Washington State gun control fails again.  Despite the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, blue states continue to pass blatantly unconstitutional anti-liberty/gun laws, knowing it will almost surely take years, and untold millions of taxpayer dollars before the Supreme Court strikes them down.  When that inevitably happens, they'll just pass more to start the process over.  Constitutional gun laws now require a direct, American historical precedent.  There is no precedent for purchase permits, bans in most public places, or restrictions on how many guns one can buy per month.  Nor may guns in common use — like the AR-15 — for lawful purposes be banned.  Gun bans are a notoriously useless means of stopping crime. Criminals don't obey the law.  Shooting at people on the highway already violates a wide variety of felony laws, including murder, but no criminal is going to say: "oh no!  The Legislature banned my favorite gun.  Guess I can't shoot anyone anymore." This applies nowhere more obviously than in mass shootings.  Someone contemplating shooting up a school is planning mass murder.  They're not going to be deterred by any gun law, which is surely a lesser felony or misdemeanor.

Georgia high school shooter Colt Gray's dad arrested for murder in shock development after son killed four on campus.  The father of Georgia school shooter Colt Gray was arrested on charges including murder after it was revealed that he purchased the AR-15-style rifle the 14-year-old used to shoot dead four people on campus.  Gray, 54, was taken into custody by local authorities at 6:11pm by local authorities and charged with two felony counts of murder, four felony counts of involuntary manslaughter, and eight felony counts of cruelty to children.  His mugshot was released by the Barrow County Sheriff's Office Thursday night.  Officials confirmed in a press conference that the charges stem from Colin 'knowingly allowing' his son to have access to the firearm used in the shooting.

Father of Georgia high school shooting suspect arrested.  The father of Colt Gray, the teen suspect in the Apalachee High School shooting, has been arrested, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday.  Colin Gray, 54, is being charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, GBI said.  The 14-year-old shooting suspect has been charged with four counts of felony murder.  GBI Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference Thursday night that the charges against Colin Gray stem from "knowingly allowing his son to possess a weapon."  He was in custody and being held at the Barrow County Detention Center, officials said Thursday.  Georgia does not allow minors to own guns.  State and federal law also would prohibit the teenage suspect from buying a handgun, rifle or shotgun.

Report: Transgender Who Killed 6 at Nashville School Bought Guns with Federal Grant Money.  A report from the Tennessee Star indicates that Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old transgender woman who shot and killed six people on March 27, 2023, bought her guns with federal grant money.  CNN noted that Hale bought a total of seven guns "between October 20, 2020, and June 6, 2022," and all were legally purchased.  The Tennessee Star quoted 99.7 WTN afternoon radio host Brian Wilson noting that Hale allegedly "took money from an education grant she received to purchase her weapons and to pay for training at a local gun range."  [Advertisement]  Hale hid the guns in her family home and, a day after the heinous shooting, her parents said they were unaware.  They thought Hale had a bought one gun in the past, then sold it.  [Advertisement]  But Hale had guns and she took three of them with her to carry out the heinous attack.  And despite numerous establishment media reports, including CNN, which claimed Hale "was in possession of an AR-15 military-style rifle" in the school, she did not possess an AR-15 rifle during the attack.

From inside the mind of a would-be mass shooter: 'I am certain nobody there is armed'.  From the New York Post comes the story of Joshua Cobb, a black Marine Corps veteran who was in the planning stages of a mass casualty shooting spree in which he planned to target whites:  [excerpts]  Those facts alone, black-on-white race-based hatred that was the root of a planned shooting spree, means it's a news story that won't be touched by establishment media; but even more so when you consider what Cobb said about where he planned to kickoff his attack.

Maniac Plans Massacre for Gun-Free Zone.  A maniac may be psychotic enough to buy into liberal race ideology and still know what's what.  Joshua Cobb wisely planned his mass shooting of random Caucasians for a gun-free zone:  ["]A 23-year-old Marine from Trenton, New Jersey is facing federal charges after repeatedly discussing his plans for a mass shooting targeting white people, and one of those statements indicates he had picked out a "gun free zone" where the attack would take place.["]  You don't want your victims shooting back.  That's when they cease to be victims.  Picking a gun-free zone requires minimal intelligence.

