Category: Safety

63 cars crash on icy Virginia bridge: 35 injured, some critically as I-64 is shut down

Over 60 vehicles involved in a pile up accident on I-64 in York County.

I have driven on that section of I-64 many many times. And that hospital is also quite familiar to me. It really doesn’t take bad weather to have a multiple car pile up on that stretch of highway. This time, it just enhanced things a bit. The usual crap-for-brains drivers I saw and had to drive among almost undoubtedly turned what would have been a 1-2 car wreck in most other places into the near disaster this one was.
You see the traffic backed up in the opposing lanes? That’s the crap-for-brains gawkers who have to slow down to a crawl to rubberneck any accident just in case they might miss some gore.

More than 60 vehicles were involved in chain-reaction crashes on an icy, foggy Virginia bridge Sunday, injuring 35 people and shutting down I-64 in both directions  on a busy holiday travel day.

Injuries ranged from minor to life-threatening at the Queen’s Creek bridge, about 50 miles east of Richmond just outside historic Williamsburg, state police said.

The chain-reaction crashes began at about 7:51 a.m., police said. The state transportation department said all eastbound lanes on I-64 reopened about three hours later. Westbound lanes remained closed until mid-afternoon.

The interstate is a major access road for Virginia Beach, a sprawling beach and military city of more than 440,000 people.

Peter Glagola, spokesman for Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, said physicians there were treating 24 patients.

Get Ready For War: FL Sheriff Warns Citizens To Arm Themselves
Most law enforcement officers suggest running, hiding, and calling 911 when violent criminals strike – not Sheriff Wayne Ivey.

What is our nation coming to? Impeaching the president when no actual crime has been committed. Taking away our Second Amendment rights. It’s so surreal. We have state governments fighting against federal agencies trying to protect us from the surge of illegal immigrants and human and drug trafficking. Politicians want to force us to give up our guns while mass shootings are becoming more frequent, and violent organizations like Antifa are gaining more power. On top of all that, you know things are critical when law enforcement tells citizens to arm themselves and be prepared for war.

Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Brevard County, Florida, has a strong message to impart in what he calls a strategy for survival. In a video, he warned citizens, “This is war, and you’d better be prepared to wage war to protect you, your family, and those around you.” The police usually recommend calling 911 in an emergency rather than fighting. But not Ivey. He suggests people be prepared; anyone with a concealed carry permit, he says, should be armed at all times.

First Line Of Defense?
“Folks, now more than ever is the time for our citizens to be prepared to serve as the first line of defense,” the sheriff warned.

Ivey’s message is strong – and a bit scary – but is he right? Some might consider his call to arms speech a tactic to alarm people unnecessarily, but when one takes into account all that is happening in the country today, he might just be right on target. We had two shootings on military bases a couple of days apart: Pearl Harbor, HI, and Pensacola, FL. If safety cannot be reasonably guaranteed at a military facility, why would anyone feel protected at a mall, a concert, or in their own home?

The 2A Resistance
The Florida sheriff isn’t the only one pulling back the reins on anti-gun policies. Local law enforcement agencies across the nation have vowed to uphold the Second Amendment, despite what state or federal officials may try to enforce. Virginia is a prime example of this resistance with 90% of the state’s counties turning into Second Amendment sanctuaries. And if that weren’t enough, Tazewell County has gone even further by approving a resolution to create a militia for the protection of county citizens and law enforcement from unfair firearm restrictions. This new policy came just days after Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, threatened “consequences” for refusing to enforce state gun control laws, which, according to one lawmaker from the Democratic Party, might include deploying the National Guard!

The American people have finally reached their limit, and all the aggressive pushing by the liberal left and demanding Democrats is only sending us that much faster into the next civil war.

Guns Are The Great Equalizers

“Be not afraid of any man;
No matter what his size;
When danger threatens, call on me—
And I will equalize!”
—Anonymous, on the virtues of the Colt revolver, c. 1875

The anti-gun movement is compelling. How could you not be when your entire argument is based on saving human life? Their objective is noble; however, their reasoning has flaws. Guns don’t simply exist to allow crazed murderers to take innocent life – they are the great equalizers for a civil and law-abiding society.

Studies have shown that there is a large range in how many times weapons are used for self-defense in America every year. Estimates range from 500,000 to 3 million defensive uses per year, affirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of defensive uses is higher than one would likely suspect, the firearm is usually dispatched for defensive use by someone completely ordinary, and the majority of these occurrences receive little media attention.

