,” the governor shot back. “I don’t have to have a data point to point to to say this is going to matter.”

That’s what is called “the tell.”  These laws aren’t aimed at stopping criminals. They’re designed to rob law-abiding citizens of their rights.

What’s The Data Say?

Some estimates suggest New York has more than 200,000 concealed carry permit holders. For the entire United States, it’s over 21.5 million. These are law-abiding gun owners that meet state requirements and were approved after an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification. New York is one of the states with the most stringent conceal carry requirements.

The actual data shows that concealed carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding people in America. The Heritage Foundation’s 2019 data says, “… concealed-carry permit holders accounted for 801 firearm-related homicides over a 15-year span, which amounts to roughly 0.7% of all firearm-related homicides during that time.”

A Fox News report paints a picture Gov. Hochul would rather ignore. According to the FBI, Census Bureau, and Rand Corporation data, states with lower rates of gun ownership and more restrictive gun control – like New York – have more firearm murders per 100,000 residents as a percentage of the gun-owning population than states with high gun owner rates.

New York ranks fifth, with just 19.9 percent of households saying they possess a firearm and 1.53 firearm homicides per 100,000 residents. The Violence Policy Center attempted to “fact check” a claim about concealed carry holders committing fewer crimes but ended up “revealing” there were 37 firearm incidents (not specifically intentional homicide) involving concealed carry permit holders between May 2007 and May 2022. That’s less than 2.5 per year in the entire country.

Crime rates, especially in New York City, continue to climb.

Gov. Hochul and Albany Democrats praised themselves for their “fast work” to jam through more restrictions on law-abiding New Yorkers. The policies won’t stop criminals from perpetrating their crimes. It will, however, turn law-abiding New Yorkers into criminals overnight when enacted in a few months.

Gov. Hochul isn’t to be bothered with facts.  She doesn’t need the data or the science. She doesn’t even need to focus laws on holding criminals accountable. When it comes to gun rights, Gov. Hochul needs only the echo chamber of New York’s legislature to nod in agreement as they strip New Yorkers of their rights.

NYS Sheriffs: New gun laws unconstitutional by creating rules impossible to follow

New York State (WRGB) — Sheriffs from across New York State are coming out in force against gun laws passed by Governor Kathy Hochul (D-New York) and the state legislature, telling CBS 6 the governor violated the constitution in more than one way when passing new gun laws in a rush.

Peter Kehoe is Executive Director of the New York State Sheriff’s Association, which represents all 58 sheriffs across New York State.

Kehoe sat down with CBS 6’s Anne McCloy.

They wanted to make a political statement so they introduced the bill in the morning, passed it in the afternoon and signed it in the evening which is unheard of,” Kehoe said.

Anne: Did you have a chance to read the legislation before it went into law?
Kehoe: Absolutely not, and no one else did either. I think a lot of people didn’t see it until it was passed including the lawmakers.

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Women Now Make Up the Largest Group of New Gun Owners

According to a recent study conducted by Harvard University, women now make up 42% of new gun owners accounting for nearly half of all new gun owners over the past 5-years. This number is up 14% from that same span of time and 3.5 million women joined the ranks of new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021. An NSSF survey partially backs up this claim by the Harvard study by stating that 1/3rd of 2021’s new gun owners were women.

Keen observers of the firearms industry might have also noticed a distinct shift in the way that firearms companies are producing marketing material with many new products like the recent release of the PDP F Series being specifically marketed towards female shooters. Shooting organizations like “Shoot like a Girl” have also cropped up featuring female firearms instructors whose aim is to bring more women into shooting sports and provide them with a more comfortable environment to train in.

In the study conducted by Harvard University, one-quarter of the women surveyed said self-defense was the main reason they wanted to purchase a firearm for the first time with many citing the uptick in civil unrest and reduction of law enforcement assets during the summer of 2020. Another reason cited by many women as to why they’ve armed themselves is that many of them are now living alone and feel more comfortable having a firearm in the home for self-defense.

