Montana House of Representatives Pass ‘Permitless Carry’ Bill

HELENA- The Montana House of Representatives voted 66-31 Thursday to pass House Bill 102 by Representative Seth Berglee (R-Joliet). House Bill 102 removes state barriers to individuals exercising their constitutional right to carry a firearm for self-defense. It allows individuals who are lawfully allowed to open carry a firearm to carry concealed in the same areas without a permit. Additionally, HB 102 ensures that young adults on our college campuses aren’t denied their fundamental right to self-defense.

“It is long past due that law-abiding Montanans’ right to self-defense is respected without state barriers,” Rep. Seth Berglee said Thursday. “This bill modernizes Montana’s antiquated permitted and permitless carry laws to better reflect the safe carrying of firearms in the 21st century.”

House Bill 102 now moves to the Montana Senate for consideration.

“House Bill 102 is a priority bill for House Leadership, and I want to thank Representative Berglee for carrying it,” said Speaker of the House Wylie Galt. “House Republicans will continue advancing bills this session that protect the rights and individual freedoms of Montanans from government intrusion.”

CCW permit holder fatally shoots 18-year-old suspect during attempted robbery in Linden

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An 18-year-old man was shot and killed Tuesday night by a man who has a concealed carry license after the teenager tried to rob him, according to Columbus police.

Officers were called to the E&E Food Market in the 700 block of East Hudson Street in the Linden area around 7:25 p.m.

When officers arrived, they found 18-year-old Kiran Hill shot. He was taken to Riverside Methodist Hospital in critical condition, where he later died.

Police said Hill and 17-year-old Josiah Cocroft tried to rob a 33-year-old man at the market.

Police said Hill pulled a gun on the man and then the man, who has a CCW permit, pulled out his own gun.

Hill was shot when he and the man exchanged gunfire, police said.

The man who shot Hill stayed at the scene.

Police arrested Cocroft, who detectives said was with Hill, and charged him with murder.

Man Shoots Robber Who Was Holding Up Woman At Gunpoint In Calumet Heights

CHICAGO (CBS) — A man was holding up a woman at gunpoint in the Calumet Heights neighborhood late Tuesday when another man stepped in and shot the robber, police said.

At 5:59 p.m., the 39-year-old woman was on the street in the 9000 block of South East End Avenue when the robber walked up, took out a gun, and demanded her property, police said.

Then another man approached both the robber and the victim, took out his own gun, and shot the robber, police said.

The robber was wounded in the right leg and found his own way to Jackson Park Hospital, where his condition was stabilized, police said.

Area Two detectives were investigating late Tuesday.

Well, actually it’s ‘We The People‘ are the key.

Manchin Key to Thwarting New Gun-Control Legislation, Second Amendment Groups Say.

As the Biden administration prepares to enter office, Second Amendment activists are looking to a Democrat in the hopes that he will serve as a bulwark against his own party’s efforts to tighten gun-control laws.

With Democrats set to take control of the presidency and both houses of Congress in just seven days, Second Amendment activists are raising the specter of sweeping legislative action, from an assault-weapons ban and universal background checks to a federal red-flag law that would allow police to seize guns from those perceived as a threat.

The activists are looking to the upper chamber’s most conservative Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (W. Va.), as a key ally, pointing to his opposition to the sorts of procedural changes, such as ending the filibuster and court packing, that could allow Democrats to pass gun-control legislation with a simple majority.

“If [Manchin] caves on that, we lose everything. If he stands strong, then we can defeat everything,” said Erich Pratt, senior vice president of the Gun Owners of America.

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And how many were made in the preceding 25, or 125 years that are still working? Kevin O’Brien of weaponsman may have been low when he swagged 600 million guns.

434 Million Firearms Manufactured for Private Ownership over Past 25 Years

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) indicates 434 million firearms were manufactured for private ownership over the last 25 years alone.

Breitbart News spoke with NSSF public affairs director Mark Oliva late Tuesday and he explained that the 434 million firearms were made for “civilian possession.” This means the whopping figure of 434 million includes firearms made in America for Americans and firearms made abroad then imported into America for Americans.

For those who might ask what percentage of firearms are domestically made versus imported, NSSF production figures show six million firearms were made in the U.S. in 2019 and 3.3. million were imported. The NSSF notes:

There are approximately 71.2 million pistol magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, and 79.2 million rifle magazines capable of holding 30 or more rounds in circulation.