In fact, the rate of occurrence is so high and so under-reported that The Heritage Foundation has launched a project to share some of the stories of Americans who use their weapons in a defensive manner each month. While readers may follow the link to read the rest of the November stories they shared, I wanted to share one particularly compelling story verbatim:

“Nov. 5, Genesee County, New York: A 76-year-old man used his shotgun to fend off an armed home intruder, potentially saving both his life and the life of his wife. The man responded to a knock on his door during the night, only to have the intruder force his way inside at gunpoint and tell the couple to give him all their money or else he would kill them. The intruder then ordered the couple to go into the basement, where the man thought the intruder was going to kill them. Instead, the man was able to grab his loaded shotgun and shoot the intruder in the hip, then held him at gunpoint for 15 minutes until police could arrive.”

Any loss of human life is horrific, hands down, full stop. I completely agree with the anti-gun lobby there. However, I would count myself naive if I believed that adding barriers to obtaining weapons would actually reduce the amount of gun violence we see in this country, and not simply reduce the number of law-abiding gun owners who rely on their weapons for defensive use every year.

Guns are the great equalizers of our society, the things that deter crime and allow everyone to stand on equal ground.

They are there for the elderly couple who could by no means fight off an intruder who breaks into their home.

They are there for the college student living by herself in a cheap apartment in the city.

They are there for the young mom who wants to protect her family.

And, they are there for every community and ethnicity in America that has ever felt marginalized or discriminated against. They are there to remind them that they are equals under the law, and that includes their right to defend themselves.

As Cliff Maloney, president of Young Americans for Liberty, once said, “An armed society is a polite society.” If society is to be equal and to treat one another lawfully, that equalization must begin with the right to self-defense.

Supreme Court: Weapons allowed on Madison WI buses

Par for the course that the 2 proggie jurists would be anti-self defense.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin‘s capital city must allow passengers to carry hidden weapons on buses, the state Supreme Court said Tuesday in siding with a gun rights group that local governments cannot trump the state‘s concealed-carry law.

The ruling from the high court‘s conservative majority could provide fodder for gun advocates to challenge local governments‘ weapon policies they feel are tougher than the state concealed-carry law. City of Madison attorney John Strange said the ruling puts passengers in danger.

“From a public safety perspective, the decision creates greater risk to passengers by allowing guns on moving and crowded buses,” he said.

Wisconsin Carry, a gun rights group, challenged Madison‘s Metro Transit in 2014 after it prohibited a passenger with a concealed-carry license from bringing a gun on a bus. The group argued Metro Transit‘s policy prohibiting weapons of any kind on buses cannot supersede the state‘s concealed-carry law. Metro Transit adopted its rule in 2005.

The state appeals court sided with the city in 2015, saying that Metro Transit‘s rule did not amount to an “ordinance” or “resolution” banning concealed weapons, which the concealed-carry law prohibits. In overturning that ruling, the Supreme Court concluded that passengers can bring firearms or other type weapons on buses, as long as they follow other applicable laws.

The Supreme Court concluded that the concealed-carry law‘s purpose is to allow the carrying of concealed weapons as broadly and uniformly as possible. Following that reasoning, Metro Transit‘s rule functions similarly to an ordinance or resolution passed by a municipality banning concealed weapons and therefore is superseded by the concealed-carry law.

Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel had filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Wisconsin Carry.

The court ruled 5-2, with liberal-leaning Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and Shirley Abrahamson dissenting. Justice Daniel Kelly wrote the majority opinion.

In her dissent joined by Abrahamson, Bradley argued that the majority opinion expanded the law‘s intent to fit its purpose. She argued Metro Transit‘s policy does not amount to an ordinance or resolution.

Wisconsin Carry President Nik Clark said the people who rely on public transit should be able to carry concealed weapons just as people who drive their own cars.

Government Funded ‘Gun Violence’ Research Is Really Political Propaganda

On Monday, House and Senate negotiators announced a deal where $25 million in taxpayer funds will be spent on gun violence research, $12.5 million is earmarked exclusively for public health researchers. If history is any guide, but of the rest will also end up going to public health researchers.

Headlines claimed: “Congress reaches deal to fund gun violence research for first time in decades.” The funding described as “a major win for Democrats.” While that may sound like a good idea at first glance, it wouldn’t do anything to reduce gun violence in our country.

It should go without saying that everyone opposes gun violence. But it’s important to take effective measures to deal with this problem and not simply take actions that sound appealing but won’t really save lives.