Regardless of what is spurring this increase in gun ownership amongst women, I think this is a net positive for the firearms industry as a whole and the women that the industry is trying to serve. Let us know if the ladies that you know are taking on an increased interest in firearms and what they are saying as to how or why they’re getting into firearms.

Arizona, Texas gun owners demonstrate the importance of armed self-defense

The national media can’t get enough of stories involving the criminal misuse of firearms, but they often fall strangely silent when it comes to armed citizens defending themselves or others. That appears to be the case with two recent incidents that unfolded in Harris County, Texas and Safford, Arizona this week. I’ve seen no mention of either story in any major national news outlet, despite the fact that both offer a pretty compelling narrative.

Let’s start with the defensive gun use in Harris County, where a woman is alive and well today thanks to the fact that her neighbor was able to protect her when her own son tried to kill her.

A mother was celebrating Independence Day at the Highland Cross Apartments when her son returned home, supposedly acting erratic and wielding a suspected AK-47.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez estimated more than 20 rounds were fired in an apartment with his mother inside. Those rounds hit at least two nearby apartments.

“The mother emerged from the house shortly thereafter. She was bleeding from the face. The male tracked his mother down outside here and was shooting her on her lower extremities when a neighbor arrived with his firearms and shot and killed the son,” said Sgt. Dennis Wolfford with the HCSO Homicide Unit.

The 58-year old woman is expected to survive her injuries, which almost certainly would not have been the case if good guy with a gun hadn’t shown up when he did.

At some point, the mother managed to get out of the apartment. That’s when another neighbor saw what was happening and grabbed his gun to try and help her.

Investigators said gunfire may have been exchanged between the son and the neighbor, but no one was hit.

The mother was trying to hide behind a tree, but the son found her and stood over her, firing several shots, deputies said.

That’s when the neighbor shot and killed the son, according to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

“The way the suspect was just firing indiscriminately, just point-blank shot the mother apparently as he stood over her, was a dangerous individual that likely could have continued shooting. He was already shooting. He damaged not only his apartment, but the neighbors,” Gonzalez said. “The neighbors are shaken up because a 16-year-old daughter was sitting at the table where the shots rang out into the main living area. Another apartment was also shot up. Thankfully, that owner, we’re told, was away from the apartment at the time.”

Meanwhile, in Safford, Arizona early Wednesday morning a couple were confronted in their home by a man with a knife. Unlike many home invasions and burglaries, the victims in this case recognized the intruder as their neighbor. Little did they know that by the time Miguel Garcia broke into their home he had already allegedly murdered someone in his own residence.

As the two homeowners fled into a bedroom, then later a bathroom, Garcia continued to approach saying that “they would have to kill him,” officers said.

One of the victims was able to retrieve a pistol and shot Garcia, killing him.

While trying to reach out to a next of kin to inform them of Garcia’s death, officers were unable to get a response and entered Garcia’s home. There, they found another victim dead in one of the home’s bedrooms.

Police did not share the victim’s identity or cause of death beyond being connected to Garcia.

In both of these cases simply calling 911 and waiting for police to respond likely would have resulted in officers arriving to the scene of a murder, rather than a clearly justifiable homicide. The ability of these armed citizens to access a firearm in defense of another or themselves was the key component in preventing the loss of life, which I suspect is the real reason why neither of these stories have received any real national attention by the media.

Actually everyone should prioritize it.

Conservatives Must Prioritize The Second Amendment
We need to look at all our civil and natural rights as being connected.

Without the right to defend ourselves, all other political battles become irrelevant. At different times, for different reasons, it is perfectly acceptable for different conservatives to prioritize different issues. But at no time should any conservative compromise on the right to self-defense.

Not only is the threat of a tyrannical government ever-present, but street violence is an ever-present danger, too. The threat to life posed by a rapist in the night is just as much a threat as that from a totalitarian regime. If the conservative movement really is a pro-family movement, then no law-abiding American citizen should be denied the right to protect himself and his family.

