We got where we are by being quiet and polite

 No More Silence Now.

I apologize for what I’m about to do. No truly, because no one deserves this ear worm. But it’s time to shout.

Shout, shout, let it all out.

Seriously.

This was brought about by an article from Glenn Reynolds who says that despite the fact none of us agrees with woke BS, a tiny minority is succeeding in silencing the majority.

He’s right on that. what he’s wrong on is the roots of this: how we got where we are. How the left came to be in control. Why they think they can impose their crazy ideology and that “if anyone opposes it” (And I guarantee that’s how they look at it) it’s just “Some uneducated rednecks.” How we got to the point when the left is completely ignorant of history or really anything and trying to recreate the cultural revolution because they feel no one will oppose them.

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Why More Gun Control Laws Will Not Produce More Positive Results

Our Gun Control Laws Are Already Producing The Maximum Positive Effect Possible, More Laws Aimed At Law Abiding Buyers Will Not Help – And Will Actually Hurt!

The law of diminishing returns applies to almost everything.  Taking twice as much medication will not always produce twice the effect.  Doubling the number of employees will not always result in twice as much production or sales.  In fact, in both examples, there is a point at which adding more medication or employees will not produce any increase at all.  The medication increase may fail because the body can only be stimulated to a certain point at which it reaches the maximum possible effect.  Increasing the number of employees will only increase production as long as there is space and equipment for the additional employees to work.  The law of diminishing returns not only says that returns will reduce as the “solution” is increased – it says that at a certain point, increasing what was a positive action in the beginning will produce no effect at all or even make things worse.

We have reached that point with gun control laws in the United States.  The reason is simple: The most that regulation of the legal market in guns can do is push criminals into the illegal market and we are already at this point.  Consider this study done by the US Department of Justice and released in January 2019:

When a criminal, or an otherwise law abiding citizen, is unable to obtain a gun through legal channels, they face a choice: Decide not to buy a gun, or find a black market dealer or other illegal source.  That’s why regulation of the legal gun market reaches a point where more laws will produce no more effect.

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Bill expanding New Mexico’s ‘red-flag’ gun law fizzles

A controversial bill to expand New Mexico’s so-called red-flag gun law appears to be a victim of more pressing priorities in this year’s 60-day legislative session.

“For all intents and purposes, it’s gone, unless something really radical changes,” one of the sponsors, Rep. Daymon Ely, D-Corrales, said Wednesday. “But there are just too many other priorities this time.”

Ely said he hopes to bring the measure back during the Legislature’s 30-day legislative session next year.

“It’s a calendar management problem,” he said of the bill’s likely demise this year.

House Bill 193 sought to amend New Mexico’s Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Act by adding law enforcement officers to the list of people who could seek a court order to temporarily take firearms from a person considered a threat, among other changes.

Under current law, police officers may only seek a court order if it is requested by a family member, a school official, an employer or someone who has had a “continuing personal relationship” with a person considered a threat to themselves or others. The change would allow an officer to seek a court order based on his or her own observations, “absent receipt of credible information from a reporting party.”

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What’s Scarier? Biden’s Totalitarian Promises, or the Number of Americans Who Willingly Acquiesce?

Joe Biden’s Wuhan Flu anniversary speech was insulting and disturbing in many ways. He started out by lying about President Trump’s actions at the beginning of the pandemic, then went through a list of everything we lost during these draconian lockdowns – attempting to convince us that he sympathizes with what we’ve lost and that We’re All In This Together™.

Watching Biden lie to us and hearing him insult us is annoying and, frankly, boring at this point – because we expect it. But in this speech Biden went far beyond annoying and straight onto a terrifying new path, the path of complete government control.

He led into his plans with a bit of communistic propaganda by speaking to a “common purpose” our hands must turn to before informing us that he’s “using every power [he] has as POTUS to put us on a war footing.” Symbolism?

