The Illinois Supreme Court has denied a motion to disqualify two justices from hearing a challenge to the state’s new gun ban over perceived conflicts of interest. The two justices also declined to recuse themselves.
Before Elizabeth Rochford and Mary O’Brien were elected to the Illinois Supreme Court in November 2022, Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave each of their campaign funds half a million dollars from both his campaign account and a revocable trust, totaling $1 million to each. The two justices also received six-figure donations out of a campaign fund controlled by Illinois House Speaker Emanual “Chris” Welch,” D-Hillside.
Both Pritzker and Welch are top defendants in a Macon County challenge of Illinois’ gun and magazine ban brought by state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur. The county judge there issued a final judgment that the law is unconstitutional. The state appealed the case directly to the Illinois Supreme Court after a separate case was found by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to have a likelihood of success on the basis the law violates equal protections.
Late last month, Caulkins’ attorney filed a motion for the two justices to recuse themselves, or for the Illinois Supreme Court to disqualify them from hearing the challenge. Attorney Jerry Stocks argued “unreasonably large campaign contributions” from Pritzker and Welch “undermine public confidence” in the judiciary.
Asked in early March if the justices should recuse themselves because of the donations, Pritzker said that’s “ridiculous.”
Formerly may-issue states continue to thumb their noses at the Supreme Court by passing some of the country’s most restrictive concealed carry laws. In doing so, they run the risk of undermining licensing schemes altogether.
Last Monday, Maryland became the third state impacted by the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen to pass a complete overhaul of its concealed carry laws. In a pair of bills, the state assembly greatly increased the application fees for new “wear and carry” permits, expanded its training requirements, and added new “sensitive places” throughout the state where licensed carry would be a crime. The off-limits areas include almost all publicly-accessible private property, like stores or restaurants.
The bills followed a familiar blueprint already established by states like New York and New Jersey, who were the first two states to rebuke the Court with onerous new laws. Fellow affected states, Hawaii and California, appear poised to do the same.
But those states are tempting judicial fate with their replacement laws, as evidenced by the parameters laid out by Justice Thomas in his Bruen opinion. The early track record of legal challenges to New York and New Jersey’s carry laws, where there have thus far been at least five injunctions between the two, can also attest to that fact. But even aside from the constitutional issues, on a more practical level, establishing a political norm of using licensing regimes to make exercising gun rights as difficult as possible creates new skepticism over the very idea of licensing laws.
The Supreme Court went to great lengths in its Bruen opinion to make clear that it was not yet prepared to call into question the legitimacy of standard “shall-issue” licensing laws.
“To be clear, nothing in our analysis should be interpreted to suggest the unconstitutionality of the 43 States’ ‘shall-issue’ licensing regimes, under which ‘a general desire for self-defense is sufficient to obtain a [permit]’,” Justice Thomas wrote in his opinion. “Because these licensing regimes do not require applicants to show an atypical need for armed self-defense, they do not necessarily prevent ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens’ from exercising their Second Amendment right to public carry. Rather, it appears that these shall-issue regimes, which often require applicants to undergo a background check or pass a firearms safety course, are designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.’”
This carve-out for “shall-issue” regimes was likely the result of a compromise done to mitigate political backlash and shore up support among justices. It remains unclear how “shall issue” permitting laws really fare when closely examined under the text and historical tradition test articulated later in the ruling.
Nevertheless, the American people currently are broadly in favor of that compromise. A November 2022 poll from Marquette University’s law school found that 64 percent of U.S. adults favor the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling. Similarly, a separate Marquette poll found that 62 percent favor allowing the concealed carry of handguns with a permit or license required. Conversely, permitless carry laws routinely poll poorly despite their continued success in red states.
But that equilibrium, in which Americans broadly favor both concealed carry rights and licensing laws, could ultimately become upended if more and more states continue to make lawful carry all but impossible. If push comes to shove and one has to go, it’s more than likely that the American people (and the Supreme Court, which has tended to act only after public opinion on guns has shifted) will choose licensing laws.
The recent experience in North Carolina is a perfect example of this. For years, gun-rights advocates favored repealing the state’s permit-to-purchase law for handguns, but to no avail. Meanwhile, at least nationally, the policy continued to poll favorably among the public. However, following the COVID pandemic and a series of scandals involving local sheriffs delaying permit applications, enough political momentum was finally there to get the repeal bill through the legislature. Two years later, with improved majorities, Republican lawmakers were able to get the repeal into law after overriding a veto.
