Who Are the Real Extremists?
America’s vast lawful gun culture is the norm today, as it has long been, not the infringement inherent in gun-control activists’ dystopian worldview.

In December of 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) confirmed that the state of Florida will soon improve the concealed-carry permitting system it has had in place since 1987 by adopting constitutional carry as well. In so doing, Florida would become the 26th state to get out of the way of the peoples’ right to “bear arms.” If this happens, in just a few decades, the United States will have gone from having one state with a permitless carry system in place (Vermont) to having a majority of states with permitless carry systems in place.

To those who follow this area of the law, the news that Florida is moving to add itself to the constitutional-carry list should be entirely unsurprising. Historically, Florida has often been a trailblazer in pursuit of the restoration of the Second Amendment, but, in this case, it has fallen behind the times. Indeed, to take a look at a map of constitutional-carry states is to notice that Florida is effectively surrounded. In the last few years, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia and have all made the switch, and they were preceded by so many other states that it is now possible to drive from Georgia to Arizona (via Montana) without ever leaving a state that hasn’t eliminated its permitting requirement.

But here’s a peculiar thing: If, for whatever reason, you were to have followed Florida’s wholly unexceptional plan solely via the mainstream press, you’d have a hard time learning any of this. Instead, you’d “know” all sorts of other things—things that, on closer inspection, turn out to be flatly false. Specifically, you’d end up thinking that Florida’s decision represented a dramatic departure from the norm. You’d end up thinking that Florida’s governor—and its legislature—were full of wild-eyed extremists. You’d end up thinking that states that abolish their permitting requirement become more dangerous as a result. Hell, if you availed yourself of the more-hysterical coverage, you might even end up worried that there were bound to be shootouts in the streets as a result of this change.

Don’t take my word for it; try it yourself. Pick up your phone, type the words “Florida constitutional carry” into Google and peruse the news articles that come up. Note the language that is used as a matter of routine: “extreme,” “dangerous,” “unsafe,” “radical.” Count the number of times that the uninformed opinion of the author is laundered through the phrase “experts say.” Observe the non-sequiturs and the lies; in particular, note the pretense that constitutional carry means that criminals are able to carry firearms with impunity, or that all regulations have been abolished. Consider how many times you are informed, as an aside, that the Second Amendment has been misinterpreted, or that it was never supposed to apply to individuals in the first instance. It’s remarkable.

It’s typical, too. Increasingly, stories about gun laws in America resemble dispatches from an alternate universe—one in which the Second Amendment does not mean what it says; in which the advent of “shall-issue” concealed carry never happened; in which permitless carry remains a fringe and untested idea; in which the massive increase in the number of concealed carriers coincided with an increase, rather than a precipitous drop, in crime; in which gun ownership remains the preserve of a handful of white men; and in which states such as Texas and Georgia, rather than states such as California and New York, are the outliers.

Contrast the manner in which the press habitually treats the gun laws of, say, Illinois or New Jersey, to how they treat the gun laws of, say, Arizona or Maine. If one were to take these various descriptions at face value, one would be forgiven for concluding that Illinois and New Jersey were “normal,” while Arizona and Maine represented outliers. But that is entirely false. Continue reading “”

IMPD says domestic incident led to deadly shooting of attempted home intruder

INDIANAPOLIS – A man is dead after police said he was shot trying to force his way into an apartment on Indy’s northeast side.

Just after 1 a.m., police were called to the Bayview Club apartments near 75th and Shadeland and found Cavin Pogue Jr. shot. The 31-year-old died after being taken to the hospital.

Police confirm the shooting appears to be domestic related.

Man shot while charging at IMPD officer with knife gets less than 3 years in prison
Because investigators claim Pogue was acting as a home intruder, his death, while still a homicide, does not appear to be criminal.

“People are allowed to use deadly force to protect themselves and their homes against intruders,” said attorney Mario Massillamany.

Attorney Mario Massillamany said Indiana lawmakers have given people a lot of freedom to defend their homes.

