Everytown Misfires in Attack on Defensive Gun Uses

When Everytown for Gun Safety announced it was holding online gun “training” classes, many anti-gun activists and volunteers with the organization were sharply critical of the move, declaring it was akin to the group normalizing gun ownership instead of advocating for a gun-free future.

Of course, the so-called training has proved to be mostly anti-gun talking points, but if the group’s anti-2A critics have any doubts that Everytown is still as opposed to our right to keep and bear arms as ever they just have to look at the organization’s latest report for reassurance.

Titled “Disarming Fear: Debunking Myths of Defensive Gun Use”, Everytown’s report starts with several incidents that they allege were reported as defensive gun uses even though there were elements of each incident that were immediately known that undercut any self-defense claim. One incident highlighted by Everytown, for example, was the shooting of teenager Ralph Yarl in Kansas City after he knocked on the wrong door of a home when he went to pick up his little brothers from a friend’s house. While Andrew Lester Lester told police that he believed that Yarl was trying to break in to his home and was “scared to death” of Yarl’s size, it only took prosecutors four days to file charges against him.

Everytown asserts that legitimate defensive gun uses are “exceedingly rare,” and that they are “often deployed against unarmed perpetrators, and often accompanied by underappreciated personal and social risks, including loss of life and property.”

How rare? Everytown says it used National Crime Victimization Survey data and came up with a figure of about 69,000 DGUs every year between 2019 and 2023. That’s far below the estimates of 1 million or more DGUs from researchers like Gary Kleck and William English, but even so, that’s about three times the number of homicides in the United States. If DGU’s are “rare”, then murders involving firearms are even more rare, which undercuts Everytown’s entire ideology.

Everytown also takes issue with using a gun to defend yourself against someone who doesn’t have a firearm.

In the majority of these uses, suspected perpetrators are unarmed. In fact, 58 percent of perpetrators are not armed with any weapon. In eight out of 10 DGUs, the suspected perpetrator is not armed with a gun.

So what? An unarmed individual can still pose a threat to life and limb. Just look at the recent DGU in Los Angeles where a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran shot and killed a man who had thrown him to the ground and broke both his legs and continued to assault him while he was writhing in pain. Does Everytown believe George Karkoc should be charged for acting in self-defense since his attacker wasn’t armed with any kind of weapon?

If not, it sure looks like they at least believe Karkoc would have been better off without a gun.

Crime victims who responded with a gun were less likely to get away from the offender than those who responded without one (7 percent with a gun compared to 18 percent without) and less likely to avoid injury (39 percent compared to 44 percent).

So… in either case the vast majority of individuals who were the victim of a violent crime were unable to get away from their attacker, and the difference in the injury rate is honestly negligible. If that’s true, then I would definitely prefer to be armed if someone decides to invade my home, carjack my vehicle, or assault me on the street.

Everytown also notes that violent crime is trending down across the United States, but as FPC’s Rob Romano notes, they still claim that an armed society is a more dangerous place.


Giffords has also recently complained about the number of justifiable homicides, which makes me wonder if this going to be a new talking point for the gun control lobby. “Too many people are defending themselves from violent attackers” doesn’t sound like a great argument to me, but maybe their focus groups are telling them differently.

Everytown’s conclusion, of course, is that you’re better off not owning a gun at all. I’d say the gun control group gave us 69,000 reasons to disregard that advice. In reality the number of defensive gun uses is likely much higher than what the anti-gun org is wililng to admit, but even using their numbers hundreds of people are protecting themselves with firearms each and every day across the United States; proof positive that DGUs aren’t uncommon or unnecessary.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded–here and there, now and then–are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.”  —Robert Heinlein

FPC Calls on President Trump to End Defense of Federal Gun Control Laws

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) today issued the following statement condemning the Trump Administration’s ongoing defense of federal gun control laws and calling on President Trump to take immediate action to restore the integrity of his pledge to protect Second Amendment rights:

Since President Donald J. Trump signed the “Protecting Second Amendment Rights” executive order in February, his Department of Justice has done exactly the opposite—relentlessly defending the federal government’s unconstitutional gun control regime. Instead of using the Justice Department’s vast power to secure Americans’ right to keep and bear arms, the Trump DOJ has used it to fight against the People—even taking extreme positions in court to resist injunctions that block the government’s enforcement of gun laws that federal judges have already found unconstitutional.

Last month, the Administration’s Solicitor General, D. John Sauer—the government’s top appellate lawyer, often called the “10th Justice” for his influence with the Supreme Court—urged the Court to deny review in a case challenging the National Firearms Act’s (NFA) registration and taxation scheme for short-barreled rifles. The Administration argued that the NFA’s intrusive requirements are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” effectively endorsing the very federal overreach the Second Amendment was written to prevent.