Knowing that people expect that, since the number of positive China virus cases have plummeted and that many states are well on their way to fully vaccinating their high-risk populations, the country will fully open soon and that masks and social distancing rules will be a thing of the past, Biden sought to manage expectations. As long as there’s still a silent, deadly enemy circulating (spoiler alert: there always will be), and as long as Biden can reassure people that he’s keeping them safe by Following The Science ©, he can keep complete control of our lives. Biden has no interest in “beating” the virus any time soon, it seems:

In the coming weeks we will issue further guidance on what you can and cannot do once fully vaccinated, to lessen the confusion, to keep people safe, and to encourage more people to get vaccinated.

To “encourage” people to get the vaccination? Think about that for a second. What will vaccinated people be able to do that the unvaccinated will not? Will people need to show papers or have a badge showing their vaccination status in order to have full freedom? Oh, hell no. Katie Pavlich, editor of our sister site Townhall, nailed it:

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Guns-in-schools bill passes [Idaho] House on 52-18 vote…

The Idaho House backed Rep. Chad Christensen’s guns-in-schools bill on a 52-18 vote this morning, sending it to senators for consideration. The bill, HB 122, allows school employees who have enhanced concealed-carry permits to carry concealed guns at school, whether or not the local school board approves. “I know in the past this has been an issue about local control,” Christensen, R-Iona, told the House. “This is a 2nd Amendment issue, and for me, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t stop at the door of a school.”

He noted that the Idaho Sheriffs Association, state chiefs of police, and schools all oppose the bill, but said one sheriff from Caribou County, which is in his district, “fully supports” it. “This is a bill about school safety and our children,” Christensen said. “The firearm is a tool, simple as that, and the fear of this tool is, I don’t get it, it’s just a tool, to help our children, to save lives.”

This bill also would forbid schools from posting “Gun-Free School Zone” signs. House Education Chair Lance Clow, R-Twin Falls, asked Christensen if the bill would allow the general public to carry guns at schools; Christensen said no. So Clow questioned including that provision. “To me, that’s a sign that we’re telling the public, ‘Don’t bring your guns in to the school,’” he said.

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With House Passage, What’s Next For Background Check Bills?

Now that the House, as expected, has approved a pair of gun control bills dealing with background checks on firearm transfers, the measures are headed over to the Senate. On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co we delve into Wednesday’s floor debate on H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446 as well as taking a look at the prospects for passage of the gun control bills on the Senate side of the Capitol.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, wasting little time and taking advantage of the opportunity to preen in front of the cameras, said shortly after the House vote that he plans on bringing both bills to the floor of the Senate.

“In the past, when they sent it over to us last time, it went into [fomer Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard,” Schumer said during a press conference Thursday. “The legislative graveyard is over. H.R. 8 will be on the floor of the Senate, and we will see where everybody stands. No more hopes and prayers, thoughts and prayers. A vote is what we need, a vote, not thoughts and prayers.”

“Certainly hundreds of thousands — maybe millions — of people walking the streets today because we passed [the 1994 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act] would be dead,” Schumer, who authored the Brady Act requiring background checks on all U.S. firearm buyers, said during the briefing.

He continued: “But when we passed the law, little did we know, it had some loopholes in it that we didn’t know at the time. We didn’t know there would be an internet, so we didn’t prohibit internet sales without a background check.”

That’s an incredibly dumb comment for a couple of reasons. First, the Internet was actually a thing back in 1994, though we were restricted to dial-up back then.

The issue isn’t online sales of firearms, because every retail gun sale already has to go through a background check, whether online or in-person. What Schumer is really talking about are private transfers of firearms, and those too were a thing back in the 1990s.

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Washington State: Pair of Anti-Gun Bills Fail to Pass Before Legislative Deadline

[On Tuesday], two anti-gun measures were not brought up on the floor before the official deadline to pass. Senate Bill 5078 and House Bill 1283 failed to get passed out of their chamber of origin and are considered dead for the session.