They also estimate there are 20 million firearms in private possession which Democrats label “assault weapons.”

The NSSF figures expose what a daunting task President-Elect Joe Biden faces as he takes office pledging to “defeat the NRA” and enact myriad gun controls, nearly all of which could impact every gun owner.

 

From enacting universal background checks, which criminalize private gun sales, to banning the sale and manufacture of “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines, while also taxing said weapons and magazines, where they are already privately owned, Biden’s plans are no respecter of persons.

Additionally, the NSSF estimates there were over 8.4 million first-time gun buyers in 2020 alone. Therefore, no matter who you slice it, plans to place new regulations on guns and gun owners will impact a large and ever-increasing portion of the American population.

REFORMED REMINGTON GETS FFL, CALLING WORKERS BACK

Emerging from a federal bankruptcy sale, the nation’s oldest firearms company is setting the stage for a comeback in 2021.

The new RemArms Company has received its federal firearms license and is making offers to laid-off workers at Remington’s historic Ilion, New York facility, as reported by local media in upstate New York. Richmond Italia of Roundhill Group, LLC, the company that purchased the plant at auction last year, explained they have sent out offers to 200 former workers, of which most were accepted.

“Our hopes are to consolidate in Ilion and go back to an 800-employee facility,” said Italia. “That number is highly contingent on our negotiations with the county and the state of New York, and, of course, the union.”

The former Remington Outdoor Company, whose umbrella of brands included such household names as Marlin, DPMS, Bushmaster, NEF, and AAC, was broken apart during bankruptcy proceedings in an Alabama federal court last September. While most of the branches went to other bidders– Ruger bought Marlin while Vista Outdoors bought Remington’s ammunition line– Roundhill paid around $13 million for the gunmaker’s New York factory and Lenoir, Tennessee, handgun plant. However, as the deal required Roundhill to secure an FFL before they could resume production on such iconic products as Model 870 shotguns and Model 700 rifles, the plants were sidelined in October.

California Is Worse Than You Think.

My colleague from the philosophy department was becoming increasingly angry. He was trying to be polite, but it was clear that he was raging inside. After a few minutes, he smiled a very strained smile and excused himself.

Our conversation was about California, or to be more specific, California governance. As readers can imagine, he was bullish on how the Democratic Party governs the state, California being perhaps the most one-party state in the USA. Every statewide election has gone to a Democrat in the last decade, and Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature, which means that there is no meaningful Republican opposition and whatever the Democrats want, they get.

Not surprisingly, California governance is squarely progressive. The unions representing government employees effectively run the legislature, and as a result, pay, benefits, and pensions for those workers increasingly are straining the state budgets. (Steven Greenhut, a libertarian journalist based in California, has documented the unsustainable growth of government in that state for nearly two decades.) Yet, the state continues to march politically and economically in the progressive direction as though the laws of economics didn’t matter.

For the most part I have observed progressive California from far away, but my life took a different turn a few years ago, and the state is becoming my new home. I married a retired nurse from Sacramento in 2018, and because of health issues with her adult daughter, she has to remain in that city, something not in our original plans. Because my school’s campus either has been closed or severely restricted during the covid-19 lockdowns, I have spent most of the past year working from my wife’s home.

Living and working in California has offered me the opportunity to observe California progressivism up close, and it has been an interesting experience. Yes, the state where I officially reside, Maryland, is famously one-party and progressive, but the progressivism of California makes Maryland’s legislature look almost red state by comparison and surreal in some ways.

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AR15.com Owner Responds To Big Tech Attack On Site

Earlier this week the popular firearms message board AR15.com was suddenly informed by the web services company GoDaddy that it would no longer be serving as the site’s registrar. While the move doesn’t impact the message board’s servers, it has had an impact on the website itself. More importantly, it appears to be another troubling part of a growing trend of Big Tech cracking down on disfavored speech.