Legal rulings striking down many of these likely unconstitutional Bruen replacement laws may arrive before sentiment shifts enough to make a difference. But litigation often takes many years, and the Supreme Court has thus far shown an unwillingness to intervene in New York’s law despite its restrictions being the first enacted and arguably the most burdensome. Therefore, relief from the courts might not be in the offing for some time.
As permitless carry approaches a political wall in the near future, continued efforts by gun-control advocates to undermine workable permitting schemes elsewhere across the country risks shifting the Overton window toward more permissive gun-carry systems, whether among the general public or the courts.
Since gun-control advocates very much don’t want to see that happen, they may be forced in the near future to give up the push for restrictive “shall issue, may carry” licensing schemes.
Rewatched “V for Vendetta” — movie with a subplot about a govt that seized power and the pharmaceutical companies that got rich by developing a virus and the vaccination for the same virus. Man, some of these sci-fi writers have far out imaginations. https://t.co/nAW6scdwd6
1457 BC – At the valley of Megiddo, Egyptian forces under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III and a large rebellious coalition of Canaanite vassal states led by the king of Kadesh engage in a battle considered the first be accepted as recorded in reliable detail
73 – Masada, a Jewish fortress on the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the 1st Jewish–Roman War.
1582 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta, Argentina.
1746 – The Battle of Culloden is fought between the Jacobite Stuarts and the British Hanoverian forces. After the battle, many Highland traditions are banned and the Highlands of Scotland were cleared of inhabitants with many clan members moved to North America.
1818 – Following the end of The War of 1812, the U.S. Senate ratifies the Rush–Bagot Treaty, limiting naval armaments on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.
1862 – During the Civil War, the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia, becomes law.
1908 – The Natural Bridges National Monument is established in Utah.
1943 – First made by him in 1938 during experiments with ergot fungus found on grain, Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of the research drug Lysergic Acid Diethylamide – LSD.
1945 – U.S. Army troops liberate Nazi prisoner of war camp Offizierslager IV-C at Castle Colditz.
1947 – An explosion on board the French registered vessel SS Grandcamp at Port of Texas City, Texas, Galveston Bay, causes the city to catch fire, killing almost 600 people.
1961 – In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.
1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pens his Letter from Birmingham Jail while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.
1972 – Apollo 16 is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with astronauts
John Young, Thomas ‘Ken’ Mattingly and Charley Duke aboard.
1990 – “Doctor Death”, Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide, aiding Janet Elaine Adkins in a campground near Pontiac, Michigan.
2007 – Seung-Hui Cho, previously diagnosed with severe depression, uses two handguns to shoot and kill 32 people and wound 17 more at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, in Blacksburg, Virginia, before committing suicide.
2008 – In the case of Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that execution by lethal injection does not violate the 8th Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.
A Nonpartisan guide that arms both sides of the gun control debate.
The slogan of the Gun Facts Project is “We are neither pro-gun nor anti-gun. We are pro-math and anti-BS.” From project creator Guy Smith comes Guns and Control: A Nonpartisan Guide to Mass Public Shootings, Gun Accidents, Crime, Public Carry, Suicides, Defensive Use, and More.
No matter what side of the aisle one is on, people are baffled by gun control. This book is designed to be a guide to thoughtful discussion; it arms readers with facts and the logic behind conflicting arguments and leaves emotional rhetoric to the pundits and focuses on the thorny issues of the debate. Guns and Control will:
• Guide readers step-wise through each of the major gun control topics: mass public shootings, assault weapons, street crime, suicide, private carry, defensive gun use, gun availability, and more.
• Help readers gain the broad perspective and the full set of important, true facts, just in time for the 2020 Presidential Election.
• Arm readers against some of the more egregious misinformation.
• Support readers in formulating their own conclusions.
Guns and Control will grant high-level perspectives—for example, that mass public shootings are a global phenomenon, occurring in nearly all developed nations—and explore details to understand the causes, and thus possible cures, of gun violence-related problems. Was the push for de-institutionalization in mental health management a contributing factor to the rise in mass public shootings? Guns and Control will help readers find answers to such questions. What the public lacks is a clear, unbiased, broad perspective on the realities of guns, explained in simple, straightforward, and entertaining ways. Guns and Control will demystify these misunderstood aspects of who uses and misuses guns.
