Safety – Page 19 – MILESFORTIS

How to Stop School Shootings

My heart sinks every time I see breaking-news graphics announce another school shooting. It’s like a gut-punch — the lost lives, the suffering of the wounded, the horrors the First Responders must encounter, and the families that will never again be whole.

The blame and blood-dancing usually start before the bodies are even recovered. The talking heads call to ban or further regulate firearms, magazines or accessories in common usage, as if the contents of my gun safe located thousands of miles from the crime scene somehow played a role in the killings.

Politicians will gleefully announce new infringements, none of which could have prevented the mass murder, but that is never their intent. They were eagerly awaiting another opportunity to do something that will score points with their base and their donors, as well as disarm law-abiding Americans.

Keep in mind that more than three-times as many people die each year from excessive alcohol use than from firearms, yet no one is calling to ban bourbon or vodka, because the booze-ban industry died on Dec. 5, 1933, while the gun-ban industry sputters on. Their misguided efforts have no chance of ever stopping mass murders because they are solely fixated on banning an inanimate object, while ignoring the person pulling the trigger and those who help facilitate the crime.

In my humble opinion, if we truly want to stop school shootings we should harden the staff, not just the buildings, and we should focus on the other bad actors, too, not just the trigger-pullers. It’s time to start holding parents, law enforcement and the legacy media strictly accountable — criminally, morally and very publicly — for aiding and abetting these preventable deaths.

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Handgun owners carrying daily in US doubled in 4 years; self-protection cited as main reason: study.

Twice the number of Americans were carrying handguns daily in 2019 compared to 2015, according to a new study published this month.

Around 6,000 gun owners carried handguns every day in 2019, up from 3,000 in 2015, according to a study from the American Journal of Public Health published on Nov. 16.

The number of respondents to the online survey who said they had carried a gun in the last month also nearly doubled from 9 million to 16 million in 2015.

The study focuses

solely on owners carrying a handgun on their person, not in their car.

Twice the number of Americans were carrying handguns daily in 2019 compared to 2015, according to a new study published this month.
The upward trend found in the study comes as states loosen restrictions for carrying a handgun and more gun owners cite protection as a top concern.

A U.S. Supreme Court case last June also overturned strict gun carrying laws in New York.

The authors wrote, “This ruling could further catalyze the loosening of firearm-carrying regulations in different parts of the country at a time when, as our study indicates, trends in handgun carrying already point to more US adults carrying loaded handguns in public places, including without a permit when a permit is required.”

The study authors said a June U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning restrictive gun-carrying laws in New York could “catalyze the loosening of firearm-carrying regulations in different parts of the country.”

The study’s lead authors were Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, an epidemiology professor at the University of Washington; Amy Gallagher of the University of Washington; Deborah Azrael of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center; and Matthew Miller from Northeastern University, and the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

The authors added, “Little is known about the frequency and features of firearm carrying among adult handgun owners in the United States. In fact, over the past 30 years, only a few peer-reviewed national surveys, conducted in 1994, 1995, 1996, and 2015, have provided even the most basic information about firearm carrying frequency.”

In 1994, the percentage of gun owners who said their main reason for having a firearm was protection was 46%, by 2015 it went up to 64% and spiked to 73% by 2019. In 2021, it was 83%.

Only one state allowed permit less handgun carry in 1990 but by 2021 it had increased to 21 states, according to the study.

Instead of Asking How to Stop Mass Shootings, Left Targets Social Conservatives

This week, another evil mass shooter unleashed horror at a gay club in Colorado Springs, killing five and wounding another 25. The shooter—whose name I refuse to mention in order to disincentivize future shooters, who seek notoriety—was clearly mentally ill: Just last year, he reportedly threatened his mother with a bomb, resulting in his arrest.

Yet Colorado’s red flag law, which could have deprived the shooter of legal access to weaponry, was not invoked by either police or relatives. The Colorado Springs massacre, then, is yet another example of a perpetrator with more red flags than a bullfighting convention, and no one in authority willing to take action to do anything about him.

Yet the national conversation, as it so often does, now has been directed away from the question at hand—how to prevent mass shootings—and toward broader politics. Instead of seeking methodologies that might be effective in finding and stopping deranged individuals seeking murder without curbing rights and liberties for hundreds of millions of people, our political and media leaders have decided to blame Americans who oppose same-sex marriage, drag queen story hour, and “family friendly” drag shows. Disagreement with the radical leftist social agenda amounts to incitement to violence, they argue.

Thus, NBC News senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny said, “There is a pipeline. It starts from some smaller accounts online like Libs of Tiktok, it moves to the right-wing blogosphere, and then it ends up on Tucker Carlson or ends up out of a right-wing politician’s mouth, and it is a really dangerous cycle that does have real-world consequences.”

