So many Americans have been holding out hope that maybe, possibly, Joe Biden might relent and build a border wall for the sake of national security. Well, the wait is over: He’s doing it!
DHS pays over $455k to build 'security fencing' around Biden's beach home https://t.co/vLfoMn8Zmc pic.twitter.com/fejk1KMcDI
— New York Post (@nypost) October 22, 2021
I’ve got a phone number for them to call – 800 CRY BABY
I’ve spent much of the past six months interviewing people across the United States in the leadup to the [New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen] case—part of research for a book I’m writing about the cultural and racial effects of U.S. gun laws. Although I uncovered a wide range of opinions, these interviews have given me a greater appreciation for the ways that high-level political games become grounded in the ostensibly “organic” political instincts of everyday Americans.
Among conservative white gun owners in the South and Midwest, I found there is often reflexive support for the idea that northern and urban gun-control laws should be overturned. This was true even for many interview subjects who had never been to the cities in question—and particularly so when I explained that the case centers around gun laws in New York. “New York—well that says it all right there,” a Tennessee Uber driver in his fifties told me. “Hell yes I would want to carry my guns in New York [should I ever go there],” said a Michigan real estate agent in her forties. For these and other conservative interviewees, gun laws in cities like New York represented symbolic northern affront to their notion of uninfringed liberties (“It’s my constitutional right to carry anywhere I want”)—and in places where they imagine they would need to defend themselves against threats from racial others (“I might get carjacked!”).
But I also found a surprising current of pro-gun sentiment among a not insignificant minority of people who identified as liberal and who lived in the very cities in question—especially among people under forty. “Criminals have guns, so why shouldn’t we?” a thirty-seven-year-old white woman art dealer in Brooklyn told me. “Why should police have all the guns?” asked a twenty-six-year-old Black male programmer from Manhattan. A thirty-three-year-old white woman realtor from Boston explained that “hopefully this will make it easier for my friends and me to take shooting classes.”
Gun sales then rose by over 300 percent in the aftermath of the May 2020 killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed—both among protesters concerned about police violence and among white people with deep fears of racial protest. Not missing a beat, the NRA ramped up efforts to sell more guns to communities of color. When they stood on their St. Louis lawn waving guns at passing protesters, Mark and Patricia McCloskey became the clown-car villains of the left—but heroes of the castle-doctrine right. All the while, gun manufacturers retained unprecedented immunity from lawsuits, and (thanks to the Trump administration) expressly pro-gun justices [presided] over ever-more courthouses across the country—including the Supreme Court.
Evidence suggests that even people from groups that have historically been the strongest supporters of gun control began packing heat as a result of these cultural shifts. Ranks of liberal and Democrat gun owners grew exponentially in 2020 and 2021. Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah describes the “allure” of guns and gun groups for Black women “feeling a need to protect ourselves in an anti-Black and misogynistic society.” Armed Black self-defense—the very thought of which was once a rationale for white anxiety, Black oppression, and stricter gun control—has witnessed a revival as a viable movement of people who are “Black and up in arms.”
The confluence of these factors has led even many supporters of gun regulation to question its utility or, worse, to despair that gun control is a “lost cause.” “What are we even doing? America feels like it’s moved on from this issue,” a GVP organizer and activist in Nashville told me, even as shootings and deaths spiked in the city.
— Jonathan M. Metzl in The Supreme Court Is Poised to Put Politics Ahead of Gun-Violence Prevention
Comment O’ The Day
I am a physician. The Hippocratic oath is not a law.
However, HIPAA is, and requires at a minimum a medical screening exam, and whatever medical stabilization of an existing condition is required.
Also, stealing a phone like that is a misdemeanor, and assaulting mom is potentially a felony.
This is getting out of hand. At some point, when a child/spouse/elderly parent is denied care, I can see a family member deciding that who made that idiotic decision pays for it more dearly than they can possibly imagine.
Covid Unvaxxed Teen Boy Denied Medical Treatment
A teen boy in Indiana was refused treatment for multiple infections because he was not vaccinated against Covid 19. In the video made by the teen’s mother, it’s not just the denial of treatment but the borderline violent behavior of a medical personnel that is shocking.
Let us stipulate that states mandate vaccines for students attending government schools. Measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria and tetanus vaccine requirements are a good thing, in my opinion. There should also be exceptions, even with those vaccines. The death rate, before vaccines, for measles was quite high. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):
In 1912, measles became a nationally notifiable disease in the United States, requiring U.S. healthcare providers and laboratories to report all diagnosed cases. In the first decade of reporting, an average of 6,000 measles-related deaths were reported each year.