The results of a ‘study’ often mirror the politics of who’s paying for it
It’s become virtually impossible to find reliable data or polling on gun violence these days. A new Kaiser Family Foundation report being shared by virtually everymajormediaoutlet this week offers us a good example of why. The headlines report that “1 in 5 adults” in the United States claim that a “family member” has been “killed” by a gun. And, let’s just say, that’s a highly dubious claim.
There are 333 million people living in the United States, and somewhere around 259 million of them are over the age of 18. Twenty percent of those adults equals nearly 52 million people. There were more than 40,000 gun deaths in 2022, and around 20,000 of them were homicides — a slight dip from a Covid-year historic high that followed decades of lows. So, according to Kaiser’s polling, every victim of gun violence in the past few years had hundreds, if not thousands, of “family members.”
Now, to be fair, we can’t really run the numbers because Kaiser doesn’t define its terms or parameters. For example, what constitutes a “family member”? Is your second cousin a family member? Because if so, that creates quite the nexus of people. What about your stepbrother’s second cousin? Or how about your uncle who died in Iraq? Or how about that grandfather you never met who committed suicide in 1968? Kaiser could have asked people about their “immediate” relatives. The opacity is the point.
Then again, you can always spot a misleading firearms study by checking if the authors conflate suicides and murders. Kaiser does. The underlying problems leading to a homicide or a suicide are typically very different. So are the solutions. There are numerous countries with virtually no private gun ownership that have persistently high suicide rates. There isn’t any other societal problem in which Kaiser wouldn’t stress the distinction between criminality and mental health struggles.
But even if we count suicides, the claim is fantastical. As are many of the others. If we trust this poll, we would have to accept that around 50 million Americans were personally threatened with a gun. And that 54 percent of American adults — which can be extrapolated to mean 140 million adults — have personally or have a family member who has witnessed a shooting, been threatened by a gun, or been injured or killed by one. (Another 28 percent, or 72 million people, contend they have carried a gun in self-defense — which is also exceedingly unlikely.)
Kaiser’s “key findings” highlight many issues tied to anti-gun activist talking points. In the middle of polling, Kaiser conveniently switches up the definition of an “adult” from 18 and older to over 19, so it can regurgitate the claim that firearms are the leading cause of death among children. Kaiser wonders if your “health care provider” has talked to you about guns or gun safety. Did you know, Kaiser asks, that 6 in 10 parents with guns in their households say a gun is stored in the same location as ammunition?
What Kaiser doesn’t mention in its press-friendly “key findings” — and no media piece I’ve read mentions — is that 82 percent of those polled feel “very” or “somewhat safe” from gun violence in their own neighborhoods. Only 18 percent of Americans say they worry about gun violence on a daily or almost daily basis, while 43 percent say they worry about it “rarely” or “never.” So, you’re telling me, half of American adults have personally experienced gun violence themselves or toward someone in their family, but less than 20 percent worry about it often?
There are numerous other problems with Kaiser’s findings. Perhaps the most important, though, is the sample size. Granted, I’m no polling expert, but I suspect that the self-reported thoughts of 1,271 people — answering a bunch of poorly defined questions about a highly emotional and politically charged issue “online and by telephone” — should not be relied on with any certitude. And yet, there isn’t a single establishment media reporter writing about the report that exhibits a hint of skepticism.
One firearms instructor attributes this increase to a rise in crime and a general feeling of discontent with the economy.
Two years ago, a pregnant Florida woman, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, gunned down one of two home invaders who had broken into her Tampa home.
The woman, who had a concealed weapons license, said the men were pistol whipping her husband when she grabbed her legally possessed firearm and fired one round.
The woman, who requested her identity be withheld, is one of the 2.5 million people who have a concealed weapons license in Florida, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. As of Feb. 28, one-third of the license holders were women.
Gun safety experts in Gainesville and neighboring communities say they have noticed a significant increase in the last four months in the number of women who wish to obtain a concealed weapons license.
Katelyn Perndoj is a 23-year-old bartender at Miller’s Ale House. She said she wants to make a living, but more importantly, she wants to stay safe.
Sarah Hower
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WUFT News
Katelyn Perndoj, a 23-year-old server at Miller’s Ale House, is seen here at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range where she will soon take the concealed weapons license course.
