Category: Mendacity O’ The Day

Newsweek Puts Out Misinformation on our New Research Comparing Armed Civilians to Police in Stopping Active Shootings: Study Praising Armed Civilians Sparks Criticism

Our research is available here. After the Newsweek was published on Friday, November 21, 2025, the reporter updated her article on Monday, November 24, 2025.

Devin Hughes, founder and president of gun violence research organization GVPedia, told Newsweek, “The paper is fraud, which I do not use lightly.”

Hughes alleges that the study defines active shooter incidents differently from the FBI.

“Lott’s study then only applies that new definition to cases in which there was a defensive gun use, while deliberately excluding thousands of cases in which a defensive gun use did not occur,” Hughes said. “This deceptive tactic allows Lott to claim that the percentage of active shooter cases stopped by a defensive gun use is vastly higher than it is in reality, regardless of what definition of an active shooting one uses. The end result is blatant statistical malpractice.”

Lott told Newsweek that the FBI’s definition excludes gang violence, drug related violence and shootings in relation to another criminal act.

“The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area,” Lott said. “But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf. Over the period from 2014 to 2024, the FBI includes 14 cases where a legally armed civilian used a gun to stop an active shooting attack. We think that the number is 199. We thought it was useful to fill in the rest of these cases using the exact same definition that excluded ‘gang violence,’ ‘drug related violence,’ and ‘shootings in relation to another criminal act’ to see how police and civilians compared in dealing with these attacks.”

Jenna Sundel, “Study Praising Armed Civilians Sparks Criticism,” Newsweek, November 24, 2025.

Dr. Lott’s response to this point included this.

While I appreciate you making some updates to your article, you make it sound as if it is just our word versus Hughes when you simply write “Lott told Newsweek that the FBI’s definition excludes gang violence, drug related violence, and shootings in relation to another criminal act.” But I have provided you links to the FBI active shooting reports where you can confirm for yourself that the FBI does in fact exclude these types of crimes (see the fourth paragraph on page five in their first report and page 2 in their latest report. It is something that they list out in EVERY report in between these two reports).

Continue reading “”

DOJ Official Says Congress, Not Courts, Should Address NFA Taxes, Registration

Despite ongoing objections from Second Amendment groups and a letter from Rep. Andrew Clyde and more than two dozen other members of Congress urging Attorney General Pam Bondi to recognize congressional intent and stop defending the National Firearms Act’s taxes and registration requirements for National Firearms Act items, the DOJ’s latest brief in an NFA case offers a full-throated defense of those measures.

The  brief, filed in Silencer Shop, et al v. BATFE, not only argues that the Constitution empowers Congress to adopt the challenged NFA requirements and that the $200 tax and registry of who has paid it remain a valid exercise of Congress’s taxing power, but that the tax and registration mandates “comport with the Second Amendment” as well.

… the NFA’s regulation of short-barreled shotguns and rifles, suppressors, and AOWs is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” As the Supreme Court has consistently observed, American legislatures have long “prohibited the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” Laws dating back to theFounding Era targeted, through outright bans or lesser regulation, particularly dangerous weapons that were uniquely susceptible to criminal misuse. Similarly, many states have long regulated the size of firearms. The NFA fits within that historical tradition by targeting particularly dangerous weapons that “could be used readily and efficiently by criminals,” though its requirements are much more modest than the categorical bans of the past. That alone demonstrates that the NFA comports with the Second Amendment.

Gun Owners of America, among others, has objected to the DOJ’s continued defense of the NFA, which led to a rebuke of the 2A organization from a DOJ official.

McGavick’s argument is an odd one, given that the Supreme Court does have the power to declare laws unconstitutional. And in the case of the NFA’s taxation and registration schemes, it’s clear that the intent of Congress was to repeal those provisions. The $200 tax has been zeroed out as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but though the Senate also removed the accompanying requirement that those who pay the tax have to register that payment with the federal government, the Senate parliamentarian objected to that provision, so the registry remains.
The DOJ could have taken the position that, since the registration is actually a registry of all those who’ve paid the tax, and the tax has no been zeroed out, the registration requirement is moot. It could also, of course, have taken the position that the NFA does violate the Second Amendment, despite what the Court has said in cases like Miller and Heller.

Part of the DOJ’s problem is that it has previously admitted in the Peterson case that challenges the NFA’s restrictions on suppressors that those items are, in fact, protected by the Second Amendment. Still, the DOJ took the position that the $200 tax and registration requirements are only “modest burdens” on the right to keep and bear arms, at least as they apply to those items.

The Supreme Court has never suggested that there are various levels of protection for arms that fall under the Second Amendment’s umbrella, so the DOJ’s position arguably leaves the door open for similar requirements on all arms protected by the Second Amendment. If the DOJ is going to to defend the National Firearms Act, it might have been better for the agency to argue that NFA items aren’t protected at all instead of coming up with a convoluted theory about tiers of protection and what kind of restrictions might be allowed for some arms. That still wouldn’t satisfy groups like GOA, FPC, and NRA, but it also wouldn’t allow gun control groups and anti-gun polticians to adopt the DOJ’s language and apply it to handguns or semi-automatic long guns in the future.

When Rep. Clyde joined me on Bearing Arms Cam & Company to discuss the letter to Bondi, he indicated that if the DOJ didn’t fall in line behind Congress’s intent he might re-open the letter to gather more signatures before submitting its rebuke into the official congressional record. Clyde says he’s also working on an appropriations bill that would remove the registration requirements, which would be fantastic if it comes to pass, but that action in the legislative branch still doesn’t mean that the executive branch’s hands are tied when it comes to the NFA and its infringements on our right to keep and bear arms.