In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also each year, among reported cases, an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles.
On the other hand, the death rate from Covid for teens 15-19 is .00049, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. When one takes into account the lack of reliable data regarding long term effects of the mRNA jabs, we could understand parents who thought 100 or more times before jabbing their teens. There is also the fear of myocarditis:
Federal health officials have verified 226 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis in people ages 30 and younger who have received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and are investigating about 250 more reports.
While rare, the rates for ages 16-24 following a second dose are above what is expected, prompting an emergency meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) next week.
Teens and children are not good spreaders of the Covid. The have a very, very low death rate. So, parents could be forgiven for casting a gimlet eye at a vaccine that could put their teen out of commission for three to six months and whose long term effects have not begun to be studied.
When our children are sick, mothers (fathers, too) turn into vicious beasts with killing claws. Don’t get in our way, because we will cut you. You may not even know when we will take our revenge on you or how. Case in point is the Indiana teen boy who was denied treatment for multiple infections. I got this story from Defiant America.
The mother, in this case, brings her teen boy in to be checked because he is not feeling well. The young man looks athletic. What we don’t see before the mother starts filming is that the Nurse Practitioner has already diagnosed the teen with sinusitis, an ear infection and bronchitis. Then, because the teen has not been vaccinated for Covid, the Nurse Practitioner refuses to prescribe antibiotics. That is when the mother starts filming. This is short. Don’t miss a second:
Cray cray. Give the kid some antibiotics for goodness sake.
Nurse “Karen” at RediMed in Fort Wayne grabs the mom’s phone.Wake up people. Not about healthcare.
Has anyone told this her what’s coming? pic.twitter.com/zh1FhByGKU— Michele Sipe (@RetailBroker412) October 22, 2021
Now go back and watch that again.
Having had a teenage son, I know that my son would be saying, “Mom, Mom”, too. I feel for the kid. But that Nurse Practitioner is one sick twisted Nurse Practitioner Karen Ratched. How inhuman can one person be? Don’t answer that. I know. The hatefilled Leftists have been “othering” the unvaccinated for months. This is the logical outcome of this othering. This woman has already diagnosed the young man. She is refusing to prescribe antibiotics. That is some sick shite.
Let’s watch it one more time:
When NP Ratched tried to grab the Mom’s phone, I gasped. That’s some crust. Power drunk Ratched there. I understand why the mother didn’t bite off Ratched’s hand, her son’s prescriptions were more important. Yes, Ratched go call security.
In case you are interested, this power mad woman works at the RediMed in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
We used to believe in our medical professionals. We used to have faith in them. We believed their Hippocratic Oath. Everything has been politicized.
Nurse Practitioner Ratched let down her patient and her profession. Her license should be cancelled.
UC Berkeley Students Happily Pledge Money to Help the Taliban Kill Americans Inside the U.S
Anyone who may still be skeptical about the assertion that today’s college students are taught to hate America should take three minutes to watch this video from filmmaker Ami Horowitz, in which he asks students at the University of California, Berkeley to pledge money to the Taliban so that the jihad terror group can strike inside the United States and kill Americans.
“We’re trying to raise money for the Taliban,” Horowitz tells student passersby, and as if that wasn’t hard enough in itself to believe, he piles on more absurdities: “Tax deductible. I mean, if you earn money in Afghanistan, so that’s probably less helpful to you guys.” Horowitz explains to one man: “We’re Taliban 2.0. We’re kinder, gentler. Not really, but okay. You know, it’s our, it’s the way, it’s the way we roll.”
Those who stand there and take all that seriously get even more: “We want to be able to train our fighters to fight back against American interests. There’s a lot of weapons that were left there, we need money to train them how to use it against American forces.” It gets even worse: “We want to train our fighters to strike back against American interests around the world and in the homeland.”
Horowitz knows just what to say to move woke Berkeley students to open their wallets: “Before America got there, we used it as a base to strike against America. We want to do that again….We got to fight back, you know? And America’s destroying the world, and we want to secure it for striking against the American homeland.” He tells another student: “So we want to be able to create a bulwark against America in Afghanistan, to fund and help its enemies around the world strike back against American interests, both abroad and in the homeland.” And: “Basically we want to create a safe space for enemies of the United States….9/11 was a lesson, but this is, they didn’t learn their lesson from 9/11. We want them to do that again like we did it in 2001.”