To compromise on gun rights is to necessarily compromise on abortion, taxes, immigration, school choice, welfare, right to work, and any other political issue. All other political questions are irrelevant if you and your family are at the mercy of a tyrannical government or a violent street thug. What good is your right to free speech if it can be taken away at a point of gun? What use is your right to life if you cannot defend yourself?

Americans understand we are born with rights and it is the duty of the government to preserve those rights. But as conservatives, we understand humans and human institutions cannot always be trusted. Americans understand we are born with rights and it is the duty of the government to preserve those rights. But as conservatives, we understand humans and human institutions cannot always be trusted. Yet, knowing human nature, we also know we can trust the government not to infringe our rights if we make the prospect of doing so too costly. Officials must know they can be held to account.

As we witnessed with the resent passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Senate and House Republicans who campaigned on protecting the Second Amendment were not only willing but happy to give a win to the anti-gun left with a whole slew of new gun-control provisions for absolutely nothing in return. In fact, Utah’s Senator Mitt Romney wanted the deal to be even more extreme. Elected Republicans have this mentality because conservative voters have given them a pass to cut corners off the Second Amendment. So long as the left appears more radical than they are, voters think the GOP can do no wrong, even as our right to bear arms is eroded. They, and we, must learn you cannot claim to support the Second Amendment if you compromise on it.

If removing the right to defend yourself really made everyone safer, then perhaps the anti-gun groups would have a point. But it is just not true. According to the CDC’s analysis of several studies in 2013 during the Obama administration, there were “about 500,000 to more than 3 million” defensive gun uses per year. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives are saved by guns every year. Since nearly 70 percent of criminals committed their crimes with an illegally obtained firearm, more gun regulations will only hinder a minority of gun-related crimes.

In general, regulations only serve as barriers for lawful Americans ability to exercise their right to defend themselves and their families. Common gun-control initiatives, such as waiting periods and protracted background checks, can deny access to life-saving firearms. If a riot were to break out in your hometown, like the George Floyd riots of 2020, and you needed to protect your family that very day, a waiting period would make you and your family defenseless in your time of greatest need. Regulations like expanded background checks, which are already required for every retail gun purchase, serve as an excuse to deny Americans their rights; the background-check system is flawed, as about nine out of ten denials are the result of false positives. Additionally, the background-check system provides a paper trail so the government can expand its illegal registry of gun owners. An ATF official could easily search thousands of firearm records and produce a list of lawful gun owners’ home addresses with a simple use of Control+F. These records are the first step towards gun confiscation.

At its core, any call for gun regulation—be it on the right or left—ignores a far more worrisome problem: humanity’s capacity for evil. The anti-gun crowd targets the gun is because they are afraid of focusing on the true culprit in gun violence, namely, the person behind the gun. There is rarely an attempt to understand why a young man would become so twisted as to murder innocent children. The media and politicians gloss over that hard question and immediately jump to asking how soon they can pass the next useless firearm regulation.

We need a serious national conversation focusing on why a young man would commit such a vile act, not on how he accomplished it. Conservatives need to stop thinking gun rights are an issue about which we can compromise. Do not fall for the lie that we can give over our Second Amendment rights in exchange for a win on some other policy issue. We need to look at all our civil and natural rights as connected. Compromising with the left on the right to self-defense gives them the green light to stomp on everything else.

They’re also mistaken that the 2nd amendment ‘gives’ us rights.. Of course, even the Supreme Court, way back in the 1800s, properly recognized that it was a restriction, on the government, not the people!

What Liberals Get Wrong About the Second Amendment

Must we really respond to the “musket” argument again?Apparently so. It’s all the rage among Democrats right now.New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (Democrat) and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Democrat) both think it’s quite brilliant to claim that, if we care what the framers of the Constitution meant, then the Second Amendment applies only to “muskets”!In The New York Times, a couple of professors (Democrats, but you knew that) asked: “Is a modern AR-15-style rifle relevantly similar to a Colonial musket? In what ways?” They liked their argument so much, the op-ed was titled, “A Supreme Court Head-Scratcher: Is a Colonial Musket ‘Analogous’ to an AR-15?“[Frantically waving my hand]: Yes, professors, it’s exactly analogous.The Second Amendment does not refer to “muskets”; it refers to “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” “Bear” means to carry, so any handheld firearm carried by the military can be carried by the people. Just as the musket was once carried by our military, the AR-15 is a handheld arm (technically, the less powerful version of the automatic M-16) carried by our military today. As soon as the U.S. military goes back to muskets, then muskets it is!

