Religious leaders want a weaponized ATF that enforces gun control by the barrel of a gun
This is what happens when religious leaders get political. You can thank gun control groups for infiltrating these institutions and turning them into lobbyists (for lack of a better terms) on issues that have nothing to do with the 1st amendment (religious freedom).
The LA Times is Still Denying the Second Amendment
The Los Angeles Times editorial page is less a journalistic enterprise than it is a partisan grievance noticeboard. The editorial board’s descent into trivial activist messaging was on full display in a pair of recent pieces lamenting the federal judiciary’s recognition of the Second Amendment. In both, the editorial board denied the core rulings in the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago that recognized the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. In neither piece did the would-be jurists at the L.A. Times offer evidence or argument as to their incorrect position or why the legal analysis of self-important regime press agents should carry any weight whatsoever.
The first editorial was published on April 26 and titled, “The Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that could mean more guns in public.” The item took issue with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant cert to NRA-backed case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett. The case challenges New York’s concealed carry licensing scheme and could prompt the Court to recognize that the right to keep and bear arms extends outside the home.
Lamenting the Court’s cert decision, the editorial board wrote,
The case the court accepted Monday (New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn. Inc. vs. Corlett) follows the court’s controversial 2008 Heller decision, which for the first time enunciated a right to own a firearm in the home for self-protection, breaking with historic perceptions that the right was conferred only to members of state militias. From our perspective, it was an errant reading of the Constitution, but unfortunately the nation is stuck with it.
The second editorial was published June 7 and titled, “The judge is wrong: California’s assault-weapons ban must stand.” This piece complained about the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in Miller v. Bonta. The decision, by Judge Roger Benitez, found that California’s ban on commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms violated the Second Amendment.
Benitez’s ruling on the California ban was the result of a faithful interpretation of the Heller and McDonald decisions. We can be certain of this because Heller author Justice Antonin Scalia signed onto a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, that stated as much. The dissent noted,
Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.
More than half of the country is now a Second Amendment sanctuary – The Gun Writer
The growing national trend of preserving the Second Amendment through local and state legislation has been largely ignored by the legacy media
More than 55% of all U.S. counties are now Second Amendment sanctuaries, and the numbers continue to grow at a rapid pace.
A total of 1,753 of the country’s 3,144 counties — or 55.76% — have either declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries or are located in sanctuary states, according to Noah Davis of sanctuarycounties.com and its companion site constitutionalsanctuaries.com
The Second Amendment Isn’t Behind the Rising Crime Rate
In a tumultuous 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic locked down so much of America and the world, one thing that didn’t lock down was the murder rate.
According to the National Commission of COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, which was launched by the left-leaning Council on Criminal Justice, murders across America rose 30% in 2020 when compared to 2019. Based on a survey of 34 cities, they report that: “Homicide rates were higher during every month of 2020 relative to rates from the previous year.”
These gruesome numbers include a 43% rise in New York City in 2020—meaning 131 more murders occurred there than happened in 2019. The numbers were even worse in Chicago, which had a 55% jump (278 more murders) from the previous year.
Not surprisingly, many of those who want the Second Amendment obliterated blame record gun sales for the rise in the murder rate.
“More guns led to more violence,” claimed a story at vox.com. “There’s been a big surge in gun buying this year, seemingly in response to concerns about personal safety during a pandemic. And as the research has shown time and time again, more guns mean more gun violence.”
Of course, most people who follow the Second Amendment debate closely know that, in fact, more guns do not lead to more violence, as researcher John Lott proved back in 1998. Lott, who is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), found that states with the largest increases in gun ownership also tend to have the largest drops in violent-crime rates.
Feinstein Introduces Federal Extreme Risk Protective Order Bill
The matter of Fourth Amendment protections for firearm owners has yet to fully have its day in court. The promising outcome from Caniglia v. Strom on May 17, 2021 does point to gun owners having protection from firearm seizure when a warrant is absent. The Caniglia case was reported nearly a month ago by Cam Edwards, and in his correct estimation, it can have effects going forward concerning due process for those trapped up in such situations, and how the high court views them:
It’s encouraging to see the Supreme Court unanimously agree that Edward Caniglia’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when his firearms were seized without a warrant, but I suspect that a challenge to a state’s red flag laws would result in a much more divided opinion.
