Shocking Poll Finds Many American Now Want to Secede From the United States

Support for secession is growing among every partisan group in the months following the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol but particularly among southern Republicans, a new poll found.

Bright Line Watch, in conjunction with YouGov, found that citizen support for their state or region to secede from the U.S. is greatest in the South “where support was already highest (and has the greatest historical precedent).” Overall, 37 percent of respondents indicated a “willingness to secede.”

Support among southern Republicans grew from polling conducted in January, which showed 50 percent were in favor of secession. But the number leapt to 66 percent in June.

“By this summer, we anticipated, political tempers may have cooled — not necessarily as a result of any great reconciliation but perhaps from sheer exhaustion after the relentless drama of Trump,” the group wrote in an analysis of the survey’s findings.

Respondents were asked: “Would you support or oppose [your state] seceding from the United States to join a new union with [list of states in new union]?”

Bright Line Watch constructed five distinct regions that a particular respondent’s state would join and added the relevant states to the question.

Brightline Watch warns that the numbers might be skewed given the complexities of the matter and because the group believes it is an issue that respondents were “very unlikely to have considered carefully.”

The group reiterated that the respondents on either side of the political aisle indicated some support for the idea and that it rose within both partisan groups.

“Republicans are most secessionist in the South and Mountain regions whereas it is Democrats on the West Coast and in the Northeast,” the group writes. “In the narrowly divided Heartland region, it is partisan independents who find the idea most attractive.”

YouGov collected the responses of 2,750 Americans in a public survey from June 16–26, 2021.

As Iran Schemes to Kidnap a Dissident Journalist On American Soil, Corrupt Joe Biden Reduces Sanctions on the Mullahs.

Biden announced he was dropping sanctions on Iran worth billions.

Iran says Biden has promised to drop more sanctions than he’s admitted so far.

Adam Kredo:

The Biden administration is prepared to lift American sanctions on Iran, including on its oil trade and banks, providing the hardline regime with a lifeline as its economy teeters on the brink of collapse, according to an Iranian government report outlining the status of negotiations with the United States.Sanctions are the key sticking point in talks between Iran and the United States in Vienna, as diplomats from both countries work to finalize an agreement that would see the Biden administration rejoin the 2015 nuclear accord.

Iran says it has extracted guarantees from the United States that a full range of sanctions will be lifted, including those impacting Iran’s illicit oil trade, financial sector, state-controlled banks, automotive industry, aviation sector, and mining industry. Iran also claims the United States will suspend the implementation of several laws that have targeted Iran’s regional support for terrorist groups, including those in Syria. Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif disclosed these concessions in a 264-page report sent to the country’s parliament this week, portions of which were translated from Farsi for the Washington Free Beacon.

While the extent of sanctions relief was widely reported in Iran’s state-controlled press, Zarif’s report has garnered little attention in the United States as the Biden administration attempts to sidestep questions about just how far the country will go in relieving pressure on Tehran’s economy. If the report is accurate, the number of new concessions goes even further than the original nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration.

What has Iran done to deserve such supplication?

Why, Iran just schemed to kidnap a dissident journalist — on American soil.

Her name is Masih Alinejad and she fled Iran back in 2009 after stories critical of the regime led to her press credentials being revoked. She now lives in Brooklyn and has continued to write critical articles about Iran. Today unsealed court documents reveal that she was the target of a kidnapping plot by four Iranian agents…

Is Puddinghead Joe an Iranian agent?

Should he be arrested by the Grand Marshall of the Supreme Court and put on trial for treason?

We’ll have to wait and see, but the answer is yes.

 

digg this

Ayoob Provides Unflinching Look At Reality Of Self-Defense

Recently, Massad Ayoob was named as President of the Second Amendment Foundation. It is the latest step in a long career of service, both to community (as a part-time police officer), to those who choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights (he is also well-known for self-defense training – including developing the Stressfire system for pistols and shotguns), and to the cause of protecting the Second Amendment (Ayoob has been a long-time supporter of the Second Amendment Foundation).

But perhaps one of the most important services Ayoob has provided for anyone exercising their Second Amendment rights or thinking about exercising those rights appears in print – and has since 1986. The bi-monthly American Handgunner runs the Ayoob Files as a regular feature. If you have ever thought about carrying a firearm for personal protection, this column ranks up there with his books In The Gravest Extreme and The Truth About Self-Protection as must-reads.