But I’m not here to refute idiotic arguments. These guys may as well claim that the First Amendment protects only speech delivered in pamphlets and sermons, but nothing communicated on television, the internet, or with poster boards and Magic Markers.

The Second Amendment is nearly the only prescriptive policy in a document that liberals have been trying to pump their nutty ideas into for 50 years. Unfortunately for them, there’s nothing in the Constitution about a right to dance naked in strip clubs, contraception, marriage or sticking a fork in a baby’s head.

But on the right to bear arms, our Delphic framers were nearly Tolstoyian with their explosion of words: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” (An earlier draft of the amendment specifically defined “militia” as “composed of the body of the people,” but was rejected as redundant.)

In the boldest affirmation of their worldview, the framers announced our natural, God-given right to self-defense — against the government, against criminals, and against assailants the government can’t or won’t stop. Free people prepared to defend themselves are the nucleus of the republic. It’s the most beautiful thing in the whole Constitution. Here, at last, the Founding Fathers told us something specific they want us to do: Teach the boys to shoot.

The “right to bear muskets” crowd — protected by taxpayer-supported armed guards, or cordoned off from the public by phalanxes of security officers in the lobby of, for example, NBC’s television studios in Rockefeller Center, before they return to their homes in crime-free, lily-white neighborhoods — tell us to focus on the freakishly rare mass shooting.

The highest estimates of mass shootings — including by gang warfare, drive-bys, drug wars and domestic murder-suicides — put the number of deaths at under 400 per year, or approximately the same number of Americans who drown in swimming pools every year. Four hundred, out of more than 20,000 murders annually.

Which is why, despite the media’s best effort to terrify suburban moms about weirdos shooting at crowds, nearly half of Americans prefer self-reliance to the government taking away our guns and promising to protect us.

In 2020, the Year of Our Floyd, gun sales went through the roof. The previous high for gun sales was in 2016, with about 16 million guns sold. But in 2020, as BLM tore through our cities, Americans bought 22.8 million guns. The following year saw the second-highest record for gun sales, at 19.9 million purchases.

By now, 44% of Americans report living in a gun-owning household. Thirty-two percent say they personally own a gun.

As much as I’d like to institutionalize the crazies — for their sake, as well as ours — the risks from bad faith actors at present are too high. With anti-gun zealots on the rampage and the U.S. attorney general siccing the FBI on parents who complain at local school board meetings, the most likely result would be marijuana-crazed schizophrenics continuing about their days unmolested, while gun owners get locked up.

In any event, it appears that the lunatics aren’t heavily armed, anyway. Here’s a demographic breakdown of gun ownership in 2022, according to Gallup:

Republicans 50%
Democrats 18%
Conservatives 45% (Oddly, Gallup calls them “self-identified conservatives,” as if Gallup would never use this cruel epithet without consent of the accused.)

Liberals 15%
Men 45%
Women 19%
Southerners 40%
Eastern residents 21%

Gallup left out one category. The subgroup most likely to own a whole buttload of guns, but not admit it: gang members and other recidivist felons protected by George Gascon and other Soros D.A.s.

Being a rational people, Americans are more worried about those guys than the random rifle-bearing psycho in a woman’s dress.

Russian Invasion Offered Hard Lesson on Gun Control, Ukrainian Says

Gun control in Ukraine has proved to be highly problematic in the wake of the Russian invasion, a Ukrainian activist told a gathering of journalists and friends of DonorsTrust in Washington recently.

Natalia Melnyk, communications director for the Ukraine-based Bendukidze Free Market Center, said that in Ukraine, before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded, “You could not own handguns legally; only hunting weapons if you had a license.”