While this case didn’t directly involve a Second Amendment challenge, it’s also good to see that even the progressive wing of the Court concluded that the seizure of Caniglia’s legally-owned firearms infringed on his constitutional rights. It may not indicate a sea change from the liberal justices, but at least in this case they declined to treat the Second (and Fourth) Amendment as a second-class right.
While I agree with Edwards’s suspicion that “red flag” laws might yield a more divided opinion, this case will in my opinion have an impact on litigation against all of the unconstitutional seizure policies. In a concurring opinion, Justice Alito conceded the Caniglia case does not address “red flag” laws directly, but I’m sure the case will be cited in case documents filed in lower courts.
Governor Parson signs it into law
| HB 85 |
Establishes the “Second Amendment Preservation Act,” which creates additional protections to the right to bear arms.
— Signed by Governor |
Ghost Guns and the Deeply American Tradition of Gun Privacy.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn) and Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) introduced the Untraceable Firearms Act, a bill that targets “ghost guns,” or unregistered firearms without serial numbers.
Also called “kit guns” or “80% guns,” most are built at home from manufacturer-produced gun kits. Improvised weapons, also known as “pipe guns,” are another variation, and they’re constructed using 3D-printed parts or salvaged and repurposed materials.
The proposed law would place strict limitations on the obtainment and manufacture of these guns. For example, it would prohibit building or housing a homemade, 3D-printed firearm, as well as trading a kit gun with a friend. Punishments for an initial violation include fines and up to a year in prison. Subsequent violations can incur up to a five-year sentence.
Yeah, that ‘almost’. They’re still basically nonsensical.
Gun Control Group Almost Talks Actual Gun Sense
The phrase “gun sense” is generally nothing more than a euphemism for gun control. It’s a term that’s been corrupted from what it could have meant to be nothing more than a synonym for a term that has less and less popularity with the American public.
GunSense Vermont, a non-partisan group that works to keep Vermonters safe from gun violence, is looking to change the conversation around gun violence prevention by focusing on safe storage.
At a panel discussion on Thursday, the group focused their conversation on educating gun owners about their responsibility to safely secure guns in their homes to keep them out of the hands of kids, thieves, and anyone looking to cause harm.
Now, this is actually a non-controversial position we should all be able to rally behind.
Of course, the group also says some pretty ridiculous things, such as:
According to GunSense Vermont, a properly stored firearm is one that is unloaded, separate from the ammunition, and locked in a safe.
Meanwhile, one of the honchos (a deputy director) with the group also says that if you’re worried about needing your firearm in a hurry, you should get a quick-access safe.
Then there’s the very real concern of not being able to access the weapon from the quick-access safe because of a loss of fine motor control during a particularly stressful event. Trust me, trying to grab a gun in the middle of the night can be hard enough if it’s in a nightstand drawer. Accessing a combination safe in the mere seconds provided may well be impossible for some.
Yet I don’t want to be too hard on GunSense Vermont.
While they’re a gun control group, they’re actually trying to reach out and talk about non-legislative solutions to firearm-related violence. This shouldn’t be mocked or dismissed, but encouraged. This is something I’m willing to sit down with them and discuss things like this.
You really can’t claim you’re not about banning guns and then not at least try to find non-legislative ways to reduce deaths by firearms. Many of us agree that weapons should be stored safely away from children and thieves. That’s some common ground we can build from. Who knows, maybe we can build from that and find all kinds of other ways to address violent crime without infringing on gun rights.
Either way, this is a good thing.
However, this shouldn’t be taken as me being remotely open to any of their anti-gun proposals. I’m not and I won’t be. See, I think much of our problems with violent crime and other firearm-related deaths can be solved without infringing on the right to keep and bear arms in the least.
My hope is that GunSense Vermont is starting to see things that way as well. I’m not holding my breath, but a guy can dream, can’t he?
Just to point out the intellectual level of some people who believe they’re making a salient point about a subject that anyone can easily determine they are totally clueless about
Letter: What does any of this have to do with the Second Amendment?
Portsmouth Herald
June 10 – To the Editor:
In the news the past month or so:
A 57-year old retired NYC police officer is shot accidentally by a friend trying to break up a dispute outside a pizza parlor.
A 6-year old boy, a passenger in his mother’s car, is shot in a road rage incident.