The idea behind the research funding is to have medical professionals apply tools they developed to study cancer, heart disease and other diseases and use them to study crime, accidental death and suicide. But to state the obvious, gun violence and diseases are two very different things.

The National Rifle Association – regularly demonized in the media and by many Democrats – has been blamed for preventing academics from doing research on firearms. So supporters of the spending to research gun violence as a public health issue say their bill is needed to stop the NRA from blocking vital research that will save lives.

But there’s a big problem with the argument: it’s not true.

Opponents of the Second Amendment who are eager to impose as many restrictions as possible on firearms falsely claim that a measure enacted in 1996 called the Dickey Amendment – named after former Rep. Jay Dickey, (R-AR) – barred research on gun violence to be funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But in reality, here is what the reviled Dickey Amendment states: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to “advocate or promote gun control.”

The point of that plain language is to say CDC-funded research is fine. CDC advocacy is not. So despite what gun-control zealots say, objective research based on facts is allowed under the Dickey Amendment.

The amendment came in response to top CDC officials advocating various gun control laws, such as prohibiting people from carrying concealed handguns.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns falsely claimed in a 2013 report that as a result of the Dickey Amendment “academic publishing on firearm violence fell by 60 percent between 1996 and 2010.”

But the mayors’ group measured something different: firearms research in medical journals as a percentage of all medical research.

There was no decrease in either the total number of papers or pages devoted to firearms research. But with whole new fields of medicine being developed, there was an explosion of published medical studies in other areas.

In fact, between 2011 and 2016, firearms research in medical journals has increased more than five-fold and even more since then, as former New York City Mayor and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg has poured untold tens of millions of dollars into the effort.

Everybody’s Polite at the Shooting Range

There’s a lot of talk about how civility has declined in America since Donald Trump took office.

They are right, of course.

I was driving in Los Angeles the other day, and people behaved like animals. The homeless people downtown looked quite sane compared with the lunatics in BMWs piloting their murderous machines like go-carts, driving with their knees while they text with one hand and sipped their frappa-latte with the other.

Ijits of the highest order were driving on the shoulder and using turn lanes to go to the front, then cut people off at the last second, flipping them the bird as they did so. I thought I was in Mexico City or New Delhi … except for the flipping-off part. It would have been funny, had it not been so dangerous.

It was so bad that–when a fleeing robber crossed into oncoming traffic and nearly hit me head-on bypassing stopped cars at an intersection–I wrote it off as just another LA psychopath trying to save ten seconds. Then five police cars came around the bend after him, and the helicopter with the spotlight.

Americans are wound up and stressed out, sure; but civility was cratering long before Donald Trump took office. Many people took his election as a cue to turn the a**hole up to 11. Our loss of civility is a feature, not a bug.

Speaking of a**holes: the riots after the UK election inspired me to go get some pistol practice this morning in anticipation of our own 2020 extravaganza coming up soon.

I went to the San Diego GlockStore for a spring, then The Gun Range for 30 minutes of practice. In both establishments, I noticed something:

Everybody … was … polite. Everybody. Super polite.

Patrons were courteous and patient with one another in the parking lot. Customers waited their turns and said “please,” “thank you,” and “sir/ma’am.” Nobody yelled at the (armed) employees to hurry up with their order. I felt as though I’d stepped into a time warp.

It’s not like people were walking around in terror of one another, worried about dissing someone and getting capped. On the contrary, everyone seemed relaxed, comfortable, and friendly.

All present seemed to understand one another, to know within those two micro-communities

Around here, Words and Actions have Consequences

Myth busted: Campus carry never caused that increase in violence liberals predicted

Nothing unusual in busting proggie mythology.

The argument in favor of arbitrarily revoking the Second Amendment rights of college students, as is done in dozens of states, has ostensibly been rooted in safety concerns.

And it just got a lot weaker.

Two anti-gun professors wrote in the Washington Post that “campus-carry laws will invite tragedies on college campuses, not end them.” Another liberal professor, writing for the New York Times, warned that “when there are more guns around, there is more risk – it’s as simple as that.”

The trouble with such predictions is that they tend to be tested as time goes by. And as it turns out, they simply weren’t true. Students just aren’t waging the gun battles that anti-gun activists expected. A new report from the College Fix looked into this narrative, and it came up empty.

When a reporter reached out to numerous universities that permit campus carry, “all of the schools that responded confirmed that they have seen no uptick in violence since their respective policies were put in place.” Responding colleges included Emporia State University, Dixie State University, and Valdosta State University. Separately, the Texas Tribune has reported that after the Lone Star State implemented campus carry at four-year colleges state-wide, it resulted in “no sharp increase in violence or intimidation,” and in fact, the following year was “quiet” and “uneventful.”