Michelle Goldberg of The New York Times wrote that “it seems hard to separate [these murders] from a nationwide campaign of anti-LGBTQ incitement. … They’ve been screaming that drag events … are part of a monstrous plot to prey on children. They don’t get to duck responsibility if a sick man with a gun took them seriously.”

Brian Broome wrote in The Washington Post that the shooting could not be “blamed on mental illness.” No, he stated, “It’s right-wing rhetoric that sparks these nightmares. … The bottomless list of homophobes and transphobes on the right don’t need to throw the rock and then hide their hands. Instead, they use someone else’s hands entirely.”

The Left’s attempt to lay responsibility for violence at the feet of anyone who opposes the transgressive social agenda doesn’t stop with blame—it extends to calls for full-scale censorship.

“We’re living in an environment that’s driven by two things,” averred Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “Politicians who are using us to bolster their careers by creating division and hate, and number two is social media platforms that are monetizing hate, and especially against marginalized communities. They’re—they’re choosing profits over hate, and it’s killing, literally killing our community.”

Social media, the logic goes, ought to shut down or demonetize any video disagreeing with the GLAAD agenda.

This is cynical politics at its worst. It’s also nothing new. The Left routinely cites violent incidents as reason to crack down on free speech with which they disagree.

As the inimitably imbecilic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-Instagram, tweeted: “After Trump elevated anti-immigrant & anti-Latino rhetoric, we had the deadliest anti-Latino shooting in modern history. After anti-Asian hate w/ COVID, Atlanta. Tree of Life. Emanuel AME. Buffalo. And now after an anti-LGBT+ campaign, Colorado Springs. Connect the dots, @GOP.”

Yes, according to AOC, virtually every major mass shooting of the past seven years is the result of her political opponents—none of whom has called for violence. But in the world of the Left, disagreement is violence merely waiting to be unleashed. Which is why censorship, they believe, is the only way to achieve a more peaceful world.

How Gun Control Creeps In
Olympian Gabby Franco reflects on Venezuela’s downfall and the need to protect American freedom.

Venezuela is surrounded by paradisiacal turquoise waters in the north and an enigmatic rainforest in the south. There are no seasonal natural disasters—no hurricanes, tornados, blizzards or wildfires—such as there are in various areas of the United States. But an idea that the government should be given so much power that it could take away every right of the individual citizen—even their right to self-defense—did lead to the country’s ruination.

As a former citizen of Venezuela who became a U.S. citizen, I am now hearing many of the same things I heard in Venezuela from certain anti-Second Amendment politicians. I was an Olympic shooting competitor representing Venezuela and am now a lawful gun owner here in America. I don’t want to see this right being threatened again.

It has been eye-opening to visit and meet people from all walks of life throughout the U.S. While many Americans constantly fight to preserve our freedoms, it is alarming how many take those freedoms for granted. That is why I always share my experiences in Venezuela before and after socialist Hugo Chávez took power. My dreams as a young woman, Olympic athlete and college student ended because of the socialist ideas that hypnotized not only the poor but also the educated and powerful. To revive my dreams, I had to leave my country.

Venezuela was once a place where people could find jobs, prosper, dream about their future and, with hard work, succeed, despite social and political issues. My parents were born in a rural town where there were not even flushing toilets until the late 1950s. My mom became a high-school teacher, and my dad was a machinist who dreamed of owning a machine shop. They married in the late 1970s and lived on my mom’s salary for several years as my dad built his business. They showed my siblings and me that dreams are possible with hard work and dedication.

During that time, law-abiding Venezuelans could own firearms and apply for a concealed-carry license. My father was an avid hunter who filled up the freezer with venison, duck, rabbit and any other animals he deemed tasty. Children could go to the gun range with their parents to practice the shooting sports. I was 10 years old the first time my dad took my two sisters and me to the gun range. I needed my dad’s help to load the old Feinwerkbau M65 air pistol we used. But that day changed my life, and I have loved the sport since.

Gabby Franco is shown here shooting in a 2-gun competition at Shadow Hawk Defense in Hedgesville, W.Va., in 2021.

The shooting sports drastically changed my perspective. At first, it seemed like it might be easy to hit the one-centimeter bullseye at 10 meters. My mind constantly raced, however, and I realized my mindset was the most-significant asset I had to learn to control. Maintaining a steady mind was as important as keeping a steady aim. Part of that mental training was understanding that dedication, sacrifices and rewards were part of my athletic life. I trained approximately four to five hours a day, six days a week, for about seven years until I retired in 2002. I missed school parties, school trips and even my graduation ceremony; however, I finally became a member of the Venezuelan National team, and, at 16 years old, I won my first international medal at the 1997 Bolivarian Games in Peru.