“Our legislature values that your home is your castle and you have a lot more protections than if you’re on the street,” said Massillamany. “You do not have a duty to retreat. You are allowed to feel safe in your own home.”

The death Tuesday morning is just the latest in a series of non-criminal homicides to start 2023.

Ten of the first 36 homicides this year have been deemed accidental, self-defense or cleared without charges.

That’s a dramatic increase over the last two years on the same date, when there was only one non-criminal homicide in 2021 and three in 2022.

I was lucky this phobia wasn’t around when I was in school, because I spent a lot of my time in high school art class sketching guns.

Banning My Son From Doodling A Gun Is Not A Solution To School Shootings

The only thing more predictable than boys being fascinated with weapons is them eventually sketching one in class. But that’s not allowed anymore.

What is it that makes a little boy — practically straight out of the womb — take an interest in weapons and emulate gun-toting, swash-buckling heroes? Even doctors aren’t sure. As one pediatrician told me about my then 16-month-old son who turned every stick into a sword, “We don’t know why. They just do it.”

If you’ve raised a little boy, you know what I’m talking about. And the only thing more predictable than them being fascinated with weapons is them eventually doodling one in class. An alien with a laser gun. An elf with a sword. Rambo with a machine gun.

When they do, they’ll encounter a host of school polices banning images of weapons, ostensibly to prevent school shootings and other violence. Some make exceptions for historical context (such as a Revolutionary War soldier with a bayonet).

Others don’t. Who can forget the infamous Pop-Tart gun of 2016? The 7-year-old was suspended.

If your child is lucky, he’ll be told to put the drawing away. If he’s unlucky, he’ll be sent to the principal’s office and then to the school counselor, where he may even be given a suicide assessment.

No Drawings with Guns Allowed

My first encounter with this type of policy was when my youngest boy came home from a Fairfax County, Virginia, elementary school with his shirt inside out. On the front was an image of a Lego Ewok holding — eek! — a tiny axe.

I recently encountered this policy again with my 10-year-old son. He had gotten in trouble for drawing a police officer holding a gun. A police officer.

Author's son's drawing.
Author’s son’s drawing.

In an email, my son’s teacher said she explained to him that drawing weapons in class is not allowed and encouraged him to “stick to dragons and landscapes.”

Continue reading “”

West Virginia Governor Announces Support for Newly Passed Campus Carry Bill: ‘I’ll Sign It’

The Mountain State will soon be the latest to allow those with permits to carry concealed guns on college campuses.

On Tuesday, the West Virginia House of Delegates put the finishing touches on Senate Bill 10. By Wednesday, Governor Jim Justice (R.) announced his intention to sign it into law once it reaches his desk.

“I know it’s controversial, but from my standpoint, here’s where I stand: I stand rock solid with our Second Amendment,” Justice said during a press conference Wednesday. “When this bill comes to me, it won’t be with me but just a matter of seconds because I’ll sign it.”

Once signed, the bill will make West Virginia one of twelve states to allow gun carry in most areas of campus without an option for school officials to implement gun bans. It arrives at a time of heightened scrutiny over gun carry after the Supreme Court’s June decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen recognized a constitutional right to carry a gun in public for self-defense. Many blue states have rushed to pass laws cracking down on public gun carry in response to the ruling. Meanwhile, red states have continued to expand where civilians can carry in public and sought to eliminate permitting requirements.

Governor Justice cited frequent mass shootings across the country committed by “bad, bad, bad actors” that occur on “soft targets” as his reasoning for supporting the bill.

“God forbid, but it may very well be that we’ve got somebody on that campus that has a firearm and something bad starts to happen, and they save a bunch of lives,” he said.

Armed bystanders have intervened to stop or prevent mass shootings on numerous occasions throughout the country. Elisjsha Dicken returned fire against a shooter in July 2022 ending an attack on an Indiana mall food court. Similarly, a legally-armed bystander shot a gunman at an El Paso, Texas mall earlier this month.

He also pointed to long-standing campus carry laws in states like Texas that have been on the books “for years and years” to show that the policy can be implemented safely.

