8-year-old Cayler Ellingson was attending a street dance in McHenry, North Dakota, when he encountered a drunken 41-year-old, Shannon Brandt. At some point, they began to argue about politics, and when the street dance was over, Ellingson started walking home.
But Brandt was waiting for him.
Ellingson’s mom said that the teen called her and asked that she come and get him because Brandt was chasing him through the small town with his SUV, but by the time she arrived, it was too late. Brandt had run down and murdered her son.
Brandt called the police himself to inform them that he had helped them stop a Republican extremist, and that they could come pick up the suspect.
Video interviews show Brandt visibly confused over why he was the one being arrested. The guy really did think he was doing a good thing killing a conservative kid.
A judge ordered Brandt held on $50,000 bail, which he objected to, saying he’s not a flight risk.
“I have a job, a life and a house and things I don’t want to see go by the wayside — family that are very important to me,” Brandt told the judge.
Brandt has so far been charged with vehicular homicide and faces a minimum of 10 years in prison because of a previous DUI on his record. The maximum is 20 years. The police are still interviewing witnesses at the street dance and have not ruled out adding further charges due to the intentional nature of the crime.
Can we really be that surprised that it has come to this?
When the president of the nation is calling conservatives extremists and saying that they are an existential threat to the nation, and 80% of Democrats are on board with that messaging, why wouldn’t someone like Brandt feel justified in stopping a threat to the nation?
Biden’s anti-MAGA speech has desired effect: 80% of Dems now view Trump Republicans as extremist threat to nation
Welp, Biden’s divisive and hateful anti-Trump and MAGA speech has had its desired effect of making Americans hate each other even more.
As a parent, my heart is heavy for Cayler Ellingson’s mother. I cannot imagine the pain she is going through.
It can’t bring back her son, but there is a GoFundMe me set up to help with his funeral expenses.
Update
Brandt posted bail, and is back on the streets. He is now in the process of scrubbing his social media.
New World Record Set for Farthest Long-Range Rifle Shot: 4.4 Miles
A team of shooters hit a steel target at 7,744 yards in the Wyoming desert, besting the previous record by several hundred yards
The long-range shooting world record was broken yet again when a team of spotters and a shooter hit a target at 4.4 miles (7,744 yards) in the Wyoming desert earlier this month. The marksmanship feat was orchestrated by Scott Austin and Shepard Humphries, who run Nomad Rifleman, a long-range shooting school out of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Together with a group of friends they spent several hours launching bullets downrange before connecting on their 69th shot, according to a release on Nomad Rifleman’s website.
Well, yes they can. And it’s not just by the GPS feature. That’s because the thing has to to continually communicate with a cell tower, that’s recorded and can be tracked.
Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcement Can Track You on Your Phone
It is hard to imagine that James Madison — who wrote the words of the Fourth Amendment, which limits the ability of the federal government to intrude upon the privacy of its citizens — would approve of it, but law enforcement from local police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can now track your every movement.
How? A data broker known as Fog Data Science, based in Madison’s home state of Virginia, is now selling geolocation data to state and local law enforcement. Federal law enforcement obtains its information on American citizens from other data brokers. Either way, law enforcement can track exactly where you have been at any time over the past several years.
Personal data is collected through the multitude of applications that Americans use on either their Android or iOS smartphones. Data brokers then sell that data to others, including Fog Data Science, which in turn sells it to local law-enforcement agencies across the country, including Broward County, Florida; New York City; and Houston. And it is not just big cities. Lawrence, Kansas, police use it, as well as the sheriff of Washington County in Ohio.
It’s bizarre when a senile President actually seems to believe his own BS.
And I know a perfect rationale for owning ARs & AKs. The founders were very concerned about what our goobermint might turn into – SloJoe and his puppetmasters being a prime current example – and made the best provisions they could against such within the Constitution & Bill of Rights.
Joe Biden: Continued Sale of ‘Semiautomatic Weapons Is Bizarre’
During the September 18 airing of CBS News’s 60 Minutes, President Joe Biden described the continued sale of semiautomatic weapons as “bizarre.”
Scott Pelley conducted a wide-ranging interview with Biden, but when it turned to guns and gun policy, Biden pledged once again to ban “assault weapons.”
Biden suggested that “there is no rationale” for owning firearms like AR-15s, AK-47s, etc.