On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co I’m joined by Pete Brownell, co-chair of 2nd Adventure Group and the owner of AR15.com, to talk about GoDaddy’s abrupt decision and why he believes every gun owner should be concerned about a Big Tech and online censorship.
As Brownell describes, the move by GoDaddy came without warning, and without any opportunity to appeal the decision or to correct any issues.
“It actually happened right in the middle of a call that we were having with Juan [Avila], who’s the traditional owner and now a great partner with us at AR15.com,” Brownell relayed. “Juan was saying ‘hey, I’m hearing these words out there from GoDaddy about Parler. We’re with GoDaddy, so we better have our ducks in a row just in case. And as he was saying that they called and basically said ‘you’re out.’”
The reason for the removal of the website, according to what GoDaddy told Brownell and company, was “promoting and encouraging of violence.” As Brownell notes, the site’s policy specifically forbids promoting any illegal behavior, but he says the flood of comments coming in after the violence at the Capitol last Wednesday was hard for the site’s moderators to keep up with.
“We delete comments and threads when we see them that would connote that kind of violence that was proliferating on all social networks,” Brownell explains.
“We weren’t given the latitude to clean it up. It was such an explosion of concern about what was going on and some of the posters just got out of hand. And as we try to get them back in line and say ‘that doesn’t follow our policy, you can’t say that,’ it was such a volume we couldn’t keep up with it.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen comments like that (and comments calling for violence against the Right by the Left) on pretty much every social media platform out there, even with Twitter’s purge of more than 70,000 accounts promoting QAnon. Brownell says that GoDaddy’s decision appears to them to be targeted at certain speech or certain platforms rather than a universal rule applied to all.
AR15.com has a new registrar now, so if users are still having any issues getting to the site they should soon be resolved, and you can also reach the site by using AR15-backup.com. While the team at the site have done a great job of maintaining service through the sudden cancellation of their registrar, Brownell says that the issue is bigger than just one message board.
“When policies are made at a time like this, and companies react like this there are repercussions. And the reperscussions are they’ve just silenced and violated a voice that represents half of America. Not AR15, and not necessarily Parler, but they sent a signal that we’re targeting a group and we don’t want their voice on our platform,” Brownell declared.
“Now you can argue that they’re a private company and they can do what they want, but you can’t have this other protection that the government gives you in that case. You become a publisher in that case. When you start doing the things you’re doing you can’t have it both ways.”
Not only that, says Brownell, but it’s actually validating the idea that Big Tech is persecuting conservatives.
“It’s validating the tin foil hat theories.” he explained. “It’s no longer a fringe idea… When it’s a totalitarian approach and it only happens to one group and you see this other stuff still out there you start to go ‘Wow, wait a second. This is not good.’ And it’s not what America is about. Freedom of speech is fighting for the speech that you disagree with the most. That’s what freedom of speech is.”
Brownell says he’d like to see groups across the political spectrum step up and push back against an online crackdown of points of view that may disfavored by those in Big Tech, and we actually have seen some on the Left try to argue to their friends that it’s the wrong move to make. The problem right now is that not many in power in Big Tech appear to be listening.

Arkansas Senate panel advances ‘Stand Your Ground’ bill

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas Senate panel on Wednesday advanced legislation loosening restrictions on the use of deadly force in self defense, two years after failing before the same committee.

By a 5-2 vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed the proposal that remove would the state’s duty to retreat in certain circumstances. The measure now heads to the majority-Republican Senate.

A similar proposal failed before the same committee two years ago but was widely expected to win approval Wednesday, with five of the bill’s sponsors holding seats on the eight-person panel.

For Our Leftist Elites, the Double Standard’s Meant to Be Blatant. That’s the Point

I came to understand our political situation today by watching gorilla documentaries. Let me explain.

At day’s end, when I’m exhausted, I wind down by finally turning on the television. The last things I usually watch are nature films, on the diverse, fascinating, and mostly apolitical channel CuriosityStream. For a grand total of $12 per year (as of now), you get access to thousands of polished, beautifully produced documentaries on every subject from ancient history to contemporary science. It’s the best entertainment money I’ve ever spent.

Invariably, I look for animal films. First of all, I’m a sucker for God’s innocent creatures, especially the furry ones. But I take delight in all the evidence of direct, Divine design all through the animal kingdom — from speeding sharks to circling condors. I do wish CuriosityStream would air some programming from the Discovery Institute. Its scientists do much better explaining nature via design than Darwinists do with their “just so” stories and smuggled-in teleology. (“Evolution developed the eagle’s eye to make it a better hunter… .”)