The bill would not prevent schools from instituting any and all restrictions on campus carry. But school officials would be limited to baring guns in buildings and other parts of campus with comprehensive security measures, such as metal detectors. Those provisions, however, were not enough to win over opponents of the bill. Some pointed to the recent mass shooting at Michigan State, where an adult not affiliated with the school shot and killed three students on campus, to argue against the bill.

Marshall University student E.T. Bowen said college students already feel “terrified on campus,” and adding more guns would exacerbate that.

“This bill is like throwing kerosene on the wildfire, and it is appalling that we even need to say that while there’s still blood on the ground at Michigan State,” Bowen said.

The bill’s supporters also pointed to prior mass shootings on college campuses. Delegate Mike Honaker (R.) was a state trooper who responded to the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. He said the prospect of something like that happening again compelled him to give students a chance to defend themselves.

“Please hear me: Years ago, I sat on the foot of my bed with Windex and paper towels and I washed the blood of almost 30 kids off of my shoes because of an active shooter on a college campus,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “I fear that if I do not support this legislation, and it happens again, washing their blood off my shoes will not compare to trying to wash the blood off of my hands.”

The bill ultimately passed overwhelmingly on an 84-14 vote. Once signed, it will take effect on July 1, 2024.

West Virginia lawmakers overwhelmingly approve NRA-backed campus carry bill, send to governor for signing

West Virginia lawmakers passed an NRA-backed bill that will allow concealed carry permit holders to carry their firearms on the campuses of state colleges and universities.

“The National Rifle Association applauds the West Virginia Legislature’s passage of NRA-backed campus carry,” NRA West Virginia State Director Art Thomm told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

“There is no reason why any adult who is deemed mature enough to defend his or her country at war should not be entrusted to defend themselves and others on campus. And there is no reason an adult who is allowed to carry in other parts of the state can’t be trusted when on campus,” he added.

The bill passed in the West Virginia House of Delegates on Tuesday 84-13.

If signed into law by Republican Gov. Jim Justice, West Virginia will become the 12th state in the U.S. with such legislation, alongside states like Arkansas, Georgia and Kansas. West Virginia is currently one of 20 other states that have no laws on the books preventing concealed carry holders from carrying on college campuses.

Supporters of the bill include Republican Delegate Mike Honaker, a former Virginia State Police officer who responded to the tragic Virginia Tech campus shooting in 2007 that left 32 people dead.

“I know we have to be careful about this issue,” he said. “But there’s no way that I, as someone who has lived through this and seen it with my own eyes, could forbid another free law-abiding American citizen from carrying a firearm and retaining the ability and the capacity to defend yourself or others, God forbid they ever be put in a position to do it,” he said last week as the bill advanced in state House.

Votes on the bill come just days after a shooting at Michigan State University on Feb. 13, when three students were killed and five others were injured. Critics of the bill cited the shooting in their argument against the legislation, with some college students in West Virginia attending a public hearing last week to voice their concerns.

Marshall University student E.T. Bowen said this month that some students are “terrified on campus as it is,” CBS News reported.

“We don’t need more guns to exacerbate that. This bill is like throwing kerosene on the wildfire, and it is appalling that we even need to say that while there’s still blood on the ground at Michigan State,” Bowen argued.

Thomm told Fox News Digital, however, that criminals break laws no matter if there is a gun-free zone or other rules prohibiting firearms.

“Criminals break laws regardless of boundaries or gun free zones. Law-abiding people don’t. NRA-backed campus carry has been passed in many states, and we look forward to Gov. Justice signing this life-saving legislation into law,” Thomm said.

February 23

303 – Roman emperor Diocletian orders the destruction of the Christian church in Nicomedia, beginning 8 years of persecution until emperor Constantine becomes sole ruler and converts to Christianity.

532 – Byzantine emperor Justinian I orders the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia.

1455 – Johan Gutenberg publishes a Bible, printed for the first time with movable type, in his printing shop in downtown metropolitan Mainz, Germany. (which, btw, I have laid eyes on one of the original copies, inside the vault inside the museum in Mainz, just across the river from Wiesbaden where I was stationed for a few years.)