Senate Bill 5078, bans the manufacture, possession, sale, transfer, etc., of magazines that “are capable of holding”, or hold more than, 17 rounds of ammunition (the substituted bill increased the restricted count from 10 to 17). This includes conversion kits or parts from which any such magazine may be assembled. These so called “high capacity” magazines are, in fact, standard equipment for commonly-owned firearms that many Americans legally and effectively use for an entire range of legitimate purposes, such as self-defense or competition. Those who own non-compliant magazines prior to the ban are only allowed to possess them on their own property and in other limited instances, such as at licensed shooting ranges or while hunting. Prohibited magazines have to be transported unloaded and locked separately from firearms, and stored at home locked, making them unavailable for self-defense. Any violation of this measure is a gross misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of 364 days in jail and/or a fine of up to $5,000.

House Bill 1283 could cause the lawful open carry of a firearm to become a felony offense. While the substitute measure removes certain language from the original measure that triggered the felony charge if an individual “felt threatened,” the substance of the bill remains the same.

How safe are the COVID vaccines?

I’ll bet you haven’t heard this: more congenital anomalies/birth defects and emergency room visits were reported after getting a COVID vaccine in the U.S. than after any of the other 93 vaccine types in the CDC’s VAERS database.  And more deaths than 92 other vaccine types.

Here is how COVID vaccines rank among 94 vaccine types in terms of reported post-vaccine adverse effects.

  • Congenital anomaly/birth defect: 1.
  • Emergency room: 1.
  • Death: 2.
  • Life threatening: 5.
  • “Serious” adverse effects: 7.
  • Hospitalized: 10.
  • Permanent disability: 12.
  • Total adverse effects: 15.

Here, for example, is the screen shot of the CDC’s sorted list for the adverse effect of congenital anomaly/birth defect.

See that 144 such effects were reported in total, from all vaccines over all time tracked by the VAERS database.  COVID vaccines account for 37 of them, or over 25%.

Of 23,950 emergency room visits following some kind of vaccination, the COVID vaccines accounted for 4,969, or over 20%.  Of 11,559 deaths after getting some type of vaccine, COVID vaccines accounted for 1,153 of them, or almost 10%, and more than 92 of the 93 other vaccine types.

I got these numbers from the CDC’s VAERS database on March 10, 2021.  You can do the same.  The CDC has this disclaimer.

VAERS accepts reports of adverse events and reactions that occur following vaccination. Healthcare providers, vaccine manufacturers, and the public can submit reports to VAERS. While very important in monitoring vaccine safety, VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness. The reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Most reports to VAERS are voluntary, which means they are subject to biases. This creates specific limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.

So we can’t say the vaccines caused these effects.  These effects just happened to follow shortly after the vaccines were given.

One thing to keep in mind with these numbers is that COVID vaccines have been around for less than three months.  Most of the other 93 vaccine type have been in use for years.  The Pfizer vaccine was authorized for emergency use on December 11, 2020, Moderna on Dec. 18, and Jannsen on February 27, 2021.  And most doses were not given until late February.  More than half the doses given to date (March 10) were given in the last month (since Feb. 10).

By the way, these are “emergency use authorizations” by the FDA.  That is not what is usually meant by “FDA approved.”

Does the CDC warn us about side effects?  Oh sure.  Here is what you’ll find on the CDC’s “fact sheet” about the Pfizer vaccine, for example.

The most commonly reported side effects, which typically lasted several days, were pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, and fever. Of note, more people experienced these side effects after the second dose than after the first dose, so it is important for vaccination providers and recipients to expect that there may be some side effects after either dose, but even more so after the second dose.

The CDC pulls a clever trick there.  It reports only on the “most commonly reported side effects,” not the most serious ones.  The milder side effects will almost always outnumber the more serious ones.

The CDC “fact sheet” mentioned nothing about the COVID vaccine type being the number-one leader in reported congenital anomalies/birth defects and emergency room visits.  And nothing about having more reported deaths than all other vaccine types except one.  You have to dig into the raw data to find these facts.

Just thought you might want to know this when someone tells you “it’s safe.”

This was my youngest Aunt on my mother’s side of the family.
She was known by her middle name Jeane instead of her first name Delia

No services are planned at this time for Jeane Skyles age 82 of Hollister, Missouri.