Why is the Ayoob Files feature so important? Because in this case, Second Amendment supporters can learn lessons from others – and these lessons have come at a very high price, ranging from post-shooting trauma and picking up the pieces of one’s life (the very lucky ones), to those who have lost their liberty (including their Second Amendment rights) and even their lives.

Many Second Amendment supporters want people to learn about Second Amendment issues, and that is often done through education. Well, when it comes to exercising our Second Amendment rights, education, and training matter a great deal. As constitutional carry spreads across the country, being well-educated and well-trained in self-defense will be a crucial step in protecting those laws from being overturned.

This is one aspect of responsibly exercising our Second Amendment rights that doesn’t get discussed often, and perhaps it should be. When we exercise our Second Amendment rights, we have the power of life and death in our hands. Knowing the basic rules of firearms safety, knowing how to safely operate your firearm, knowing how to clean them and secure them, knowing the laws – federal, state, and local – that govern them, and knowing when to use them are just as important as knowing what legislation is percolating in Congress and your state legislature.

Hopefully, no loyal AmmoLand News reader will ever wind up having an experience that becomes the subject of the Ayoob Files. Ayoob has a number of other books available on Amazon.com – and their Smile program allows for donations to the Second Amendment Foundation. Perhaps Ayoob’s earlier works can find their way to Kindle – with suitable updating, of course. Ayoob’s works are a great benefit in helping Second Amendment supporters responsibly exercise the rights that we are trying to defend by defeating anti-Second Amendment extremists at the federal, state, and local levels via the ballot box.

BLUF:
While anti-gun Democrats like Carolyn Maloney will use this GAO report to push for more gun control laws, what the study tells me is that a) we’ve got much bigger issues that are driving up healthcare costs and b) banning or tightly regulating items doesn’t solve the problem. Even if the right to keep and bear arms wasn’t protected by the Constitution, gun control wouldn’t be the best answer to bring down the rate of violent crime and firearm-related injuries, but the Second Amendment makes the idea a non-starter. Want to reduce gun-related injuries? Reduce the number of violent criminals, and leave the 100-million responsible gun owners alone.

The Fuzzy Math Behind The GAO’s New Report On The Cost Of “Gun Violence”

Democrats have a new talking point in their continued push for new federal gun control laws – restricting the rights of Americans doesn’t just save lives, but money too. A new report from the Government Accountability Office claims that that the United States spends $1-billion per year on hospital costs related to “gun violence,” and anti-gun politicians are already pointing to the new report as a reason to pass more anti-gun legislation.

The nonpartisan GAO found gun violence accounts for about 30,000 hospital stays and about 50,000 emergency room visits annually. More than 15 percent of firearm injury survivors are also readmitted at least once after initial treatment, costing an additional $8,000 to $11,000 per patient. Because the majority of victims are poor, the burden largely falls on safety-net programs like Medicaid, including covering some of the care for the uninsured.

The report, the first of its kind from the watchdog agency, is based available data on caring for people who suffer non-fatal gun injuries each year. It’s expected to fuel Democrats’ calls for expanded background checks amid a stalemate on gun control legislation.

“Congress must do whatever it takes — including abolishing the filibuster if necessary—to address this public health crisis,” said New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, who led the coalition requesting the GAO study.

Do you get the feeling that Maloney was going to use this report to call for an end to the filibuster no matter what it said? This report is a means to an end, and the end result that Maloney and her fellow Democrats are aiming for is the end of the filibuster and the establishment of one-party rule; from enacting sweeping gun bans with 51 votes to packing the Supreme Court full of anti-gun justices that will uphold every new infringement on the Second Amendment approved by Congress.

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Ammo Inc. Builds Factory To Feed America’s Insatiable Demand

Ammunition manufacturer Ammo Inc. is building a new factory as American consumers deal with an ongoing ammunition shortage caused by unprecedented demand for guns.

While a new factory is welcome news to gun consumers, it won’t go online fast enough to solve this year’s problem of overwhelming demand versus limited supply.