“I’m pretty small, so if someone wanted to snatch me it wouldn’t be hard,” she said. “I could try and fight as much as I wanted to, but I just don’t want to be put in a situation where I don’t have a fighting chance.”
Perndoj said she has registered to take the concealed weapons course at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range in late April. The course is all she will need to obtain her concealed weapons license.
“I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it,” she said. “It’s a peace of mind kinda thing.”
During the course, which is five hours long, the instructor goes over the laws, the best ways to conceal carry and how to shoot.
“We want you shooting well enough that we can trust you with a handgun at anytime, anywhere,” said Henry Keys, a 24-year-old self-defense and firearms instructor at Harry Beckwith Guns & Range in Micanopy.
Keys said he considers women the fastest-growing demographic in the gun world.
“When I first started working at Harry Beckwith in early 2022, the courses I taught were 7% or 8% women,” he said. “Now, women make up well over 25%.”
He attributes this increase to a rise in crime and a general feeling of discontent with the economy.
Keys said roughly 75% of the women who register to take the course are 20-29 and African American or Asian. These women cite self-defense as their reason for wanting to own a gun, and the majority know little about firearms.
“They just feel that they are in danger,” he said. “It is important to me that I am able to help them.”
Hunter Thomas, a 23-year-old gun salesman at Bass Pro Shops, agrees.
“I welcome any woman of any race, age or ethnicity to practice their Second Amendment rights,” he said.
Although Bass Pro Shops no longer offers a concealed weapons course, Thomas said he believes the number of women becoming gun owners and acquiring a concealed weapons license has multiplied since he started working for the company two years ago.
“Even as someone with a liberal political perspective, I think that since guns are so widely spread, it’s better for any law-abiding citizen to have a gun,” he said.
Lt. Jimmy Williams has been with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office for 23 years. He encourages women to obtain a concealed weapons license and learn the basics of using a firearm.
“Women need something to equalize their self-defense mechanism,” he said. “Men are typically larger and almost always stronger. I have three daughters and three granddaughters. I don’t ever want any of them, or any woman, to be in a dangerous situation with no way out.”
Sarah Hower
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WUFT News
Smith and Wesson handguns for sale at the Bass Pro Shops in Gainesville.
An estimated 736 million women in the world, almost 1 in 3, have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence, according to USA Facts. Seventeen percent of murder victims in the United States were killed by an intimate partner. Women account for two-thirds of these victims.
Dany Castro went from fearing guns to considering himself a “gun fanatic” in less than two years.
Castro moved from her childhood home in Tampa to her first apartment in Gainesville when she was admitted to the University of Florida in fall of 2020. After one year of constantly feeling unsafe, the 21-year-old sophomore said she decided to apply for her concealed weapons license.
“Before I left for college, I was completely unfamiliar with guns,” she said. “I didn’t grow up in a family with guns. My family didn’t hunt. I knew absolutely nothing about them. Being on my own made me realize how weak and vulnerable I was.”
Sarah Hower
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WUFT News
Handgun ammo for sale at the Bass Pro Shops in Gainesville. The top shelf is 9 mm ammo and the bottom shelf is .40-caliber S and W ammo
Castro said obtaining her license has given her a greater respect for firearms. Although she said she prays she never has to use one, she is grateful for the option.
Harley Yost, a 24-year-old University of Florida alumni, said she does not believe a gun would make her feel safe.
“I would opt for a less life-threatening deterrent,” she said. “I’m not saying no women should own a gun, but I don’t think it is your best option.”
Keys said he believes the number of women wanting to obtain a concealed weapons license will continue to grow if more restrictions are created.
“The more restrictions, the more demand,” he said. “Every time there is a new restriction put in place, gun sales and license sales skyrocket. In the circle we are in right now, nobody wants to be the last person with the gun.”
On the Saturday before Easter, the state Senate’s majority Democrats passed what they call an “assault weapons ban.” In reality, the bill targets several of the most popular sporting and self-defense firearms in the country, including most modern sporting rifles and even some shotguns used for hunting and competition shooting.
My Republican colleagues and I debated the measure for nearly three hours, using the amendment process to try to point out the fallacies of their arguments and mitigate some of the damage the bill would do to the rights of Washingtonians and small business owners who work as legal firearms dealers.