He talked of visiting Uvalde, Texas, after the May 24, 2022, school shooting, saying he not only visited there but “every one of those places.”
Biden observed, “The NRA continuing to push the sale of assault and semiautomatic weapons is bizarre.”
On August 26, 2022, Breitbart News noted that Biden renewed his pledge to ban “assault weapons” if Democrats manage to hang onto Congress after the November midterm elections.
The Washington Post quoted Biden saying, “I want to be crystal clear about what’s on the ballot this year … Your right to choose is on the ballot this year. The Social Security you paid for from the time you had a job is on the ballot. The safety of our kids from gun violence is on the ballot.”
He later added, “If we elect two more senators, we keep the House … we’re going to get a lot of unfinished business done.”
Biden stressed that banning “assault weapons” is part of the Democrats’ unfinished business.
SAF ‘Journalism Project’ Hits Biden White House with FOIA Request RE: Gun Control
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Biden White House in an effort to see how deeply imbedded the gun prohibition movement is within Joe Biden’s administration.
Biden stepped into the presidency with an acknowledged gun prohibition agenda. He wants to ban semi-automatic modern sport/utility rifles, and even acknowledged in 2021 he would like to ban 9mm pistols. While there have been published reports of his administration’s interactions with the gun control crowd, there is no indication he has reached out to any gun rights organizations.
The FOIA request was made by IJP editor Lee Williams, whose coverage of gun-related news appears in TheGunMag.com, a SAF-owned publication, as well as several other online news sites. Williams’ reports have occasionally at Liberty Park Press.
Via email, Williams told Liberty Park, “The Biden-Harris administration runs the least transparent White House in recent history. Everything is conducted in secret, behind closed doors. Through this Freedom of Information Act request, we will start holding the shot-callers accountable for their constant infringements on our Second Amendment rights. At the very least, we will find out who’s actually orchestrating their war on our guns.”
In a prepared statement to the media, SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said the FOIA request was necessary in order to learn just how closely and under-the-radar the Biden White House is working with the gun prohibition lobby on legislation and other efforts that may impair Second Amendment rights.
However, this looks purely like a First Amendment issue.
“Joe Biden is a perennial anti-gun-rights politician and he has spent his entire career pushing various gun control schemes that would turn the right to keep and bear arms into a heavily-regulated privilege,” Gottlieb observed. “Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we might be able to learn just how deeply entrenched the gun ban movement has become in his administration.”
The FOIA request seeks copies of all documents, including emails and visitor logs, between the White House and gun control and gun safety groups including, but not limited to, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, The Trace, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Third Way, Newtown Action Alliance, Gun Control Giving Fund, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Violence Policy Center, Gun Violence Archive, Sandy Hook Promise, March for Our Lives, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Alliance for Gun Responsibility and Guns Down America.
“If the Biden White House declines to produce the requested materials, we’re going to wonder why,” Gottlieb said, “and we will not be satisfied until we get some answers, even if it means a court fight.”
The Pandemic Is NOT Over, Says the White House
If Biden doesn’t represent the Biden administration, who does?
By now, the pattern is familiar: President Biden says something stupid and/or insane and/or contradictory to his administration’s stated policies, and his beleaguered staffers need to run around denying that he meant what he very clearly said. This might be the first time they’ve had to do so twice in one day, though.
First they had to walk back Grandpa Joe’s comments on Taiwan. And now, inevitably:
President Biden told CBS the “pandemic is over,” but those comments do not constitute a change in the administration’s Covid-19 response policy, an official tells CNN 
Did you get that? The president of the United States doesn’t speak for the White House. Biden is not in charge of the Biden administration.
So… who is?
Who’s running the show? It sure isn’t Kamala. And Jill — excuse me, Doctor Jill — is just barely more lucid than her husband. Who’s the boss of that house? Ron Klain? Susan Rice? Ex-PFC Wintergreen? What the hell is going on?
Murphy Blocking Cruz School Security Bill Says It All
United States Senate – -(AmmoLand.com)- The next time some anti-Second Amendment extremist claims that those of us who object to gun control aren’t trying to prevent school shootings, the objection of Senator Chris Murphy to Ted Cruz’s School Security Enhancement Act should be thrown in their face.
Second Amendment supporters are all too aware of how anti-Second Amendment extremists weaponize mass shootings in general and mass shootings at schools in particular against our rights. Cruz’s legislation would allow current Student Support and Academic Enrichment grant programs to be used to improve the security at schools.