These are just a few examples, but even studies cited favorably by gun control advocates admit that “results certainly do not prove that campus carry causes more crime.” Essentially, it’s now clear that conservatives and libertarians had this one right. Allowing American adults aged 18 to 22 to exercise their Second Amendment rights on public college campuses is a no-brainer, as there are few rights more fundamental than the right to self-defense. Plus, the inconsistent nature of current “gun-free campus” rules already makes little sense.

The current system in many states bans college students from carrying guns but would allow adults of the same age who do not attend college to carry firearms. This is an arbitrary inconsistency that makes little sense, as there’s nothing to suggest that college students are more violent or less responsible than their noncollege peers. So, too, guns are often allowed at high-risk off-campus sites such as fraternity houses, yet barred from the actual campus — a glaring inconsistency that makes little sense. And now it’s officially confirmed that arbitrarily revoking college students’ Second Amendment rights doesn’t even make anyone safer.

It’s impossible for blue-state legislators and liberal college administrators to keep justifying their harsh anti-gun policies. That is, unless they’re willing to admit that they just hate the idea of gun rights.

Trump Pushes to Allow Troops to Carry Personal Weapons on Bases

President Donald Trump said Friday that he would review policies that keep troops from carrying personal weapons onto military bases.

“If we can’t have our military holding guns, it’s pretty bad,” Trump said in a wide-ranging speech to the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference in Maryland, “and I’m going to look at that whole policy on military bases.”

“So we want to protect our military. We want to make our military stronger and better than it’s ever been,” Trump continued in the speech, in which he also renewed his call for allowing trained teachers and military retirees to carry concealed weapons in schools.

Schools and military bases currently are “gun-free zones” that are easy targets for deranged shooters such as the one in Parkland, Florida, who killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week, Trump said.Defense Department policy mainly has been that base security is the province of military police. In most cases, troops are required to leave their personal weapons at home or check them at the gate in an effort to prevent accidental shootings and discourage suicides.”We had a number of instances on military bases, you know that,” Trump said in his speech, apparently referring to active shooter episodes.

In making the case for personal weapons on military bases, Trump appeared to be referencing the July 2015 incident in Chattanooga, Tenn., where four Marines and a sailor were killed.

The shootings occurred at a recruiting storefront in a strip shopping mall and at a U.S. Naval Reserve Center some miles away. But Trump said the victims “were on a military base in a gun-free zone.”

The victims were Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, 40; Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, 35; Sgt. Carson A. Holmquist; Lance Cpl. Squire D. “Skip” Wells, 21; and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Randall Smith, 26.

The FBI and local police said that Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez carried out a drive-by shooting at the recruiting center and then drove to the U.S. Naval Reserve Center, where he was killed in a shootout with police.

Then-FBI Director James Comey later said that Abdulazeez was “motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.”

“You know the five great soldiers from four years ago, three of them were world-class marksmen,” Trump said in his account of the incident. “They were on a military base in a gun-free zone.”

“They were asked to check their guns quite far away. And a maniac walked in, guns blazing, killed all five of them. He wouldn’t of had a chance if these world-class marksmen had — on a military base — access to their guns,” Trump said.

In his 2015 Senate confirmation hearing to become Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley was asked about the Chattanooga shootings and said that “in some cases I think it’s appropriate” for recruiters to carry weapons for self-defense.

He said that arming recruiters was complicated by a patchwork of state laws but “I think under certain conditions — both on military bases and in outstations, recruiting stations, reserve centers — we should seriously consider it.”

Then-Lt. Gen. Milley was commander at Fort Hood, Texas, in April 2014 when Spec. Ivan Lopez opened fire, killing three soldiers and wounding 12 others before killing himself.

Numerous lawmakers then called for allowing troops to carry weapons on base, but Milley said at a news conference that he didn’t support the idea.

“I don’t think soldiers should have concealed weapons on base,” he said.

The Pensacola Jihadi’s Victims Would Be Alive Today
If we were honest about the threat we face.

In a tweet he appears to have sent out before he embarked upon his killing spree at the Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday, jihadi Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani included a succinct refutation of George W. Bush’s explanation for jihad terrorism, “They hate us because of our freedom”: “O American people – I’m not against you for being American, I don’t hate you because your freedoms.” He also showed why our current approach to the jihad threat is not just wrong, but dangerous.