The pitch couldn’t have been clearer that the money was going to go for jihad massacres on American soil. Horowitz tells a student that he wants to “create a safe haven for America’s enemies.” To another avidly listening young woman, he says, “We want to strike the US both abroad and in the homeland, to teach them a lesson. Life means nothing to them, and America needs to be brought to heel.” The student replied: “Very true.”
Other students in the video respond enthusiastically as well. To one young woman, Horowitz says, “I don’t know if you know that much about American imperialism.” She responds, “Oh, yes, yeah.” Horowitz continues: “So you know how damaging the US is.” Her reply: “Definitely!”
One student hears Horowitz’s pitch and responds, “Okay, that sounds great!” Another tells him, “Appreciate what you’re doing here.” A third says, “What you’re talking about is really important and I agree with you fully.” One young man tells Horowitz, “I would work for you.” One student pledges $50; Horowitz gives him a hug and exclaims, “Do you know how many Taliban fighters we can train on that?”
Horowitz told the New York Post: “Every time I dream up an idea for a new video, I always have the same conversation with myself: ‘I’ve gone too far, this is too insane.’ There’s no way that people will accept the premise I’m going to present them with. I thought, ‘How can I go to a major American university and ask people to give me money for the Taliban, specifically to kill Americans? What universe do I have to be in to find American kids willing to give me money to kill Americans?’ But that’s exactly what we found….This is probably one of the only times where if someone punched me in the face, I’d be happy. Not a single person told me to go to hell or go f–k myself….The majority of people who stopped and talked to me decided they’d give me money for this — to fund the Taliban and specific use of proceeds to kill Americans, and strike back at America, and fund a new 9/11 on the US homeland.”
Even the cameraman, whom the Post describes as “a left-of-center San Franciscan,” was shocked, and asked Horowitz, “Am I being punked right now? Are these actors? I don’t understand what’s happening.”
I do. So do you. Every day at UC Berkeley, these students’ professors regale them with propaganda about how America is an evil agent of imperialism, colonialism, and racism, and that the Americans among them should regard their American nationality with shame. This relentless indoctrination bears the fruit it was intended to bear: a generation of Americans who not only wouldn’t fight to defend this country but would cheerfully aid in its destruction. That fruit is what this video shows us.
From what little time I spent in Maryland, I wouldn’t want to be a part of the state either.
Justice to call special session for three Maryland counties to join West Virginia
After five Maryland lawmakers from three western Maryland counties announced that they want to secede from their state to join West Virginia, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has begun planning a special session to try to make it happen.
The lawmakers represent three counties that border West Virginia – Allegany, Garrett and Washington. Allegany and Garret are the two counties within the narrow strip of northwestern Maryland that extends between Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Part of Washington is also in that strip of land.
This week, the lawmakers sent letters to West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay and Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, requesting the state to add them as constituent counties of West Virginia. The letters said they believe the change would be beneficial to both states and requested to be advised on the next step.
All five lawmakers are Republicans in a state that is mostly Democratic. Former President Donald Trump received a majority of votes in all three counties in a state in which nearly two-thirds of the vote went for President Joe Biden. The counties are in a more rural and more conservative part of Maryland.
Justice, Hanshaw and Blair all expressed support for the change.
“Our state supports personal freedoms, we value the Second Amendment, and we love the rights of the unborn,” Justice said in a statement. “We love and embrace our energy industry. Moving to West Virginia means job opportunities like crazy and a chance to live in paradise. No matter where you’re from, we’d love to have you in West Virginia.”
There are more than 251,000 people who live in the three counties and if they joined West Virginia, two of the cities would be among the state’s 10 largest cities: Cumberland and Hagerstown.
Person shot on Ferrell Parkway in Virginia Beach, shooter stayed on scene
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) — Police are investigating a shooting that happened on Ferrell Parkway in Virginia Beach, near Indian Lakes Boulevard.
Dispatch first received word of shots fired in the 5000 block of Ferrell Parkway around 7:50 a.m. on Wednesday.
Unofficial scanner traffic announced: “Attention 425 Zone a gunshot wound 5048 Ferrell Parkway.”
When officers arrived on the scene, they located a man suffering from an apparent gunshot wound.
Following a preliminary investigation, officers determined the incident happened in a parking lot between a Wawa and a Harris Teeter. Neither store would comment, nor would Virginia Beach police except for a basic narrative on what happened.
Police say the suspect approached the victim and lunged at him with a knife. The victim, who possesses a concealed carry permit and was armed, shot the suspect.
Scanner traffic said after the shooting, the man put his gun in his truck.