What Really Happened With That SIG M18 at FE Warren Air Force Base.

Two airmen at a Wyoming U.S. Air Force base have pleaded guilty to making false statements about the deadly shooting of a third that prompted the suspension of Sig Sauer M18 pistol use at nuclear weapons sites for a month, the Air Force said in a statement Friday.

The gun pause by the Air Force Global Strike Command after the death of Brayden Lovan, 21, in late July was lifted in late August after Air Force officials determined the M18 was safe to carry.

Lovan was an airman with the 90th Security Forces Squadron, 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base outside Cheyenne.

Details about his death were released for the first time Friday, including that the alleged shooter, Marcus White-Allen, had pointed the gun at Lovan’s chest in a “joking manner.” White-Allen after the shooting allegedly urged the other two surviving airmen to lie about what happened, according to the statement. …

White-Allen allegedly told [Airman Sarbjot] Badesha, “Here’s the story. Tell them that I slammed my duty belt on the desk and it went off.” White-Allen allegedly told Rodriguez to tell emergency responders that White-Allen’s “holster went off,” according to the statement.

Neither airman initially reported that information, leading investigators to believe at first that White-Allen’s M18 accidentally discharged, according to the statement.

— Mead Gruver in US nuclear airmen plead guilty to false statements in shooting that suspended Sig Sauer M18 use

Wall Street Journal’s Misrepresentation of Stand Your Ground Laws Great for Prosecutors

Stand Your Ground laws get a lot of press, and most of it is based on absolute nonsense. They repeat a lot of pathetic talking points with no bearing on reality, but we haven’t seen much lately about them.
But then the Wall Street Journal stepped up and unleashed the stupid.
It starts with their headline, proclaiming, “Six Words Every Killer Should Know: ‘I Feared for My Life, Officer’.”
In theory, it’s an exploration of the increase in justified homicides that has happened since such laws became the norm. That’s probably a worthy topic of examination, too, because how many people would have been free had some prosecuted not convinced a jury that the person who actually was afraid for their life really could have gotten away?
Because that’s all these laws do. They make it so you’re not required to retreat first before using lethal force in self-defense, and that means no one can play Monday morning quarterback and decide there was an opening in a gate behind a dumpster you totally could have used to get away.
But no, that’s not what the WSJ does. Instead, we get this crap:

“It’s easier than ever to kill someone in America and get away with it.

In 30 states, it often requires only a claim you killed while protecting yourself or others.
While Americans have long been free to use deadly force to defend themselves at home, so-called stand-your-ground laws in those 30 states extend legal protections to public places and make it difficult for prosecutors to file homicide charges against anyone who says they killed in self-defense.
The number of legally sanctioned homicides by civilians in the 30 stand-your-ground states has risen substantially in recent years, The Wall Street Journal found in an analysis of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Justifiable homicides by civilians increased 59% from 2019 through 2024 in a large sample of cities and counties in those states, the Journal found, compared with a 16% rise in total homicides for the same locales.
With more guns in more hands, families are grieving loved ones lost to quick-tempered killings, often involving law-abiding civilians, with no one held accountable.
A retired Las Vegas police officer walked free after fatally shooting a retired computer network engineer during a dispute over who had the right of way in a Walmart parking lot. Both men got out of their vehicles. Both were armed. The ex-officer said the retired engineer pointed a gun at him first.
“Only two people know what happened,” said Kathleen Hoy, the dead man’s widow. “Unfortunately, my husband is dead.”
That’s the case they wanted to lead with?
I mean, sure, there are only two people who know what happened, but the fact that both men were armed suggests that there’s at least some reason to believe it’s justified.
Stand Your Ground laws don’t condone murder simply because you say you were afraid. You have to actually have a reason to be afraid.
The fact that the retired engineer in question was armed at least lends credence to the retired cop thinking his life was in danger. The fact that there wasn’t any other evidence one way or another is just how it goes sometimes.
Look, justified homicides are up, but part of that is that violent crime is also up. From the relative low of 2019, we saw a massive spike in the homicide rate in 2020 that is slowly trickling downward. With more violent crime, you have more cases where people are going to legitimately fear for their lives. Seeing an increase over such a short span is hardly shocking.
Maybe the scale of the increase is surprising, but again, how many people were really and legitimately afraid for their life before their state got a Stand Your Ground law, but went to prison because a prosecutor convinced a jury they had an avenue of retreat they totally could have made, even if the shooter didn’t think they could?
Honestly, this is trainwreck journalism. This is as biased a report as you’re going to see, and the Wall Street Journal is supposed to be more conservative than the Old Gray Lady.
This looks straight out of the New York Times’ playbook, though.

Second Amendment Voices Rally Against Sen. John Cornyn Over His Support for Biden Gun Control Law

Texas Gun Rights’ president Chris McNutt and other Second Amendment supporters are once again sounding the alarm against Sen. John Cornyn (R), warning that his support of Biden-era gun control undercuts any claim he makes to being pro-2A.

On October 27, 2025, the Texas Tribune noted that McNutt “delivered a letter to the White House urging Trump not to endorse Cornyn.”

The outlet quoted McNutt saying, “This is not about partisan games — it’s about principle.”

He added, “Texas gun owners remember who wrote the blueprint for Biden’s gun control agenda, and we won’t stand idly by while the architect asks for our vote.”

U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R) has emerged as one of Cornyn’s primary challengers and Hunt said, “There’s no rewriting Sen. Cornyn’s record on the Second Amendment. You can’t strip the rights of law-abiding citizens and call it ‘progress.’ Texans know better.”

On May 27, 2022, just days after the heinous shooting at a Uvalde elementary school, Breitbart News reported that then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) instructed Cornyn to work with Democrats to achieve  “bipartisan” gun control legislation.