Alshamrani, a second Lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force, also gave a jihadi’s explanation for why he had decided to kill Americans at the base that was giving him aviation training: , I hate you because every day you supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but against humanity.” Alshamrani went on to elucidate exactly what those crimes were: “What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie (sic), I see invasion of many countries by it’s [sic] troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.” He added: “I’m against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil.”

This statement, if it did indeed come from Alshamrani, as appears likely, makes clear that he was a jihad terrorist. He was killing because of America’s supposed crimes against Muslims; that rules out the alternative explanation for his acts, that he was lashing out after some negative incident or mistreatment at the Naval Air Station.

Alshamrani has shown yet again that the prevailing politically correct obfuscation and denial regarding the jihad threat is actually deadly. If we had a realistic approach to the jihad threat, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani’s victims would be alive today.

Of course, many credulous Americans will believe his list of grievances, and think that if we just stop committing these supposed “crimes,” that the jihad will disappear. Actually grievance lists such as Alshamrani’s are common from jihadis, who have to couch their jihads as defensive in the absence of a caliphate. In Sunni law, only the caliph can declare offensive jihad. So when there is no caliph, all jihad must be defensive.The enumerated grievances are pretexts that enable a jihadi lawfully to kill in accordance with Islamic law.

Alshamrani was in the country to get aviation training. No one flagged him as a potential jihadi. No one would even have dared to question him to try to ascertain his thoughts about the United States and the global jihad. Any effort to have done so would have been denounced as “Islamophobic,” and would have been career suicide for whoever did the questioning.

We saw this with the Fort Hood jihad mass murderer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who was praised and promoted despite alarming his colleagues with his talk of violent jihad. None of his superiors dared do anything except promote him; they knew that if they questioned him about his loyalties, they would be the subject of a CNN feature story the next week on “Islamophobia in the Military,” and they would be looking at a dishonorable discharge.

Thirteen people died at Fort Hood because of the politically correct assumption that Islam is a religion of peace and that to raise suspicions about any Muslim is “Islamophobic” and evidence of nothing more than bigotry and racism. Four more people have now died at the Naval Air Station Pensacola because in the ten years since the Fort Hood jihad attack, we have learned nothing. All the same taboos are still firmly in place. To point out that there is no reliable way to distinguish genuine friend from concealed foe among our “allies” from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or anywhere else will do nothing but invite scorn and derision, and earn one a place on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate” list.

How many more Americans must die before law enforcement and intelligence officials dare to examine and discard the comforting falsehoods and fantasies they have embraced regarding Islam and jihad? How many more Mohammed Saeed Alshamranis must there be before our government and military authorities recognize that Islam is not actually a religion of peace at all, but one that teaches warfare against unbelievers in its core texts, and consequently that any devout and knowledgeable Muslim may believe that it is a good and even holy thing under certain circumstances to kill those unbelievers?

This is an unpleasant but readily demonstrable fact. It does not mean that every devout Muslim is or ever will be a jihadist. It does mean that we must be realistic and careful regarding the sentiments of the personnel we train from countries where the teachings of Islam are well known and revered. If we aren’t, nothing is more certain than the fact that there will be more massacres in America like the one in Pensacola on Friday.

Fate of the Unarmed & U.S. Military’s Continued Support for Gun-Free Death Zones

I can neither confirm, not deny, that someone who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty carried a gun for self defense purposes on several military installations in flagrant violation of military regulations.

Of course, we all know why there is a general regulation against carrying weapons on post. The military uses a ‘lowest common denominator’ mentality where it is considered what probable mayhem would ensue if the newly minted, minimally trained and barely proficient E-1 grade service members were permitted to carry and applies it to everyone no matter their experience or rank. That goes hand in hand with the joke about the difference between the Army and the Boy Scouts being that the Boy Scouts have ‘Adult Supervision’.

Ft Collins, CO –-(Ammoland.com)- “‘’Terrorists are coming! ‘Turn-in your weapons and go immediately to the nearest gun-free zone!’… said no human with a functioning brain in the history of our planet!” ~ Anon

Another sad, yet inevitable, result of “gun-free Zones”

In his lame excuse, a continuation of the tiresome DOD “no-guns dance,” the commander of the Pensacola Air Station where Friday’s terrorist attack took place said:

“… no sailors nor Marines, other than MPs on duty, may possess weapons on-base”

Well once again, Islamic terrorists just can’t seem to follow instructions. Imagine that!

Our military bases are all gigantic “gun-free zones,” where our defenseless “unarmed forces,” wait around to be murdered by armed terrorists, and where professing “commanders” are petrified by the thought of deploying competently-armed warriors during an “in- extremis” incident.