Another young boy, retrieving his bike from the sidewalk near his home, is shot by a neighbor.
Several dozen are killed or wounded over a weekend in gang-related shootouts in Chicago.
An 18-year old from Ohio is found carrying an AK-47 in a NYC subway.
A woman in Texas shoots a beauty shop owner in a dispute about the cost of her pedicure.
A 5-year old boy is accidentally shot by his mother who was aiming at a dog.
Eight people are killed in Atlanta, followed by shootings in a supermarket in Colorado, an office building in California, a FedEx office in Indianapolis, a rail yard in San Jose. A total of 39 people.
Somebody….anybody….Please! Can anyone tell me what any of this has to do with the Second Amendment?
Anthony McManus
Dover
It’s not just how, but also when, and if you really can that’s important.
There Is Far More to Concealed Carry Than Just Buying a Handgun
You need the proper training and mindset before you decide to concealed-carry a handgun. Here’s what you need to know
There is a lot more to carrying a concealed firearm for self-defense than snapping a holster on your waistband and walking out the door. It’s a serious commitment that will impact pretty much everything someone does outside their home, from the clothes a person wears and how they wear them, to the way they get into a car and buckle a seatbelt, to the exact mechanics of picking something up off the floor—or at least, it should.
If you conceal carry, that means you carry a gun as much as possible to protect yourself and loved ones. It means having a self-defense mindset and having that defensive firearm at the ready. Today, there are a lot of people in the U.S. who may have the necessary physical tools for self-defense, but not the skills or the mindset, which is far more important than which handgun, caliber, or holster someone chooses.
Three weeks until Tennesseans can carry without a permit
NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) – In three weeks, permit less carry goes into effect in Tennessee.
And is it impacting gun sales? The folks at Royal Range in Nashville say they’re not seeing much of an impact on sales due to the Permitless carry law. But, the gun range store says recently they’ve seen a new trend with women.
“So far not a giant impact,” Bob Allen, the Director of Training at Royal Range said. “We’re kind of steady, maybe just a little bit above right now. And really about the same with ammo,” Allen said.
Gun Owner Jarrett Williams said the Permitless carry law will make him buy more guns but not for obvious reasons.
“Yes it will but only because I know there are going to be more people who maybe shouldn’t have guns,” Williams said. ‘I’m going to possibly need something to defend myself against anybody who is less qualified to have a weapon on them,” he added.
Allen at Royal Range said some people are buying up; basically hoarding lots of ammo because they don’t know what the future holds.
“Ammo prices have gone up substantially, but they’ve dropped a bit,” Allen said. “Thousand rounds of 9mm ammo was about $240 before Covid and during Covid it got to $800 and people were still buying it it has since dropped here at our place to $500 for a thousand rounds. And its kind of hard to get nowadays,” he added.
Allen who oversees training at Royal Range says he has seen one major trend; more women buying guns.
‘We’ve seen a lot of; a substantial increase in ladies coming here to buy guns,” Allen said. “We are seeing that increase quite a bit, whether its women self-defense , first time gun owners,” he added.
Allen adds that even though the law takes effect in July, it doesn’t require in- person or online course anymore. Royal Range is putting a course in place to teach people the law when the permitless carry goes into effect.
“We’re all for a person defending themselves. They need to know the law, because if you don’t know the law, you will get in so much trouble. If I pull it out at the wrong time, that’s called aggravated assault which is felony,” Allen said.
He also adds another trend they’ve noticed recently is more people coming to the gun range looking for training.
Likely voters back right to carry concealed guns, 2-1
In a slap at President Joe Biden’s new effort to impose gun control and tax and regulate one of the nation’s most popular (and concealable) firearms, people overwhelmingly have endorsed expanding the Second Amendment to include carrying concealed weapons.
In a new Zogby Poll provided to Secrets Thursday just minutes before the administration released its rule to target AR-rifle-style pistols, likely voters by a 63%-29% margin endorsed the idea.
In his analysis, pollster Jonathan Zogby said that most voters “agreed that the Second Amendment to the Constitution should also encompass the right to carry a concealed gun. A majority of voters supported concealed carry as a part of the Second Amendment in all regions.”
The poll, one of a series he released through Secrets this week, is the first to find support for concealed carry laws to be added to the Second Amendment.
