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“Social-justice education is harming the very students it was meant to help,” Wilson concludes. “America’s most marginalized children are being left less educated, more excluded, and more vulnerable.” That’s not justice.

Focus on teaching kids to read — not fixing ‘root causes.’

Democrats “lost the plot on schools,” writes Charles Barone in Education Next. He suggests a “credible, student-centered education agenda” to regain leadership.

Democrats can “rejuvenate public education,” and “strengthen ties with Black, Latino, and suburban women — voting blocs that care deeply about school quality,” writes Thomas Toch in the Washington Monthly. But progressives and centrists have start talking to each other — and not just in insults.

Fordham’s Mike Petrilli spotlights the discussion on Schooled. In a follow-up, Vlad Kogan challenges Barone’s statement that, “public education desperately needs strengthening, but policymakers must address root causes by addressing the many hurdles in students’ lives that compound their challenges in classrooms.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, writes Kogan. As he writes in his book, No Adult Left Behind, “people have been saying the way to fix urban education is to fix “root causes” since at least the 1960s.”

“It’s much easier to teach an elementary school child how to read than to fix poverty, racism, and other root causes,” Kogan writes. “If we don’t know how to use public policy to ensure that all kids how to read by the end of third grade, the idea that we’ll figure out how to use policy to fix much more difficult issues underlying ‘root causes’ is just implausible.”

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This Democrat Defending Hasan Piker Says His Extremist Rhetoric Reflects Rising American Frustration

Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) was asked in a recent interview why he continues to defend left-wing political pundits like Hasan Piker, who is widely known for inflammatory rhetoric, in the aftermath of an attempted assassination targeting top Trump administration officials at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday.

Despite acknowledging some of the controversial remarks attributed to Piker, including comments defending the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and praise for Hamas, Rep. Khanna argued that Piker is expressing a broader sense of frustration among Americans, one that he described as important to acknowledge.

“I have said that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. I was one of the first people who condemned the shooting of the United Healthcare executive. But millions of people follow Hasan Piker. Why? Because he’s speaking about some of the frustrations,” Rep. Khanna said. “He’s speaking about the fact that people don’t have health care in America.”

“There are a lot of people on the podcast world, etc., who say things that are outrageous or sensationalist,” he continued. “And I push back when you do that. But we have to understand the anger in this country of people who feel they can’t buy a house, they can’t afford gas, they can’t have health care.”

“They’re upset at the system. It’s one of the reasons Trump won twice. And we have to engage while condemning the violence,” he said. “I never engage in approving of violence, approving of the incitement of violence, and I’ll condemn it when I hear it.”

Unfortunately for both Khanna and Piker, murder, theft, and other illegal acts are not the ways in which real Americans choose to effect change in their country.

We effect change the way we learned after the American Revolution, through voting, and through persuading and changing the minds of our fellow Americans, not through violence. The moment that approach begins to falter, we risk watching our system of law and order fade, becoming a mere suggestion rather than a requirement.

Mainstreaming individuals who support or excuse violence, on either side, is reprehensible, and often indicative of an attempt to sow chaos and exploit it.

Now is the time to double down on the American system of governance, not to abandon it in pursuit of revolutionary change, which would not lead to positive reform but rather to an erosion of the American way of life.

Virginia Governor Gets Bad News on Background Check Bill

Since the Virginia General Assembly approved a revised version of the bill last week, there’s been a whole lot of confusion about Virginia’s HB 1525, which raises the age to purchase handguns from 18 to 21 and requires the Virginia State Police to resume conducting background checks on private sales. Governor Abigail Spanberger’s amended version contained language that declared the act an emergency, which would allow it to take effect immediately, but the legislature did not approve the changes with a 4/5ths vote, which is supposedly what’s required in order for that “emergency” provision to be adopted.

The Virginia legislative website lists the effective date for HB 1525 as July 1, but the Virginia State Police put out a notice on Tuesday that declared the law is already in effect. That was the good news for Spanberger.

The bad news? The VSP won’t be resuming background checks on private sales of firearms anytime soon… at least not without a court order.

Gun Owners of America and VCDL had threatened to seek contempt charges against the head of the VSP if they abided by Spanberger’s edict, and it looks like the VSP didn’t see that as an idle threat.

Keep in mind that there are three parts to HB 1525; a ban on those under 18 from possessing handguns and “assault firearms” except under limited circumstances, the ban on handgun and “assault firearm” sales to adults under the age of 21, and the edict to the VSP to start enforcing the enjoined universal background check law. The only portion of the law that the state police say will not be enforced is the section of law regarding background checks on private sales of firearms, and as far as the agency is concerned it’s now against the law for a 20-year-old to purchase an AR-15 in Virginia, even through a private sale.

Of course, as of July 1 it will be illegal for any adult over the age of 21 to purchase an AR-15 too. The sale ban wasn’t the primary motivation for HB 1525. It was the restoration of the state’s universal background check law, and the VSP just said that isn’t happening until a judge tells the agency it can resume enforcement.