The terrorist in this incident was ultimately shot to death, not by highly-touted Base MPs (who knows where they were) whom commanders love to talk about, but by audacious Escambia County Deputies, who entered the Base with guns, probably in violation of the “rules!”

The question needs to be asked loudly and openly:

“What is it exactly within the mission of our military that apparently prevented armed sailors and armed Marines from promptly confronting, with deadly force, a single armed enemy of the United States, who was in the process of actively murdering innocent persons on a domestic US military installation?”

One can see clearly the way Democrat-promoted anti-2A sentiment has saddled us with this obviously self-destructive philosophy.

  • No matter what they say, liberals, along with their promoters and supporters (in and out of uniform), do not trust American citizens (in or out of uniform) with guns.
  • No matter what they say, liberals do not trust American police (whom they not-so-silently regard as potential killers of members of their voting base), to possess guns while not actually working. They now even support disarming police while they are on watch.
  • No matter what they say, liberals do not trust American military personnel (whom they not-so-silently regard as war criminals) to possess guns when not actually deployed a combat zone. Even then, they want our soldiers and Marines disarmed most of the time.
  • No matter what they say, liberals do not trust even their own heavily-armed praetorian guards to be armed, when not actually protecting them.

Some history:

Likewise, both Lenin and Stalin, and their elite Communist cadres cynically viewed their own praetorian guards as only in-place to serve the short-term purpose of protecting them.

All were eventually shipped off to gulags, or liquidated, then casually replaced with naive new recruits.

In the “class-free” Soviet Union, nearness to Communist despots brought with it neither job security, nor life security.

Nearness to liberals (their spiritual ascendants) is no different, which is surprising only to the naive.

“Not every crisis can be ‘managed.’ As much as we want to keep ourselves ‘safe,’ we cannot be protected from everything. When we want to embrace life, we also have to embrace chaos!” ~ Susan Phillips

Following legalized campus carry, universities report no increase in violence on their campuses.

In some instances, crime actually dropped

Though popular belief holds that more guns on college campuses will lead to an uptick in gun violence, several universities have reported no such increase even after their states legalized the carrying of concealed weapons on school grounds.

According to the website of Armed Campuses, a pro-gun-control initiative that tracks firearm policies at universities across the country, seven state legislatures have broadly permitted concealed carry on public university grounds. Five more have instituted limited campus carry regimes. Ten states prohibit campus carry altogether, while the remainder either allow the university to set the policy or else mandate that the guns must be left in locked cars.

The College Fix reached out to multiple public universities in states where campus carry is legal. All of the schools that responded confirmed that they have seen no uptick in violence since their respective policies were put in place.

Emporia State University is located in Emporia, Kansas. Armed Campuses states that, in that state, “any individual 21 years or older who is otherwise legally allowed to possess a concealed handgun may do so in any public facility, or on any public grounds unless proper security measures are in place.”

Reached via email, Emporia State campus spokeswoman Gwen Larson told The College Fix that the school has observed no change in gun violence since that rule was instituted. “Emporia State did not have gun violence before the law changed, and there has been no violence since the law changed,” she wrote.

Asked if there had been an uptick in campus carry since the policy change, Larson responded that she couldn’t say.

“There is no way of knowing the answer to this question. Kansas law prohibits tracking people who are carrying concealed handguns or making inquiries about who may or may not be carrying,” she wrote.

No gun violence increase, no ‘concerns’ regarding campus guns

Utah’s Dixie State University, located in St. George, has also not seen any increase in gun murders or injuries since guns were allowed on campus there, according to campus law enforcement. Utah law has actually permitted campus carry for nearly a decade and a half.

Dixie State’s campus Chief of Police Blair Barfuss told The College Fix via email that there has been no “reported or observed increase with gun violence on campus” related to the state’s campus carry policy.

“DSU does restrict firearms in on-campus residential housing units, unless the individual possesses a state issued firearms concealed carry permit, which is allowed by state statute,” Barfuss said.

He added that the university, like Emporia State, “does not track who on campus possess state issued concealed carry firearm permits.”

“This would be very difficult to do due to DSU students coming from many states across the country. We have not seen any increase in reports of firearms on campus, and we have not been made aware of any concerns regarding concealed carry permit holders by students or staff, related to Utah state legal statute.”

The Fix reached out to Valdosta State University, a public university in Valdosta, Georgia, to inquire about its experiences with concealed carry. Armed Campuses says that state has permitted concealed carry on college campuses since July of 2017.