Arrangements and cremation are under the direction of Greenlawn Funeral Home in Branson.

She passed away on March 7, 2021 at Shepherd of The Hills Living Center in Branson, Missouri.

Jeane was born on November 4, 1938 in Sheldon, Missouri the daughter of William and Mary Waters Fullerton. She and her husband moved to the area in 1979 and were the owners and operators of the Paradise Donut Shop from 1979 until 1988. She was a Registered Nurse and retired in 2000 from Cox Home Health Care. She was a member of the Branson United Methodist Church. She enjoyed playing bridge.

She is survived by a son; Michael Skyles (Sandy) of Memphis, Tennessee, two grandsons, Jack Michael Skyles and Samuel Nicholas Skyles and a great grandson Rhys Michael Skyles. She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, Larry Skyles, two brothers, Tom Barbato and Clarence Fullerton and two sisters, Dorothy Rookstool and Doris Ware.

Memorial contributions in her memory are suggested to St. Jude Children’s Hospital or the Children’s Miracle Network.

Denmark suspends AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine over blood clotting cases.

March 11 (UPI) — The Danish government on Thursday said it has temporarily suspended distribution of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University over potential issues with blood clotting.

The Danish Health Authority cited “severe cases of blood clotting” among some recipients of the vaccine.

The suspension will last for two weeks, officials said.

“It is important to emphasize that we have not opted out of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but that we are putting it on hold,” National Board of Health Director Soren Brostrom said in a statement.

“There is good evidence that the vaccine is both safe and effective. But both we and the Danish Medicines Agency have to react to reports of possible serious side effects, both from Denmark and other European countries. It shows that the monitoring system works.”

More than 50 countries have authorized the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, including Britain and Canada. The vaccine has not yet been given emergency use authorization in the United States.

Austria suspended the vaccine after a recipient was diagnosed with multiple thromboses, or blood clots within blood vessels, and died 10 days after vaccination, the European Medicines Agency said.

Officials said another recipient was hospitalized with artery blockage in the lungs after being vaccinated, but is now recovering

“There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine,” the EMA added, calling the suspension a “precautionary” move

To defeat woke tyrants, the rest of us must treat them like the monsters they are

Most Americans hate woke politics — and most minorities don’t share “woke” priorities. Indeed, according to pollster David Shor, woke excesses are causing black voters to flee the Democratic Party. Despite endless charges of “racism,” former President Donald Trump took the biggest share of minority voters of any Republican in my lifetime.

Woke tyrants ride high, even so; according to a Cato/YouGov poll, 62 percent of Americans self-censor their political expression. Only a tiny minority of consumers care about Mr. Potato Head’s toxic masculinity, about “Aunt Jemima” as a brand or about the #MeToo aggressions of Pepé Le Pew. Yet corporations, universities and governments rush to placate that minuscule slice of the population, trashing large chunks of our culture in the process.

It’s happening not because anybody voted for it, but because a small but determined and vicious minority is bullying people to go along, relying on cowardice and groupthink to achieve ends that could never happen via majority vote: How do you think Dr. Seuss would have done in a referendum?

How does this happen? To some degree, the woke abuse the good nature of Americans. For the most part, Americans want their fellow citizens to be happy. If they hear something makes others unhappy, they generously look to change things.

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Schumer pledges Senate vote on gun bill passed by House: ‘No more … thoughts and prayers

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Thursday vowed that the Senate would vote on the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, which passed the House Thursday in a 227-203 vote.

A prior version of the H.R. 8 bill, which would require background checks for all U.S. firearm purchases, passed the House in 2019 but did not receive 60 votes in the Senate to clear the filibuster.

“In the past, when they sent it over to us last time, it went into [former Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard,” Schumer said during a press conference Thursday. “The legislative graveyard is over. H.R. 8 will be on the floor of the Senate, and we will see where everybody stands. No more hopes and prayers, thoughts and prayers. A vote is what we need, a vote, not thoughts and prayers.”

The House also passed H.R. 1446, the Enhanced Background Check Act, by a 219-210 vote Thursday. That bill would extend the amount of time to complete a federal background check before a gun purchase is approved.

