Indiana police say Salem woman shot and killed man as he held gun to husband’s head

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Police said a southern Indiana woman shot and killed a man who was holding a gun to her husband’s head.

According to a news release from Indiana State Police, the Washington County Sheriff’s Department said the incident started around 6:30 p.m. Monday in the 7700 block of Organ Springs Road in Salem when officers responded to a 911 call.

Police said officers found 45-year-old Michael Chastain in the front yard with a gunshot wound. He was taken to Saint Vincent Hospital in Salem, where he was pronounced dead.

Investigators said Chastain drove through the front yard, grabbed the homeowner, forced him to the ground and pointed a gun at his head. The homeowner’s wife saw it happen and shot Chastain with her handgun.

The investigation continues, and the case will eventually be turned over to the Washington County Prosecutor’s Office, according to the news release.

Investigators with Indiana State Police told WDRB News that Chastain is well-known in the area, and has a criminal background. He dated the homeowner’s daughter, but she no longer lives at the home, so police aren’t sure why he targeted her father.

FPC Files For Injunction Against Washington “Large Capacity” Magazine Ban

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that it has filed a motion for summary judgment in its Sullivan v. Ferguson lawsuit, which challenges Washington’s unconstitutional ban on common firearm magazines. The motion can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“There can be no serious dispute that the magazines Washington bans are ‘in common use’—there are hundreds of millions of them [] owned by tens of millions of Americans as private surveys and industry and government data all corroborate,” argues the motion. “Indeed, courts across the country have repeatedly found that these magazines are commonly owned and widely chosen by Americans for self-defense and other lawful purposes. That fact decides this case, and Plaintiffs are entitled to judgment in their favor.”

“There are few things more offensive than politicians arbitrarily preventing people from possessing the tools they deem necessary to protect their lives, loved ones, and communities,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPCAF’s General Counsel and Vice President of Legal, and FPC’s counsel in this case. “The magazines that Washington bans are constitutionally protected and it does not have the power to infringe on the rights of Washingtonians by banning them. We’re hopeful that the Court will see the error of Washington’s ways.”

FPC is joined in this lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation.

First Look: True Velocity 5.56mm Composite Ammunition
Three different bullet weights will be available using True Velocity’s composite case.

True Velocity 556

True Velocity Ammunition Inc, the company known for selling .308 Win. rifle cartridges loaded with composite casing technology, is now expanding its ammunition product line to also offer 5.56 NATO composite cartridges. True Velocity’s composite casings are intended to make rifle ammunition be more lightweight, accurate, consistent and reduce the amount of heat transfer from the ignition of propellants to the chamber area of a firearm. The new 5.56mm cartridges will be loaded with projectiles weighing 55, 69 and 77 grains, three very popular bullet weights for this caliber. By loading both the .308 Win. and 5.56 NATO rounds, the company now covers two of the most popular and versatile rifle cartridges used in North America for hunting, sport, recreation, self defense and tactical uses.

“There are hundreds of millions of rounds of 5.56 ammo consumed in this country every year,” said True Velocity Chairman and Co-CEO Kevin Boscamp. “We’re extremely excited to make True Velocity’s composite case technology available to the shooters who rely on this caliber. I’m confident they will see very quickly what makes our ammunition superior.”

True Velocity’s new 5.56 NTAO product line will be the company’s first to be loaded using their Generation 3 advanced loading techniques which reflects a higher level of control, precision and innovation in the commercial ammunition industry.

True Velocity Ammunition 55 grain 5.56mm Specifications:

  • Projectile: 55-grain Full Metal Jacket (FMJ)
  • G1 Ballistic Coefficient: 0.243
  • Muzzle Velocity: 3,170 fps
  • Drop at 500 yards with 100-yard zero: -57 inches
  • Muzzle Energy: 1,227 ft.-lbs.

(Test barrel length was 20 inches with 1:7-inch twist, specifications for the 69- and 77-grain Sierra Matchking load coming soon)

True Velocity cartridges are sold in boxes of 20 rounds and retail pricing for the new 5.56 NATO product line starts at $24.99 for the 55-grain loading. Both SKUs loaded with either 69- or 77-grain Sierra Matchking projectiles have a starting retail price of $39.99 per box of 20. Please visit tvammo.com to learn more about this new ammunition.