Everything seemed to go in a great direction until I learned that elections have serious consequences. I became aware of how avaricious leaders and elites can pulverize the dreams of hard-working citizens.

Hugo Chávez took power in 1999 and ruled the country via executive orders from the beginning. The terrible implications of his actions were palpable, as he aimed to take farmland away from its owners. Chávez did not waste time in pushing his socialist agenda, influenced by Fidel Castro, seeding hatred and envy amongst Venezuelans. I remember one time a person on a motorcycle stopped next to my dad’s SUV and spat on it. It was a symbolic gesture showing his hatred toward us for having a good vehicle. What this man did not know is that my parents were born poor but rose through their will and dedication.

Hugo Chávez’s actions did not go by unnoticed. A Cuban friend, whom I’ll call Jose, warned many of us at the gun range about Venezuela’s future under Hugo Chávez. These warnings were, as Gabriel Garciá Márquez wrote, a “chronicle of a death foretold.” It was indeed a hard pill to swallow for many, who often replied with something like: “That would never happen here. Venezuela is the richest country in the region. Venezuela is not an island like Cuba.”

Crime is uncontrollable, making Venezuela one of the most-dangerous countries in the world—in part because of its strict gun control … .

However, I listened to my Cuban friend and relied on lessons I learned in the shooting sports to make my decision. You see, shooters learn to control negative thoughts, fears and disappointments during setbacks in competitions. Such a constant exposure made me understand that moving forward amid doubts is possible. I learned that sacrifices and fear of the unknown are part of my journey toward success, even if that means leaving everything behind. I was on the peak of my shooting career. I had participated at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. I was a gold medalist at the subsequent Bolivarian and South American Games, and I was an Olympic hopeful for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens; however, there was no future in the “new socialist Venezuela,” and fear of the unknown would not stop me from seeking a better way of life.

Nonetheless, leaving Venezuela was a difficult decision. My parents and I argued and cried, and I became distant as they failed to change my mind. It was as if they thought Chávez was a temporary nightmare in Venezuela’s history and could not see the real threat. Breaking their hearts was never my intention, but my decision to move to the United States was made. Staying in a socialist state was against my beliefs.

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Info O’ The Day

Your self defense test. You don't know when the test will be given. You don't know what will be on the test. You don't know how long the test will last. It is a pass-fail test. May I suggest you start preparing for the test now and continue your studies constantly?

— Tom Gresham (@Guntalk) November 22, 2022

Gallup: Support for Gun Control Drops as Gun Ownership Rises

Americans say they are less likely to support tightening gun laws than they were over the summer.

A Gallup poll released on Monday shows a nine-point drop in support for making gun laws “more strict” since the same survey was taken in June. It also shows a three-point uptick in the number of Americans reporting they have a gun in the home. While a majority of respondents report supporting stricter gun laws and having no gun in their home, the gap for both shrunk significantly.

The results reflect a pair of trends in American gun politics.

Support for stricter gun laws tends to peak after high-profile mass shootings and recede a few months later. At the end of May, the murder of 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, drove two-thirds of Americans to support new restrictions. But nearly six months and one federal gun law later, support for more restrictions dropped to 57 percent.

The wake of the pandemic and civil unrest has also produced record gun sales in the United States over the past two years. While sales have begun to cool over the past few months, the results of that buying spree are now being reflected in Gallup’s polling on who owns guns. 45 percent now report having a gun in the home, and 46 percent report having one on their property. 33 percent report they personally own the firearm in their house as opposed to a different member of the household. Those measures are at their highest level since 2011, and the polling company hasn’t consistently found gun-ownership rates that high since the early 1990s.

The rising trend of gun ownership combined with weakened support for more gun control could make passing new restrictions more difficult at the national and state levels. Republicans gaining control of the House of Representatives was already going to make new federal gun laws a tall order, but the new polling could complicate things even further. However, the poll, conducted between October 3rd and the 20th, may not reflect the effect recent high-profile shootings at the University of Virginia and an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, will have on public opinion.

Additionally, the poll shows Americans still support stricter gun laws at a higher rate than when the poll was done in October 2021. It suggests that, despite the recent drop in support, Americans remain more supportive of tightening gun restrictions than before Uvalde.

Gallup conducted the poll among a random sample of 1,009 adults. It has a margin of error of +/- four percentage points.

Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2022

A copy of our newest report is available here (please download). Copies of our annual reports from 2014 through 2021 are available here.