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It’s good to see others with large venues getting onboard with the knowledge that gun use for self defense strongly outweighs their use by criminals.

These 11 Examples of Defensive Gun Use Undermine Push for More Gun Control

March is Women’s History Month, yet Congress appears ready to celebrate in the worst way possible by creating more barriers for women who seek to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

While COVID-19-related bills have taken up much of the national spotlight, several gun control bills are primed for passage this week in the House. This is hardly surprising, given that just last month, President Joe Biden called on Congress to enact a plethora of new federal gun legislation.

Unfortunately, however, none of these proposals is meaningfully directed at the root causes of gun violence. Many gun control advocates have fooled themselves—and far too many others—into believing that we create safer communities by placing increasingly burdensome restrictions on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

The reality, however, is that firearms are used far more often for lawful purposes than they are used to commit acts of criminal violence.

Almost every major study on the issue found that Americans use their firearms in self-defense between 500,000 and 3 million times a year, according to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We have good reason to believe that many of these defensive gun uses aren’t reported to police, much less make the local or national news.

For this reason, The Daily Signal each month publishes an article highlighting 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. (Read accounts from 2019 and 2020 here.)

The examples below represent only a small portion of the news stories on defensive gun use that we found in February. You may explore more by using The Heritage Foundation’s interactive Defensive Gun Use Database.

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2 killed when person they were trying to rob opens fire

HOUSTON – Two people were killed Wednesday when a person they were trying to rob in north Harris County opened fire, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

The shooting was reported about 2:45 p.m. in the 4500 block of Shelton Road.

Gonzalez said a person was eating lunch in his car when two other people walked up and tried to rob him. He said that was when the person pulled out a gun and shot the two people trying to rob him.

Gonzalez said the person jumped out of his car and fled the scene in the car believed to be driven by the two people attempting to rob him. He said the person later returned and is cooperating with investigators.

The sheriff said investigators will forward their information to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office who will decide whether charges are necessary.

Beverly man, 69, with concealed carry license, shoots at 3 would-be robbers, injuring 1

A 69-year-old concealed carry license holder defended himself Tuesday night against a group of teenagers in a stolen vehicle when they approached him in Beverly ( ‘community area’ in Chicago ) and demanded his belongings, police said.

Instead of handing over his wallet or other items, the man drew his handgun and shot toward the group of boys trying to rob him about 10:35 p.m. in the 10600 block of South Leavitt Street, according to a statement from police. One of the attackers was shot in the knee, police said.

Two of the three people have since been charged, Karie James, a police spokeswoman, said. They were 15 and 16 years old, she said. The person who was shot in the knee has not been charged with a crime and James did not release his age.

When the 69-year-old shot at the three people, they ran back to a gray Ford Fusion and drove off, authorities said. Police initially misidentified the color of the vehicle as red

They managed to get as far as the Gresham neighborhood, but the Ford crashed in the 8700 block of South Vincennes Avenue, according to police. All three people took off running, but soon were caught by Chicago police officers.

Authorities later learned that Ford Fusion had been reported stolen Sunday night, James said.

The three were taken to an area hospital for evaluation. (pity they didn’t get the full free ride to the morgue.)

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BLUF:
Knowing that you will be vilified as some kind of brute abuser if you criticize a New York Times reporter is, for many people, too high of a price to pay for doing it. So people instead refrain, stay quiet, and that is the obvious objective of this lowly strategy.

Criticizing Public Figures, Including Influential Journalists, is Not Harassment or Abuse.
As social media empowers uncredentialed people to be heard, society’s most powerful actors seek to cast themselves as victims and delegitimize all critiques.

The most powerful and influential newspaper in the U.S., arguably the West, is The New York Times. Journalists who write for it, especially those whose work is featured on its front page or in its op-ed section, wield immense power to shape public discourse, influence thought, set the political agenda for the planet’s most powerful nation, expose injustices, or ruin the lives of public figures and private citizens alike. That is an enormous amount of power in the hands of one media institution and its employees. That’s why it calls itself the Paper of Record.