Homeowner acted in self-defense when shooting suspect breaking into garage, Fort Dodge police say
Police say the shooter called 911 on Wednesday, May 31 and claimed a male was breaking into the garage of his home.

FORT DODGE, Iowa — The Webster County Attorney’s Office says a man acted in self-defense when shooting someone in May who was trying to break into their garage, Fort Dodge police said in an update.

Police say the shooter called 911 on Wednesday, May 31 and claimed a male was breaking into the garage of his home on 6th Ave South shortly after 5 a.m. Wednesday. He told them he had also shot the alleged intruder.

Officers and medics on the scene pronounced the man dead. He was later identified as 44‐year‐old Fort Dodge resident Bryan W. Gambill.

“Both the Webster County Attorney’s Office and the Fort Dodge Police Department concluded that no charges would be filed in this case because the homeowner was acting in self‐defense,” Fort Dodge PD said on Monday.

The squish Roberts does it again

Supreme Court allows continued regulation of so-called ‘ghost guns’
The Biden administration may temporarily continue its crackdown on ‘ghost guns’

The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with the Biden administration, temporarily allowing enforcement of regulations over so-called “ghost guns” that can be made from kits at home.

The administration appealed a federal judge’s earlier ruling tossing out the regulations. In a 5-4 vote, the high court put that ruling from Texas on hold while the case is appealed further on the merits. The regulation will be enforced while the case is appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and possibly further to the Supreme Court.

Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh would have allowed the lower court ruling to go into effect.

The federal regulation was put into place a year ago, and would put ghost guns under the same control as other fully assembled firearms, making it easier to trace serial numbers, background checks, and sales. The rule requires unfinished parts of a firearm like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun to be treated like a completed firearm. These parts need to be licensed and must have serial numbers.

The rule also requires manufacturers to run background checks before selling these parts, as they are required to do for whole commercial firearms.

The Biden administration argued the rule is necessary to respond to rising numbers of untraceable guns.

The Justice Department had told the court that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.

“The public-safety interests in reversing the flow of ghost guns to dangerous and otherwise prohibited persons easily outweighs the minor costs that respondents will incur,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote in a court filing.

Gun rights groups and a firearms parts manufacturer challenging the regulation argue the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) lacks the authority to change the definition of a firearm in federal law without an act of Congress. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, in Fort Worth, Texas, sided with plaintiffs challenging the rule last June, finding that the definition of a firearm in federal law does not cover the individual parts of a gun.

Lawyers for the Firearms Policy Coalition told the Supreme Court that O’Connor was right and that ATF had abandoned more than half a century of regulatory practice by expanding the definition of a firearm.

“We’re deeply disappointed that the Court pressed pause on our defeat of ATF’s rule effectively redefining ‘firearm’ and ‘frame or receiver’ under federal law,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPCAF’s General Counsel and Vice President of Legal, and FPC’s counsel in this case. “Regardless of today’s decision, we’re still confident that we will yet again defeat ATF and its unlawful rule at the Fifth Circuit when that Court has the opportunity to review the full merits of our case.”

Federal judge in Colorado blocks law raising age requirement for gun purchases

A federal judge in Colorado on Monday temporarily blocked a state law that raised the legal age requirement for purchasing a firearm to 21.

Chief U.S. District Judge Phillip A. Brimmer ruled in favor of the gun rights group, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, who had filed a lawsuit against Gov. Jared Polis.

The state law, SB23-169, was one of several sweeping gun reform measures approved by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Polis in the spring. It sought to prohibit people under the age of 21 from purchasing a gun, with exceptions for active members of the U.S. armed forces, peace officers, and people certified by the Peace Officer Standards and Training board.

RMGO argued in their lawsuit that law was unconstitutional. The group said if people are allowed to vote when they turn 18, they should be allowed to purchase a gun.

“Since the day this legislation was introduced, we knew it was unconstitutional,” said RMGO executive director Taylor Rhodes in a written statement. “Under the Golden Dome, at the unveiling of this proposal, RMGO warned the bill sponsors this would quickly be struck down by a federal judge. Today, our crystal ball became a reality.”