1778 – Baron Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.

1836 – The Siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.

1870 – Mississippi is readmitted to the Union under Reconstruction.

1883 – Alabama becomes the first state to enact an anti-trust law.

1886 – Charles Martin Hall produces the first samples of aluminum from the electrolysis of aluminum oxide.

1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”.

1905 – Chicago attorney Paul Harris and three other businessmen meet for lunch to form the Rotary Club, the world’s first service club.

1927 – President Calvin Coolidge signs into law a bill establishing the Federal Radio Commission, later called the Federal Communications Commission.
German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg writes a letter to fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli, in which he describes his Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics.

1941 – The radioactive element Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg at the University of California, Berkeley.

1942 – The Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-17 under the command of Commander Kozo Nishino, bombards the Ellwood oilfield, near Santa Barbara, California inflicting minimal real damage and no casualties, but causing mass panic among the population.

1945 – On the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, First Lieutenant Harold G. Schrier, executive officer of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division, leads a combat patrol up Mount Suribachi, which, on reaching the summit, raises a U.S. flag, which is later replaced by a much larger flag, that raising being both photographed and filmed for posterity.
On the Philippine island of Luzon, troops of the U.S. 11th Airborne Division, along with Filipino guerrillas, free all 2,147 allied civilian and military  captives of the Los Baños internment camp.

1946 – At Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines, Imperial Japanese Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of all Japanese forces on Luzon, is executed by hanging for war crimes committed by his troops, which he did not attempt to discover and stop from occurring – which is known as the Yamashita standard.

1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine begins in Pittsburgh.

1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.

1983 – The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency announces the buy out and evacuation of the dioxin contaminated community of Times Beach, Missouri.

1998 – Near Kissimmee, Florida an outbreak of 15 tornados destroy or damage 2,600 structures and kill 42 people.

2008 – The U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber Spirit of Kansas crashes on takeoff from Anderson Air Force Base, on Guam, MI, with both pilots safely ejecting, the first operational loss of a B-2.

2019 – Atlas Air Flight 3591, a Boeing 767 freighter, crashes into Trinity Bay near Anahuac, Texas, killing all 3 crew on board.

RESPONSE BRIEF FILED IN MILLER v. BONTA CALIF. ‘ASSAULT WEAPON’ BAN CASE

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and its partners in the case of Miller v. Bonta, challenging California’s ban on so-called “assault weapons,” have filed a responding brief in the case, countering defense arguments and strategies already rejected by federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Our reply takes the state to task for going directly against the instructions of the federal court,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The state spent its entire 25-page brief trying to re-litigate the case, essentially arguing for ‘interest balancing’ by the court, which the Supreme Court nixed last year in its landmark Bruen ruling. The only logical conclusion is that the State of California is stalling, trying to delay the inevitable ruling that the ban on semiautomatic rifles is unconstitutional.”

SAF is joined by the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Firearms Policy Coalition and four private citizens, including James Miller, for whom the case is named. They are represented by attorneys George M. Lee at Seiler Epstein, LLP and John W. Dillon at the Dillon Law Group, APC. The case is now before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

Plaintiffs note in their response brief, “The State’s attempt to ignore this Court’s instructions and introduce last-minute further “expert testimony” offered in other cases on the ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’ question—which has already been settled by this Court—is also a naked appeal to interest balancing and is irrelevant to the question of historical analogues requested by this Court (and required under Bruen). At this point, Defendants are simply padding the record with old (and misplaced) arguments and extraneous declarations.”

“It seems clear to us the state is trying to revive arguments they cannot use because they have no historical evidence to support their gun ban,” Gottlieb observed. “The court shouldn’t tolerate such legal shenanigans, which ultimately attempt to reframe this case into a policy matter, which boils down to whether average citizens ‘need’ a semiautomatic firearm.

“The Supreme Court already settled this,” he continued. “It’s not up to the government to make that choice, it’s up to the American people, and their rights are not subject to public opinion polls or the whims of anti-gun politicians in Sacramento.”