Arizona-based Ammo Inc. broke ground on a 160,000 square foot factory on June 21 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. A new plant from an upstart U.S. manufacturer is a ray of hope for gun enthusiasts, who have been scouring gun stores for ammunition and finding bare shelves, especially for popular calibers like .22 for target shooting, 9mm for pistols and .223 for AR-15s.

Ammo Inc Chief Executive Officer Fred Wagenhals joked at the groundbreaking that he was the only one of his co-founders who “knew what a gun was,” according to a local news broadcast, which said the company plans to finish the project in 2022, bringing 300 jobs to the town.

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NLVPD investigating fatal shooting at apartment complex as self defense

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — North Las Vegas police are investigating a homicide near East Carey Avenue and N. 5th Street Wednesday morning.

About 8 a.m., authorities received a call about a man in his 30s shot multiple times at an apartment complex in the 1000 block of East Carey Avenue, near North 5th Street.

“A man who was identified as the shooter was  detained and questioned by detectives. At this point, the event is being investigated as a ‘self defense’ shooting, but the investigation is still ongoing,” according to NLVPD Officer Alexander Cuevas.

He was taken to UMC hospital where he later died.

Well, we already knew that BLM was a marxist/commie organization. This merely confirms that ‘the far left’ are commies too.


AOC, Omar silent after Black Lives Matter voices support for Cuban regime

Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Cori Bush of Missouri have yet to weigh in on Black Lives Matter declaring its support for Cuba’s communist regime, even though the congresswomen have been vocal BLM supporters in the past.

Black Lives Matter sparked a backlash late Wednesday after posting a statement that blasted the U.S. embargo and praised Cuba’s government.

“The people of Cuba are being punished by the U.S. government because the country has maintained its commitment to sovereignty and self-determination,” the statement said. “United States leaders have tried to crush this Revolution for decades.”

The statement also credited Cuba’s government for “protecting Black revolutionaries like Assata Shakur,” a convicted cop-killer who fled to Cuba after escaping from prison in 1979. BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors has repeatedly praised Shakur in the past.

Ocasio-Cortez and Omar are vocal supporters of BLM, while Bush was a BLM activist before joining Congress.

“In Minnesota, Black Lives Matter was on the ballot. George Floyd was on the ballot. Racial justice was on the ballot,” Omar wrote in a tweet after the November election. “The result? Record turnout, a swing towards Democrats and gains in the suburbs.”

The congressional offices for Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Bush didn’t immediately return Fox News’ requests for comment.

BLM isn’t the only group allied with AOC to have praised the oppressive Cuban regime. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which counts Ocasio-Cortez and Bush among its members, appeared to signal its support for the Cuban regime this week.

Biden Is Right. This Is the Greatest Test of Our Democracy Since the Civil War

On July 13, while at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, President Biden declared, “We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole. Since the Civil War.”

Without a doubt, President Biden is correct. America is facing unparalleled threats to our freedom and democracy. However, those threats are due to leftist policies, not election integrity laws.

Over the past few years, radical leftist policies that were deemed un-American not that long ago have entered the mainstream political discourse. Even worse, several of these policies are being put into action.

Consider.

Critical race theory, the antithesis of Martin Luther King’s dream for a colorblind society, has invaded the nation’s public schools, with strong backing from many Democratic politicians as well as influential organizations, such as the big teacher unions.

The federal government, with overwhelming backing from the Democratic Party, is on a mission to federalize the nation’s elections via the ill-named For the People Act (HR1). This is a direct attack upon America’s Constitution and system of state and local-run elections.

Many leftist politicians and powerful organizations have set their sights on gun control. They could not care less about the Second Amendment. At the same time, many of these same people support the ludicrous “defund the police” movement. They are also implementing policies such as “bail reform” that makes it nearly impossible to keep violent, dangerous criminals where they belong: off the streets and behind bars.

And, while these out-of-touch politicians intentionally make it less safe for us to walk the streets at night, they are constantly on their high horse all but forcing Americans to take an experimental vaccine that is under emergency use authorization. Just this week, the Biden administration announced it would begin a door-to-door campaign to verify Americans’ vaccine status.

This comes as the federal government has also ratcheted up its domestic surveillance program against any and all Americans who send text messages that criticize, let alone question, the veracity of the vaccine.