 

August 8

1264 –  During the Reconquista, moslem mudéjar forces rebel rebel, overrun and occupy the Alcázar Castle of Jerez de la Frontera, in southern Spain, after defeating the Castilian garrison.

1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England. This is what sets up the way for her grandson, James VI to become King of Scotland and England when his cousin Elizabeth dies childless a hundred years later.

1585 – John Davis, chief navigator for Queen Elizabeth, enters Cumberland Sound in Nunavut, north of the Labrador Sea, in search of the Northwest Passage

1794 – Joseph Whidbey, Sailing Master in the Royal Navy, leads an expedition starting from Juneau, Alaska in the search of the Northwest Passage

1831 – The Treaty of Wapakoneta is signed by the Shawnee tribe, exchanging land in Ohio for land west of the Mississippi River.

1863 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis refuses upon receipt, a letter of resignation by General Robert E. Lee after his defeat at Gettysburg.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first public flight at the racecourse at Le Mans, France.

1918 – The Battle of Amiens begins the Hundred Days Offensive, a string of almost continuous Allied victories through the German front lines

1942 – 6 of the 8 German saboteurs caught after landing on Long Island are executed by electrocution at the Washington D.C. District Jail.

1945 – The London Charter is signed by France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, establishing the laws and procedures for the Nuremberg trials.

1946 – The Convair B-36 bomber makes its first flight

1974 – President Nixon announces on nationwide television his resignation from the office of the President effective noon the next day.

1988 – The first night baseball game in the history of Chicago’s Wrigley Field takes place between the Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies, but the game is rained out in the fourth inning.

1993 – A 7.8 Mw  earthquake hits Guam causing  $250 million in damage and injuring 71 people.

2000 – The Confederate submarine CSS H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface 136 years after sinking

2007 – An EF2 force tornado touches down in Kings County and Richmond County, New York, the most powerful tornado in New York to date and the first in Brooklyn since 1889.

2015 – A deranged man murders his son, the boy’s mother -his former girlfriend – and her current husband and their 5 children at their home in northern Harris County, Texas. The prosecution, conceding the man was mentally disabled, drops pursuing the death penalty and he is sentenced to prison for life without parole.

2022 – The FBI raids former President Donald Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

The fact that the JR-15 is the example only shows what their true intentions are. Keep the kids from learning about gun safety, at all costs.

Illinois to ban advertising for guns allegedly marketed to kids and militants
Illinois will soon outlaw advertising for firearms that officials determine produce a public safety threat or appeals to children, militants or others who might later use the weapons illegally

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois will soon outlaw advertising for firearms that officials determine produces a public safety threat or appeals to children, militants or others who might later use the weapons illegally, as the state continues its quest to curb mass shootings.

Gun-rights advocates say the plan, which Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has pledged to sign into law, is an unreasonably vague decree that violates not only the constitutionally protected right to own guns, but also free speech.

The prime exhibit in Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s effort is the JR-15, a smaller, lighter version of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle advertised with the tag line, “Get ’em One Like Yours.” The maker says it is deliberately made smaller, with added safety features, to fit younger shooters as they learn from adults how to safely maneuver such a weapon. Raoul says it’s marketed to children and potentially entices them to skip the adult supervision and start firing.

Opening the door to court challenges is part of ongoing efforts by Democratic lawmakers who control the Statehouse to eliminate gun violence, made more complicated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s expansion of gun rights a year ago. Pritzker also signed a ban on semi-automatic weapons this year, a law that gun-rights advocates continue to challenge in federal court.

Illinois would be the eighth state to approve legislation that allows such lawsuits against firearms manufacturers or distributors. The legislation comes after the deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006 — all but one of which involved guns.

Raoul finds precedent in the 25-year-old settlement with large tobacco companies and more recently with advertising for vaping.

“We’ve gone after the marketing that has historically driven up the consumption by minors for those products that are harmful to them,” Raoul said. “The firearms industry shouldn’t be immune to the standards that we put on other industries.”

Except that other industries don’t produce constitutionally protected products, counters the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade association that has filed federal lawsuits in nearly every state that has approved a similar law.

“They’re infringing on your Second Amendment rights by taking away your First Amendment rights,” foundation spokesperson Mark Oliva said.