Suspect Under Arrest for Shooting Five People in Heavily Gun-Controlled Washington, DC.  A suspect is under arrest after five people were shot at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday outside of a nightclub in heavily gun-controlled Washington, DC.  ABC News reported that the nightclub outside of which the incident occurred is located "in the Dupont Circle neighborhood."  [Advertisement]  The shooting apparently followed an argument that began inside the nightclub and then escalated outside.  All the gunshot wounds are considered non-life-threatening.  [Advertisement]  WSAZ 3 noted that the Secret Service was present to help arrest the shooting suspect.  [Advertisement]  Gabby Giffords' gun control group, Giffords, sums up D.C.'s gun control by stressing that the District "has enacted some of the strongest gun violence prevention legislation in the nation." [...] Despite all these controls, five people were shot outside a nightclub in DC on Friday night.

Do Strict Gun Laws Actually Prevent Gun Violence?  The assumption that stricter gun laws directly lead to a decrease in gun violence is not as straightforward as it seems.  For example, California, known for having the most stringent gun regulations in the country, continues to struggle with high rates of gun violence. [...] Criminals, by definition, do not adhere to laws.  Therefore, implementing stricter gun control measures often disproportionately affects law-abiding citizens, leaving them more vulnerable.  It restricts their ability to defend themselves while doing little to prevent criminals from obtaining weapons illegally.  The focus on laws that target the general population fails to address the root causes of violence, such as socio-economic factors, mental health issues, and the illegal arms trade.

Houston's ShotSpotter Under Scrutiny:  High False Alert Rates Question Its Efficiency.  Houston's ambitious ShotSpotter program, designed to detect gunfire and reduce gun violence, faces critical evaluation amid concerns over its effectiveness and impact on police response times to other emergencies.  Despite the city's multi-million dollar investment in the technology, recent reports highlight a high rate of false alerts, raising questions about its future.  Installed in predominantly Black and brown communities, ShotSpotter was seen as a technological advance in the fight against gun violence.  The system's priority is such that, according to Houston Police Officers' Union President Doug Griffith, officers must redirect from other calls to respond to ShotSpotter alerts.  However, a significant majority of these alerts, exceeding 80% in a recent review, have been dismissed or found to be unfounded, casting doubt on the system's reliability.  During a public meeting, SoundThinking's President Ralph Clark defended ShotSpotter's accuracy, emphasizing its role in saving lives by alerting police to unreported shootings.

Gun-Free School Zones & Shootings Statistic.  Thousands of federal and state gun laws are designed to keep firearms away from schools, out of the hands of the mentally ill, and inaccessible to minors.  The vast majority of these laws were enacted in the 1980s and later.  However, school shootings have increased dramatically since the 1980s as well.  To better understand what legislation we're working with right now, let's review the federal and state firearms laws on the books today.

Lakewood Shooter's Ex-Mother-in-Law Blames Attack on the Second Amendment.  As is usually the case in situations like these, we're learning more about the multiple warning signs exhibited by the deranged individual who opened fire in Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas on Sunday, including repeated arrests and a history of mental illness going back years.  But the attacker's ex-mother-in-law claims that the real problem is the right to keep and bear arms, as well as a lack of a "red flag" law in the Lone Star State.  Authorities have already said that Genesse Moreno had a documented history of mental illness, including an emergency detention order eight years ago, but there is no indication that family members tried to have her involuntarily committed at any point since, even though her then-husband alleged just three years ago that he was subject to physical attacks by his wife.

Lakeland Church Shooter's History of Threatening Behavior Was Known to Authorities Years Before Attack.  Genesse Ivonne Moreno, the individual who opened fire at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston, reportedly had a troubling history of harassment and threats toward her neighbors years before she [sic] carried out the attempted mass shooting on Sunday.  A new report brings to light new disturbing details about Moreno's past confrontations and mental health issues and could shed light on the possible motives for the shooting.  Moreno was known to her [sic] neighbors in Conroe for her unsettling behavior.  The neighbors alerted the authorities about her [sic] behavior but to no avail.