The man who had the knife was transported to a local hospital for treatment.
Shooting update: Harris Teeter parking lot Farrell Parkway. Update from Police
“adult male (suspect) approached and lunged at another male (victim) with a knife. The victim, who possesses a concealed carry permit and was armed, shot the suspect.” @AndyFoxWAVY— Andy Fox (@AndyFoxWAVY) October 20, 2021
School Board Refuses to Fire Employees Who Don’t Comply With Washington State Vaccine Mandate
Grain complex worker stops active shooter using shotgun stored in office
A man fired from a south central Nebraska grain complex Thursday returned to the facility and started shooting at his former colleagues killing two, and injuring another according to the Nebraska State Patrol.
The gunman, identified as Max Hoskinson, 61, was shot and killed by another employee of the Agrex facility in Superior, Nebraska.
The Nebraska State Patrol was called to assist the Nuckolls County Sheriff’s Office and Superior Police Department with a response to an active shooter incident at the Agrex Elevator in Superior at 2:00 p.m. Thursday.
They found one person dead, Hoskinson and another person gravely wounded and a third person with a minor injury. Hoskinson later died at the hospital in Superior.
According to investigators, Hoskinson returned to Agrex shortly before 2:00 p.m. and opened fire with a handgun. He was stopped by someone who used a shotgun stored in the Agrex office to shoot the gunman.
The victim seriously wounded was taken to Bryan Health West Campus in Lincoln by helicopter with life-threatening injuries. NSP says the victim has since passed away.
The third victim has been treated and released from the hospital in Superior.
Names of the victims had not been released Thursday evening.
“The news of the attack on Agrex Elevator in Superior is shocking and devastating. Susanne and I are praying for the victims of the attack, said Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts in a statement.
The Nebraska State Patrol is leading the investigation with assistance from the Nuckolls County Sheriff’s Office, Superior Police Department and Nuckolls County Attorney’s Office.
Intended victim foils robbery by pulling gun, firing at suspect in Spotsylvania
A Spotsylvania man was arrested after he was shot at by another man he is accused of trying to rob at an ATM in the county, authorities said.
Sheriff’s Maj. Troy Skebo said the victim was at the Bank of America ATM in the 10300 block of Courthouse Road at 9 p.m. Friday holding his cash in his hand when the suspect approached in a “threatening” manner. He then hit the victim several times, Skebo said.
The victim, a concealed weapon permit holder, responded by drawing his firearm and firing several shots at the suspect, Skebo said.
The suspect, who was not hit, ran across Courthouse Road in the direction of Mill Garden South subdivision. Deputies were already responding to the reported robbery attempt when the suspect called 911 and reported being shot at while at the ATM.
Trey Khiry Turner, 24, was charged with attempted robbery and placed in the Rappahannock Regional Jail under no bond.
Court records show that Turner was previously convicted of attempted robbery and using a firearm in the commission of a felony as the result of a July 10, 2016, incident in Spotsylvania. He was ordered to serve three years in prison as the result of those convictions.
Observation O’ The Day
“Alec Baldwin has now killed more innocent people than Kyle Rittenhouse.”
Oh my: One dead on Alec Baldwin set over prop-gun “misfire” (Updated)
How could a prop gun loaded with blanks have killed a cinematographer on a Hollywood film location? Investigators in New Mexico want to know that too, and that’s not the only mystery in this story so far. The man who fired the shot(s?) was the star of Rust, Alec Baldwin, who hasn’t been charged in the incident, and appears devastated by it:
The Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department confirmed Thursday night that Alec Baldwin “discharged” the prop gun that killed Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza on the set of the Western feature film on location in New Mexico.
Hutchins, 42, died not long after being transported to a hospital in Albuquerque, NM this afternoon. Souza, 48, remains in a local hospital; his condition is unknown. …
Deadline earlier reported that Criminal Investigators were called to the scene at Bonanza Creek Ranch just outside Santa Fe as sources informing us that a principal castmember cocked a gun, hitting Souza, 48 and Hutchins, 42, on set. The entire location went under lockdown during the investigation. The castmember, now identified as Baldwin, was unaware of the type of ammunition in the gun, we’re told. A rep from the production said that “Production has been halted for the time being” on Rust and that “the safety of our cast and crew remains our top priority.”
Traditionally, the prop master or armorer is responsible for fire arms and fire arms safety on a set such as Rust.
We should be cautious about first reports on this shooting, as we should be with any such incident. We should be doubly cautious about piling on with people whose politics and personality we don’t approve. At the moment, this looks like a completely unintentional accident that has nothing to do with politics or personality, and there’s no reason at this moment to jump to any conclusions otherwise.