Without specific legislation, states are largely barred from legal action by a 2005 federal law that prohibits lawsuits blaming manufacturers for the later criminal use of a purchased gun. It sprang from mayors in the late 1990s who sued gun-makers for creating a public nuisance, such as Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s $433 million action in 1998, which the Illinois Supreme Court tossed out in 2004.

But the federal law does allow legal action if a state explicitly names firearms and conduct by their manufacturers in state law, which is what Raoul’s plan would do. He won over lawmakers by showing them advertising they decided was over the line.

“Some of the ads I’ve seen are just stomach-turning,” Don Harmon, of Oak Park, who sponsored the legislation.

The ad for the JR-15, a smaller, lighter .22-caliber rifle, was among them. An emailed statement from the manufacturer, Wee 1 Tactical, said the gun has safety features found on no other gun.

“The JR-15 .22 youth training rifle is for adults who wish to supervise the safe introduction of hunting and shooting sports to the next generation of responsible gun owners,” the statement said. “Parents and guardians wanting to pass on this American tradition have been purchasing small caliber, lighter youth training rifles for decades.”

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Tennessee GOP committee warns governor on special session

If Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee was hoping to bring his fellow Republicans around on the idea of a special session to pass his version of a “red flag” law and other gun-related legislation before officially calling the session into being, his hopes were dashed this weekend when the state’s Republican Party Executive Committee adopted a resolution instead asking the governor to drop his plans altogether.

According to the Chattanooga Free Press, the resolution’s language was suggested by committee member Tina Bensiker, who says she’s concerned that many of the ideas that have been floated would violate the rights of Tennessee residents, while failing to take a bite out of violent crime.

“I feel at this point a lot of this is really emotion as opposed to rational and reasoned,” Benkiser added. “My concern, and a lot of others’ concerns, is that some of the proposals we’ve heard really violate due process of law. And that is a fundamental concern. And when you start talking about potentially infringing on people’s constitutional rights, that needs to be thought out over a long period of time with people who have thought, debated, looked at the language and fleshed all that out. Not something to be rushed through.”

Benkiser said she hopes Lee will take heed of the GOP action.

“I understand that people sometimes act out of emotion when something horrendous has happened, as happened here in Nashville, but really to friends of his. I understand that, and I think the natural reaction is to want to do something and to want to do something now. But like I said, when you’re talking about constitutional rights, at the end of the day, you need to take the time to think that out.”

Other committee members are concerned that the statehouse could turn into a circus once the special session gets underway, pointing to the protests on the floor of the state House earlier this year that resulted in the expulsion of two Democratic lawmakers. Those legislators recently won special elections in their heavily Democratic districts and are vowing to introduce a host of gun control measures during the special session, and some on the GOP Executive Committee believe the special session would once again inflame tensions and create a flashpoint for anti-gun activists to rally around.

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BLUF
This rule shows the gun community that any “compromise” will be used against gun rights, and the ATF claiming authority through the BSCA shows that the recent losses have the ATF scrambling to prevent future losses by pointing to legislation even if the law has to be taken out of context.

New Leak Shows ATF Will Pass Rule to Eliminate Private Sales

The Biden administration will use executive orders and the weaponized ATF to issue a rule limiting the private sales of firearms. According to the New York Times and verified by AmmoLand News sources, the new rule is expected to be unveiled by the end of the year.

Biden will call on the ATF to develop a new rule requiring anyone who makes any profit by selling firearms to possess an FFL. Guns tend to increase in value over time. A gun purchased in 1980 will likely sell for more money today than its original value.

The so-called “digital loophole” includes marketplaces like Armslist Firearms Classified, where private individuals can list their firearms for sale. The Biden administration wants to see these marketplaces shut down, but it is unclear exactly how that unconstitutional goal will be accomplished. Websites like Armslist do not sell firearms directly.

AmmoLand News spoke to Armslist Founder Jonathan Gibbon about the attacks his company faces and the upcoming ATF rule. Armslist has been battling anti-gun groups for years, fending off several lawsuits. Armslist has a perfect track record at defeating these attacks, but the cases are costly.

“Private-party transactions are not a ‘loophole,’” Gibbon told AmmoLand News. “Buying and selling firearms is a guaranteed right under the Second Amendment. Interfering with state laws allowing citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights should concern everyone. Americans have a First Amendment Constitutional right to use the internet, to communicate about their other Constitutional rights.”