On Jun 12, 2022, a gun control agreement was announced between Senate Democrats and Republicans.

On July 11, 2022, Breitbart News reported that President Biden specifically named Cornyn as someone he wanted to thank for the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was the gun control package Cornyn worked with Democrats to fashion.

More recent, Breitbart News pointed to an August 13, 2025, exchange on X between Cornyn and Texas Gun Rights in which Cornyn claimed he does not remember supporting Biden’s gun control.

[Senator John Cornyn voted for final passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. ,Miles]

Anti-2A Activists in Wisconsin Swear They’re Not Anti-2A

If we’ve learned anything from Everytown’s internal kerfuffle, it’s that no matter how much anti-gunners claim they’re not anti-gun, they’re really anti-gun. Everytown decided to offer gun safety training, and some of its members are losing their ever-loving minds, even though they’ve all claimed they didn’t want to eliminate the Second Amendment.

They just don’t want anyone getting training while also wanting everyone to have training.

No, it doesn’t make sense.

However, in Wisconsin, a group of gun control advocates took to the state capitol to push for gun control. They claim, though, that they’re not anti-gun at all.

Gun safety advocates arrived at the State Capitol on Tuesday morning in droves, eager not only to hear from community leaders, peers and lawmakers, but to urge elected officials to support a new raft of gun violence prevention bills aimed at gun trafficking.

They heard from people like UW-Madison student Nessa Bleill, who three years ago survived the Highland Park parade shooting in Illinois, and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, who survived deadly gun violence in high school and presided as mayor during the Abundant Life Christian School shooting, the deadliest in Wisconsin’s history.

Speakers on Oct. 21 also included Rep. Joan Fitzgerald, D-Fort Atkinson; Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of the national Moms Demand Action organization; Nick Matuszewski, associate executive director of WAVE (Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort) Educational Fund; and Lindsey Buscher, volunteer leader with Wisconsin Moms Demand Action.
…

The bills would target illegal gun trafficking taking place in Wisconsin, and are intended to give law enforcement the tools to go after corrupt gun dealers, trace illegal gun purchases and shut down illegal gun trafficking rings. They would also close loopholes that allow dealers to funnel weapons into the illegal market, and crack down on bulk purchases of firearms, a known indicator of illegal gun trafficking.

Their fight, emphasized Ferrell-Zabala, is not with the Second Amendment. It’s with the “reckless” practices of selling guns before background checks are complete, and with bulk firearm purchases.

“We do not have to choose between our rights and our safety,” chanted Rhodes-Conway to rousing applause.

That last line really pisses me off, because they pretend that’s what it’s about.

My Second Amendment rights are about my safety. Taking them away in any manner doesn’t make me safer. It does the contrary, because criminals aren’t exactly tripping over themselves to follow the law.

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Gun Control Disconnect: Media Overlooks, Misunderstands 2nd Amendment

By Dave Workman

ANALYSIS—Amid various reports on gun control published in the aftermath of the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting in Minneapolis in late August and last week’s assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, emerging from the reportage are some possibly uncomfortable facts.

Reports such as one from the Minnesota Reformer’s Madison McVan acknowledge how it “it’s not clear” whether any of Minnesota’s “stricter-than-average gun laws” would have prevented the fatal church shooting.

Likewise, writing at The Free Press, Deputy Managing Editor Joe Nocera acknowledges, “To be sure, no workable gun law would have prevented Kirk’s assassination. His alleged killer showed no signs of mental instability; the gun he used was a bolt-action rifle, owned by millions of Americans; and he was old enough to simply walk in a store and buy it.”

A look back in history underscores the apparent reality disconnect about existing law and mass shootings.

Continue reading “”

It’s nice when they plainly state what they want and sign their names, providing positive identification, unlike some cowardly newspaper ‘editorial staff’. This is merely another of the supercilious domestic enemies of the Constitution that believe they should have the power to tell others how to live their lives and exercise their inherent rights.
They aren’t ‘good men’™. They’re wanna-be tyrants.

We Must End the Insanity of Firearms Policies in This Land of the Terrified and Home of the Fearful.


Warren J. Blumenfeld

So, after suffering the effects of yet another mass shooting in our country, this time at a Catholic school in Minnesota where a gunman shot 17 people, mostly children, killing some, I ask again, “Why is the United States the only place among our peer nations to allow virtually unrestricted sales and ownership of firearms.”

In fact, there are more firearms in the United States than there are residents: with an estimated 120.5 firearms per every 100 people. In a distant second place is the Falkland Islands with 62.1, and in third place is Yemen with 52.8 per every 100 residents.

After each incident of individual and mass shootings, we hear the obligatory “We send my thoughts and prayers to the survivors and to the loved ones of those who have died” coming from politicians and other officials. Well, I hate to break it to you, but “thoughts and prayers” simply aren’t cutting it! They aren’t helping to reduce the chances of another incident tomorrow or next week or next year.

Each time I hear of another incident of gun violence in a long and tragic chain, I think back to the very first thing that caught my eye as I entered the grounds of the Ames, Iowa Republican Party Presidential Straw Poll in the summer of 2011. Three young children, I would guess between the ages of 4 -7, sporting day-glow orange baseball caps with “NRA” imprinted atop, and round stickers on their small T-shirts announcing, “GUNS SAVE LIVES.”

But, really, do these “guns save lives”? Do laws expanding gun possession, concealed or not, actually “save lives”?

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, gun-related deaths have reached epidemic proportions in our country by snuffing out the lives of upwards of 47,000 people and wounding many more in 2023 alone. Based on an analysis of the CDC data, the firearms reform organization, Brady United, reported an average of 117 deaths per day in 2023.