Canada Illustrates The Reality Of The Gun-Control Agenda

Learning from one’s own misfortunes is smart, but it’s wiser to learn from—and avoid—the misfortunes of others. For American Second Amendment supporters, the Canadian experience provides a chilling and instructive lesson in what gun controllers really want: the end of civilian firearm ownership.

For many Americans, Canada is as familiar and relatable as neighboring states of the Union. Canada and the U.S. share a border, a common language, cultural touchstones and various commercial and sporting pursuits.

That last category includes a shared love of the outdoors, and especially of hunting and trapping. As with America, much of Canada’s expansive wilderness was settled by hardy hunters and trappers who braved the country’s wild frontiers in search of fortune and adventure. The gun is an inseparable part of both national stories.

But America and Canada also share a similar cultural divide when it comes to guns. Guns are a common and uncontroversial facet of life in both countries’ rural communities, where they are used not just to harvest wildlife but also to provide a safeguard against predators when police protection is scarce. The politics and culture of firearms in both countries’ cities are very different, however. Canadian and American urban elites—who get their meat from grocery stores and restaurants and who take routine police patrols for granted—consider firearms dangerous, unnecessary and counterproductive.

Nor are the elites on either side of the border willing to tolerate these differences. Rather, they blame firearms themselves, and not human agency or the social dynamics they themselves promote, for the criminal misuse of guns. They associate firearms with cultures they do not understand and—let’s be honest—consider to be inferior. Firearms are also linked in their minds with infamous crimes. And, having no other reference point for the gun’s place in society, they reflexively call for firearm bans in response to these events.

That’s the generous explanation. There are also politicians in both countries who use gun control as a tool to subjugate their political opponents, much as King George III did in the American colonies.

Despite the similarities, we can see very different outcomes in the two countries. Canadians have essentially lost the right of armed self-defense, and are frighteningly close to losing the freedom to possess firearms at all. America, meanwhile, has the highest per-capita gun-ownership rate in the world, with the right to keep and bear arms shielded—at least theoretically—from urban elites.

An article published last December in The Washington Post opined that Canada’s progressive Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a “gun-free Canada within his reach.” It noted how Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “was the first to begin the process of systematically banning entire categories of firearms,” with 1969 legislation that allowed the executive branch to declare certain firearms “prohibited.” A mass shooting in 1989 was then exploited to further clamp down on legal firearm ownership, prompting a needs-based licensing system that presumptively banned firearm acquisition for self-defense. Justin Trudeau capitalized on another mass killing in 2020 to accelerate the banning of “military-grade assault-style” long guns in Canada under existing law. He then promoted legislation in 2022 that would expand this bogus and misnamed category, coerce surrender of non-conforming guns and institute a “freeze” on handgun ownership. Trudeau later went even further, introducing amendments that would essentially grant the government control to ban what few hunting guns had remained legal.

Unlike Canada and the other commonwealth realms, however, the U.S. liberated itself from Britain’s monarchy in the Revolutionary War. This experience led the founding generation to enshrine the right to keep and bear arms in the nation’s organizing charter. Like Canada, the U.S. Congress passed major gun control in the 1960s. But this sparked renewed efforts by pro-gun Americans—led by the NRA—to promote responsible firearm ownership and to ensure the original understanding of the Second Amendment was expounded in scholarship and eventually preserved in judicial rulings.

Now, U.S. Supreme Court precedents protect the individual right to keep and bear firearms, in and outside of the home, for the core purpose of defense, and allow only such regulation as is consistent with the founding era’s legal history and traditions.

Yet, there are American politicians, like President Joe Biden himself, who see our neighbor to the North’s policies not as a warning, but as a roadmap. Only the dedicated and vigilant activism of informed gun owners, channeled through organizations like the NRA, stands in their way.

Private Gun Carriers’ Self-Defense Against Public Shooters
The El Paso incident from a few days ago, the FBI 2021 statistics, and more.