Campus spokesman Keith Warburg provided The Fix with a letter from Steve Wrigley, the chancellor of the University System of Georgia. That letter, dated May 24, 2017, affirms the general right to carry a gun on public campuses while outlining several locations in which guns are still forbidden, including residence halls as well as classrooms in which high school students are studying.

Asked if the university has experienced an increase in gun violence since the legalization of concealed carry, Warburg did not directly answer. Instead he provided The Fix with the school’s 2019 Annual Security and Fire Safety report. Data from that report show no increase in murder or manslaughter on the school’s campus from 2016-2018; in all years it was zero. Aggravated assaults on campus dropped from three in 2016 to one in 2018. Burglaries dropped from 22 in 2016 to nine in 2018.

The lack of evidence that liberalized campus carry laws lead to more campus violence stands in contrast to the often-heated rhetoric of gun control activists. The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, an activist group partnered with Armed Campuses, has claimed that efforts to allow concealed weapons on campus are “dangerous.” That group says it is working “to protect American’s colleges and universities.”

On its website, Armed Campuses lists a study examining campus crime rates following the passage of liberalized concealed carry laws. The study also looks at state-level and national crime statistics. The report concludes that available data “do not prove that campus carry causes more crime.” Armed Campuses did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday morning.

Virginia Sheriff: ‘I Will Deputize Thousands of Citizens To Protect Their Gun Rights’

Culpepper County, VA — It looks like what Virginia gun owners needed was a wake up call. Or more accurately, a wake up slap in the face.

Sheriff Scott Jenkins of Culpepper County, VA made a post on his official county Facebook page pledging to support the Second Amendment.  In the post made on December 4th, Jenkins went so far as to say that he has a strategy if gun control comes knocking:

“I plan to properly screen and deputize thousands of our law-abiding citizens to protect their constitutional right to own firearms.”

Tazewell County Forms Militia in Response to New Virginia Gun Laws

In response to the wave of proposed anti-gun legislation in Virginia, many of its cities and counties have declared themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries. One county, in particular, took it a step further at their December 3rd County Board of Supervisors Regular Meeting.

In addition to passing their Second Amendment Sanctuary Resolution, the county also passed a Militia Resolution. This resolution formalizes the creation, and maintenance of a defacto civilian militia in the county of Tazewell.

‘Universal’ Background Checks and Waiting Periods are Inherently Dangerous

By Miguel A. Faria, M.D.

A good approach to gun violence and street crime should not involve penalizing law-abiding citizens and infringing on their Second Amendment rights, while coddling criminals. Yet that is exactly what Democrats want to do. In fact they have tried to exempt criminal gangs from the draconian laws, including red flag laws, that they want to exact on the law-abiding citizens. It sounds incredible but it is true.

The Democrats want to force strict background checks upon law-abiding citizens with no time limit or deadline for the FBI to issue an approval. Before the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was instituted in 1998, the Brady Law (1994-1998) was in effect. It mandated a federal background check on all firearms purchases and imposed a five-day waiting period before the transfer of the purchased firearm. It was ineffective and did not keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Gun control is inherently dangerous.

Incidentally, the Democrats also instituted an “assault weapons” ban from 1994 to 2004 that had no effect on crime or mass shootings. Congress, led by the Republicans at the time, wisely let it expire and refused to re-introduce it.

The Brady Law enforcing waiting periods for gun purchases passed in several states, endangering lawful citizens needing to purchase a gun quickly for self-protection. There are lurid stories of victims killed by attackers who previously threatened them. They were killed while waiting to pick up newly-purchased and badly needed guns for self-protection.

The “universal” background checks legislation now pushed by Democrats would do the same thing, endangering potential victims — not to mention the fact that the information can be used for illegally registering firearms, which we know is a prelude to banning and confiscation. This has happened in Washington, DC, Detroit, New York City, Seattle, and several jurisdictions in California.

Gun Owners of America keeps useful data available for study. As I outlined in my book, their research shows that waiting periods threaten the safety of people in imminent danger.

One case described was that of Bonnie Elmasri, who tried to obtain a gun for self-protection against an abusive husband, a spouse who had repeatedly threatened to kill her. She was subjected to a 48-hour waiting period to buy her handgun. Unfortunately, Bonnie did not get her gun in time. The next day, her abusive husband, a man well known to the police, killed her and her two sons.