There are a couple of puzzling elements to this, however. If the pistol didn’t have live ammunition, it’s tough to understand how two people got wounded on the set from one shot — possible, but strange. Deadline’s initial report that director Joel Souza was wounded has been walked back subtly since the first reports; he’s now being described as hospitalized for unknown reasons, which is a smarter way to approach this. It’s also strange to see it reported as a “misfire,” which would normally indicate either a non-shot or some sort of explosion in the pistol itself.
My comment is not directed to Baldwin–whose culpability (if any) will be determined by others. Rather, my comment is directed to the BBC (@BBCBreaking ) and its use of the passive voice. "A woman has died …."
I guess Baldwin is part of the protected class. pic.twitter.com/N5gu2OiSvz
— Seth Barrett Tillman (@SethBTillman) October 22, 2021
Polimath (and others) are feeling the same oppressive weight of the government boot on their necks that America’s gun owners have been feeling ever since the introduction of the Sullivan Act.
“Just give up a little bit of your rights, and you’ll make the rest of us feel safer” has been the motto of the gun control movement since day one. Now that same logic, (if you want to equate emotion of feeling safe as logic) is being applied to public health as a whole, and people aren’t liking what they’re hearing.
Stephen Kruiser once said that firearms are the gateway drug to freedom. In this case, however, firearms ownership is the canary in the coal mine. What big government and runaway political corruption have been doing to our freedoms under the Second Amendment, they’re now doing to every other civil right as well.
Welcome to the party, everyone. Don’t say we never tried to warn you.
Ohio Republicans pass bill to ban gun store closures during emergencies
Republicans in the Ohio Senate passed a bill 23 to 7 Wednesday that says local governments can’t close gun stores or confiscate firearms during riots or other states of emergency.
“During the COVID pandemic, it became evident that local, state and federal governments have sweeping powers when it came to emergencies,” Sen. Tim Schaffer, R -Lancaster, said.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine carved out an exemption for gun stores in his stay-at-home orders, but other states did not.
“Therefore this bill is critical to proactively define the limits of government’s power to further abuses,” Schaffer said.
Senate Bill 185 would also ban local governments from invalidating concealed carry licenses or closing down shooting ranges.
Current law allows local governments to prohibit the sale or transportation of “firearms or other dangerous weapons” such as crossbows and knives when suppressing a riot or “when there is a clear and present danger of a riot.”
SB 185 would eliminate that provision for everything except dynamite and other explosives.
And that’s a problem for Democrats like Sen. Cecil Thomas, a Democrat from Cincinnati’s Avondale neighborhood.
“You’re denying local governments the ability to protect their communities as they deem appropriate,” Thomas said.
Groups like the Ohio Municipal League opposed the bill in committing, saying it would violate the home rule authority of local governments.
“The Ohio Constitution grants Home Rule authority to municipalities in recognition that a government closest to the people governs best,” Ohio Municipal League Director Ken Scarrett said earlier this month. “Each city and village should be equipped to serve and protect the interests of their communities.”
SB 185 now heads to the Republican-controlled Ohio House for consideration.
Guy posts this on Facebook:
PORTRAIT OF A DOMESTIC TERRORIST, 2021.
Then 30 minutes later……….
Censorship at its finest when your message simply cannot be permitted to contradict the narrative.
They’re stupid enough to believe they will be immune to any consequences if things ever go kinetic.
Democrats aim to make anyone who disagrees with them an enemy of the state.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-The Moon) made the Democratic position clear Thursday: If you’re not with us, you’re terrorists.
During his opening statement for the Attorney General Merrick Garland hearing, Nadler said there was no difference between the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 and parents who are angry about what is being taught in schools.
“This growth in extremist ideology is echoed in an epidemic of violence and intimidation directed at our health care professionals, teachers, essential workers, school board members and election workers,” Nadler said.
Nadler, a partisan loon who spent the past four years stirring up every conspiracy theory against President Trump, claimed there was a “broader pattern” here, including “the growing threats of violence against public servants.”
Yes, it is terrible when a sitting senator is harassed and followed into a bathroom . . . Oh he wasn’t talking about Krysten Sinema? The incident President Biden said was just “part of the process”? Huh.
We’re sure he was inspired by the climate change activists who stormed the Department of the Interior last Thursday, breaking down the front door and attempting to occupy the building. He was calling on AOC and others to denounce them. No?