In fact, the left’s entire response to the pandemic has been a lesson in government overreach. From school shutdowns to mandatory business closures, many on the left have used the pandemic as an opportunity to wield more power over things they have absolutely no business in.

As if these threats to personal liberty were not enough, how about the dire economic threat posed by the left’s embrace of modern monetary theory? The Biden administration is proposing a $6 trillion budget blowout that would increase the size and scope of the federal government to levels never seen in U.S. history. Inflation is rising. Unemployment is rampant. And more Americans than ever before are now receiving some type of government benefit.

The left has also abandoned any pretenses of blind justice. Their embrace of activist judges, who seek to rewrite, as opposed to upholding, the Constitution is an affront to liberty. They are even pushing for packing the Supreme Court, something not tried since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s notorious (and failed) court-packing scheme nearly a century ago.

Many on the left, politicians and activists, have even gone so far as to call the American flag a racist symbol. Many of these same people also demand reparations, a blatantly unconstitutional and un-American idea.

By no means is this list a full stock of the anti-democratic and anti-American policies many on the left are pushing these days. It is simply meant to highlight some of their most outrageous policy ploys.

The common denominator among these policies is simple: they are all offshoots of Marxism.

Yes, the modern left is becoming more and more Marxist before our very eyes. Their policies, rhetoric, and actions come from a Marxist vein.

The greatest threat to our democracy is not a bill that requires voters present a form of ID. It comes from the fact that one of our two major political parties, and their allies in the media, have embraced Marxism.

Wilson Combat Announces Expansion of Facilities and Production

Jefferson County parks & rec district to take up concealed carry ban as gun rights fight goes local.

LITTLETON — A large special district in Jefferson County may be among the first entities in Colorado to test the limits of a new law allowing local governments to enact gun control laws within their jurisdiction.

The ink from Gov. Jared Polis’ pen on a new bill allowing the Foothills Parks and Recreation District (FPRD) to ban all firearms, including concealed carry by lawfully permitted citizens, from its facilities had only been dry for three days when FRPD staff brought up the idea at its board of directors meeting on June 22.

According to those at the meeting, it appeared at first that the board was ready to vote on the ban that night, until it was suggested that they wait for public comment at the next meeting, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. on July 27.

FPRD Executive Director Ronald Hopp confirmed to Complete Colorado that the board has asked its staff to bring forward a concealed carry ban to a future meeting, but was not sure when that would be.

“It hasn’t been confirmed that it will be at the July meeting or not, but at a future meeting the board has asked to add an agenda item to consider adding a concealed carry ban to our existing policy which bans open carry from our parks, trails and facilities,” Hopp said. “Given the new legislation that was approved by the governor and the legislature … they asked to have an agenda item to consider adding concealed carry to that prohibition.”

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Quote O’ The Day:

“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.” ― Joseph Stalin .
source: The Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary by Boris Bazhanov.

“…outrage over the hypocrisy of allowing border crossers by land but not those who are seeking asylum for real reasons by sea.” ?

This is easy to understand. Mexicans in California tend to vote Demoncrap while Cubans in south Florida tend to vote Republican.


‘Outrageous:’ Mayorkas Blasted for Vowing to Reject Asylum-seeking Haitians, Cubans.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas vowed the United States will reject any Haitian or Cuban attempting to enter the country by boat, even if they have demonstrated a credible fear of being persecuted in their home countries.

“Allow me to be clear: if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States,” Mayorkas said.

The warning comes as Cuban authorities are cracking down on demonstrators after massive protests erupted in the country over the weekend. At least 100 people are missing or have been arrested so far. In Haiti, the nation has been rocked by turmoil after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated last week.

Mayorkas fled Cuba with his parents in 1960 after Fidel Castro’s communist takeover of the country, a point he spoke about when President Biden nominated him to lead DHS.

“When I was very young, the United States provided my family and me a place of refuge,” Mayorkas tweeted. “Now, I have been nominated to be the DHS Secretary and oversee the protection of all Americans and those who flee persecution in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones.”

But on Tuesday, Mayorkas said those attempting to make it to the U.S. by sea will be stopped by the Coast Guard and returned to their countries.