As the United States is moving into a post-pandemic era, the number of concealed handgun permits has continued increasing. The figure now stands at 22.01 million – a 2.3% increase since last year. Unlike gun ownership surveys that may be affected by people’s unwillingness to answer personal questions, concealed handgun permit data is the only really “hard data” that we have. This increase occurred despite 24 Constitutional Carry states that no longer provide data on all those legally carrying a concealed handgun because people in those states no longer need a permit to carry. A 25^th state, Alabama, has also adopted Constitutional Carry, but its law doesn’t go into effect until January 1, 2023…

These numbers are particularly topical given that the U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down New York’s “May-Issue” Concealed Handgun Law, affirming a constitutional right to bear arms. The decision will have a major impact conconcealed carry laws in the seven states that had “May-Issue” type rules…

What might happen to the number of permits in those seven states? Illinois, which was also forced by an earlier court decision to adopt right-to-carry rules, may serve as an example. While Illinois has done its best to make getting a concealed handgun permit expensive and difficult, the latest numbers show that over 4.5% of its adult population now has a permit. If the seven “May-Issue” states have a similar experience as Illinois, it implies an additional 2.7 million concealed handgun permit holders in the United States.

John R. Lott, Jr., “Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2022,” Social Science Research Network, November 17, 2022.

Among the findings of our report:

Last year, the number of permit holders continued to grow by about 488,000. At 2.3% growth over 2021, that is the slowest percent and absolute increase that we have seen since we started collecting this data in 2011. Part of that is due to the number of permits declining in the Constitutional Carry states even though it is clear that more people are legally carrying.
8.5% of American adults have permits. Outside of the restrictive states of California and New York, about 10.2% of adults have a permit.
In seventeen states, more than 10% of adults have permits. Since 2019, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have fallen below 10%, but they are now all Constitutional Carry states, meaning that people no longer need a permit to carry. The concealed carry rates for Connecticut, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have risen to above 10% this year.
Alabama has the highest concealed carry rate — 32.5%. Indiana is second with 23.4%, and Georgia is third with 15.5%.
Six states now have over 1 million permit holders: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Florida is the top states with 2.57 million permits.
Twenty-five states have adopted Constitutional Carry for their entire state, meaning that a permit is no longer required. Because of these Constitutional Carry states, the nationwide growth in permits does not paint a full picture of the overall increase in concealed carry. Many residents still choose to obtain permits so that they can carry in other states that have reciprocity agreements, but while permits are increasing in the non-Constitutional Carry states, they fell in the Constitutional Carry ones even though more people are clearly carrying in those states.
In 2022, women made up 29.2% of permit holders in the 15 states that provide data by gender, an increase from the 28.3% last year. Seven states had data from 2012 to 2021/2022, and permit numbers grew 115.4% faster for women than for men.

Legal Firearm Sales at State Level and Rates of Violent Crime, Property Crime, and Homicides

Abstract
Introduction
The effects of firearm sales and legislation on crime and violence are intensely debated, with multiple studies yielding differing results. We hypothesized that increased lawful firearm sales would not be associated with the rates of crime and homicide when studied using a robust statistical method.

Methods
National and state rates of crime and homicide during 1999-2015 were obtained from the United States Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Instant Criminal Background Check System background checks were used as a surrogate for lawful firearm sales. A general multiple linear regression model using log event rates was used to assess the effect of firearm sales on crime and homicide rates. Additional modeling was then performed on a state basis using an autoregressive correlation structure with generalized estimating equation estimates for standard errors to adjust for the interdependence of variables year to year within a particular state.

Results
Nationally, all crime rates except the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–designated firearm homicides decreased as firearm sales increased over the study period. Using a naive national model, increases in firearm sales were associated with significant decreases in multiple crime categories. However, a more robust analysis using generalized estimating equation estimates on state-level data demonstrated increases in firearms sales were not associated with changes in any crime variables examined.

Conclusions
Robust analysis does not identify an association between increased lawful firearm sales and rates of crime or homicide. Based on this, it is unclear if efforts to limit lawful firearm sales would have any effect on rates of crime, homicide, or injuries from violence committed with firearms.

Why fear is a terrible justification for gun control

“I shouldn’t have to be afraid to go out of my house,” someone will say, usually while trying to voice their opposition to some aspect of gun rights. Gun control advocates often make similar claims, citing their own fear as a reason why they oppose or support some measure or another.

And their fear may certainly feel very real to them.

However, fear is a terrible justification for gun control.

Now, being scared is a powerful motivator. It’s why people do all kinds of things, even if they don’t want to do it otherwise. It’s why scary horror stories of what happens when you don’t do something are such great motivators.

But it’s still an emotion.

When fear is used as an argument to justify some bit of legislation, one should remember that it can also be used to oppose that same bill. After all, one person’s fear may be quite different from another. While some feared armed gunmen in the wake of a mass shooting, others fear being unarmed in the face of a violent criminal.