Each year, gun violence affects over 100,000 people in some way. Many of the guns used in these killings reach military level weapons power, guns which currently remain legal.

Of the increasing number of individual and mass murders in the United States since 1982, most of the shooters obtained their weapons legally. Demographically, the shooters in all but a very few cases involved males, usually white, with an average age of 35 years.

Should any limits be placed on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, which reads: “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”?

We seem somehow only to spout the second clause in that sentence while forgetting the first, especially the term “well-regulated”!

I propose that we reevaluate the political Right’s obsession with the so-called “freedom” to bear arms because it is not only “criminals who kill people” as Second Amendment advocates claim. Therefore,

  • We must ban and criminalize the possession of automatic and semi-automatic weapons!
  • We must close loopholes such as buying a weapon at a gun show!
  • We must pass “Red Flag” laws in every state and, more importantly, on the federal level!
  • We must ban the purchase of firearms and ammunition on the internet because some people are still doing this legally!
  • We must increase the waiting period and make background checks more rigorous and effective!
  • We must raise the age for gun ownership!
  • We must pass laws to ensure safe gun storage requirements!
  • We must pass stronger laws to address gun trafficking!
  • We must limit the number of firearms any individual can own!
  • We must limit the number of bullets any firearm clip can hold!
  • We must ban and criminalize the purchase and possession of armor piercing bullets, and also hollow-tip bullets!
  • We must address gun violence as a public health issue!
  • We must address the serious mental health concerns of all people with sufficient resources and treatment!
  • We must provide “active shooter” training in all business, schools, and other social institutions!
  • We must make the abolition of gun silencers permanent!
  • We must eliminate the manufacture and sales of all “rapid-fire” devices!
  • We must repeal “shoot first” or “stand your ground” laws!
  • We must close the “Charleston loophole” in which, under federal law, a gun purchase can proceed by default after a three-day background check period even if that check has not been completed!
  • We must mandate that local law enforcement be alerted after any loss or theft of a firearm!
  • We must criminalize the production of 3-D manufactured firearms of all varieties!
  • We must repeal the immunity granted to firearms manufacturers!
  • We must mandate the compensation of innocent victims of gun violence!
  • We must alert local law enforcement whenever any person fails a background check!
  • We must rethink the “logic” of permitting concealed weapons and “open carry” especially in places like houses of worship, colleges, bars, restaurants, and political rallies!
  • We must interface all databases monitoring firearm ownership to assess the firearm-owning population more accurately and effectively!

To be perfectly honest, however, I want the Second Amendment repealed! It is an Amendment for goodness sake. It is not some sort of divinely-inspired mandate from a superior being well beyond our comprehension. It was created, rather, by our intelligent but flawed “founding fathers” who probably did not want totally unlimited and unrestricted rights to bear arms.

While wise men most who crafted what many consider today as a brilliant and enduring blueprint for a new nation, they were products of their times with their individual human shortcomings and biases.

Just coming off a war of independence against one of the world’s great colonial powers, it was reasonable to expect leaders to ensure people the capability of defending themselves against any potentially tyrannical government. In this regard, they established the Second Amendment in its Bill of Rights granting people “the right to bear arms.”

Since then, firearms, and the culture supporting it, has been encoded into the very DNA of U.S.-American identity and what it means to be “an American.” But what may have been “reasonable” in the 18th century, without substantial reform, ranks as unreasonable today.

Even if they did advocate for unrestricted firearms ownership, these are the same men who enslaved other human beings, committed genocide against and expelled native peoples, withheld enfranchisement from women, engaged in and killed one another in duels, and so on.

Actually, I’m really surprised that the gun-toting political right hasn’t advocated for the return of lethal dueling matches. Maybe that’s next on their agenda. (Go see the Broadway show “Hamilton” to see how that turned out!)

But what was the actual, often hidden or forgotten reason for the founders to include the Second Amendment as they conceived it in the Bill of Rights?

In her book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, author Carol Anderson discovered the overarching racial discrepancies in the handling of gun ownership in the U.S. dating to the founding of the country and to the Second Amendment.

The language of the amendment, Anderson argues, was shaped to ensure that owners of those they enslaved would be able rapidly to repel acts of resistance and rebellious uprisings. She says the right to bear arms, presumably guaranteed to all citizens but not to enslaved Africans, has been repeatedly denied to Black people.

As we all know, in the current political climate, the chances for comprehensive common sense gun reform measures in the United States is only a pipe dream as long as the political Right controls Congress and state legislatures. If the lobbyists for firearms manufacturers had not bought and paid for our legislators and members of the Executive branch, we would have seen effective laws passed years ago resulting in countless lives saved.

Nevertheless, this utter insanity in our system of firearms laws must end. Enough is enough is enough is enough already! Actually, it is far past that time.

John Cornyn learns not to mess with Texas

“Don’t mess with Texas” is a homespun aphorism that expresses a genuine sentiment. Texans, and to a slightly lesser degree, Wyomingites, are independent cusses. They’re proud of their states and their beliefs, and pushed too far don’t whine about why government isn’t making things right. They handle it themselves and vote the useless weasels out at the next electoral opportunity.

One such weasel is long-serving Texas Senator John Cornyn. Once thought a reliable Republican, he forgot which state he represents and stepped on a known Texas land mine: gun control. In Texas, weakness on the Second Amendment and cruelty to animals are two things among many guaranteed to provoke political death. Cornyn was thought among the most untouchable politicians in Texas until he went wobbly during the Biden’s Handler’s years and crossed the aisle to pass a 2022 gun control bill, the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA).” Cornyn wasn’t the only line crosser, but he crossed a Texas line, which Texans don’t forget or forgive. The Garland DOJ bragged about it in 2024:

June 25 marks the second anniversary of the enactment of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) – a landmark law focused on reducing and protecting communities from gun violence. The Justice Department has pursued a cross-department approach with the new tools provided in BSCA, from enhanced background checks to grantmaking.