In yet another tragic case, Carol Bowne of New Jersey tried to buy a gun for self-protection but was forced to wait several weeks for her background check. While fearfully waiting, the man who had been stalking her and who she was afraid would kill her, stabbed her to death.

In contrast, we have the case of Marine Corporal Rayna Ross. She was able to purchase a gun in a state without a waiting period and was forced to use it in self-defense only two days later, killing her assailant. If Corporal Ross had been subjected to a waiting period or burdensome universal background checks, like Bonnie Elmasri or Carol Bowne, she would have been defenseless against the man who was stalking her.

Serious attempts to decrease gun violence should involve keeping guns away from convicted criminals who have legally forfeited their right to possess guns. In fact, the vast majority of murderers are career criminals with long criminal records.

We now know that the typical murderer has a prior criminal history of at least six years with four felony arrests in his record. But instead, Democrats coddle criminals and penalize law-abiding gun owners. Why?

In a recent article, Dr Jim Ausman, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Surgical Neurology International and I analyze the topic in some detail. We concluded that gun control is about people control. My recently released book, America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements, which examines the push for civilian disarmament by the public health establishment, also concludes that gun control is about people control which is inherently dangerous.

If the Democrats win the Presidency and the US Senate in 2020, they will empower government to implement very dangerous, draconian gun control legislation. If we are to preserve freedom, that must not be allowed to happen.

Idaho School District Buys Rifles, Warns Visitors: Building Is ‘Armed’

GARDEN VALLEY, ID — School administrators in Garden Valley, ID are taking student and staff security seriously. And further, they’re putting their money where their mouth is.

School board minutes from the most recent board meeting have detailed their purchase of four rifles and 2,000 rounds of ammunition.

The rifles cost $680 each.

The district is also considering spending up to $2000 on body armor vests and extra magazines.

Superintendent Marc Gee said, “We just have to protect our kids and we didn’t want to do it in a haphazard way.

The guns won’t stay locked in a gun safe with teachers unaware and untrained in how to use them.

No, before the guns were even purchased, school staff who volunteered received training from the Boise County Sheriff’s Office. Further, the district will post signs outside the school entrances telling any visitors that “our school is armed.”

When asked about the community’s response, Superintendent Gee said that it was overwhelmingly positive.

“It’s been positive – I have yet to have a community member come in and say, ‘Why are you doing this?’” Gee said.

The Garden Valley school district is located about an hour north of Boise.

Hunting and self-defense do not require such a high level of gun lethality

So he wants people to use Nerf guns, or what?
The Bill of Rights –by its very preamble – were not a grant of rights or a listing of limitations to the people but a generic, noninclusive list of restrictions on government.
The founders were not unlearned men, and were well known as men of science and technology. Even at that time there were several “fast firing” guns that dump the notion on the trash heap of history that the smooth bore muskets of the infantry were the only thing covered by the amendment. The founders would have understood that technology would increase and improve and the 2nd amendment makes no exclusion of any modernization.
That line of thought makes 1st amendment jurisprudence only apply to hand operated printing presses and town criers on the village square.
The Supreme Court in the Heller, McDonald & Caetano decisions put this and other ideas to the test, found them wanting and discarded them.
This writer is either ignorant of U.S. Civics and the jurisprudence of the highest court in the land or he’s being disingenuous and simply trying to roll out a much overused and completely rejected line of propaganda.

The views of the rural Virginians described in the Nov. 24 front-page article “In Virginia, gun buffs plan to defy new laws” are that the gun-control proposals expected to be introduced in the 2020 Virginia legislature will “change” their way of life and that a law enforcement officer who believes a law to be unconstitutional may choose not to enforce it. Both assertions are dishonest and factually incorrect.

Assume that the expected laws would limit the number of guns sold and the capacity of magazines, and require registration and add a “red-flag” law. I know some people grow up with rifles for hunting and handguns for protection. But semiautomatic weapons are not part of that way of life. That technology did not exist when the Second Amendment was adopted; indeed, rifling in the barrels of guns to improve the distance and accuracy of a shot was not widespread. Hunting and self-defense do not require that level of lethality. As for registration, the Second Amendment begins with “a well regulated militia.” If one was to be part of a militia with a gun, the authorities needed to know who owned what guns.

Also, no law enforcement officer is given the right to determine what actions are or are not constitutional. Officers enforce the law. The lawyers for their jurisdictions may question those laws and challenge those laws in court, but they have no legal right not to enforce a law validly existing on the books.

The way-of-life argument is bogus and not supportive of the obligations we, as citizens of the commonwealth of Virginia, owe to each other.

David Yaffe, Arlington