As it turned out, I was the only one able to get an amendment accepted – one to support our military members and allow them to keep their firearms when they are ordered to move to Washington.
The proponents of this bill and I agree on one thing and one thing only. We are in a crisis in Washington. But it is a crisis of general lawlessness across our communities, one exacerbated by bad legislative decisions over the past several legislative sessions.
We have seen soft-on-crime policies, releasing criminals from incarceration; vilification of our law enforcement officers; toleration of life-destroying drug proliferation and use; failure to address mental health adequately; and poor decisions during the COVID lockdowns resulting in learning loss and depression among our youth. We need to focus on addressing the root causes leading to chaos and violence, not vilify firearm ownership.
Our nation has always had a history of gun ownership, and the Second Amendment to the U.S. constitution enshrines our naturally endowed right to defend ourselves and our families. But what we have not always seen – what is new to the moment – is the devastating loss of life we have witnessed due to crime, suicide, mass shootings and senseless violence.
House Bill 1240 declares the violent and inappropriate use of firearms ‘appeal[s] to troubled young men intent on becoming the next mass shooter.’ But where is the effort to help these troubled young males and heal whatever there is inside of them that is broken and leading to violence and rage?
Instead, this bill goes after the implement, and completely ignores the underlying root causes of the problems we see today.
The problems are not just reflected in deaths caused by a demented person with a firearm. We see it in the increase of drug-related deaths, teen suicides, wrong-way and drunk-driving assaults on our roads, and in the sunken eyes of lost souls we see roaming our streets with unattended-to mental-health and substance-abuse issues.
It is reflected in fatherless homes producing rudderless young men who feel hopeless and unsure of their place in this world. It is reflected in the general lawlessness we have seen explode across this state, thanks in large part to the failed policies of the Democrat majority in the Legislature and Governor Inslee.
Banning some of the most popular firearms kept and used by law-abiding citizens today will do nothing to address these problems. Absolutely zero.
Look no further than the City of Seattle. Despite Washington ranking in the Top 10 nationally for gun control for the past five years, we have seen the number of shootings – fatal or not – and ‘shots-fired events’ in our largest city hit an all-time high in 2022.
The fact of the matter is the law created by this bill will just be more of the same. Worse still, it will give the victims of these crimes and all Washingtonians a false sense of security that something is being done.
And let’s not forget that this ban is also blatantly unconstitutional, and likely to cost taxpayers crucial dollars that could be invested in mental health and public safety, but which will instead be used trying to unsuccessfully defend this law in the courts.
HB 1240 now goes back to the House to reconcile changes between the version that passed the Senate and the one that passed the House earlier this year. That means there is still time for lawmakers to do the right thing, put this bill down, and set their sights on real solutions.
Sen. Keith Wagoner, R-Sedro-Woolley, represents the 39th Legislative District. He serves as the Senate Republican Whip and is a member of the Senate Law and Justice Committee.
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A shopper at a southeast Houston convenience store opened fire when four masked robbers stormed inside, sending three suspects to the hospital.
Houston police said at least one of the robbery suspects was armed.
HPD officers were called to a Circle K convenience store at a Valero gas station located at 8040 South Loop East at 7:55 p.m. Thursday.
According to Asst. Chief Ernest Garcia, four suspects in masks entered the store and started robbing customers at gunpoint.
That’s when an armed customer pulled out their weapon and shot at the suspects, Garcia said. Three of the robbery suspects were shot.
One bystander was also hurt, though it was unclear if he was shot by one of the suspects or the customer, HPD said.
All four suspects ran out of the store and to a car outside, where a fifth suspect was waiting, investigators said.
Meanwhile, the bystander was taken to the hospital via ambulance in stable condition.
The suspects left the scene and drove to a nearby hospital. One suspect who was shot is in critical condition, and the other two are stable, Garcia said.
In total, four suspects are in custody and one is still wanted, according to HPD.
Garcia said investigators believe the suspects are young males — possibly juveniles — though their exact ages are unknown.
Lately, I have been working on the chapter of my book on American gun culture that explores negative outcomes with firearms.
Although I differ from most scholars studying guns by beginning not with gun deviance but with the normality of guns and gun owners, I do take negative outcomes seriously.
1715 – The massacre of a colonial delegation to the Yamasee tribe at their main village of Pocotaligo, triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina.