 

Accordingly, Cornyn is being primaried by Texas AG Ken Paxton, who has been leading Cornyn in the polls. As one might imagine, the media are doing all they can to try to negate Paxton’s lead. Both are Republicans, but they hate Paxton more:

The TSU poll shows Paxton leading Cornyn in a two-person Republican primary race by 5 percentage points. A similar poll conducted by TSU in May found Paxton leading by 9 percentage points.

“Cornyn has substantially narrowed the gap both related to our prior surveys but especially related to many of the surveys that were circulating earlier in the summer that had him down by 10, 15, 20 points or so,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist who co-directed the study.

Paxton has a variety of personal and professional issues dogging him, but that anyone could be so far ahead of Cornyn is a reflection of how ticked off Texans are. This kind of politically convenient memory lapse isn’t helping:

Cornyn apparently forgot the Internet, including his own website, is forever:

 

Shooting News Weekly’s headline is pertinent:  “Is John Cornyn Cognitively Impaired Or Is He Just Lying About His Role in Passing Biden’s Gun Control Bill?”

I can’t vouch for cognitive impairment, but lying? As Texans might say: yup. They’re not fond of that either.

Texas Senator John Cornyn shocked gun owners across the country this week after denying any involvement in helping pass Biden’s signature gun control bill—the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA)—despite his well-documented leadership role in getting it across the finish line in 2022. [skip]

The backlash was immediate and fierce.

“Perhaps at 73, Cornyn is starting to share more than just policy blunders with Biden,” said TXGR President Chris McNutt. “That creeping forgetfulness might explain why he’s also in denial about those abysmal polls showing AG Paxton wiping the floor with him. Texas Gun Rights is happy to remind Cornyn — and all pro-gun Texans — of his blunders.”

Just how mad are Texans at Cornyn?  This mad:

Cornyn was booed by more than 8,000 delegates at the 2024 Texas GOP convention, and now faces rising grassroots opposition heading into the 2026 Republican primary. Both Texas Gun Rights PAC and National Association for Gun Rights PAC have already endorsed Paxton for U.S. Senate.

“Gun owners don’t forget betrayal,” said McNutt. “And they’re ready to make sure Cornyn never forgets 2026.”

Plenty can happen between now and the mid-terms, but Cornyn damned well knows how badly he screwed up and he’s fiercely backpedaling, trying to look like a solid Republican. Texans aren’t going to forget, and it looks like they’re not in a forgiving mood. If Trump endorses Paxton, Cornyn is likely toast and it will be his own fault.

 

If This Is Their Best Argument Against National Reciprocity, They Should Give Up Now

Concealed carry reciprocity at the federal level is more likely to happen now, before the midterms, than at any other point in history. It’s still an uphill fight, but President Trump has promised his support, and others are rallying to the cause. That’s the good news.

Unfortunately, there are still enough senators who can filibuster the bill that it makes it a challenge to get it to the president’s desk.

Still, gun control groups are digging in for a fight. They’re trying to lay the groundwork for their attacks on the bill, but if they look like this, they should just give up now.

Let’s start with the headline, because it matters. It reads, “More Than 2,800 Non-Self Defense Deaths Involving Concealed Carry Killers Since 2007, Latest Violence Policy Center Research Shows.”

Note the language here: “concealed carry killers” versus “non-self defense[sic] deaths.”

That’s an important point that will come up here in a bit.

Now, for the “argument”:

Concealed handgun permit holders are responsible for at least 2,817 deaths not involving self-defense since 2007, according to the Violence Policy Center’s (VPC) ongoing Concealed Carry Killers (concealedcarrykillers.org) project, an online resource that provides examples of non-self defense killings involving private citizens with permits to carry concealed handguns in public.

This latest update comes as legislation endorsed by the gun lobby and firearms industry has been introduced in the U.S. House (H.R. 38) and Senate (S. 65) to allow individuals with state-issued concealed firearm permits to carry their weapons in any state that issues carry permits or does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms. The bills are currently moving through the committee process.

Overall, Concealed Carry Killers documents 2,552 fatal, non-self defense incidents since May 2007 in 40 states and the District of Columbia, resulting in the deaths of 2,817 people. Thirty-eight of the incidents were fatal mass shootings as defined by federal law (three or more victims killed), resulting in the deaths of 186 victims. At least 24 law enforcement officers have died at the hands of concealed carry killers since May 2007.

VPC Government Affairs Director Kristen Rand states, “While the firearms industry and gun lobby push for coast-to-coast concealed carry, real-world facts show that concealed handgun permit holders are far more likely to kill themselves or innocent victims than use their gun in a justifiable homicide.”

Of course, they note that there are no official records keeping track of this, so they have to base all of their so-called research on news reports and whatever limited data they can get from the states, but let’s start off by looking at the raw numbers presented here. They maintain that the actual numbers are probably higher, which might be true, but probably isn’t. Still, let’s look at what they’ve got because that’s what we have.

It’s been 17 full years since 2007, and I’m making an assumption they’re not including any information from this year–which isn’t a safe assumption, to be fair, but for the sake of argument, I think this will be fine–which means we’re looking at 165.7 “deaths” by concealed carriers per year.

Sure, those are all tragic, to be certain, but when you look at nearly 46,000 “gun deaths” each year, it’s not even a drop in the bucket.

“But Tom, those ‘gun deaths’ include suicides. Isn’t that apples and oranges?”