I had written about this in past years, but I thought I’d update it to reflect the El Paso incident from last week. According to the El Paso Police Department (see also CNN [Andy Rose]), a confrontation between two groups of teenagers at a mall “escalated into a physical fight” and then into a 16-year-old fatally shooting a member of the other group and seriously wounding another member, as well as injuring a member of his own group. Then,

As soon as the shooting ended, the 16-year-old suspect began to run and was pointing the gun towards the direction of bystanders, including 32-year-old Emanuel Duran, a Licensed to Carry Holder. As the suspect ran towards Duran and bystanders, Duran drew his handgun and shot the suspect.

At that time, one off-duty El Paso Police Officer arrived at the area of the shooting and together with Duran rendered aid to the 16-year old suspect and the others that were injured. Investigators found that there were at least two other legally armed citizens in the area of where the shooting took place, but were not involved.

Now in this case, the suspect didn’t seem to have planned a mass shooting; he seems to have had a beef with the other teenagers. On the other hand, he appears to have been pointing his gun towards the bystanders, so it’s hard to know what would have happened. And something similar could easily have happened with an intended mass shooting as well; for an incident like that from last year, see this WCHS-TV story:

Police said a woman who was lawfully carrying a pistol shot and killed a man who began shooting at a crowd of people Wednesday night in Charleston.

Dennis Butler was killed after allegedly shooting at dozens of people attending a graduation party Wednesday …. No injuries were reported from those at the party.

Investigators said Butler was warned about speeding in the area with children present before he left. He later returned with an AR-15-style firearm and began firing into the crowd before he was shot and killed.

“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said.

According to WCHS-TV (Bob Aaron), Butler was a convicted felon, and was thus not legally allowed to own guns. In principle, perhaps he might still have been stopped by (say) a law requiring background checks, which would likely have stopped law-abiding sellers from selling him the gun; but it’s not clear whether someone with his criminal record would have much been stymied by that, as opposed to just buying a gun on the black market. Likewise, in El Paso, CNN reports that the gun used by the 16-year-old shooter was reported stolen.

I gathered some more examples from over the years here, and then followed up with data based on FBI reports of mass shootings in 2016 and 2017: legal civilian gun carriers tried to intervene in 6 out of 50 incidents, and apparently succeeded in 3 or 4 of them.

Continue reading “”

February 22

1512 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian cartographer, sailor and namesake of the continents of the New World, dies, age 60 in Seville, Spain.

1732 –  George Washington in born in the family home at Popes Creek, Westmoreland County, Virginia. The date is celebrated from 1879 until 1971 as a federal holiday.

1819 – Under terms of the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for 5 million dollars.

1847 – In the Mexican–American War’s Battle of Buena Vista, 5000 American troops under the command of General Zachary Taylor, defeat 15,000 Mexican troops under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna (yes of Alamo and San Jacinto notoriety)

1856 – The Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh.

1862 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a 6 year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.

1872 – The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.

1878 – In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of five-and-dime Woolworth stores.

1881 – Cleopatra’s Needle, a 3,500-year-old Ancient Egyptian obelisk, relocated from the ruins of the Caesareum temple of Alexandria is erected in Central Park, New York.

1889 – President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington as U.S. states.

1901 – The Pacific Mail Company’s steamer City of Rio de Janeiro strikes a rock hidden by dense fog in Golden Gate harbor and quickly sinks, with the loss of 122 of the 201 passengers and crew aboard.

1909 – The 16 battleships of the Great White Fleet, led by USS Connecticut, return to the United States after a voyage around the world.

1942 – As Japanese victory becomes inevitable in the Philippines, President Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur to evacuate to Australia.

1959 – Lee Petty wins the first Daytona 500 stock car race.

1974 –Reportedly inspired by the news reports of the buzzing of the White House by U.S. Army soldier Robert K. Preston in a stolen helicopter on February 17; Samuel Byck attempts to hijack a Delta Air Lines DC-9 jet at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate President Nixon, but commits suicide aboard the aircraft after being shot and wounded by police.

1980 – In Lake Placid, New York, the United States Olympic hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.

1994 – CIA officer Aldrich Ames and his wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union.

1997 – In Roslin, Midlothian, British scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly has been successfully cloned.