In an effort to convince the Court to dodge the question of unconstitutional federal restrictions, the Trump DOJ suggested that the Court should focus on “laws banning AR-15 rifles.” Yet, when the opportunity arose for the Administration to support exactly such a case—a challenge to an AR-15 rifle ban out of Illinois—the Trump DOJ was silent.

Rather than support good Supreme Court vehicles, the Trump DOJ has chosen to game the system and throw its weight behind bad cases likely to strengthen the government’s power and weaken individual liberty, such as United States v. Hemani, which the Supreme Court recently agreed to hear.

The Trump DOJ’s continuing adversarial posture to the Second Amendment doesn’t end there. In United States v. George Peterson—an FPC-supported Fifth Circuit criminal appeal that challenges the NFA’s unconstitutional registration and taxation of firearm suppressors—the Trump DOJ opposed a petition for rehearing en banc, doubling down on its defense of oppressive federal gun laws.

The Trump DOJ’s sustained pattern of anti-Second Amendment litigation cannot be dismissed as bureaucratic inertia—it reflects deliberate choices.

FPC calls on President Trump to immediately direct his Department of Justice to end its defense of federal gun control laws and to begin using the full power of the executive branch to actively protect and advance the Second Amendment rights of the American people.

In Minnesota, Leftist Gun Owners Identify Problem with Dems

By Dave Workman

Buried deep in a feature about three left-tilting college guys who have started a company which builds speed loaders for AR-15 magazines is a revealing observation about Democrats and why there may never be a rational conversation about the Second Amendment.

The feature, published in the Minnesota Reformer, focuses on Sid Allen, his fledgling company MangaBerry West, and his colleagues Riley Dahlberg and Tarik Alduri. All three of these guys are still in their 20s. According to the story, “Allen is the president, and Dahlberg vice president, of the St. Cloud College Democrats even though they are left of the party establishment on most issues.”

But one has to read almost to the end to reach the red meat.

“Despite being in favor of higher taxes for more robust social services,” the story says, “which is at the core of Democratic identity, the MangaBerry West guys said they’ve been told by Democrats that they aren’t real Democrats because of their support for gun rights.”

At another point in the feature, Alduri was quoted observing, “I think it’s sad that we have gotten to this point where the left thinks that they’re not allowed to own guns in order to stay aligned Democratic Party.”

Minnesota is home to Gov. Tim Walz, a former “A”-rated politician who did such a 180-degree shift on guns he’s almost persona non grata at the National Rifle Association. It’s a state where extremist Democrat gun control measures are currently held in check by the virtually even split in the legislature between Democrats and Republicans.

This year has seen tragedies linked to guns. There was the murder of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. She served as House Speaker until January of this year and was a leader in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party (DFL), which is the state Democrat party.

Then came the attack at the Annunciation Catholic Church, which left two students dead and 21 others wounded.

As KMSP Fox9 News is reporting, Democrat state Sen. Judy Seeberger, who is reportedly a gun owner, is talking about gun control in the 2026 legislative session. She, along with others in her party, wants a ban on so-called “assault weapons.”

This is where MangaBerry’s Alduri acknowledged his understanding of capitalism and how the gun ban Democrats want would “be a massive hit to our business.” At some point, idealism invariably collides with reality.

Also, if court rulings ultimately undo many if not most restrictive gun control laws around the country because they violate the Second Amendment, it will mean Democrats, as described by the MangaBerry West crew, will have to acknowledge their prejudices and admit gun owners have rights, too.

Veterans Day 2025: Giffords Pushes More Gun Control for Veterans

On Veterans Day 2025 Gabby Giffords’ gun control group, Giffords, is pushing more gun control for veterans who avail themselves of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) services.

Giffords posted to X:

Since 2006, veterans have died by suicide nearly 20 times more often than soldiers have been killed at war. Veterans deserve more than empty words. They deserve leaders who work to protect them.

But many in Congress are stopping the VA from flagging when a veteran is at a heightened risk of harming themselves or others, and therefore shouldn’t have access to a gun.

Giffords is complaining about the efforts Republicans have undertaken to end the VA’s decades-long habit of blocking veterans’ gun rights by reporting said veterans to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for actions as benign as needing help handling finances.

Through the years, Breitbart News has warned of the situation wherein veterans who use a fiduciary to handle their finances face the threat of being reported by the VA and subsequently prohibited from gun purchases. The need for help in balancing finances — even for a time — is equated with mental health problems, and gun rights are revoked.

Moreover, on February 21, 2016, Breitbart News reported that combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who needed treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were increasingly hesitant to pursue treatment because they feared a PTSD diagnosis would be used to deny their gun rights under the Obama administration.