A fair question, good reader, but it’s not. Why? Because the VPC does the exact same thing.

In the vast majority of the 2,552 incidents documented in Concealed Carry Killers (2,435, or 95 percent), the concealed carry permit holder either died by suicide (1,732), has already been convicted (614), perpetrated a murder-suicide (65), or was killed in the incident (24). Of the 77 cases still pending, the vast majority (61) of concealed carry killers have been charged with criminal homicide, five were deemed incompetent to stand trial, and 11 incidents are still under investigation. An additional 40 incidents were fatal unintentional shootings involving the gun of the concealed handgun permit holder.

The fact that someone has a concealed carry permit has nothing at all to do with their suicide. Plenty of people take their own lives with guns while lacking carry permits. Others use different means of doing the same thing. Suicide numbers really shouldn’t be included in a look at “concealed carry killers,” now, should it? Not if you really want to make the case that national reciprocity will make people less safe.

Interestingly, the chart they include has a section for “self-defense/no verdict,” which makes no sense at all if you’re trying to claim these aren’t self-defense shootings.

Still, if we decide to accept the remaining numbers at face value–mostly because they don’t include any total on those “self-defense/no verdict” numbers–we end up with 1,085 deaths attributed to concealed carry permit holders. That’s an average of just under 64 killings per year. That’s versus an average of just under 18,000 murders with firearms.

That’s not a problem. That’s statistical noise.

Then we have their interpretation of these claims.

VPC Government Affairs director Kristen Rand is quoted as saying, “While the firearms industry and gun lobby push for coast-to-coast concealed carry, real-world facts show that concealed handgun permit holders are far more likely to kill themselves or innocent victims than use their gun in a justifiable homicide.”

Except that’s not the case at all, and even the anti-gun The Trace knows that’s not true.

How do I know that? Because look at their report on defensive gun uses, which looked at both Gun Violence Archive numbers and numbers from The Heritage Foundation.

Gun Violence Archive, the Kentucky-based nonprofit that tallies gun-related incidents in near-real time, also counts DGUs. But it only captures incidents that make the news or are reported to police. And GVA includes incidents involving illegal gun possessors as well as legal owners, including shootouts as well as stand-your-ground shootings. GVA recorded 8,394 DGUs from 2017 to 2021, which works out to an average of 1,678 a year. But that’s likely a massive undercount.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, launched a DGU tracker in 2019 that relies on media reports, but counts only defensive gun use by lawful owners. Heritage tallied 2,106 shootings from 2019 to 2021, for an average of 702 per year. The group cautions that it’s “not intended to be comprehensive” because “most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local or national media outlets.” That’s a common belief among pro-gun advocates, some of whom believe the 2.5 million figure is, in fact, too low.

Both of these totals are much lower than the 165.7 per year average noted above. It’s worth noting, though, that these are compiled through media reports, just as VPC’s numbers are. If their estimates are low, then it stands to reason that we’re right about the defensive gun use totals also being low, especially since a lot of them never make the news.

And if you remove suicides from the equation, as you should, the difference is even more stark.

However, then we need to consider concealed carry holders versus society as a whole, since this whole report was intended to imply that they’re a danger to society.

Joe LoPorto, the Director of Legal Operations for the New Jersey Firearms Owners Syndicate, did a little math, passed along to me, comparing per capita rates overall. Here’s what he told me:

The VPC, financially backed by the Joyce Foundation, itself a President Obama pet project with over $1 billion in assets has been running its Concealed Carry Killers database for years. We all know the numbers they are producing are massively inflated. However, even when taken at face value and considering the most conservative estimate of the number of Americans with a concealed carry permit (rounded down to just 20 million), their own data support our point.

Based on their own data, presented by VPC in a way to look as inflammatory as possible, the murder rate amongst the population of concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. would be 2.7 per 100,000 people, or less than half the murder rate of the overall U.S. population at 5.9 per 100,000. Again, based on their inflated numbers, the suicide rate of concealed carry permit holders would be 5.0 per 100,000 or about 1/3rd that of the overall U.S. population at 14.2 per 100,000.

Even accepting their inflated statistics, their own data show that concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. are substantially safer than the overall U.S. population.

New Jersey is the perfect example.  Before Bruen, virtually no one was able to obtain a concealed carry permit. In the years since Bruen, nearly 100,000 New Jerseyans obtained concealed carry permits… and the violent crime and gun crime rates in the state declined.

Peaceable people exercising their core constitutional rights in the U.S. are not the problem.

That last bit, especially, is absolutely correct.

On every level, their entire premise falls apart. The attempt to demonize concealed carry permit holders fails in the face of literally any other evidence. It only works in a vacuum, and there’s no such thing in the world of media today.

Seriously, this is so absolutely pathetic that they should hide in shame for the next thousand years or so.

Cornyn Called Out Over Short Memory on Gun Control

Members of Congress pop off on X, formerly Twitter, all the time. It’s one of the more important uses of the platform for them, but there’s a risk there.

See, you can chirp all you want, but people get to chirp back. You’re not really immune from criticism and it’s really kind of impossible to create a true echo chamber, even if that’s your desire. People will still say what they want to say and say it where you can see it, at least until you mute or block them or something.

That’s a lesson Sen. John Cornyn of Texas was reminded of on Wednesday evening.

After trying to get a dig in at his primary opponent, Texas AG Ken Paxton, he was asked a simple question based on the wording.

I mean, it wasn’t that long ago, so the smart move would have been to just ignore it.

Cornyn, however, isn’t that smart.

Seriously?

If that’s true, his mind is as gone as Biden’s.

Luckily, Texas Gun Rights was happy to remind him.