“If individuals make, establish a well-founded fear of persecution or torture, they are referred to third countries for resettlement,” Mayorkas said, reports CBS News. “They will not enter the United States.”

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STEPHEN MOORE: OPEC and Big Oil’s New Best Friend, Joe Biden

The price of oil surged to $75 a barrel the other day under President Joe Biden’s green energy policies. The price was as low as $35 a barrel under former President Donald Trump because he believed in American energy dominance (“Drill, baby, drill”). So, more oil meant lower prices at the pump. It was effectively a massive, multibillion-dollar tax cut for lower- and middle-income earners of tens of billions of dollars a year.

But now, with the exploding demand for energy as the world economy reopens, the self-defeating Biden policy is to curtail oil drilling here at home, which is often done by the smaller and independent “wildcat” drillers. Instead, this administration enriches the major oil companies such as Exxon and Chevron with existing wells that are suddenly more profitable to drill. This is why the gas price at the pump is $3.29 a gallon nationally and above $5 a gallon in California.

Are these higher-energy prices transitory? Harold Hamm, one of the fathers of modern shale gas innovations, doesn’t think so. Instead, he predicts the price may surge to more than $100 a barrel, which means well over $4 a gallon at the pump.

The most significant deterrent to more drilling on these shores is the Biden de facto moratorium on domestic drilling on federal lands. How foolish is this? Up to an estimated $50 trillion of energy resources are right below our feet. This is like a buried treasure that could supply energy for 100-plus years. In addition, the royalties and taxes would help pay off some of our $30 trillion national debt.

Here’s the worst part of the story. None of this tomfoolery is doing any good for the environment. Even Biden’s own Energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, has complained that in some ways, the Biden policies are making carbon emissions worse by approving pipelines of dirty energy from Russia to Germany while killing pipelines from relatively cleaner oil and gas here in the United States.

What is clear is that the renewable energy push and the subsidies for electric cars and electric batteries aren’t going to change our fossil fuel energy demands for years. So, it is only a question of whether we get the oil from here at home or from some of our major adversaries, such as Russia.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that even coal is making a comeback. After years of low prices, the coal price is now spiking due to less production. Biden has declared war on American coal, which has led to the closing of coal plants across the country. As utilities begin to awaken to the low reliability of wind and solar power, coal is in demand as a backup energy source to prevent blackouts. The rest of the world, especially Asia, is still addicted to coal. China now builds coal plants at a faster rate than we shut them down.

What sense does it make to shutter American coal when we have more of it, a 400-year supply, than any other nation? And our coal is the cleanest.

So, the Biden energy plan is bad for jobs, bad for consumers, and bad for the environment. My prediction is that global and U.S. carbon emissions are going way up this year and next.

The irony of this story is that the industry that Biden and the greens hate the most is benefiting from his foolish policies.

And, yes, those are the Saudi oil sheikhs you are seeing rolling on the ground laughing at us.

BLUF:
The report concluded: ‘A major peer-level conflict in the 21st Century will likely play out largely in the naval theaters of operations; unlike the surface Navy’s last major war, which concluded 76 years ago, such a conflict will likely proceed swiftly and not permit significant time for organizational learning once it is underway.’

‘Unless changes are made, the Navy risks losing the next major conflict.’


But I guess that won’t matter as much as the fleet’s diversity index being up to date?


‘Every officer is up to speed on diversity training. Not so much ship handling’: Scathing official report finds US Navy is too woke for war because of risk averse, politically correct, control-freak top brass.

A scathing new report commissioned by members of Congress has claimed that the Navy’s surface warfare forces have systemic training and leadership issues, including a focus on diversity that overshadows basic readiness skills.

The report prepared by Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, came in response to recent Naval disasters, including the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, two collisions involving Navy ships in the Pacific and the surrender of two small craft to Iran.

The authors conducted hour-long interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers, offering them anonymity to identify issues they wouldn’t feel comfortable raising in the chain of command.

The report found that a staggering 94 percent of the subjects believed the recent Naval disasters were ‘part of a broader problem in Navy culture or leadership.’

‘I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training. I’m sorry that I can’t say the same of their ship handling training,’ said one recently retired senior enlisted leader.

The report focused on issues within the Navy’s surface warfare forces, as opposed to submarine and aviation, and suggested that issues in the surface fleet could be unique due to better funding and training for submarine and aviation units.