1817 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc found the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.
1861 – After the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln calls for 75,000 volunteers to quell hostilities in South Carolina that soon become war between the state.
1865 – President Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth.
1892 – The General Electric Company is formed in Schenectady, New York.
1896 – The Games of the first modern Olympiad in Athens, Greece end.
1900 – Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a siege of Catubig, Philippines during the Philippine-American War
1912 – RMS Titanic sinks in the North Atlantic at 2:20 a.m., 2 hours and 40 minutes after hitting an iceberg. Only 710 of 2,224 passengers and crew on board survive.
1920 – During a robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, 2 security guards are murdered. A few weeks later, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested and charged with the crimes.
1922 – Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal made a week earlier, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.
1947 – Jackie Robinson starts as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the New York Yankees in an pre-season game at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn.
1952 – The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress flies for the first time.
1969 – A North Korean MiG-21 shoots down a U.S Navy Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star, call sign Deep Sea 129, of squadron VQ-1, Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One, over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew on board.
1986 – The U.S. launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, a series of bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a discotheque bombing in West Germany that killed 3 U.S. servicemen.
2013 – Near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, 2 pressure cooker improvised bombs explode, killing 3 people and injuring 264 others.
2019 – The cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is seriously damaged by a large fire.
2021 – A former employee, fired the previous October, returns to a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, then shoots and kills 9 people, wounding 7 more, before committing suicide
Gun-control advocates will tell you that the 23-thousand firearms regulations we have today aren’t nearly enough. Those laws are simply a good start. In contrast, advocates of armed defense will tell you that the right to bear arms is horribly infringed. Both are telling the truth about what they want, but they can’t both be right. In fact the results are shockingly different. Imperfect gun-control fails time after time and imperfect armed defense stops millions of violent crimes each year. The truth is obvious if we’re willing to look.
There were over 278-thousand cases of criminals using guns during the commission of a violent crime in 2019. That is the last year for which the FBI provided complete statistics. We also had 61 mass murders with a firearm in 2021. All of these crimes were committed by a criminal who should not have had a gun. Criminals have firearms not because there are too few laws but because criminals ignore the laws we already have. Our flood of gun-control laws failed to stop violent criminals.
Every violent criminal who used a gun probably broke several gun-control laws during the commission of his crime. To start, these criminals stole a gun or bought it illegally. In addition to the sale, their possession of a gun was also illegal. They broke the law when they transported their firearm from place to place. Likewise, there are laws against criminals possessing or transporting ammunition. Concealing their firearm in public was against the law too.
These criminals don’t bother with background checks and waiting periods.
That is bad enough, but it gets worse. Gun-control laws actually made the job of mass-murderers easier and made their attacks more deadly. These criminals deliberately attacked us in “gun free” zones where honest citizens were disarmed by law.
Violent criminals who commit robbery, rape, assault, murder, or mass murder are also willing to break our firearms laws. These criminals commit many crimes before they are caught by law enforcement. That means violent criminals violate our gun-control laws several million times every year. Can that possibly surprise anyone?
Gun-control failed to stop violent criminals several million times yet gun-control advocates want us to pass more of their failing laws. Insanity is doing the same thing time after time and expecting a different result the next time you try the same old thing. That is why I think gun-control is crazy. I am as repulsed by violent crime and mass-murder as you are, and fortunately, we have options that work.
Owning a gun and using it for defense is common. Over 80-million of us own guns. 41 percent of us live in a household that has firearms. About one-in-a-dozen adults are armed in public. 30-percent of gun owners have used their firearm for defense. Honest citizens use their personal firearms for defense about 2.8-million times every year. That is a lot of armed defense and a wonderful legacy of lives that were saved.
As a conservative estimate, these armed citizens saved about 5-million victims from criminal violence. They save those lives despite the thousands of infringements on honest citizens being armed.
We know a lot about the armed citizens who have their permits to carry a firearm in public. These 20-million citizens are extraordinarily law-abiding and non-violent. They are less likely to break the law than the police. Ordinary gun owners are also less likely than the police to have an accident or shoot the wrong person. When we look at their record in the last few years, these honest gun owners stopped attempted mass-murder about half the time where they were allowed to go armed. That has stopped 104 attempted mass murders in the last seven years. That explains why mass-murderers choose “gun-free” zones.