A combat vet confined to a wheelchair spoke to Breitbart News anonymously at the time, saying, “I was diagnosed with PTSD. What’s being done to be sure my guns aren’t taken away?” He said he lived with the added anxiety of questioning his every trip to the doctor, fearing that he was one visit away from having his gun rights snuffed out.

Earlier this year, Rep. Eli Crane (R)–a former U.S. Navy SEAL–told Breitbart News that Democrats who support the status quo on bureaucrats being able to strip away gun rights often claim they do so in order to help reduce suicide among veterans, particularly combat veterans. But Crane rejected this line of thinking, saying, “When it comes to suicide, a lot of these individuals, a lot of veterans….who are struggling with PTSD and have some of these issues, one of [their] biggest issues is fear and trauma because [they] thought [they] might lose [their] life in battle against other people with guns.”

He suggested that taking away their guns now only serves to increase the feeling of defenselessness, thereby increasing feelings of fear and fueling the very suicides which Democrats claim they are trying to stop.

Yet on this Veterans Day, Giffords is urging more gun control for veterans.

“No matter how brilliant a man may be, he will never engender confidence in his subordinates and associates if he lacks simple honesty and moral courage.”
-GEN J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff of the Army 1949-1953

Don’t worry, unlike what was part of what caused the crash in 2008, I’m sure this time around it will work just fine.

Fannie Mae removes minimum credit score requirements from DU.

The current 620 minimum representative or average median credit score will be removed for new loan casefiles created on or after Nov. 16, 2025

Fannie Mae‘s November 2025 Selling Guide, released on Wednesday, detailed several updates, including expanding Fannie’s Day 1 Certainty offerings to include representation and warranty relief for undisclosed non-mortgage liabilities, expanding the eligibility for the age of credit document exception for single-closing construction loans and removing minimum credit score requirements from Desktop Underwriter (DU).
As a result of the latter update, Fannie Mae will remove minimum credit score requirements for loans submitted through its DU system starting Nov. 16. This means that the current 620 minimum representative or average median credit score will be removed for new loan case files created on or after that date.
Other related updates will apply to files submitted or resubmitted beginning the weekend of Nov. 15, 2025, an announcement from Fannie Mae said. Instead of applying a minimum score, DU will use its own analysis of borrower risk factors to determine loan eligibility.

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The Armed Awakening of America’s Radical Left
When moral outrage meets live ammunition.

Unless you live under a rock — or teach gender studies — you won’t be surprised to find that people with strong left-leaning political attitudes score far higher on traits like neuroticism and psychopathy than many of their conservative counterparts. These psychological signatures — emotional volatility, heightened threat sensitivity, and explosive aggression — are more pronounced the further left you go. Add to that the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, the attempts on Donald Trump’s life, and a surge in gun purchases by self-styled progressive activists, and the picture turns even darker.

The same movement that once mocked the Second Amendment is now shopping for suppressors.

The same movement that once mocked the Second Amendment is now shopping for suppressors. From trans shooters to queer collectives and “rainbow rifle clubs,” the left’s new hobby isn’t mindfulness and manifesting — it’s marksmanship. Conservatives tend to buy guns to defend their families; leftists now seem to buy them to prove they can. The mood has shifted, from preachy to predatory.

It wasn’t always like this. During the George Floyd riots of 2020, the radical left burned cities and, yes, cracked a few skulls along the way. Innocent shopkeepers were beaten, officers ambushed, and neighborhoods torched. Yet for all the carnage, most of the movement’s foot soldiers weren’t locked and loaded. They fought with fists, bricks, and stupid slogans. But times have changed. What began as “defund the police” has metastasized into “arm the resistance. The irony writes itself: the same people who argued that no one should own a firearm now brag about their “community arsenals.”

The pandemic made everything worse — politics, paranoia, and people. Isolation fermented into delusion. Online echo chambers turned into pressure cookers. Every disagreement became a moral emergency, every rival a fascist. Locked indoors and glued to screens, millions mistook outrage for purpose. Those who once feared guns now fear obscurity. For a movement built on emotion, weaponry has become the new therapy — something cold, mechanical, and finally under their control.

But something more dangerous is happening right now: ideology is mutating into insurgency.

The post-Floyd left has convinced itself it’s fighting for survival. To question its dogmas is to threaten its existence. That’s why dissent within the ranks is punished with medieval brutality. But something more dangerous is happening right now: ideology is mutating into insurgency. The left has discovered that it likes the smell of gunpowder.

And why not? The rhetoric has been primed for years. “Punch a Nazi.” “Burn it down.” “No justice, no peace.” It was only a matter of time before soundbites became strategies. While conservatives debate calibers and carry laws, progressives are turning their causes into armed crusades. The so-called “John Brown Gun Club” trains members to prepare for civil conflict. What was once fringe is now fashionable.