2006 – An unknown party at the time detonates 2 bombs at the Shite al-Askari Shrine in Samara, Iraq causing extensive damage, but no casualties, which incites a full on civil war between the U.S. backed Iraqi government and forces of Al Qaida and the Mahdi Army lasting over 2 years.

2018 – A Serbian man throws a grenade at the U.S embassy in Podgorica, Montenegro then detonates a suicide vest, managing to kill only himself and not even wound anyone else.

Lincoln Park man, 73, opens fire on catalytic converter thieves

Chicago — A Lincoln Park man fired shots at a catalytic converter theft crew that pointed a gun at him overnight, according to a Chicago police report. No injuries were reported.

The 73-year-old man saw two thieves trying to steal his catalytic converter in the 2000 block of North Larrabee around 3:40 a.m. He confronted the thieves, and one of them brandished a firearm, prompting the victim to open fire, a police spokesperson said.

Both thieves escaped in a dark SUV, which struck a parked car as they fled the scene, according to police.

The incident occurred near the corner of Armitage and Larrabee. | Google

Neighbors who called 911 said they heard yelling, followed by two or three gunshots. Police said the victim is licensed to own firearms.

Another round of catalytic converter thefts was reported in the area just after 5 a.m. One incident was reported in the 2200 block of North Cleveland, just a couple of blocks from where the shots were fired earlier. Witnesses said the thieves on Cleveland fled in a white Dodge Durango.

Homeowner shoots suspect in Ogle County home invasion

CHANA, Ill. (WTVO) — A suspect in a home invasion was shot by a resident in Chana early Sunday morning, according to police.

The Ogle County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were called to a home in the 9000 block of E. Fowler Road around 1:11 a.m.

When police arrived, they found the offender had been shot in the lower abdomen by someone living at the residence, authorities said.

The man was taken to the Rochelle airport and flown to Saint Anthony’s in Rockford via Life Flight helicopter.

Police said the suspect is in critical but stable condition. The incident is under investigation, police said, adding that charges are possible.

 

How Hard is Real Armed Defense?

Everyone has an opinion. If you ask them, most people will give you their impression of armed defense. Is it trivially easy or is it impossibly hard? I’ve looked at armed defense for a decade and I think we often ask the wrong question about defending ourselves and our families with a firearm. One view is that armed defenders have to make split-second decisions after evaluating a number of complex legal and tactical factors. In contrast, many new gun owners want to concentrate on firearms handling skills so they can manipulate their gun with “fast hands”. I don’t think that is what most defenders really do.

I think almost anyone can learn armed defense if they are willing to take instruction and then practice what they were taught. This is what I’ve learned from firearms students and instructors.

Continue reading “”

Teen breaking into Lexington home shot by homeowner, killed

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – Lexington police say one person is dead after an overnight burglary.

Officers were called to Jouett Creek Drive off Hays Boulevard around 1:10 a.m. Monday for a burglary.

They say they found 19-year-old Oscar Daniel Wilds dead from a gunshot wound inside a home where the homeowner and his children slept. Police say Wilds was forced his way inside, before being shot by a resident.

The Fayette County Coroner says the homeowner and Wilds did not know each other.

Police found a man suffering from gunshot wounds inside a home. He died from his injuries.

Fayette County Coroner Gary Ginn has identified him as 19-year-old Oscar Daniel Wilds of Lexington. Police say Wilds was shot by the homeowner while he was breaking into the home.

Ginn says the homeowner and his children were inside at the time of the break-in. Neighbors say they feel even more vulnerable and feel that it could have been any of their homes instead.

Jim Groves and his neighbor Subir Ghosh were discussing the early morning events just a block away from where it all happened.

“We’ve lived here ten years, and nothing like this has ever happened,” said Groves. “It brings it home that all of us are vulnerable,” said Ghosh. “Sometimes the mind looks for excuses to say, that can’t happen to us, but something like this, would bring it home that it’s random and could happen to anyone.”

Police say all parties involved have been identified, and the investigation is ongoing. Police have not said if charges will be filed.