One of the key issues raised by the officers interviewed for the report was a concern that Navy leaders spend more time focusing on diversity training than on developing warfighting capacity and key operational skills.

‘Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we’ll survive a fight with the Chinese navy,’ lamented one lieutenant currently on active duty.

‘It’s criminal. They think my only value is as a black woman. But you cut our ship open with a missile and we’ll all bleed the same color,’ she added.

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If my memory serves me, this  ‘Special Rapporteur’ investigated Israel and came to the predetermined conclusion that Israel was an apartheid nation that committed war crimes.

I’ll bet this Special Rapporteur investigating America will come to the same predetermined conclusion that America is the most racist, unequal, evil country on earth.

Then the Biden administration will be ‘forced’ to invite the UN to do something about it, which means handing over sovereignty to a bureaucratic cesspool that hates us.

The Rise Of a Secret Unaccountable Police Force in America

Our founders knew that concentrating too much power in any one federal agency – especially a law enforcement agency – could lead to a tyrannical police state. It was one of their greatest fears. After all, they knew a thing or two about tyranny, and it was something they wanted to avoid at all costs.

As a result, today’s federal law enforcement agencies have very limited authority and very specific missions: Border Patrol patrols the borders, of course; DEA investigates narcotics; and the ATF enforces archaic alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives laws. The FBI has by far the broadest powers, but it too is constrained by a very specific set of rules and guidelines from the U.S. Attorney General – a process called predication. Contrary to what’s depicted on television, before FBI special agents can swoop in and take over a case, they must first have a federal predicate – they must believe that a federal crime or national security threat exists before they can investigate.

All of these federal agencies are transparent and accountable to the public, although some more so than others. They’re all subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which was signed into law in 1966, and they routinely publish annual reports as well as internal investigations by their inspectors general.

All federal law enforcement agencies keep the public informed of their activities – all except one.

If you want to create a secret police force, the U.S. Capitol Police would be a good choice, since they’re already halfway there. The agency has scant oversight. It’s shrouded in secrecy and refuses to change.

The United States Capitol Police (USCP) is part of the legislative branch, which is exempt from FOIA requirements. Because they report to Congress, the USCP believes they too are exempt from FOIA. I should point out by way of comparison that even the CIA is subject to FOIA. Additionally, the USCP publishes no annual reports, and even the findings of its own inspector general are kept secret and not made public.

The mission of the USCP is to “Protect the Congress – its members, employees, visitors, and facilities – so it can fulfill its constitutional and legislative responsibilities in a safe, secure and open environment,” so you would think that the agency would focus its enforcement efforts in Washington, D.C., but that is no longer the case.

Congress is now seeking to nationalize the USCP by creating “field offices” in different states. Two field offices are planned for now, but more are coming.

“The new USCP field offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas. At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” the agency announced in an email last week.

These new field offices will be used to “investigate threats” made against members of Congress, Acting USCP Chief Yogananda Pittman announced last week.

Clearly, Pittman and the agency she heads are reeling from the events of Jan. 6th 2021. In her press release titled: “After the Attack: The Future of the U.S. Capitol Police,” Pittman spells out some of the changes that have already taken place. While the chief announced the acquisition of two new “wellness support dogs” – Lila and Filip – a “pivot towards an intelligence-based protective agency,” the purchase of new riot helmets, shields, and less-than-lethal munitions. Note that she did not identify the types of threats her officers will investigate in their newly created regional offices.

The one thing that is clear, given the USCP’s penchant for secrecy, the public will never know what they’re up to.

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The Big Lie On Gun Study Funding

For years, we were told the reason there wasn’t more research done on “gun violence” is because they legally couldn’t. See, the law stated that federal dollars couldn’t be used to advocate for gun control, and the CDC decided that meant they couldn’t conduct research on gun violence, probably because they knew what their intentions were and how that would influence results, so they just skipped the research.

And then they blamed it on a law that didn’t actually prevent research.

However, some people bought into that lie. Some still are.

So, when an op-ed tries to play the middle ground yet still repeated this Big Lie, there’s no reason to take the authors seriously.

Murder in the U.S. has become political once again, an issue for both the left and the right. But the U.S. can’t afford to bicker on this.