So what will that take? The case cited by VSP has concluded, with then-Attorney General Jason Miyares declining to appeal the decision. Current AG Jay Jones attempted to intervene before he took office, but the Virginia Court of Appeals shut down that effort fairly quickly.

According to Virginia law:

Any court wherein an injunction has been awarded may at any time when such injunction is in force dissolve the same after reasonable notice to the adverse party, or to his attorney of record, in which notice shall be set forth the grounds upon which such dissolution will be asked, unless such grounds be set forth in an answer previously filed in the case by the party giving such notice.

Note the word “may” there. It sounds to me like Jones can ask the Lynchburg circuit judge to lift the injunction, but Judge F. Patrick Yeatts is under no obligation to abide by that request. It’s unclear whether the plaintiffs would be allowed to reply to that request or whether Yeatts could ask for additional briefings or even hold another round of oral arguments, but in any case the decision is left to the court that granted (or upheld) an injunction. This particular statute doesn’t even say that Yeatts’ decision could be appealed, though that might be covered in another part of Virginia’s statutes.

As I predicted last week, the issue of Virginia’s universal background check law is almost certainly headed back to the courts. I have no idea what the ultimate outcome will be, but at least in the short term Spanberger’s attempt to get around this court order has officially failed.

MOTION FILED IN THIRD SAF-SUPPORTED NATIONAL FIREARMS ACT LAWSUIT

BELLEVUE, Wash. — April 27, 2026 — Plaintiffs have filed a motion for summary judgment in Roberts v. ATF, one of the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) three supported lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the National Firearms Act’s (NFA) registration requirements for short-barreled firearms and silencers.

Until President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the NFA established a $200 tax and registration regime on certain classes of firearms including silencers and short-barreled rifles, purportedly drawing from Congressional authority to levy taxes. After the One Big Beautiful Bill eliminated the $200 tax on those arms, SAF and its partners filed three lawsuits challenging the remaining registration requirements, because without the tax, Congress’ reliance on their taxing power is no longer justifiable.

“As we’ve stated in each of our three National Firearms Act challenges, Congress lacks the authority to continue requiring the registration of protected arms under the NFA,” said SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “The Court has everything they need to put this case to bed and end this infringement on the rights of Americans nationwide.”

SAF itself is a named plaintiff in the NFA lawsuit Brown v. ATF and is now backing two additional challenges – Jensen v. ATF and this case, Roberts v. ATF. Filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, the named plaintiffs in Roberts are Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Center for Human Liberty, American Suppressor Association Foundation, Buckeye Firearms Association, Meridian Ordnance and two private citizens.

“We have the best opportunity in almost a century to end the registration scheme for silencers and short-barreled rifles under the NFA,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “SAF is seizing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by supporting three separate cases challenging the unconstitutional law, and we’re optimistic this Second Amendment infringement will finally be lifted.”

No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved in its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defence of the state. . . . Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.
– “M.T. Cicero” 1788

There are things that are too stupid to be said by anyone but a professor of education. – Charlie Martin

It’s called ‘algebra’ because the Arab who figured it out called it “al Jabr”

Prof: Algebra, geometry perpetuate “whiteness”, “unearned privilege” in society.

A math education professor at the University of Illinois has argued in a recently published academic book that algebraic and geometry skills perpetuate “unearned privilege” among white people.

Rochelle Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Illinois, made the claim in a anthology for math teachers, arguing that teachers must be aware of the “politics that mathematics brings” in society.

In the book chapter, the professor explains that she sees her role as a math educator not just in the way of an educator, but that of an activist against whiteness, which she claims facilitates “microagresssions” and “privilege” between those who excel in math and those who do not.

“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as White,” Gutierrez argued.

Gutierrez also worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege, fretting that “curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.”

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BLUF
Nowhere in Bruen does the Supreme Court suggest that the only purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the individual right of self-defense. That’s a ludicrous argument, given both the text and history of the amendment and how the right to keep and bear arms has been exercised since 1791.

Gun Control Advocates: About Those Hunting Rifles We Said Were Okay…

Fifty years ago, the gun control lobby’s position was that handguns should (and could) be banned without violating the Second Amendment, but they had no interest in going after “sporting” arms. Even today it’s not uncommon for anti-gun politicians to argue that nobody “needs” a particular firearm to hunt deer or turkey, which insinuates that they believe those guns are okay to possess, at least in limited circumstances.

In court, however, the gun control lobby is making a very different argument.

The brief filed by Baltimore, Maryland; Columbus, Ohio; Harris County, Texas; Everytown for Gun Safety; Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence; and Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in support of the BATFE does indeed claim that the Second Amendment only protects those arms that are in common use for self-defense; essentially reversing decades of public statements and policies promoted by the anti-gunners.

Bruen establishes that the “common use” question under the Second Amendment is whether an arm is lawfully “‘in common use’ today for self-defense.” Applying that standard requires consideration of a weapon’s actual use and objective design and features, which establish the uses for which it is suited. Weapons that are commonly used in and suitable for lawful self-defense fall within the scope of the Second Amendment right, but those that are “most useful in military service,” or “ill-suited and disproportionate to the need for self-defense,” do not. That limitation follows sensibly from the “‘common use for self-defense’ rationale for the private right to bear arms.”