One of the Paper of Record’s star reporters, Taylor Lorenz, has been much discussed of late. That is so for three reasons. The first is that the thirty-six-year-old tech and culture reporter has helped innovate a new kind of reportorial beat that seems to have a couple of purposes. She publishes articles exploring in great detail the online culture of teenagers and very young adults, which, as a father of two young Tik-Tok-using children, I have found occasionally and mildly interesting. She also seeks to catch famous and non-famous people alike using bad words or being in close digital proximity to bad people so that she can alert the rest of the world to these important findings. It is natural that journalists who pioneer a new form of reporting this way are going to be discussed.

The second reason Lorenz is the topic of recent discussion is that she has been repeatedly caught fabricating claims about influential people, and attempting to ruin the reputations and lives of decidedly non-famous people. In the last six weeks alone, she twice publicly lied about Netscape founder Marc Andreessen: once claiming he used the word “retarded” in a Clubhouse room in which she was lurking (he had not) and then accusing him of plotting with a white nationalist in a different Clubhouse room to attack her (he, in fact, had said nothing).

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Providing confirmation, and self identification (it’s nice when they do intelligence gathering work for you, isn’t it?) that universities are domestic enemy institutions that must eventually be eliminated in self defense.

Top digital journalism professor at Columbia calls for censorship of conservative media.

The top digital journalism professor at Columbia University recently called for some center-right news outlets to be censored in the name of cracking down on misinformation.

Professor Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Media, said it is not an infringement of the First Amendment to audit and vet some news outlets to promote a “truthful news environment.”

She made the comments in response to concerns among U.S. Reps. Jerry McNerney and Anna Eshoo, who sent letters to a multitude of streaming companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Charter, Dish, Cox and Hulu, asking them about censoring “misinformation” in the conservative media.

The Democratic senior members expressed that “right-wing media ecosystem[s]” like “Newsmax, One America News Network (OANN), and Fox News” must be held accountable for supposed fallacies on their networks and suggested they be booted from these venues.

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Which is the same question asked of them for many years:
What makes you believe that another law will suddenly make a criminal stop violating all the other laws they’ve been violating?
Since it won’t, as demonstrated by past performance of the criminal element from the dawn of history to date, what they want isn’t about stopping criminals from committing crimes, but controlling the populace.

A Simple Question For Democrats About Universal Background Checks

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her anti-gun allies are moving forward with votes on a pair of gun control bills dealing with background checks for firearm purchases, armed with a new poll showing broad support from the electorate when it comes to requiring background checks on all sales of firearms. A new Morning Consult poll finds that 84-percent of respondents backed the idea when they were asked, though I suspect that if the question had been worded a little differently we might have seen a very different result.

Do 84-percent of Americans think a person should go to federal prison if they transfer a firearm to their neighbor who’s afraid of her abusive ex showing up at her door? Do 84-percent of Americans think that it should be crime to sell a gun to your cousin without a background check, but legal for you to sell a gun to your aunt without one? I highly doubt it, but that’s exactly what H.R. 8 would require if it were to become law.

We’re gonna hear a lot of talk from Democrats in the next few days about the popularity of universal background checks, but the fact is that most Americans simply don’t know about the details of the Democrats’ proposals and how they could impact legal gun owners.

Beyond the polling, however, I have a serious question for the supporters of H.R. 8, and I hope that Republicans in the House press their anti-gun colleagues for an answer.

How will this bill prevent any illicit private transfer of a firearm? 

Democrats claim that H.R. 8 will stop criminals from getting a gun, but have you noticed that they never actually explain how the bill will do that?

“If you are a criminal, you are a felon, you are deranged, well by God you shouldn’t have access to a weapon, that’s what this bill does. It has the support of about 90% of Americans,” Illinois Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos said.

Bustos says one bill would close the so-called “gun show loophole” by making it illegal for unlicensed persons to transfer firearms to someone else without a background check.