This sort of thing is – or should be – a no-brainer all around. Who doesn’t want safe schools? Chris Murphy, for one, it seems. What could he find so objectionable about Cruz’s legislation, which doesn’t even permit the use of the grants to arm teachers or train them?
We can quibble whether or not Cruz should have allowed the grants to be used to arm teachers. On the one hand, arming teachers does generate controversy (a voluntary program really shouldn’t, but we’re not in an ideal world). On the other hand, if Murphy won’t even support measures to improve school security that don’t involve guns… what do we have to gain by taking armed teachers off the table? That can be discussed later.
The topic for now, must be Murphy’s decision to object to even bringing such a measure up for debate. This is a no-lose proposition for Second Amendment supporters, especially if we make a lot of noise about it now. If we are seen working on efforts to deter, prevent, or mitigate mass shootings – including efforts that don’t involve guns – we have a chance to head off attacks.
As has been discussed on these pages earlier, Murphy has pushed legislation that would prohibit any sort of federal funding for law enforcement in schools. In other words, what he is proposing would actually make repeats of Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Uvalde not only much more likely to happen but also to rack up the kind of body counts that force us into a major action in defense of our rights.
Why would he remove something that could deter or mitigate attacks? That is a question we’d see him asked if the vast majority of media outlets were honest. We don’t have that world today, so much of it could end up needing to be done by Second Amendment supporters at town meetings. Those in Connecticut should press Murphy on this and demand an explanation.
Remember the time it took for cops to arrive at Sandy Hook? It was ten minutes – 600 seconds. The long periods of inaction by law enforcement at Parkland and Uvalde also should be kept in mind. Murphy’s past track record of smearing Second Amendment supporters means he has forfeited any claim to receiving the benefit of the doubt from Second Amendment supporters on this matter as well.
One final thing: Working to prevent school shootings with legislative proposals like what Senator Cruz proposed is not being a “Fudd.” The fact is, we should be trying to head off these shootings – it’s in our interest to do so, just look at the aftermath of Parkland.
Second Amendment supporters have a chance to immunize themselves to some degree from attacks in the wake of the next school shooting. If they can seize this chance, it will help efforts to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists at the federal, state, and local levels via the ballot box.
Woman shoots, kills man who tried to break into her north Phoenix home
PHOENIX – Police say a man who tried to break into a north Phoenix home has died after being shot by the homeowner.
Phoenix Police say officers responded to reports of a burglary near 23rd Avenue and Bell Road just before 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 18.
Investigators say when the man tried to get into the home and was shot by the female homeowner.
The man was taken to a hospital with critical injuries where he later died.
The woman was interviewed by police and claimed self-defense in the shooting. She was released.
The case will be submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review.
“If you break in my house, my privacy, I do anything to defend myself, and if I gotta kill you, I will do it too. I’m sorry, that’s how I feel,” one neighbor said in reaction to the shooting.
Georgetown professor: AR-15 ‘commonly owned’ and ‘incredibly popular’
In the national debate over banning AR-15-style rifles, there has been a noted lack of information other than anecdotal and heavily biased reports.
On the gun ban side, led by President Joe Biden, the rifle is an “assault weapon” used to kill people. On the gun fan side, led by the National Rifle Association, it’s a tool for hunting and plinking just like every other rifle.
But the truth is, there has been little scholarly study of it and other firearms since 1994, the year the so-called “assault weapon” ban was put into place by President Bill Clinton, which lapsed 10 years later.
Enter political economist and assistant professor William English of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Long interested in issues surrounding guns, he just headed a massive survey of nearly 17,000 firearms users to come up with the most detailed portrait of today’s owners, users, and their firearms.
The bottom line from his “National Firearms Survey” is that gun-owning is common, the AR-15 really is the most popular firearm in America, and its club of owners is incredibly diverse.
When he initially proposed a book on guns in America, English found that there was little factual information out there.
“It kind of dawned on me that, yeah, there’s a real opportunity here just as a scholar to contribute to this literature, where I think there’s some gaps and some important questions. It’s certainly not my main focus, but I kind of got sucked into it,” English said.
The survey he headed reached out to over 54,000 and was narrowed down to 16,708 gun owners who coughed up a wealth of information about what they own and what they do with their guns.