That’s right, Cornyn was the primary reason we got saddled with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. He rallied enough Republican votes to break the filibuster, thus foisting gun control onto the American people, which came with a lot of issues that we’re still trying to deal with.

Cornyn was awfully proud of it at the time. He celebrated it. He bragged about his efforts.

It wasn’t until after that that he suddenly started trying to play damage control.

Now, he’s just trying to pretend it never happened. Of all the tactics for deflecting criticism for bad decisions, that’s certainly one of them.

I get that Cornyn doesn’t want to have to defend his Second Amendment record in Texas, of all places, and that’s one area where Paxton is going to eat his lunch and everyone knows it. It’s obvious that on this issue in particular, he’s going to lose.

But could he (or at least his social media team) have just ignored the comment? Absolutely. The smart move would have just pretended he didn’t see it. I’d imagine a senator’s X notifications get a lot of comments, so it’s easy to legitimately miss things. Pretending that’s what happened would have been cowardly, but still smart.

Or, he could have tried to defend it, or admitted that he screwed up royally. I’d have at least respected the latter, at least. I’d still want him gone because there’s no way I’d trust him not to screw up like that again, but I respect a lawmaker admitting they made an error, if for no other reason than it’s so rare. He didn’t do that, though.

Instead, he just played Biden…I mean, dumb (same thing, really).

Well, Cornyn might have a short memory–I don’t buy it, but let’s play like he’s being honest here–but the internet doesn’t. He did Biden’s bidding to help get the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed, was proud of the effort, and now he’s playing dumb because his constituents aren’t happy about it and he thinks so little of them that he thinks a denial like this will work.

Medicaid? She’s a multimillionaire and her father, Jim Klobuchar, passed back in 2021.

Neuroscientist Accidentally Reveals Democrats’ Dark Strategy Behind Biden’s Mental Health Cover-Up.

Neuroscientist and author Sam Harris recently admitted he was misled about President Joe Biden’s cognitive health, conceding that he once believed claims that Biden remained sharp behind closed doors—but now doubts that assumption, citing what he describes as an “effective” cover-up.

In a candid discussion, Harris acknowledged he used to defend Biden’s mental acuity by separating the president’s communication struggles from his decision-making abilities.

“It’s at least intelligible to say, ‘Okay, he’s not a good communicator. He was never a good communicator, he’s only getting worse,’” Harris said. “You can’t reliably stick him in front of a microphone and trust that something good is gonna come out of his mouth.”

Harris once accepted the idea that while Biden fumbled public speaking engagements, he was still competent when it came to deliberating important issues in private.

“The truth is… when you sit with him and deliberate about the war in Ukraine or anything else, he is compos mentis, he clearly understands the issue as well as he ever did,” Harris claimed he previously believed. “He’s just not a fluid speaker, and less and less fluid by the hour. Neurologically speaking, that is an intelligible claim to make about a person. That’s what I assumed was true.”

However, Harris now says he doubts Biden was ever as mentally fit as some insiders had claimed. “Because of how effective this cover-up was, I no longer believe that to have been true,” he admitted. “I think it’s quite possible that he was just checked out to a degree that I did not suspect at the time.”

Now, we’re supposed to believe this explanation, which is basically the same thing that Democrats and their allies in the media are saying. According to them, they were duped. But, Harris, like everyone else on the left who defended Biden’s mental acuity, was lying.

How do I know? Because he flat-out contradicted himself moments later, and it wasn’t subtle.

While you might assume that Biden’s obvious mental decline would be a deal-breaker for a neuroscientist, Harris made it clear that it didn’t matter one bit. The truth is, Biden’s cognitive state was irrelevant to him. His only real concern was stopping Trump—no matter the cost.

“Even that is preferable to me and to, I think, many Democrats, than having someone who we consider to be genuinely evil—genuinely 100% purposed to serving himself in the office of the presidency,” he said, drawing a sharp contrast between Biden’s frailty and Trump’s leadership.

Harris went even further, laying bare the mentality behind the left’s support of Biden in 2024: “I would rather have a president in a coma, where the duties of the presidency are executed by a committee of just normal people,” he said. “And that’s the choice that many of us believe was before us.”

In doing so, Harris admitted that Biden’s competency wasn’t just misunderstood—it was irrelevant. The real goal, for many Democrats, was to stop Trump at any cost. “Not much materially changes once you reveal just how insane and despicable this cover-up of Biden’s infirmities actually was,” Harris concluded, suggesting that the deception—however egregious—was worth it to keep Trump out of office.

Here we have a neuroscientist—someone with the education and expertise to spot cognitive decline a mile away—claiming he was duped by the Biden White House. But then, in the same breath, he admits it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Why? Because he’d rather see a cabal of unelected leftist operatives quietly steer the country into a constitutional crisis than let Trump win.

Spare me the victim act. He wasn’t fooled—he willingly ignored what was right in front of him because his hatred for Trump clouded his judgment.

Just like every other partisan on the left, he helped prop up a mentally unfit president and now wants to pretend he was misled.

He wasn’t. He was complicit.

Try “well known but – poorly – covered up, before the 2020 election”

Yes, Our President Was Senile for a Long Stretch.

On the menu today: Before we dive into the latest detailed anecdotes of President Joe Biden’s undeniable senility in his final year in office, we ought to look back at the on-the-money prediction of these all-too-late tell-all books from back in 2022. I knew this was coming and there’s an extremely good chance you knew this was coming, too. Democrats can’t wait to move on; it’s humiliating to learn Biden couldn’t function in the evenings, his staff told Democratic donors that Kamala Harris was incompetent and unelectable, and that Tim Walz was terrified of debating JD Vance. But how do you learn from a mistake if you refuse to ever admit them?