And it comes as the Supreme Court is considering a New York ban on concealed carry and Biden is eyeing new gun control laws, including taxing and registering millions of legally purchased AR-rifle-style pistols.
Concealed carry has become a hot-button issue as some liberal states move to limit the issuance of permits, though a majority do. And in Washington, there are several efforts in the House and the Senate to approve national “reciprocity” for permit-holders to travel between states with their concealed weapons.
The survey is likely to be seized upon by the authors of the legislation.
It also confirmed a trend seen in gun stores of many more buyers, including women, black people, and minorities, getting handguns to protect themselves as crime increases.
SECOND AMENDMENT PRESERVATION ACT TO BECOME LAW SATURDAY, WITH MISSOURI GOVERNOR’S SIGNATURE
Legislation establishing a Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA) will be signed into law Saturday afternoon by Missouri’s governor, in the Kansas City suburb of Lee’s Summit. Governor Mike Parson (R) will sign SAPA Saturday at 2 at Frontier Justice.
House Bill 85 is sponsored by State Rep. Jered Taylor (R-Nixa) and State Sen. Eric Burlison (R-Battlefield). They say it’s about protecting Missourians and gun rights. Critics like former State Rep. Chris Kelly (D-Columbia) say the bill is unconstitutional.
HB 85 declares that it’s the duty of the courts and law enforcement agencies to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. It also declares as invalid all federal laws that infringe on the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.
I wouldn’t necessarily call criminal being criminals as a ‘failure’ of gun control. This just confirms that these laws aren’t for controlling guns, but controlling the average law abiding citizen.
Gun Control Failures Don’t Mean You Need More Gun Control
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, then there’s no doubt about how insane gun control really is.
It’s not any better when you have a total failure of gun control happen in real life, either.
A month after Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office in 2019, giving Democrats complete control in Springfield, flaws in Illinois’ gun laws were exposed when a convicted felon whose state firearm owner’s identification card had been revoked opened fire in an Aurora warehouse, killing five co-workers and wounding a sixth along with five police officers.
The case became a rallying point for gun safety advocates, who’ve pushed for mandatory fingerprinting for FOID card applications, universal background checks for gun buyers, and a system that ensures people whose FOID cards are revoked hand over their weapons to authorities.
More than two years later, however, Pritzker and the Democratic-controlled legislature haven’t enacted those policies or any other major gun safety measures, even as they successfully pushed progressive measures that range from legalizing marijuana to abolishing cash bail.
“These are complicated issues,” Pritzker said of gun control last week in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.
“We have Democrats from downstate, from areas where people are deeply concerned about protecting their gun rights,” he said. “And then we’ve got people who live in other parts of the state who believe, as I do, that we need to have a greater focus on gun safety, but it’s a complicated challenge in order to get enough votes put together.”
Gun control failed at every single level.
That’s kind of like what happens every single day in Chicago. There, despite all the gun control laws on the books in Illinois, criminals are able to obtain firearms easily enough. Meanwhile, citizens trying to obey the law are dealing with a screwed-up system.
At what point do people look at these failures and recognize that doubling down on a failed strategy isn’t going to make anyone’s life any better? The gun control we see day in and day out in Illinois doesn’t work, and yet people are asking why isn’t there more of the very thing that has been amply illustrated to not accomplish a blasted thing.
Honestly, it makes no sense to me. It just doesn’t.
What a strategy fails to work, a reasonable person would try something new. In Illinois and far too many other states, they’re enamored with the idea of gun control that they can’t admit that it just isn’t working.
Illinois isn’t likely to turn out the least bit better, either.
Letter To The Editor O’ The Day
As civil unrest grows, guns are essential for protection
To Jimmy Dorrell: Your thesis that Christians (so-called) often use the Bible and twist scripture to justify their own selfish desires is certainly true, but Texas’ constitutional carry law is not an example of this practice [May 30 op-ed]. Actual examples could include the church’s gradual acceptance of homosexuality, defense of abortion or justification of adultery, rampant divorce, cohabitation and fornication. You chose this more politically correct topic as your hard line on Biblical malpractice but I look forward to your subsequent pieces on the rest of the issues listed above. Regardless, your piece was a mischaracterization of the argument, and the events that you cited from scripture were in no way related to the conversation of self-defense or willfully twisting the Bible for our own selfish desires.