“All handguns were ‘award’ weapons, randomly distributed by our Ministry of Defense. Usually, you needed to have some connections to get these weapons,” she said at the event sponsored by DonorsTrust, a nonprofit libertarian- and conservative-leaning donor-advised fund.

Amid the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Melnyk noted the development of arming citizens—but with restrictions and even then not all citizens.

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“In areas not under immediate attack, the government said to these territorial units, ‘If you are not under immediate danger of attack, please return the weapons. We will safely store them in a warehouse. If something happens, you can come and get them.’ Of course, [the Ukrainian people] said, ‘No, thank you.’”

Melnyk criticized the Ukrainian government’s move to arm citizens while at the same time imposing restrictions, such as mandatory storing of guns in a warehouse.

“We do see improvement, but it resembles two steps forward, one step back … because that idea about returning weapons is also very recent. We jumped from that idea to the idea that we do need weapons for self-defense,” she said.

The Ukrainian government is currently discussing further plans for arming citizens, Melnyk said in her June 16 remarks at the City Tavern Club in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington.

“It never was such a big issue in the broader Ukrainian society, because we were a peaceful nation,” she said. “A lot of people honestly believed [and] I was one of them: ‘Why would you need a weapon? We are not going to war, and if you are not a hunter … why do you need it?’”

But after the Russian invasion, “it appears we really do need it,” she said.

Melnyk described the cultural change toward caring about self-defense after Russia invaded. “It was nearly impossible to get a time slot at a shooting range because so many Ukrainians went in to learn how to actually handle a gun, because they have no idea,” she said.

“It’s not the case of the Ukrainian government sending Ukrainian people to die,” Melnyk told The Daily Signal, explaining a common misconception of those observing the Ukrainian crisis from the outside. “This is the conscious decision of thousands of Ukrainians to protect their freedom, protect their land, and to protect the future of their children.”

Highland Park Mayor Rotering Says the Nation Is ‘Enslaved to Guns,’ Calls for Nationwide Ban

The disconnected and feckless responses of local leadership to the shootings in their cities over the July 4th weekend have been nothing short of abysmal. If you do a perusal of the cities that suffered violence this past weekend, you’ll find that the majority are run by Democrats.

Color me shocked.

My colleague Sister Toldjah wrote about the truly disgraceful and tone-deaf response by Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney to a mass shooting in Philadelphia.

During a press conference, Kenney – after going on a rant about gun violence – essentially told a CBS Philly reporter in so many words “f*** it, I can’t wait to get out of here” because he could never stop worrying about what would happen next in the city that elected him:

“There’s not an event or a day where I don’t lay on my back and look at the ceiling and worry about stuff. So everything we have in the city over the last seven years, I worry about. I don’t enjoy Fourth of July, I don’t enjoy the Democratic National Convention. I didn’t enjoy the NFL draft. I’m waiting for something bad to happen all the time. So I’ll be happy when I’m not here, when I’m not mayor and I can enjoy some stuff.”

When he was asked to confirm that he was “looking forward to not being mayor,” Kenney responded with a smile and said “yeah.”

He’s a Democrat, of course.

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering is no better. Instead of updating the national press about the ongoing investigation into shooter, Robert “Bobby” Crimo, and the state of the survivors, Rotering is pushing the gun control narrative, complaining to NBC’s Meet the Press NOW that this nation has not done enough to stop gun violence.

“People need to recognize these guns are absolutely meant to destroy human life. And again, I question national leadership’s decision to allow these to continue to be in the United States.”

It’s as if Rotering thinks Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer can just wave a magic wand and make them all go away. Rotering acts like there is no such thing as the Constitution and the Second Amendment, let alone human agency and free will. Not to mention those pesky Supreme Court decisions from Heller to Bruen which continue to uphold that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

The founders failed to include a mass shooter clause, much to the Democrats’ chagrin.

At least Rotering admits that Illinois and Highland Park already had gun control measures in place before the July 4th shooting occurred.

As much good as it did them.

Continue reading “”

Well, it’s not the guns that are the problem. It’s the hands the guns are in.