So now what you’re looking at are warring fears.

I fear being unable to defend my family from an attacker. Is my fear somehow less than the fear that drives many to call for gun control?

“But your fear is irrational. You’re not likely to be attacked,” some might argue, and they’re not wrong. Statistically, I’ll never have to draw my weapon in self-defense at any point in the future. But if that’s the deciding factor, then their fear of being attacked is equally irrational, isn’t it?

And that’s kind of my point.

You see, fear is usually used as a justification for gun control because it’s powerful. Advocates for Second Amendment restrictions want people to be terrified because it’s irrational.

They understand that if you simply use the probability of being the victim of a violent crime is actually pretty high. For example, the probability of being the victim of being robbed is one in 667. Your odds of being the victim of other crimes are also pretty low.

If we’re rational about it, then the debate becomes a different matter. People who are thinking rationally look at this low probability and the fact that criminals obtain firearms through non-lawful means and recognize that gun control isn’t a viable solution to the problem. Some have differing opinions, of course, but as we’ve seen, when there’s little reason for people to be afraid, they tend to support gun rights to a greater degree.

Which is why fear is so well-used.

That doesn’t make it a great idea. That fear pushing some for gun control can and should be used to push for gun rights. We need to propel stories of those who were disarmed when they needed their guns the most at the same time as holding up stories like the Greenwood Park Mall.

Again, it’s because fear is a two-way street.

Yes, it’s a terrible way to promote anything, but that’s because it can be used against that thing. It’s well past time we showed gun control advocates just why it’s a bad idea.

Gun ownership not to blame for rural suicides

It’s long been known that the majority of so-called “gun deaths” were suicides, not homicides. They tend to get lumped in there just to make the number look a whole lot scarier.

Lately, though, anti-gun crusaders aren’t doing that. They’re treating suicide as a separate thing, which is good. Unfortunately, they still seem to think that gun control is the answer.

Then again, when you have people who claim high levels of gun ownership are driving suicides…

In 2020, the rural gun death rate was 28% higher than the urban rate. Nonmetropolitan counties reported 17.01 deaths per 100,000 residents, compared to a rate of 13.19 in urban America, according to CDC reports.

Although urban areas have higher rates of gun homicide, rural places have higher firearm deaths overall because suicides make up about two thirds of gun deaths nationwide, said researcher Michael Siegel of Tufts University School of Medicine. Siegel says it is important to categorize gun deaths into three groups.

“There’s firearm homicide, there’s firearm suicide, and then there’s unintentional injuries,” Siegel said.

Siegel said that the high rates of suicide in rural America can be explained in part by the prevalence of gun ownership. While 46% of rural residents say they own guns, only 19% of urban residents say they own guns, according to PEW Center studies.

“Because we know that guns are the most lethal means for suicide, if a gun is available, a suicide attempt is likely to result in a death,” Siegel said. “Whereas, if there aren’t guns around, other methods that people might use to attempt suicide are not as lethal.”

The piece then goes on to advocate for mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases and red flag laws.

However, both of those measures focus on the tools used, not the causes of suicide. A suicidal person may well shift to another method, and while they might not as lethal, there are methods damn near as deadly.

First, let’s acknowledge that Tufts University is also the facility that’s mentioned alongside 97Percent in a recent story we covered. It seems there’s an anti-gun bias at the university.

Moving on, though, it needs to be understood that suicide is the problem, not guns. Firearms have been with us for centuries and have been a viable method for taking one’s life for just as long. Yet suicides have been with us for ages. The first recorded suicide was over 4,000 years ago in Persia.

Yet as that link notes, we may not have a good grasp on what drives suicide.

So when you look at the divide between rural and urban areas with regard to this issue, why are you focusing on guns and not on potential contributing factors?

For example, the median rural income is 25 percent lower than the median in urban areas. While some of that difference is eaten up by the higher cost of living in urban areas, not all of it is. We’ve long known that economic factors may trigger suicidal ideations in an individual, so why isn’t that part of the discussion?

Most likely because that doesn’t fit the narrative. Working to increase jobs in rural areas, which would drive up wages, wouldn’t advance the gun control agenda, whereas out-of-context statistics and so-called experts talking out of their posteriors does.

That’s all there is to it.

On this day in history, Nov. 17, 1871, National Rifle Association founded by Civil War veteran Union officers

Former Union officers, who had led the costly battlefield effort to free 4 million Americans from bondage, chartered the National Rifle Association (NRA) in New York City on this day in history, Nov. 17, 1871.

Civil War veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate created the organization after they were “dismayed by the lack of marksmanship shown by their troops,” states the NRA in its online history.

The association was determined to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis,” Church wrote in a contemporary magazine editorial, the NRA reports.