The Pyramid Is the Point

One thing I notice among most higher mammals, especially primates: the almost universal preoccupation with hierarchy. In some species, only the highest status female gets to breed. Once she claims that position, usually by bullying other females, it goes mostly unchallenged. But much more prevalent are species where the status that matters is male. The dominant male collects a harem of she-gorillas or sea lionesses, and fathers all the group’s children. Lesser males steer well clear of females, and accept the scraps from hunts, lest they summon the alpha male’s wrath. Often the dominant males will go out of their way to humiliate their lesser brethren, just to remind them who’s boss.

And that’s how to understand what’s happening politically right now in America.

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10 Republican Representatives voted with the Demoncraps. They are:

John Katko (NY)

Liz Cheney (WY)

Adam Kinzinger (IL)

Fred Upton (MI)

Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)

Dan Newhouse (WA)

Peter Meijer (MI)

Tom Rice (SC)

Anthony Gonzalez (OH)

David Valadao (CA)

They were talking about impeaching him before he was even sworn in, which tells you a lot about the seriousness of this. Whoopdie-Doo

BLUF:
If Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell does not attempt to reconvene the Senate, it all but guarantees Trump won’t be tried in the Senate until after 1 p.m. on Jan. 20, an hour after he becomes an ex-president.

House impeaches Trump a second time, but conviction and removal are unlikely.

The House impeached President Trump for the second time Wednesday, charging him for behavior they believe caused the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol that left five dead, dozens injured, and the historic building defaced and damaged.

Ten House Republicans joined all House Democrats to pass a single impeachment article accusing Trump of inciting an insurrection.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, must now decide when to send the article to the Senate, which is not scheduled to be in session until Jan. 19 and is unlikely to consider it until after Trump leaves office.

Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20 at 12 p.m.

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Montana House Weighs Elimination of Many State-Mandated Gun Free Zones

The Montana House will soon vote on legislation to defend self-defense rights by eliminating state government-mandated gun free zones at Montana university campuses and other schools on public property.

The self-defense legislation, House Bill 102, is sponsored by Rep. Seth Berglee (R-Dist. 58).

HB 102 is presented as an Act “to enhance the safety of people by expanding their legal ability to provide for their own defense by reducing or eliminating government-mandated places were only criminals are armed and where citizens are prevented from exercising their fundamental right to defend themselves and others.”

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A few days ago, I told the Shootists’ Vice-Chairman to mark my words that on 21 January, we’d start to see a miraculous national recovery begin from the bug, just to make SloJoe look good.

Will COVID Numbers Now Shift for Biden’s Benefit?

How much of the past year was about the actual coronavirus rather than a political weapon to damage President Trump and remove him from office? The answer is obvious. We have had viral pandemics before, including a seasonal influenza, without mask mandates, social distancing, business closures, travel restrictions, and hysterical media coverage.

Much of the hair-on-fire reporting is over cases and deaths. As I have previously written, a positive test is not the same as a case, and a death with COVID is different than death from COVID.

What if these definitions suddenly change in the upcoming weeks, once Joe Biden is in the White House, creating the impression that getting rid of the Orange Man caused the case and fatality numbers to suddenly plummet, not because of anything Biden did, but simply because he isn’t Trump?

Rewriting history is a popular pastime for the left. Just ask George Orwell or observe current events including the social media purge and cancel culture. How might this play out with COVID?

Start with testing — the PCR test which is overly sensitive. From that bastion of right-wing conspiracy, the New York Times,

The PCR test amplifies genetic matter from the virus in cycles; the fewer cycles required, the greater the amount of virus, or viral load, in the sample. The greater the viral load, the more likely the patient is to be contagious.

This number of amplification cycles needed to find the virus, called the cycle threshold, is never included in the results sent to doctors and coronavirus patients, although it could tell them how infectious the patients are.

In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found.

In addition, a positive PCR test is not necessarily a case of COVID. There is a “case definition,” something the corporate media is willfully ignoring. According to the CDC, a case requires, “presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence.”  Notice the AND, meaning not simply a positive test.

The result is that case counts are wildly inflated and are being used to drive lockdowns, business and school closures, mask mandates, and other measures that may not be necessary or even helpful.

What if the definitions conveniently change in the upcoming weeks?

As reported by Zero Hedge last week, “The FDA today joined The WHO and Dr. [Anthony] Fauci in admitting there is a notable risk of false results from the standard PCR test used to define whether an individual is a COVID case or not.”