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There’s too much money in geoengineering for “climate change” not to turn into a business. The Biden administration is already studying blocking the sunlight. Now Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement joins Solar Radiation Modification.
-Richard Fernandez

Meta’s former CTO has a new $50 million project: ocean-based carbon removal

A nonprofit formed by Mike Schroepfer, Meta’s former chief technology officer, has spun out a new organization dedicated to accelerating research into ocean alkalinity enhancement—one potential means of using the seas to suck up and store away even more carbon dioxide.

Additional Ventures, cofounded by Schroepfer, and a group of other foundations have committed $50 million over five years to the nonprofit research program, dubbed the Carbon to Sea Initiative. The goals of the effort include evaluating potential approaches; eventually conducting small-scale field trials in the ocean; advancing policies that could streamline permitting for those experiments and provide more public funding for research; and developing the technology necessary to carry out and assess these interventions if they prove to work well and safely.

The seas already act as a powerful buffer against the worst dangers of climate change, drawing down about a quarter of human-driven carbon dioxide emissions and absorbing the vast majority of global warming. Carbon dioxide dissolves naturally into seawater where the air and ocean meet.

But scientists and startups are exploring whether these global commons can do even more to ease climate change, as a growing body of research finds that nations now need to both slash emissions and pull vast amounts of additional greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere to keep warming in check.

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) refers to various ways of adding alkaline substances, like olivine, basalt, or lime, into seawater. These basic materials bind with dissolved inorganic carbon dioxide in the water to form bicarbonates and carbonates, ions that can persist for tens of thousands of years in the ocean. As those CO2-depleted waters reach the surface, they can pull down additional carbon dioxide from the air to return to a state of equilibrium.

The ground-up materials could be added directly to ocean waters from vessels, placed along the coastline, or used in onshore devices that help trigger reactions with seawater.

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Study Shows Gun Laws Don’t Matter, Race Does

33 people were shot over the weekend in Chicago. Urban gangland violence like that is what real “mass shootings” look like and finally a Journal of the American Medical Association paper addressed the problem by shifting the blame to something it calls “structural racism”.

The JAMA paper, which was quickly picked up by CNN as “Structural Racism may Contribute to Mass Shootings” and by Bloomberg as “Mass Shootings Disproportionately Victimize Black Americans”, acknowledged what conservatives have been saying about gun violence.

“There was no discernible association noted in this study between gun laws and MSEs [mass shootings] with other studies showing similar findings,” it noted.

The issue wasn’t gun laws, it was race. “The study found that in areas with higher black populations, mass shootings are likelier to occur compared to communities with higher white populations,” CNN reported. “The findings disrupt the nation’s image of mass shootings, which has been shaped by tragedies like the Las Vegas festival shooting and Sandy Hook in which most of the victims were not black,” Bloomberg added.

Faced with an immovable statistical object and the unstoppable force of equity, the JAMA paper blames the whole thing on structural racism. The study correlates urban areas and neighborhoods with high concentrations of single-parent households” to mass shootings. It then demonstrates that “structural racism” must be at fault because of “the percentage of the population that is black.” Black people in the study are interchangeable with racism.

Such is the state of woke medical science which tries to fix racism with more racism. The study never comes up with any plausible explanation of how structural racism causes people to shoot each other. At one point it claims that “racial residential segregation practices are predictive of various types of shootings” in a country where segregation had been abolished since 1964.

The study’s definition of segregation is so senseless that it lists majority black cities like Detroit, a 77% black city, as being 73% segregated, and Baltimore, a 62% black city, as being 64% segregated. A city with a strong black majority and black leaders is racially segregated and its people are suffering from “structural racism”. That’s why there are so many mass shootings.

But if segregation is the issue then why does Atlanta, which had actual segregation, have only 18 mass shootings, while Chicago has 141? Southern cities show up as less segregated and less violent in the paper’s data. A history of segregation is clearly not the issue. This isn’t about the past, whether it’s the historical revisionism of the 1619 Project, or any other.

If segregation were the issue, crime would have been far higher during segregation than after it.

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August 7

1679 – The brigantine Le Griffon, commissioned the year before by French explorer René-Robert de La Salle, is towed to the southeastern end of the Niagara River, to become the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.