In Heller, the Supreme Court held that “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess afirearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” That language clearly indicates that self-defense is not the only lawful purposes for keeping and bearing arms, as the gun control advocates (and several federal courts) have asserted.

In their recent amicus brief, the gun control groups and their allies in local government claim that this is a foregone conclusion, which is why “Bruen itself, in analyzing step one, asked specifically whether handguns were ‘in common use’ today for self-defense.’”

That’s too cute by half. The reason why the Supreme Court noted that handguns were in common use today for self-defense is because the case dealt with the licensing of carrying handguns for self-defense. Two of the individual plaintiffs in the case were actually granted New York permits “that allowed them to carry handguns only for purposes of hunting and target shooting,” but they wanted unrestricted licenses that, in the language of the New York statute, would “allow them to carry concealed handguns ‘for personal protection and all lawful purposes.’”

Nowhere in Bruen does the Supreme Court suggest that the only purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the individual right of self-defense. That’s a ludicrous argument, given both the text and history of the amendment and how the right to keep and bear arms has been exercised since 1791. But the next time an anti-gunner tells you that no one needs an AR-15 for deer hunting, ask them if they really believe that a bolt-action rifle is protected by the Second Amendment. They might tell you yes, but Everytown, Brady, and Giffords would beg to disagree.

Over 1 Million NFA Forms Processed So Far This Year, 6 Million Suppressors on File

It seems that the feds have had to wade through a year’s worth of National Firearms Act forms just in the first four months of 2026.

In the wake of zero-dollar tax stamps for suppressors and short-barreled firearms becoming a reality on New Year’s Day 2026, the ATF’s NFA Division has since processed a million forms as of April 23. The American Suppressor Association told Guns.com via email that over half of those are for Form 4 applications for suppressor transfers.

Of note, for 2024, the most recent year available, the NFA Division processed 1,373,305 forms. The Division only broke a million forms in a single year for the first time in 2011. Going further back, in 2001, only 311,892 forms of all types were processed.

The big takeaway, however, is the growth in suppressor numbers over that period.

“As of April 10, 2026, 5,998,065 suppressors were registered in the NFRTR, a number that has likely surpassed 6 million as of today,” advised ASA last week. “The number of suppressors registered between Jan. 2026 and April 10, 2026, is almost as many as ALL the suppressors registered between 1934 and 2010 (76 years).”

Below is a chart of selected historical suppressor registration numbers going back to January 2000.

Note that suppressors were rare before the past couple of decades, with just 83,627 cans registered nationwide in 2000 and 223,761 in 2010. (Chart: ASA)

Looking a whole lot like “common use” to me. Just saying.

UNBELIEVEABLE: CNN Using Assassination Attempt to Call for More Gun Control

SAF Investigative Journalism Project

ANALYSIS: Just minutes after the third attempt to kill President Donald J. Trump, in addition to senior members of his staff, CNN’s Idiot-in-Chief Brian Stelter was calling for more gun control.

“As CNN anchor Victor Blackwell put it when I joined him on air this morning, ‘The people in that room were confronted with what schoolchildren and moviegoers and congregants and people at grocery stores have been confronted with, and that is the threat of gun violence.’” Stelter wrote in an analysis piece titled: “An extraordinary moment for America’s media elite is all too ordinary in America.”

Ah, the poor media elite felt confronted. Really? The bad guy didn’t even enter their room. Many media elites never even heard any gunshots.

Stelter quoted another CNN hack, Jim Sciutto, whose comments you can probably already imagine.

“One thing we know is that there will be a lot of discussion afterwards about security measures. (A discussion about) rhetoric, perhaps, as well. There won’t be any substantive discussion about access to weapons, right? There just won’t,” Sciutto reportedly said.

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Acting AG Todd Blanche Rejects ‘More Restrictive’ Gun Laws as Response to WHCD Attack

Acting AG Todd Blanche Rejects ‘More Restrictive’ Gun Laws as Response to WHCD Attack
During a Sunday morning appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made clear the push for “more restrictive” gun laws is the wrong response to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) attack.

Host Margaret Brennan noted that alleged WHCD attacker traveled from California to Washington, DC via a train and asked if there are plans to change “security protocols” to “match on trains what you are expected to go through when you fly, when you do have to declare a weapon”?

Blanche responded, “This isn’t about… changing the law and making the laws more restrictive around possession of firearms. It appears he purchased these firearms the past couple of years. We don’t know how those firearms ended up in his possession in D.C. We can make some assumptions based upon what I just said about he got to D.C., but I don’t think the narrative here is about changing laws or making our laws more restrictive.”

Brennan said, “If you try to fly you do have to have your firearms declared in some way, you don’t when you get on a train.”

Consider this: Amtrak’s weapons policy statement is actually more stringent than that of an airline. It not only requires checked firearms to be placed in a “locked hard-sided container…” but also mandates that the passenger alert Amtrak of the intent to check guns 24 hours before departure.