How about the fact that the letter the National School Boards Association sent to Garland asking for the FBI for help, as reported by columnist Christopher Rufo, “cites only a single example of actual violence against a school official.” That the letter is in fact hyperventilating bunk, describing shouting as “violence” and people who disagree with school boards as “domestic terrorists.”
Turns out the White House knew about the letter before it was made public. Did the president order Garland to get the FBI involved?
It seems like the Biden administration is guilty of what they always accuse Republicans of: Politicizing the Department of Justice, and stifling free speech through intimidation.
Gun-Shy Writer Has Second Thoughts About Defenselessness
Since the start of the pandemic and the corresponding Great Gun Run of 2020/2021, we’ve seen millions of Americans embrace their Second Amendment rights for the very first time, and not all of them are conservatives worried about their individual freedoms being taken away. There’s been a rise in the number of self-described liberals with a growing interest in gun ownership over the past 20 months or so as well, including Samuel Ligon, a novelist and teacher at Eastern Washington University.
Ligon recently wrote about what drove him to take class on basic firearms handling as he debated buying a gun, and as it turns out, it was conservative 2A activists that had the biggest impact on him.
This was a few months after the BLM demonstrations in Spokane, Washington, when the militia was out at night with their guns and camouflage costumes. Kate and I saw them on TV and Twitter, in Spokane and all over the West, men with assault weapons ready for war.
I’d seen them in Olympia, too, armed citizens asserting their rights. The third-grade teachers would usher their students back to the buses, their Capitol tour abruptly over. This was before the Capitol grounds were fenced, before people started shooting each other during weekend protests. In August, Kate and I saw a guy at the Country Store shopping with his wife and toddler with a gun on his hip, a posture I found idiotic, intimidating, infuriating. He was why I wanted to go to gun school. I hated him for walking around like that.
I didn’t tell Kate I was going for weeks, and when I did tell her, she didn’t say much. In fact, she didn’t say anything. I considered canceling, but it had been so hard to get a spot. Everyone wanted to go to gun school. The pandemic — or something worse, whatever it was that had been tearing us apart for years — was working our fear, making some of us conclude that we might have to shoot somebody soon, which is what we mean when we talk about self-defense.
For Ligon, it was the armed response to the “demonstrations” that made him want a firearm for protection, but for many others, it was the riots, looting, and violence in cities from coast-to-coast that made them think about their Second Amendment rights for the first time in their lives. And even after the riots and demonstrations subsided, the violence has remained. Ligon doesn’t say anything about the crime rate in Spokane influencing his desire to own a gun, but homicides in the city doubled in 2020 compared to 2019, and I don’t think the “militia” was responsible for any of them.
But it wasn’t just Ligon who was interested in picking up a firearm. His brother told him he’d bought a gun. His brother-in-law admitted he’d bought a shotgun, though he hadn’t yet purchased any shells.
Guy got lucky.
If you’ll look close, he actually missed the grab on the first try and robber #1 kept the gun. If your average crim wasn’t a rank amateur, a coward and the guy not accidentally – or not – clobbered him with that gallon of whatever, that could have gone ‘south’ really fast
Former Marine veteran stops Chevron robbery in Yuma Arizona– pic.twitter.com/fJ4tnQu1Pk
— ₩₳Ɽ ₱₳₮Ⱨ (@WarPath2pt0) October 21, 2021
BLUF:
The public is not rendered “safer” when citizens are disarmed, but rendered only more vulnerable to (and powerless against) those who would do them harm.
11 More Reasons Biden Administration Is Wrong About Onerous Gun Restrictions
The Biden administration last month filed a brief encouraging the Supreme Court to uphold New York City’s de facto ban preventing ordinary citizens from carrying firearms in public.
The administration argued that an onerous “good cause” requirement—giving the city’s police department unmitigated discretion over citizens’ exercise of a fundamental right—is a perfectly reasonable regulation.
This court brief is just one of several high-profile actions taken this year by the Biden administration that underscore its lack of commitment to taking the Second Amendment seriously.
New York City’s law, one of a myriad of serious burdens placed on New Yorkers’ right to keep and bear arms, prevents the vast majority of residents from being able to meaningfully protect themselves in public when the government fails to do so. And the government often fails to do so.
In fact, almost every major study on the issue has found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times annually, according to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For this reason, The Daily Signal publishes an article monthly underscoring some of the previous month’s many news stories on defensive gun use that you may have missed—or that might not have made it to the national spotlight in the first place.
The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use that we found in August. You may explore more by using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database. (The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.)