Ambrose Burnside was the first president of the fledging organization.

General Burnside led federal troops in many of the early encounters of the Civil War. He served as governor of Rhode Island after the war, from 1866 to 1869.

Following his stint as NRA president (1871-72), Burnside served as a U.S. senator from Rhode Island from 1875 to 1881.

Ambrose Burnside — Portrait of Ambrose Everett Burnside (1824-1881), American Army officer for whom sideburns are named. A top Union general in the Civil War, he was a governor and U.S. senator from Rhode Island, as well as first president of the National Rifle Association. Undated photograph by William Brady.

Several other Union officers shaped the NRA during their stints as president of the organization in its earliest years.

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Natural Law, Scripture and the Right of Self Defense

Now that Republican leaders have fended-off the widely anticipated Red Wave, Left-leaning politicians who are keen on relieving Americans of their constitutional rights can pursue their previously unspoken agenda.

Gun control wasn’t a big issue in the midterm elections, largely because most Americans don’t like it. But now that the dust has settled, the American Left is free to seek more gun control.

Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration are emboldened to renew their efforts to impose gun control. In Oregon, new gun restrictions are being celebrated by the Left because people must now receive permission from the government before being allowed to purchase a firearm for self defense or sporting. Regrettably, this law was widely promoted by a number of churches and synagogues in the state.

The authoritarian Left in America hates the Second Amendment. One of their arguments theorizes that our gun rights should be eliminated because AR-15s were not available to the Continental Army at the Battle of Yorktown, just muskets and bayonets.

Extending this logic to the First Amendment, perhaps we should ban cable news and Facebook because they too did not exist in the mid-18th century. I’m not convinced that would be proper but it might be kind of fun to do it for a couple of weeks just to see what happens.

We’re led to believe that our Second Amendments rights are a freakish aberration in our Constitution, that guns are the root of much evil. In truth, the principles behind the Second Amendment are really old. Ancient, in fact.

In his 1754 treatise on The Absolute Rights of Individuals, the distinguished English jurist William Blackstone wrote of “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation,” and the importance of “the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence (sic).”

Blackstone’s writings were designed to improve upon the 1689 English Bill of Rights, which included the right for some people to bear arms, though it was not a universal right.

Before legal and political thinkers specified the right to bear arms, scholars and theologians were promoting the concept of the right of self defense and the right to resist tyrants. During the Great Reformation, Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon and others affirmed the right of self defense, which was a very scary idea for 16th century European theocrats.

In affirming self preservation, the Reformers did not contemplate the people defending themselves with strongly worded letters to Rome protesting public disembowelment. They presumed people would be armed with weapons of the day.

The Magna Carta did not guarantee the right to bear arms but it did provide the right of resistance should the king not abide by its terms. This also presumes the right to bear arms. It’s no coincidence that when King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215, the English nobles who attended the ceremony carried swords.

The Dooms of King Alfred required Anglo-Saxon landowners to provide men, ready to fight, in defense against the 9th century Viking raiders who frequented England’s shores. Like the Magna Carta, Alfred also presumed the men of his kingdom would be armed.

This acknowledgement of self defense as a God given right isn’t limited to the Anglo-Saxon or European traditions. Going back as far as 124 BC, Chinese Emperor Han affirmed the right of people to arm themselves, “to prevent tyranny and to punish evil.”

Ancient as these civic traditions of self defense are, most are predated in scripture. The Gospel of Luke records Jesus Christ telling his disciples before his betrayal, “Let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” Whether Jesus meant this literally or figuratively is subject to debate but the underlying wisdom is unambiguous: be prepared because the future is dangerous.

Biblical Christianity doesn’t merely permit us to defend ourselves, it demands we defend our families. Paul’s first letter to Timothy reads, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

This involves more than providing food and shelter; it also means protecting our loved ones from assault, rape, and murder. Apparently, some of Oregon’s so-called faith leaders are not familiar with this New Testament passage. More’s the pity.

By comparison, men’s fellowship at the church I attend in Texas includes presentations from local theologians and Bible scholars, group discussions on church doctrine, study of scripture, prayer, and range time with pistols and rifles.

When modern politicians seek to relieve us of our Second Amendment rights, they are contradicting millennia of common law, natural law and scripture. They are embracing the policies of tyrants who know that unarmed people are docile subjects rather than free citizens.

If we are denied the right of self defense, it’s only a matter of time until we’re denied others.

DRGO Study Says NO Link Between Legal Gun Sales & Violent Crime

BELLEVUE, WA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership (DRGO)—a project of the Second Amendment Foundation—has released a new study showing there is “no association between increased lawful firearm sales and rates of crime or homicide.”