1782 – General Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed the Purple Heart.

1789 – The United States Department of War is established.

1794 – President Washington invokes the Militia Acts of 1792 to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

1819 – Simón Bolívar’s army triumphs over Spanish troops near Casa de Teja in what is now the department of Boyacá, Columbia.

1909 – Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends become the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York City to San Francisco.

1927 – The Peace Bridge opens between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York.

1942 – On earlier learning the Japanese Army is building an airfield on the island, U.S. Marines begin invasion landings on Guadalcanal along with Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.

1947 – 101 days after launching from Callao, Peru, Thor Heyerdahl and crew aboard the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki, ground on the reef at Raroia atoll in the Tuamotu Islands

1959 – NASA launches Explorer 6, a satellite to study the upper atmosphere from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral.

1964 – Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving President Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnam

1969 – President Nixon appoints Luis R. Bruce, a Mohawk-Oglala Sioux and co-founder of the National Congress of American Indians, as commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1978 – President Carter declares a federal emergency at Love Canal, New York due to negligent disposal of toxic waste

1987 – Lynne Cox becomes first person to swim  from the U.S to Russia, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union. 2 1/4 miles away. Brrrrrrrrr.

1990 – In response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the concern that the invading forces will continue on towards the Saudi Arabian oilfields, the first wave of 15,000 U.S. troops arrive in Saudi Arabia.

1997 – Fine Air cargo flight 101, a McDonnell Douglas DC-8, crashes after takeoff from Miami International Airport, killing all 4 crew aboard and 1 person on the ground.

1998 – Bombings at United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya by Islamic Jihad, kill 212 people.

2007 – At AT&T Park, in San Francisco, during the game between his San Francisco Giants against the Washington Nationals, Barry Bonds hits his 756th career home run to surpass Hank Aaron’s 33 year old record.

About those 116 gun deaths per day…

Headlines over “gun deaths” will always draw eyes. Some people will immediately click the link, then share it all over social media, just so they can say, “See! I told you guns are bad!”

There are usually problems with this, though.

For example, these reports rarely provide any context and they also tend to involve a fair bit of sensationalism in presenting all firearm-related fatalities as the same.

Like this one does.

As of Aug. 1, at least 25,198 people have died from gun violence in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive which is an average of roughly 118 deaths each day.

Of those who died, 879 were teens and 170 were children.

Deaths by suicide have made up the vast majority of gun violence deaths this year. There’s been more than 14,000 deaths by gun suicide this year, an average of about 66 deaths by suicide per day in 2023.

The majority of these deaths have occurred in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois and Louisiana.

The grim tally of gun violence deaths includes 488 people killed in police officer-involved shootings. Thirty-four police officers have been fatally shot in the line of duty this year.

So about 56 percent of those deaths were suicides and nearly 500 were killed in officer-involved shootings, meaning they were justified homicides.

Now, this is going to be used to push gun control. It’s going to be used to justify more and more restrictions on our basic civil liberties, and they dishonest hacks won’t even pretend there’s a difference in these categories of shootings.

Suicides are awful and tragic, as are homicides, but the two things are very different.

The solutions to suicides aren’t the same as those for homicides. The motivations are completely different, so addressing the underlying causes is going to be completely different.

Gun control doesn’t stop suicides. At best, it shifts people to use another method, but it doesn’t stop suicides. Granted, it doesn’t stop homicides, either.

Yet anti-gun voices in the media love to lump all gun deaths into one big bucket. They want as big of a number as possible to scare people with. You can’t do that with just the homicide numbers. So, suicides it is.

Yes, these are all “gun deaths” if you just want the total of people who were killed due to a gunshot. For many people, though, that’s all that matters.

And it’s telling, because most of these people claim they don’t want to ban gun ownership, but then can’t differentiate between criminals’ acts and someone who took their own life due to their own mental illness.

They want them lumped because the evil, at least in their minds, is the guns themselves. If it was really about saving people’s lives, they’d focus on the underlying conditions at play here. Everything from mental health treatment to job programs would be on the agenda.

The fact that they’re not is telling. It’s just not telling us anything we didn’t already know after decades of watching and listening to the anti-gun agenda.