For example, English confirmed that 81.4 million own guns, a third of them have used a weapon to defend themselves or their property in 1.6 million incidents per year, and 52% of those who own a gun carry one for self-defense at times.
He found that some 24 million have owned a total of 44 million AR-style rifles and 39 million own extended magazines that hold 10 rounds or more, potentially influential in the political debate over Biden’s call for an AR ban. His survey estimated that there are 542 million extended magazines in the United States, ending any debate that the AR and other semi-automatic firearms are rare and just used by mass killers.
What’s more, English said that ownership of AR-15s is spread out fairly evenly, with a third of white people having one, as well as about a third of black people, Hispanic people, and Asian people.
“These are just incredibly popular firearms,” he said, adding that “they are commonly owned, commonly used.”
Once a pricey weapon, English said there is an interesting sociological, manufacturing, and economic story to be told about the AR-15 and how it started to become popular around 2010, especially with troops returning from the Gulf wars.
“At the end of the day, it is a rifle that I think is very easy to shoot, it’s very easy to control, not a lot of recoil. I could see it also kind of being like an updated .22 for, in terms of plinking, a firearm you can kind of do a little bit of everything with: lightweight, intuitive, but high-performance, accurate, and easy for defense. It certainly has advantages there. So it’s a good gun, and to see it become widely owned, I suppose, makes sense in that context,” said English.
Another Shootist goes to his reward
In Memoriam: Ed Head
The long time Gunsite instructor and Shooting Illustrated columnist passed away after a brief illness
Ed Head, Shooting Illustrated field editor, retired United State Border Patrol senior firearms instructor and former operations manager, rangemaster and instructor at Gunsite Academy, died last week. He passed away surrounded by close friends and family.
Head served in the United States Air Force as a member of the branch’s military police from 1972 to 1976, specializing in nuclear weapons security and was captain of a weapons and tactics competition team. After leaving the service he joined the Border Patrol in August 1977 and assigned to a San Diego, CA, duty station. There he oversaw operations of a patrol group comprised of 19 supervisors and 160 agents at the Imperial Beach station.
He went on to complete the Firearms Instructor Training Program at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where he received a distinguished Master rating and returned to California to assume firearm qualification and training duties for the Imperial Beach and Chula Vista Border Patrol stations. Later he became sector firearms instructor for the entire San Diego Border Patrol Sector—with 2,500 agents—and founded the San Diego Law Enforcement Combat Shooters Association, winning the club’s first championship. He retired from the Border Patrol in 2001.
In 1988 Head attended his first Gunsite Academy classes. There he earned an Expert rating in several courses and went on to receive the Instructor rating from the facility in 1992. From 2005 to 2010 he served as the facility’s operations manager and began teaching from the day he arrived. The last students he eagerly shared his depth of knowledge and experience with graduated in May, when his cancer forced him to withdraw from the active instructor roster.
“In addition to being an outstanding writer, Ed Head was a truly great man,” said Ed Friedman, editor in chief of Shooting Illustrated. “He served our country with distinction, both in an official capacity and by training untold thousands of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and our Constitution. His experience as the Operations Manager at Gunsite Academy made Ed an easy choice to write our ‘Skills Check’ column, which he did for more than a decade and helped make it one of the most popular departments in the magazine. My friend Ed will be sorely missed by everyone at Shooting Illustrated and in NRA Publications.”
“Ed was a stalwart at Gunsite for decades,” Ken Campbell, Gunsite Academy CEO said. “He trained countless good people and many are still alive as a result. We have lost another great one in the training industry.”
Head is survived by his wife of 36 years, Jean. A memorial service will be held at the Canyon Bible Church, 2900 West Gunsite Road, in Paulden, AZ. Details were not finalized at press time, but will soon be available on Gunsite Academy’s website.
“Crisis of Crimes”: New Orleans Becomes Murder Capital of America
Progressives in top city leadership positions have helped transform New Orleans into the murder capital of America.
WSJ reported the Louisiana city on the Mississippi River, near the Gulf of Mexico, recorded the highest homicide rate of any major city so far this year, with 41 homicides per 100,000 residents.
Metropolitan Crime Commission Inc., a nonprofit that works on crime-reducing strategies in the city, said the homicide rate is up 141% compared with the same period in 2019. It pointed out carjackings are up 210%, shootings 100%, and armed robberies up 25%.