Everyone Recognizes George Clooney . . . Except Biden

The Morning Jolt, June 20, 2022:

I think the single most predictable “bombshell” of the coming years is that sometime in 2025, someone like Bob Woodward or Robert Costa will publish a book with a title like “Perpetual Crisis: Inside the Biden White House,” and we will “learn” something like:

The president’s official health report said he was in fine shape for his age. But behind the scenes, Jill Biden, Ron Klain, and Susan Rice were deeply concerned the president’s health was rapidly declining, and that he would soon be unable to perform his duties.

His speech was becoming less and less coherent, his thinking more erratic, his mood shifts more intense, and he angrily lashed out at routine advice or recommendations. He insisted he had not been told things he had been briefed on and that his wrong statements were correct. He repeatedly insisted the U.S. had committed to protecting Taiwan, when no treaty required it.

When asked about this, Biden insisted no policy had changed. At almost every public appearance, no matter how much he had been instructed to stick to the teleprompter’s prepared remarks, Biden would go off script and add some comment or outburst — like “for God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power!” — that undermined his message and created new foreign-policy headaches.

But the first lady, Klain, and Rice all concurred that Biden’s problems could be hidden from the public, at least for now, and that Vice President Harris taking over was unthinkable — both because it would be too traumatic for the country and because they had little faith in Harris’s ability to defeat Trump or DeSantis in 2024.

Either man entering the Oval Office in January would put nothing less than all of American democracy at risk. For the good of the country, Biden had to stay in place, and his cognitive decline hidden — much as FDR’s disability, JFK’s back pain, and Woodrow Wilson’s stroke had been hidden before. 

Biden’s public appearances grew less and less frequent, and he virtually stopped doing sit-down interviews. Late at night, Klain and Rice would get together, satisfied they had kept the ship sailing for another day. All the while, the public had no idea that Biden was in such rough shape.

Though it will be treated like a bombshell revelation, the fact is we all have eyes and ears and can see and hear Biden.

I just wish the lottery numbers were so easy to predict.

Enjoy these days of Joe Biden getting knocked around like a piñata, because after Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have sold all the books they can, the story of the coverup of Joe Biden’s failing physical and mental health is going to disappear like the subject of a David Copperfield prime-time special. It’s just too embarrassing, too harmful to the Democrats’ priorities now, too much of a benefit to Donald Trump and Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer yesterday, on CNN:

Continue reading “”

VPC Releases Report Alleging Suppressors Are ‘Threat to Public Safety’

Only days after TheGunMag.com carried a report about how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is issuing expensive firearm suppressors to its agents, the Violence Policy Center has released a study calling the devices a “public safety threat.”

In a statement announcing its report, titled Silencers: A Threat to Public Safety, the VPC says its “study” is a reaction to efforts by the firearms industry and “gun lobby” to have suppressors deregulated. The release acknowledges that the National Firearms Act (NFA) is a “restrictive federal law that also covers machine guns and short-barreled rifles,” to which it adds, “The NFA is overseen by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).”

In the release, VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann asserts, “Silencer de-regulation efforts are the latest salvo in the gun industry’s increasing militarization of the civilian marketplace in search of increased profits. Allowing these military-bred accessories to be generally available will make it easier for criminals to take innocent lives, threaten police, and hamper the ability of law enforcement to respond to mass shootings or sniper attacks.”

But in 2021, the U.S. Concealed Carry Association published an essay on silencers which included this: “Indeed, silencers are so rarely used in violent crimes that it is hard to find meaningful statistics on them. The ATF has internally used numbers suggesting that, despite the fact that there are more than 1 million silencers registered under the National Firearms Act, less than 0.003 percent of silencers are used in violent crimes. And only about 44 defendants per year are prosecuted for criminal use of silencers.”

The VPC news release declared, “The ‘benefits’ most commonly cited by silencer manufacturers, however, remain sound reduction and increased accuracy and rate of fire as the result of reduced recoil and improved stability of the weapon when firing.

“In a civilian context,” the VPC continues, “these ‘benefits’ could help enable mass shooters and other murderers to kill a greater number of victims more efficiently. At the same time, they can limit the ability of law enforcement to respond effectively.”

The VPC seems distressed that, “Data on the dramatic increase in civilian silencer ownership. In 2010 the number of legally registered silencers in the U.S. was 285,087. By 2024 this number had grown to 4,857,897—an increase of more than 1,600 percent. The dramatic increase seen in recent years has been fueled by silencer marketers and manufacturers overseeing the application process with ATF for purchasers and a shift by the agency in 2021 to allow application forms to be accepted online.”
In a December 2024 report from Real Clear Policy, writer Owen Miller noted, “The National Hearing Conservation Association (NHCA) wrote a letter in 2019 outlining their support for suppressors as a tool to help curb preventable hearing damage:

“Although firearm suppressors do not completely eliminate the risk of [noise-induced hearing loss] from firearm noise, the risk can be significantly reduced…Therefore, NHCA supports the use of firearm noise suppressors as a form of an engineering noise control to reduce hazardous firearm noise exposures.” 

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was commissioned in 2011 to assess the level of noise exposure for federal government agents at an outdoor shooting range,” Miller added. “The scientists assigned to the study concluded:

“…the only potentially effective noise control method to reduce students’ or instructors’ noise exposure from gunfire is through the use of noise suppressors that can be attached to the end of the gun barrel.”

Miller, vice president of the American Suppressor Association, finished off his remarks stating, “Suppressors are legally used by millions of hunters and shooting enthusiasts who rely on these safety devices for much needed hearing protection. Spreading misinformation or engaging in scare tactics in the wake of this high-profile crime will do nothing to address the issue of curbing violence in New York City or elsewhere else in America.”