When Gun Laws Don’t Prevent Gun Crime

On Monday, in the city of Highland Park, Ill., a deranged goblin of a man opened fire on a July 4 parade, killing seven innocent people and wounding three dozen others. After an intense search, the culprit was apprehended and taken into custody. Yet again, a mass shooting has sullied America.

And, yet again, it is unclear what lawmakers can do to prevent the next one. Just weeks ago, the Senate passed a gun-control bill that Chris Murphy described as “the most significant piece of anti-gun violence legislation in nearly 30 years.”

Today, posturing as if nothing has been done recently, Democrats are asking for more. But what, exactly, does that mean? A red-flag law? Illinois already has one. A permitting system for the purchase and ownership of guns? Illinois has that, too. “Universal” background checks? That’s already Illinois law. What about “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines? Highland Park has banned both since 2013. Concealed carry?

That was prohibited at the parade under an Illinois law that renders it illegal to carry firearms at “any public gathering held pursuant to a license issued by any governmental body.” Straw purchasing? That’s already illegal, and, besides, the gun was obtained legally. Can the courts be blamed, perhaps? They cannot. In 2015, the Seventh Circuit upheld Highland Park’s ban on “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines, and the Supreme Court then declined to take up the case. As for Heller, McDonald, and Bruen — thus far, nothing that has flowed from them even intersected with this case.

California added Montana to a list of states banned from state-funded travel in 2021.
Because they are, relatively speaking, so rare and so unpredictable — and because America is so free — mass shootings remain one of the most intractable forms of crime. The ubiquity of firearms all but guarantees that a person who wishes to obtain one will do so before too long. The breadth of the First Amendment makes it tough to track threatening or unusual conversations. Absent a set of reforms that would gut the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, there is no way for American authorities to keep tabs on everyone who comes across as a little weird.

But if states are going to institute systems designed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, it is not too much to ask that they use them. In the aftermath of almost every mass shooting, we learn that the suspect was “known to authorities” — which, in almost every case, means that the shooter was known to his community, too.

And so it was here. The Highland Park shooter did not spring ex nihilo from the shadows; he repeatedly telegraphed his intentions. In one video, uploaded in August 2021, he foreshadowed his attack on the July 4 parade. In another, he dramatized a school shooting. In a third, he fantasized about getting into a shooting war with police. Per officials in the city, local cops had interacted with him twice in 2019 — once when he attempted suicide, and once when he threatened to “kill everyone” and had 16 knives, a dagger, and a sword confiscated as a result. Illinois has a broad “red flag” law in place, and it requires gun buyers to have a current permit. Why, we must ask, did these incidents not trigger prophylactic action?

We would put a similar question to the press. Study after study after study shows that mass shootings are highly “contagious,” and that, as NPR put it in 2019, “intensive media coverage seems to drive the contagion.” This is a free country, and its media must be free to act as they see fit. But perhaps they could see fit to take that into account? As of Tuesday afternoon, every major press outlet in the United States remains fixated upon the shooter. In our fame-drunk culture, this indulgence can be deleterious. A little less of it would be welcome. As a matter of course, we ask gun owners to be responsible, and we ask citizens to be vigilant. Is it too much to ask the press whether the need to squeeze a few extra clicks out of a story is worth the risk of encouraging the next shooter?

And beyond that? Beyond that, Americans would do well to set incidents such as this one in their proper context. Random acts of violence are, indeed, terrifying, but they are terrifying because they are so rare. When allocating our limited time and resources, we ought to remember that while the most spectacular criminals garner all the attention, a devastating attrition continues unabated in the background. On the day before the shooting in Highland Park, 15 people were killed in Chicago.

Thus far in 2022, there have been 250 murders in Philadelphia, 175 murders in Los Angeles, and 102 murders in Washington, D.C. Bringing down those numbers will take hard work, intelligent policing, a willingness to enforce the laws already on the books, and a commitment to engaging with the problem in its most common form — and not just when it provides clicks, outrage, and a chance to poke one’s political enemies in the eye.