“The homicide rate is on pace to surpass last year’s rate, which was the worst since Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” WSJ noted.
The city’s alarming spike in the homicide rate comes at the same time as “progressive prosecutor” Jason Williams became the district attorney of the metro area in early 2021. He promised a “more selective” approach to prosecutions that goes “beyond punishment.”
Oh, this one is even better
BLUF
Pelley’s reluctance to ask tough questions about Hunter is deliberate and straight out of the corporate media handbook.
The corrupt press knew Hunter was sealing deals using his dad’s name and title. They also knew that was compromising for the then-presidential candidate. That’s why when Hunter’s laptop with information indicating Joe was not as clueless about Hunter’s business as he seemed surfaced shortly before the 2020 election, the media claimed it was “Russian disinformation” and refused to cover any of the corruption.
Pelley’s refusal to make Joe answer for the Biden family business in a 2022 “60 Minutes” interview is no different than the media’s deliberate memory holing of Hunter’s depravity and the Bidens’ wheeling and dealings in 2020.
Corporate Media Enable Biden Family Corruption By Refusing To Ask Tough Questions About Hunter.
Joe Biden hasn’t had to answer tough questions about Hunter Biden and the Biden family business because the corporate media doesn’t make him.
Thanks to the complacent, corrupt corporate media, President Joe Biden has once again failed to answer questions about the Biden family business and whether his son Hunter Biden’s foreign entanglements have affected how he chooses to run the country.
The most recent side-stepping happened during a “60 Minutes” interview with CBS news anchor Scott Pelley, who claimed that if Joe seeks re-election, “Republicans are most likely to go after your son Hunter.”
“I wonder what you would like to say about your son and whether any of his troubles have caused conflicts for you or for the United States,” Pelley said.
Biden: "There's not a single thing that I've observed that would affect me or the United States relative to my son Hunter." pic.twitter.com/SddIu2Fg68
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 19, 2022
First, Pelley’s “question” was not a question but a softball statement designed to save him from criticism for failing to raise Hunter as a topic of conversation at all. Much like the rest of his corporate media colleagues, Pelley seems to have an incessant desire to prop up the declining president instead of making him answer tough questions.
Secondly, Republicans aren’t “going after” Hunter to get to Joe. They are raising legitimate concerns about someone whose foreign business dealings and criminal dabbling, combined with his closeness to POTUS, pose a serious threat to the national security of the United States.
What's sad, it's obvious they cut stuff out. Which means this is the BEST he could do
— Lil Mandee 🇺🇲 (@LilMandee86) September 19, 2022
That is what the American indoctrination schools give us. Lemmings.
— Crypto Granny (@1stCryptoGranny) September 19, 2022
Joe Biden Delivers a Mess of a 60 Minutes Interview, Leaves His Handlers Scrambling
Joe Biden appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday evening, and it was an absolute disaster of an interview. As I type this, stories are already coming out about how he blindsided officials in his administration and how his handlers are scrambling to clean up the mess.
In fact, within an hour of the interview premiering, the first clarification had already dropped regarding comments the president made about defending Taiwan from a Chinese attack. That was the second time in the last few months that the administration has had to walk back Biden’s comments on the subject.
Things didn’t get better as the topics changed. When asked about inflation, Biden gave perhaps the worst answer imaginable.
Biden: "inflation rate month-to-month was just up an inch."
Reporter: "You're not arguing 8.3% is good news?"
Biden: “…You're acting like all of a sudden 'my God it went to 8.2%’”
Reporter: "It's the highest rate in 40 years."pic.twitter.com/KdvyH6J7L4
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 19, 2022
When it comes to bad economic news, there are two ways to handle it as a president. The right way is to admit the truth and then lay out a quantifiable plan for how to improve things. Americans are very forgiving of politicians who speak plainly to them. On the other hand, the wrong way is to simply pretend like everything is actually great and that anyone who doesn’t think so is an idiot. Guess which strategy Biden has chosen?
The dismissive snark about an 8.3 inflation rate that is crushing the poor and middle-class is just astonishing to witness. His skin is so thin you can see straight through it, and while I know Biden doesn’t have to live with any of the consequences of his policies, you’d think he could at least fake it a little. Besides, his excuse doesn’t even make sense. Who cares if the rate only went up “an inch” if the overall rate is still sky-high? Core inflation continues to rise, mainly driven by food and housing (including rent) prices.