Most criminals don’t get their guns through legal means in the first place, and the bill doesn’t change the fact that convicted felons and those adjudicated as “mentally defective” cannot legally buy or possess a firearm. So how exactly does this bill prevent access to a gun from those not allowed to own one?

Simply put, it doesn’t. At best it allows for a criminal charge after the fact, but even then prosecutors would face significant challenges. They’d first have to find the gun in question, trace it back to the illicit purchaser, who would then have to provide evidence that the gun was purchased without a background check from a private seller after the universal background check bill became law.

In the year after Washington State approved a universal background check measure of its own, there were a total of ten arrests and two convictions of individuals who attempted to purchase a gun when they were prohibited from doing so, but it looks like both of those convictions came as the result of background checks performed on retail sales of guns, not private transfers.

New Mexico also approved universal background checks back in 2019, and in the first year that the law was on the books there were zero arrests for conducing a private gun sale without going through a background check. Are we really supposed to believe that criminals in the Land of Enchantment simply stopped all black market sales, or does it make more sense that criminals simply continued to ignore this law just as they ignore the laws against, say, home invasion or armed robbery?

Democrats maintain that H.R. 8 will prevent criminals from getting their hands on a gun, but I’ve never heard them explain how the legislation will do that. Something tells me that we won’t get any such explanation during the debate of H.R. 8 either, but every pro-2A House member should call them out for their obfuscation and demand that they tell the American people the truth about this bill; it won’t and can’t prevent a single illicit private transfer of a firearm, and is utterly useless as a public safety strategy.

Chick-fil-A robbery suspect captured by Colony Square visitors

Plenty of people love Chick-fil-A, but how many would be willing to confront an armed man suspected of robbing one of the Atlanta restaurant chain’s locations?

According to Atlanta police, multiple people who witnessed a robbery in progress at the Colony Square restaurant did just that, stepping in to confront and subdue the armed suspect.

One of those people was armed, and at some point during the confrontation, he fired several shots, Atlanta police spokeswoman Officer C.J. Johnson said. He and several other Colony Square visitors were able to disarm the suspect, 23-year-old Willie Gloston, and hold him until police arrived, Johnson said.

Officers were sent to the Midtown restaurant about 3 p.m., according to Johnson. Witnesses told investigators that a man walked into the store and demanded money from a cashier. The man was later identified as Gloston.

It’s not clear if they gave the man any money, but the cashier fled to the back of the store and the suspect left.

As Gloston tried to leave Colony Square, he was confronted by bystanders and witnesses, leading to the gunfire and his capture, Johnson said. He was taken to the Fulton County Jail, where he remains.

Gloston is charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Police said no one was hurt by the gunfire. No charges have been filed against the bystander who fired the shots, Johnson said.

An investigation is ongoing.

 

In the Declaration of Independence, it is written that it is a self evident truth that the creator endowed mankind with – among others – the right to life. Abortion can be argued therefore as a secular civil rights, as well as a religious issue, and as I believe that life begins at conception, that life has human rights that mere inconvenience can not supersede.

Arkansas Governor Signs Additional Restrictions on Abortion Into Law

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) signed a bill restricting abortions, SB6, into law on Tuesday. The law prohibits women from obtaining abortions in Arkansas, with one exception for the life of the mother.

Exceptions for rape or incest are not written into the bill, which Hutchinson said that he would have preferred in the final version of the legislation. He hopes the law will compel the Supreme Court to review the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion on the federal level.

“SB6 is a pro-life bill that prohibits abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother in a medical emergency. It does not include exceptions for rape and incest,” Hutchinson said on Tuesday “I will sign SB6 because of overwhelming legislative support and my sincere and long-held pro-life convictions. SB6 is in contradiction of binding precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court, but it is the intent of the legislation to set the stage for the Supreme Court overturning current case law. I would have preferred the legislation to include the exceptions for rape and incest, which has been my consistent view, and such exceptions would increase the chances for a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

 The new law will go into effect by the upcoming summer, upon the legislature adjourning. Other states have implemented similar abortion restrictions in hopes of the Supreme Court taking up an abortion case and reconsidering the landmark Roe decision.