Second, you assert that Jesus’ own disciples twisted his words for their misguided desires but then you cite three seemingly random instances that have nothing to do with your premise. When James and John were arguing about who would be greatest, they were simply arguing what they wanted, not twisting anything they had heard from Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus, but nothing more — he didn’t do so out of some misinterpretation of Jesus’ words. And Peter attacked an officer that was simply trying to arrest his teacher. There was no twisting of words, only Peter acting independently, out of anger and fear. Jesus even rebukes Peter, asking him, “Am I leading a rebellion?” He was not, and neither are your fellow constitutional carry countrymen.
Third, your arguments lack an understanding in the difference between vengeance, which is the Lord’s, and the protection of yourself and others, which is your responsibility as a man of God. A constitutional carry law simply ensures that everyone has the capacity to protect themselves against those that would do them harm.
“For greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay down his life for a friend” — John 15:3.
We need to be prepared to protect those around us, stranger or family, and we need to be willing to die for them. But throwing yourself in front of a bullet doesn’t mean much when there are 30 more behind the one that put you on the floor. You seem to be dismissive of the growing threats in this country, but as our collective conscience wanes and civil unrest grows, violence, whether perpetrated by a lone, mad gunman or a crazed mob, becomes more and more likely. Those of us who enjoy the right to constitutionally carry will peacefully stand by, and on the day when the forces of hell come crashing down, I hope that I’m nearby so that I might have the chance to protect the people that were put in your care.
The Expansion of Constitutional Carry
Bureaucrats Bureaucraps were never supposed to be in a position to make us ask—even to beg—for our constitutionally protected rights, as they can in jurisdictions with “may-issue” carry permit laws.
Thanks in no small part to lobbying from the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, and to the many NRA members who stand behind the NRA by contacting their representatives, 20 states have now gotten bureaucrats out of the way by passing some type of “constitutional carry” (or “permitless carry”) legislation; in fact, four of these 20 states were added this year—Iowa, Montana, Tennessee and Utah.
Antigun Advocacy Group Tries To Rewrite Current History Of Gun Buyers
It’s widely established that law-abiding Americans are buying firearms at record levels. No one disputes it. Gun control groups decry the trend. Supporters of the Second Amendment celebrate it. But during the past 18 months, the fact is a historic number of Americans have taken ownership of their self-defense and that includes millions of first-time buyers who bought a gun.
Leave it to staunch gun control advocate and billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s agitprop bullhorn The Trace to “report” on a new “survey” severely downplaying what’s happening.
Comment O’ The Day:
“I could be down for this. Maybe it would keep those afraid of any firearm from moving away from the coasts.”
BLUF:
Virginia is concerned about a “bad” America.
The one to which she refers — one in which houses host guns — was previously known to both Republicans and Democrats as just “America.”
When you’re considering moving to a new area, what are the pluses that matter most? Low crime? Good schools? Trash pickup?
A writer for The Los Angeles Times has another metric that may be worth consideration.
“Real-estate listings should include prevalence of gun-ownership in a 50-mile radius…”
She’d also like info on the “number of annual mass shootings in the region.”
“Time to change what a ‘bad neighborhood’ is,” she announced.
What if someone owns a modern sporting rifle, also known as the best-selling hunting rifle in America?
She believes that’d constitute a bad place for children:
“[A]nd introduce a meaningful tax on guns and gun violence. No one should say, ‘This is a great place to raise kids’ about neighborhoods where even one person has an assault rifle.”
Stop all the racializing:
“The metric would be simple. Example: Staten Island (pop 474k) has 4x the gun ownership per capita of the Bronx (pop 1.4m). If that reads as safer or more [free] to some people, Staten Island is for them. If not, maybe time for the Bronx. Take race, class, politics out of the real-estate equation.”
Real-estate listings should include prevalence of gun-ownership in a 50-mile radius and number of annual mass shootings in the region.
Time to change what a “bad neighborhood” is.
— Virginia Heffernan (@page88) June 8, 2021
The metric would be simple.
Example: Staten Island (pop 474k) has 4x the gun ownership per capita of the Bronx (pop 1.4m).
— Virginia Heffernan (@page88) June 8, 2021
There’d definitely be a lot of items to track.
In 2018, Switzerland’s Small Arms Survey reported there were nearly 400,000,000 guns in the United States.
That was, obviously, two years before 2020’s gun-buying surge.