The nation is ranked in the global murder rate index worse than Pakistan, Sudan and Angola. Homicides in American cities rose an estimated 30% in 2020 and were up another 24% early this year. Los Angeles reported last week that shootings had spiked by half this year.

Fortunately, with decades of empirical data about what works and what doesn’t, we now know how to prevent murder. It turns out that both the liberals and the conservatives were on to something.

There are two broad ideological camps in this political quagmire: the law-and-order camp that supports more policing and tougher law enforcement and abhors gun control, and the criminal justice reform and Black Lives Matter camp that demands safety from police violence and racism and wants guns off the streets.

Republicans vilify Democrats as soft on crime. And Democrats face an internal rift between progressives who demand an end to violent and unfair policing, and those worried that such a focus would not help in the face of growing violent crime. In his response so far, President Biden has walked a fine line: emphasizing that states can use the $350 billion in COVID-19 relief funds to bolster local police departments, but also calling for better enforcement of gun control laws.

So far, so good.

But it’s later when things really go off the rails.

Preventing murder also requires a serious discussion about guns. As one study summarizes it: “More Guns, More Crime.” Pro-gun politicians seem to have known this all along, why else would they have blocked federal funding for research about the relationship between firearms and homicide for 25 years?

Enough already. End the murder politics. Dueling soundbites will lead to a rerun of the 1990s, when Democrats postured to look tough on crime to win elections. We know how that story ended: Then-Sen. Biden wrote a crime bill that ballooned the American prison population without reducing crime.

This time we know better, and we should do better. If we burst out of the ideological bubbles, the U.S. can build an evidence-based strategy to end the killing.

How can we end the politics and burst out of ideological bubbles when the authors are perpetuating one of the biggest political lies in the gun control debate?

Federal funding for research was never blocked. As noted previously, it prevented federal money from being spent to advocate for gun control. The CDC decided that meant they couldn’t research guns, likely because they had preconceived notions of what they would find and were bound and determined to find it.

Gun research continued, some of it funded with federal money, but this was open and honest research that found what it found and reported it as they saw it.

Yet when you uncritically claim that the research was blocked for 25 years, you’re ignoring the actual facts. You’re perpetuating a lie that was popular with anti-gunners and the media, though I repeat myself, yet had no basis in reality. If you can get such a basic fact wrong, why should anyone take anything else said at face value?

Besides, at the end of the day, the discussion on gun control is about more than reducing crime. If that’s all it was about, the debate would look very different. No, in part it’s about restricting the constitutionally protected rights of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms. The rights of individuals need to be protected first and foremost.

It’s not just a political question. It’s a question of civil liberties.

Then again, if the op-ed writers couldn’t even look past the Big Lie on gun research, why would I expect them to really understand what the gun debate is about?

The Truth About Handgun Stopping Power (Hint: It’s Complicated)
Which handgun caliber has the most stopping power, the 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 Auto? Answer: No one knows

When it comes to handgun stopping power, there’s no shortage of experts, studies, theories, and anecdotes offering “definitive proof” that one cartridge is better than another.

The first murder I investigated was affected by a pellet rifle. Years later, a bad guy who shot a cop and ran through our roadblock and was perforated by multiple bullets from multiple guns—and he lived long enough to sue the police department. All the experts and formulas will tell you that these were near statistical impossibilities. But they both happened.

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Gig Harbor homeowner fatally shoots man who broke into his house

A Gig Harbor [Washington] homeowner fatally shot an intruder Sunday evening, after the man appeared to break into the wrong house, police said.

The incident began shortly after 10 p.m., when the unidentified man drove to an address near the corner of 80th Street Northwest and Rosedale Street, said Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Darren Moss.

The man drove up into the front yard of the home, broke a window, entered the residence, then began “marching up their stairs.” Asked whether he was armed, Moss said the man “had a large bottle of alcohol with him.”

“The homeowner fired and hit the suspect, who passed away right there,” Moss said. “We believe that the deceased’s family lives just around the corner somewhere, so he broke into the wrong house.”

Moss said that the man was “yelling and screaming at the people inside the house.” He said the homeowner was questioned over the shooting, adding that investigators in the early stages were treating it as an act of self-defense.