Did Dr. Fauci just realize this? After decades working in public health and infectious diseases, test sensitivity is something he understands only too well. If he knew, did he say or do anything?

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The world’s biggest gun forum was booted off the Internet because they can be.

AR15.com is a forum with a robust community that serves as a clearinghouse of sorts for firearm dealers and suppliers.

In a statement provided to The Federalist they said in part,

On Monday, January 11, 2021, I received notice from our site registrar that AR15.com had violated their terms of service and that AR15.com would be shut down immediately. The registrar’s decision to de-platform AR15.com was final and no method to appeal was offered.

Their registrar is GoDaddy.com.

The fact that GoDaddy did not give a specific example of how AR15.com violated their terms of service I’m going to hazard a guess and say it’s because they just discovered it’s a gun forum.

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Ohio Knife Law Reform Bill Signed!

Knife Rights’ Ohio Knife Law Reform Bill, SB 140, was signed today by Governor Mike DeWine. We sincerely thank Gov. DeWine for signing this important bill. Thanks and all of you who used Knife Rights Legislative Action Center for the hundreds of emails and calls to the governor.

NOTE: The new law does not take effect until April 10, 2021, 90 days after signing. The existing law is still in effect until then.

NOTE: We have not yet passed Knife Rights signature knife law preemption in Ohio, so individual cities and towns may still have knife ordinances more restrictive than state law. Knife Rights’ LegalBlade Knife Law App  will be updated when the new law goes into effect. LegalBlade App includes laws in a number of Ohio cities and provides links to find municipal codes of many Ohio cities and towns.

SB 140 reforms Ohio knife law by making two separate substantive changes:

1. The ban on manufacture and sale of “switchblade,” “spring blade,” and “gravity” knives is repealed;

2. It clears up the vague and confusing Ohio law regarding carrying of ANY knife by defining a knife, razor, or cutting instrument as a “deadly weapon” or “weapon” ONLY if it is used as a weapon. This would allow carrying any knife concealed under state law.

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FIGHT BACK AGAINST ANTI-GUN SOCIAL BIGOTRY
DON’T FEED THE GUN PROHIBITIONISTS!

For the past few months, a major gun rights organization has been quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — conducting what amounts to an educational campaign, alerting the nation’s gun owners about anti-gun businesses and their CEOs who use their profits to discriminate against the Second Amendment.

This is not a “boycott list,” as some have unfairly described it. According to the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), the purpose is to provide gun owners with information so they can decide where to spend their money.

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BIDEN’S TWEET WAS ATTACK ON ALL GUN OWNERS; SAF’S PROGRAM FIGHTS BACK

BELLEVUE, WA – Joe Biden’s Twitter message to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords may read like a threat against one gun rights organization, but it is really an attack on every gun owner in the nation, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

Biden pledged to work with Giffords on her extremist gun control agenda, and promised to “defeat the NRA,” in the process, but SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said that’s just cover for a bigger goal.

“Joe Biden has labored relentlessly for decades to reduce the Second Amendment to rubble,” Gottlieb stated. “He may attack one group by name, but his goal is to crush the rights of every gun owner in our country.

“By attacking the Second Amendment Rights of 100 million Americans,” Gottlieb continued, “Biden is not bringing us together but dividing us further. If people take to the streets in protest, if violence occurs it will be his fault and he should be impeached for violating our constitutional rights and inciting violence. Maybe it is time to ban him from Twitter and Facebook!”

This week SAF is launching its new major advertising effort to recruit tens of thousands of gun owners into the 2nd Amendment First Responder program. SAF is running a one-minute message 40 times this week, on several national networks, to educate millions of law-abiding gun owners about the gun rights battle. This message will appear on DirecTV, Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC, The Weather Channel, One America News Network, CNBC, HLN, Bloomberg and Dish TV.

This hard-hitting ad urges gun owners and viewers concerned about the civil right to bear arms to join the fight by texting ‘PROTECT 2A’ to ‘474747’. By texting, people can support SAF’s educational and legal action programs to protect their rights.

“Joe Biden isn’t fooling anybody,” Gottlieb observed. “He spent 47 years on Capitol Hill trying to turn the right to keep and bear arms into a regulated privilege. Now that he’s headed to the White House, he thinks he will be able to complete his mission. We’re working to swell the ranks of our 2nd Amendment First Responder project to stop him.”

“We didn’t start the fire, Biden did,” he said.