The future is uncertain but we know some things with confidence. We know that gun-control politicians will offer their same broken solutions. We also know that ordinary citizens will be at the scene of the crime every time. We know that gun-control will fail and that armed citizens will stop violent criminals millions of times a year.
Should more of our neighbors be disarmed victims or armed defenders? That choice is up to us.
Even 3D printers for beginners can feel intimidating if you’re not familiar with the process. For instance, a recent 3D Printing Sentiment Index survey by Ultimaker revealed that 71 percent of professionals surveyed are aware of 3D printing. However, 29% of businesses that could potentially use 3D printing have no current familiarity with the technology. Nevertheless, engineers and entrepreneurs continue to use 3D printers in some very inventive ways: Astronauts plan to use a 3D printer on the International Space Station to print out elements of a human knee and engineers at Columbia University in New York have recently figured out how to replicate a seven-layer cheesecake. What’s encouraging is that in the last 12 years, 3D printers have also gotten more affordable.
But what exactly does a 3D printer do? Most consumer-grade 3D printers produce, or print, a three-dimensional object using a technology called “additive printing.” The process creates a three-dimensional object by building it layer upon layer using various materials, such as plastic or metal that adhere together during the process to eventually form the object. (The design of the object is based on a digital file, which is most often made using computer-aided design software, or CAD.) You’ll have to get over the initial learning curve, but watching that first print take shape can feel downright magical. The best 3D printers for beginners offer a simple setup, intuitive interfaces, and enough flexibility to grow with your skills.
Missourians would be allowed to carry guns on public buses and inside churches and other places of worship under a bill advanced by the Missouri House Thursday.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Adam Schnelting, a St. Charles Republican, would allow people with concealed carry permits to carry guns on public transit in the state.
“We all have the potential of running into situations where we have to utilize self defense to protect ourselves and those we love,” Schnelting said on the floor Thursday. “This legislation will discourage criminal activity on our public transportation systems, but most importantly, it will ensure that we maintain our constitutional right to self defense.”
An amendment successfully added by state Rep. Ben Baker, a Neosho Republican, would also strike down the current rule banning concealed guns in places of worship without the permission of the religious leader of the congregation.
The Missouri House gave the bill initial approval on a voice vote Thursday. It will need one more vote before it heads to the Missouri Senate, which could come next week.
NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, praises South Dakota’s Gov. Kristi Noem for signing an Executive Order prohibiting state agencies from entering into contracts with corporate banks that discriminate against the firearm industry.
Governor Noem’s order will prevent “woke” corporate banks with discriminatory policies against firearm industry members from collecting taxpayer dollars through South Dakota state contracts. Simply put, South Dakotans will choose to do business with those companies that do not discriminate based on an industry these corporate banks may not like or with which they disagree.
“Governor Noem’s Executive Order is a significant bulwark against the ‘woke’ discrimination that threatened firearm businesses in South Dakota,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “South Dakotan’s tax dollars will be protected from being used to fund gun control efforts by these corporate banks that benefit from state contracts while denying essential services to firearm-related business simply because they are politically-disfavored by Wall Street. Governor Noem’s order is clear. The Second Amendment isn’t for sale in South Dakota.”
Gov. Noem’s order will require corporate banks and financial service providers with $100 billion in total assets seeking contracts valued at $100,000 or greater to certify that they hold no discriminatory policies against firearm industry businesses. Contracts that are certified and later discovered to be out of compliance with the Executive Order will be subject to cancellation.
BRONSON — The Levy County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating a homicide that occurred Sunday in Bronson.
According to a news release by LCSO Lt. Scott Tummond, the sheriff’s office 911 Center received a call at approximately 3 p.m. reporting that someone had been shot.
Deputies responded to a duplex located in the town and found 40-year-old James Young Jr. deceased on the floor inside. Tummond said Young suffered a single gun shot wound to the chest.
Tummond said detectives with the LCSO were sent to the scene and it was determined, through investigation, that Young had a previous “domestic relationship” with the female occupant of the duplex.
Young went to the duplex to confront the female and was armed with a handgun when he arrived. Tummond said the two began to struggle, and the woman managed to get her own gun and fired one shot, hitting Young in the chest.
Tummond said the female ran from the residence to a neighbor’s house close by for help.
Detectives are still in the early stages of this investigation. No charges have been filed and this investigation is currently on-going.