The study, by DRGO member Mark Hamill, MD, FACS, FCCM, is titled “Legal Firearm Sales at State Level and Rates of Violent Crime, Property Crime, and Homicides” and is published in the Journal of Surgical Research. Dr. Hamill worked with a team of nine other doctors to reach their conclusions.

Dr. Robert Young, Executive Editor of DRGO, says “This confirms what those of us already know who follow all the research by medical, criminology and economic experts,” said DRGO Executive Director Dr. Robert Young. “Lawful gun possession is in no way related to homicide or other crime rates, and the constant drumbeat of anti-gun researchers and activists is a house built on sand.”

“DRGO is an important project of the Second Amendment Foundation,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “because anti-gun billionaires such as Michael Bloomberg are funding research that tries to portray guns and gun ownership as a disease.”

The new report is based on a detailed, objective 50-state analysis of data from the National Instant Background Check System, the Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reporting program, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System covering the years 1999-2015.

Dr. Hamill is an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Nebraska, a longtime gun owner, and a law enforcement officer in his previous career. His experience, expertise and thoroughness makes his team’s findings unimpeachable. In 2019, he published earlier research, “State Level Firearm Concealed-Carry Legislation and Rates of Homicide and Other Violent Crime” in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. In this, he and his co-authors do the same careful work analyzing 30 years of data state-by-state.

“The take-home from these two studies is that neither lawful gun ownership nor concealed carry regimes can be correlated with rates of homicide or other crime,” Dr. Young said.

Read more at DRGO: “Dr. Hamill vs. the Empire (Again)” and in Hamill et al’s two papers.

Governor wants money to arm teachers, staff inside Mississippi schools

JACKSON, Miss. — Gov. Tate Reeves said he wants Mississippi lawmakers to put up more money to put armed teachers and staff inside schools.

The governor released his 2024 Executive Budget recommendation Tuesday for the coming legislative session. Included in the recommendations is a program called the Mississippi School Safety Guardian Program, which Reeves said is in response to a rash of school shootings across the nation.

Under the proposal, teachers or staff members would be nominated by the school district to undergo a thorough training program on active shooter situations and issued a gun, holster and bullets. The Mississippi Department of Public Safety would train the selected staff members.

“While law enforcement is the best-case scenario, having someone who is on the scene trained with a firearm that could possibly stop a shooter before more lives are lost is a good thing to have,” said Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell.

The governor’s plan pays $500 a month to the personnel who are trained for the enhanced safety role.

Akemi Stout, president of the Jackson Federation of Teachers, doesn’t support the proposal.

“How can this be to be so important to arm educators? People are afraid of their guns, so imagine if there is an instant where there is an armed intruder in the school and that person freezes, or the gun is taken from them,” Stout said.

Supporters point to the Pearl High School shooting, where an assistant school principal retrieved his weapon from his car to stop the shooter.

Also included in the governor’s budget recommendations are eliminating the state income tax, advancing the “new pro-life agenda,” giving Mississippi children “a first-rate education,” lowering health care costs and building a “high-quality” workforce.

“Our ultimate aim is straightforward: to advance responsible policies that lay the foundation of a strong society and allow Mississippians to flourish,” Reeves said in a statement. “We will maximize freedom, we will protect your rights and safety, and we will build a future that every Mississippian can be proud of. In other words, my budget continues to put you – the taxpayer – first.”

Lawmakers return to the Capitol in January for the start of the session.

List: 11 solutions to thwart school shootings

George Washington University legal advocate John Banzhaf has long led fights for public health, including on smoking, obesity, and discrimination.

But few knew he also has expertise in security, as a former security officer and consultant, career highlights he tapped today to call for major changes in school security to thwart shootings such as the one that killed three at the University of Virginia Sunday night.

While an advocate for arming some teachers, Banzhaf said he realizes that is a sensitive topic in some cities, so he has prepared a list of 11 solutions that are quick to deploy to stop the next shooter from harming students in classrooms.

Banzhaf passed along his new security list of easy fixes that he published last month in University World News. “Those in charge of educational institutions, as well as those who teach there, should carefully consider taking some simple, proven, and inexpensive steps to substantially improve safety and reduce the chance that they and-or their students will be injured — or possibly even killed — by an active shooter on campus,” he wrote.

The Banzhaf Security List:

Install classroom doors that can be locked from the inside.
Mark each room with an easy-to-find identification and make up-to-date floor plans easily available for first responders.
Provide all administrators and campus police officers with master keys.
Get police door-opening tools such as the Halligan carried by firefighters.
Install magnetic door-open sensors so administrators can see which doors are open or properly closed in schools.
Make it easy to text via cellphone in an emergency.
Distribute kits to help quickly stop the type of bleeding left by standard AR-15 rounds.
On school apps, make sure it’s easy to find ways to contact police and officials in an active shooting case.
Install one-way peepholes in office and other doors.
Make a limited availability of guns and post signs stating, “Warning, some professors are armed.”
Supply nonlethal weapons, such as bear spray or poles.