Again, to be very clear, the modern left is not just angry — it’s unwell. Anxiety and depression rates among self-described progressives have skyrocketed, especially among the young. To those on the far left, Trump and his supporters aren’t political opponents but existential threats. They are embodiments of evil to be eradicated, not engaged. When politics becomes pathology, violence stops feeling like a crime and starts feeling like self-defense.

For decades, the right was caricatured as paranoid doomsday preppers. Now it’s the left that’s preparing for the apocalypse. Once, revolution was an aesthetic — Che Guevara shirts and campus protests. Now it’s a lifestyle brand with tactical vests.

Meanwhile, conservatives — those caricatured as the violent barbarians — are mostly watching this unfold with disbelief. They’ve always known that guns aren’t inherently evil; intent is. What terrifies them isn’t the weaponry but the warped conviction behind it. A man protecting his family is predictable; a lunatic avenging an ideology is not.

We are entering uncharted territory. The United States has seen political assassinations, riots, and radical groups before — but never with this cultural reach. The internet ensures that every grievance finds both a trigger and a target. Fury is now networked, outrage algorithmic. And unlike the extremists of old, today’s radicals don’t hide in compounds. They scroll beside you, shop beside you, share your workspace, and sleep next door.

You can’t mix apocalyptic language with live ammunition and expect harmony. A society can survive hypocrisy. It cannot survive hysteria with high-capacity magazines. Every revolution begins with the belief that violence will heal what politics can’t. It never does. It only creates new tyrants with a taste for blood.

Perhaps, in some dark corner of their minds, the new progressives believe they’re the heroes in history’s next great moral war. They forget that history has a habit of eating its heroes. It also has an excellent memory. It remembers every bullet, every boast, every cause that mistook fury for faith. And it will remember who called it justice when they started killing the innocent.

Licensed gun owner shoots would-be thieves trying to carjack him in Belltown

SEATTLE — Seattle police are investigating an attempted armed carjacking in the Belltown-Queen Anne area that resulted in a legally armed victim shooting two suspects early Sunday morning.

The incident unfolded around 3:30 a.m. on the 2200 block of 1st Avenue.

Officers responding to the scene found one suspect suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The suspect was detained and received medical aid from firefighters before being taken to Harborview Medical Center in serious condition, where he remains under armed guard.

The victim, whom police called a “licensed gun owner,” was also detained for questioning.

According to police, the victim had parked his sports car along 1st Avenue when a white sedan with four masked occupants approached. After a brief exchange, two men armed with guns attempted to steal the sports car.

Fearing for his safety, the victim fired multiple rounds, hitting one of the suspects.

The other suspects fled in the sedan before police arrived. Later, the white sedan dropped off a second suspect at Harborview Medical Center, also suffering from a gunshot wound. This suspect is in serious condition and under armed guard as well, the SPD says.

The vehicle and its remaining occupants left the hospital before police could arrive.

Officers and robbery detectives processed the scene, collected evidence, and interviewed witnesses. The victim was taken to Seattle Police Headquarters for further questioning by detectives before being released.

The investigation remains open and active, with the Robbery Unit leading the case.

History of Veterans Day

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.

The United States Congress officially recognized the end of World War I when it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926, with these words:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and

Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as “Armistice Day.”

Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting in its place the word “Veterans.” With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first “Veterans Day Proclamation” which stated: “In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans’ organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible.”

President Eisenhower signing HR7786, changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day.

President Eisenhower signing HR7786, changing Armistice Day to Veterans Day. From left: Alvin J. King, Wayne Richards, Arthur J. Connell, John T. Nation, Edward Rees, Richard L. Trombla, Howard W. Watts 

On that same day, President Eisenhower sent a letter to the Honorable Harvey V. Higley, Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), designating him as Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee.

In 1958, the White House advised VA’s General Counsel that the 1954 designation of the VA Administrator as Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee applied to all subsequent VA Administrators. Since March 1989 when VA was elevated to a cabinet level department, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs has served as the committee’s chairman.

The Uniform Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) was signed on June 28, 1968, and was intended to ensure three-day weekends for Federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays: Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. It was thought that these extended weekends would encourage travel, recreational and cultural activities and stimulate greater industrial and commercial production. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holidays on their original dates.

The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on October 25, 1971. It was quite apparent that the commemoration of this day was a matter of historic and patriotic significance to a great number of our citizens, and so on September 20th, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978. This action supported the desires of the overwhelming majority of state legislatures, all major veterans service organizations and the American people.

Veterans Day continues to be observed on November 11, regardless of what day of the week on which it falls. The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: A celebration to honor America’s veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.

Happy Veterans Day.

38 U.S. Code § 101

(2)The term “veteran” means a person who served in the active military, naval, air, or space service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.