As for “assault rifles,” the AR-15’s certainly been vilified courtesy of impressive, dedicated effort by some on the Left side of the aisle.
Meanwhile, of course, ownership of any firearm doesn’t equal impending murder, and the lightweight modern rifle isn’t employed in most gun crimes.
The vast majority of such are, as you know, committed with handguns.
Changing Times.. and the Victims of Gun Control
We assume that tomorrow will be much like today. That is how we plan our lives and our politics. If we stop to think about it, we remember that the world surprises us all the time. We ignore that bad things happen because they happen so infrequently. Needing a fire extinguisher seems so unlikely.. until we smell smoke. This week, history reminded us how governments have hurt us. Consider these events and ask if the police were there to protect honest citizens, or would these citizens have been better off if they could defend themselves?
-Almost a hundred years ago to the day, thousands of black citizens in Tulsa, Oklahoma had to depend on the police for protection while they were attacked and their homes, their shops, and their businesses were burned to the ground by white mobs. None of these honest black citizens saw the need for armed defense.. the day before they needed it so desperately.
-Violence happens around the world. It was 32 years ago when over ten thousand unarmed students and teachers were murdered by Chinese politicians and the Chinese military in Tiananmen Square. The bodies were deliberately pulverized by tanks, scooped up by bulldozers, and then dumped to hide the number of protesters who were murdered. China has strict gun control.. for civilians.
armed Korean shopkeepers during the Los Angeles riots
-It was only 29 years ago when Korean shop owners in Los Angeles tried to stop black mobs from looting and burning their homes and businesses. 25 years earlier, the shop owners had been barred under California law from carrying handguns in public. Fortunately, a few of them were armed with rifles. Today, those are the same rifles that California politicians want to ban.
-It was six years ago when several dozen students at a teacher’s college were murdered by local government officials and drug gangs in Mexico. Mexico has strict gun control laws. Honest citizens are disarmed.
-It was only a few months ago when thousands of protestors in Hong Kong were arrested and forced onto trains going to reeducation and slave labor camps. Chinese officials say the citizens of Hong Kong are disarmed for their own protection.
Our memory plays tricks on us. Bad things happen every day, but we assume those surprising events will simply happen to someone else and not to us. For most of us, our peace is interrupted by only occasional violence. We forget our unusual perspective where peace is the rule.
Our bias makes it easy to believe the politician as he sits in his air-conditioned office and slowly explains that we have no need for armed defense. That same claim is less believable when the official shouts in front of a burning building during a riot.
The police chief sounds so reasonable when he tells us to be a good witness and simply call the police. That same claim is incredible if the cop is in riot gear at a violent protest. As an unwilling participant in a number of recent natural disasters, I can attest that unexpected events can happen to anyone. In practice, the police show up later.. if at all.
We expect governments to talk to us. Sometimes it is easier for politicians and mobs to murder us. This year, we’ve had politicians in the US say we should burn down our cities and start over. Socialist elites have said their political opponents aren’t really people and need to be forcibly re-educated. While shocking and deplorable, this talk is mostly peaceful.. so far. Armed citizens keep the dialogue going because violence against armed citizens is so costly. Armed citizens deter both criminals and immoral politicians who would use violence to achieve their political ends.
I hope for peace: that’s why I am armed. Unfortunately, tens of millions of honest and hard working citizens in the United States are disarmed by their government. I fear for them, and for the rest of us if they are attacked.
Tomorrow will be pretty much like today and the day before, but not always in the way we expect.
Corrections to the FBI’s Reports on Active Shooting Incidents
(opens the PDF in a browser)
John R. Lott
The claim in the original FBI report that active shooting cases have increased over time was a result of data errors, both in terms of how the cases were collected and the missing of many attacks. Some of the cases that the original reports missed involved as many as four to nine people being murdered.
For the period from 2014 to 2019, the FBI had missed additional cases. Once those cases are included there were 25 cases out of 162 (15.4%) where people with permitted concealed handguns stopped the attacks. The FBI reports keep excluding cases where shootings attacks have been stopped by concealed handgun permit holders. To put it differently, while 36% of active shooting attacks have occurred in places where guns are allowed, almost half (42.3%) of those were stopped by people legally carry concealed handguns.
In light of these errors, media, courts, law enforcement, and policymakers, are advised to rely on the updated, corrected data provided in this report.