“To limit the carnage caused by active shooters, as well as the massive resulting potential legal liability, colleges, and universities, both in the U.S. and abroad, should consider taking a number of simple and inexpensive (and therefore reasonable) steps to reduce the risk, and the harm which is expected to be caused this year by active shooters,” said Banzhaf.

Always laugh when someone asks why I think I need to carry a gun to go grocery shopping. I always say if I think I need a gun to go somewhere, I don't go there.

— Voluntary J (@_BuyLowGetHigh_) November 15, 2022

An friend terms posts like this übërpösts™ (in other words: It’s looong)
I’ll append commentary and observations from around the net.

Observation O’ The Day
It’s a look into the smartest minds of the enemy. Joe Huffman

The Ad Industry’s Plan to Fix America’s Gun Crisis

If you want a crude sketch of the biggest corporate players in a given year of TV, look no further than the Emmy Award for best commercial. Twenty-five years of winners form an ensemble cast of petty bourgeois preoccupations: Nike, Chrysler, Bud Light. This year’s nominees included a commercial for Meta (the artist formerly known as Facebook), one for Chevy (repping the still-muscular auto spend), two for Apple (a perennial contender), and two for the prevention of school shootings—one of which won the Emmy.

Continue reading “”

Remember, Professor Yamane is presenting the standard model, not defending it.

This video concludes my ongoing series systematizing the dominant academic approach to understanding Gun Culture 2.0, what I call “The Standard Model of Explaining the Irrationality of Defensive Gun Ownership.”

Here I engage the 5th of the model’s 5 points: That something other than objective risk motivates defensive gun ownership.

From a sociological perspective, that something else centers on the discipline’s Holy Trinity: class, gender, and race. From a psychological perspective, defensive gun ownership is a maladaptive coping mechanism.

More Reasons Anti-Gun Policymakers Are Wrong About Armed Self-Defense

Despite the June U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which clearly affirmed the right of lawful Americans to carry a firearm for self-defense outside the home, many state and local politicians continue to try to pass more-restrictive laws on firearms carry.

As this was being written, the New Jersey legislature was pushing for a ban on guns in so-called “sensitive places,” while in Longmont, Colo., city councilors were considering similar restrictions.

Unfortunately for the citizens in those jurisdictions, these policymakers ignore the fact that guns are used in self-defense well over a million times each year; in fact, four separate instances of armed self-defense in the last week of October show just how wrong-thinking these gun-ban advocates are.

On Halloween night in Spring, Texas, a woman was moving her car into her driveway when two men—one with a handgun, the other with a rifle—allegedly approached her from behind, then forced her back into her home at gunpoint.

According to a report from local media, the woman’s roommate, who was inside the home, heard her screaming and emerged, armed with a handgun to confront the intruders. During the confrontation, he appears to have shot one of the alleged criminals in the abdomen.

Fortunately, neither the woman nor her roommate were hurt. At last report, police were still looking for both of the suspects that entered the home, as well as another suspect that drove them away.

Just two days earlier, an Alabama woman proved that a loaded firearm is much more effective protection than filing a protective order. In the 1:15 a.m. break-in in Hatchechubbee, Ala., the victim shot her estranged husband once in the abdomen.

According to reports, the woman had previously filed an order of protection against the intruder, but it had expired the week before. She was in the process of having the order reinstated when the break-in occurred.

That same day, in Ferguson, Mo., a man who was attacked by alleged carjackers shot one of the three men, who he said was holding a gun, and who he claimed had reached for his car door handle.

Later that morning, a man in a nearby neighborhood looked out of the window of his home and saw what he thought was a body in his backyard, according to a report. Police believe the dead man—who was dressed in a black hoodie, black sweatpants and black tennis shoes—was likely one of the attempted carjackers.

Lastly, in Edinburg, Texas, on Oct. 25, a woman likely feared for her life when someone broke into her house through the garage and tried to get into her bedroom. According to media reports, the woman warned the man that she had called the police and that she was armed.

The man apparently didn’t believe her and, unwisely, continued his attempt to break into the bedroom. That’s when the woman shot him through the bedroom door, ending the attack.

Investigators later found the suspect in a nearby open field with a gunshot wound to the arm. He was arrested and was being held at the Hidalgo County Jail with a $750,000 bond. The woman was shaken up, but unharmed.

The next time a cynical anti-gun politician tells you normal citizens never successfully use firearms for self-defense, just tell them to read the NRA’s Armed Citizen column.