The Megachurch Shooter, an Alien Who Should Have Been Deported, May Have Voted in 2020 General Election.  By now, you're aware that on Sunday afternoon, a deranged woman brought her young son and an AR-15 into Joel Osteen's Lakewood megachurch and opened fire.  After the smoke cleared, the shooter, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, 36, had been killed by two off-duty officers.  A 57-year-old man had taken a round in the leg; he was treated at a medical facility and released.  And Moreno's seven-year-old son had been shot in the head.  The boy remains in critical condition with a poor prognosis.  It's unclear whether Moreno herself shot her child, but then, there are a lot of confusing details still up in the air about this case.  The woman had suffered from schizophrenia and multiple past arrests, and yet, mainstream news sources are reporting that she [sic] was able to buy guns legally.  For example, CNN stated, "The shooter used an AR-15 with a 'Palestine' sticker on it during the attack, which she legally purchased in December, police said.  She also had a .22 caliber weapon in her bag that was not used, according to a federal law enforcement source."

13-Year-Old Kills Man on Denver Bus.  The city of Denver has long had a problem with violent crime.  Officials there like to blame guns for the issue simply because the offenders use firearms.  However, the problem is that this focus on guns is a focus on the wrong thing.  Bad actors will get guns no matter what you try to do.  Colorado, for example, requires background checks on every transfer of a firearm, while Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill last year raising the age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21.  That law is on hold thanks to a lawsuit, but it's still legally impossible for a juvenile to lawfully acquire or carry a firearm.  So how did this happen?

Music videos, social media play major role in DC shootings, report finds.  Music videos and inflammatory social media posts have been a driver of shootings in the nation's capital in recent years, according to a report released this week by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, an independent agency in D.C. that identifies local public safety challenges.  Researchers spoke with street outreach workers, violence interrupters and more than 70 police officers in D.C. who were "selected for their particular knowledge and expertise of gun violence."  Among those who were interviewed, there was nearly unanimous agreement on the primary driver of gun violence.  "There is a deadly mix of group/crew/gang members making music videos taunting or disrespecting their rivals that are posted on social media, and those videos spark or further inflame neighborhood conflicts that escalate into shootings," according to the report.  "While the music videos were identified as the primary issue, other comments and pictures posted to social media by group members also lead to shootings."

The Editor says...
[#1] The guns themselves are not violent, so quit calling it "gun violence."  [#2] Having a real father at home would help.  Church attendance would help.  Stiff prison sentences would help.  Teaching the Golden Rule, self control, and civics in school would help.  [#3]  The District of Columbia has some of the toughest gun control laws in the U.S., but it's obvious that gun control laws don't help.

CNN [is] Not Even Hiding [its] Anti-Gun Agenda Anymore.  Of course, how many times do we see that the mass shooters — actual mass shooters, not gang-bangers who get touted as mass shooters by biased sources — passed the background check system.  That happened in Uvalde, for example.  The killer might have been as demented as they come, but he'd never been adjudicated by a court and he'd never been convicted of anything, so he could buy a firearm without a background check.  In fact, we generally see the only mass shooters who haven't passed a background check to be those too young to do so, and they steal a family member's gun.  So here we have CNN pushing gun control, much like President Joe Biden, despite the fact that the Department of Justice itself noting that this wasn't a gun control failure but a law enforcement one.  That's the story, folks.  That's what the DOJ found and one would imagine that CNN would want to cover that.

White House 'Solutions' Wouldn't Have Prevented Iowa School Shooting.  The White House wasted little time on Thursday before it pointed to the shooting at Perry High School in Iowa to drum up support for more gun restrictions, though the "solutions" offered by the Biden administration wouldn't have stopped the attack.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking for Biden, called on Congress to enact several gun control laws in response to the shootings; "universal" background checks, a ban on so-called assault weapons, and prohibiting "large capacity" magazines.  Based on what we know of the attack and the teen who carried it out, however, none of those measures would have made an impact at all.

Sporting Goods Store Employees Fired for Trying to Stop a Thief From Stealing a Pistol.  In the latest example of corporate stupidity, three sporting goods employees were fired for chasing a man who stole a pistol.  Apparently, trying to stop someone from stealing a deadly weapon is against company policy.  This is yet another story in which a major company punishes employees for trying to protect it from entitled thugs who think they have the right to take what they want. [...] Four days later, [Michelle] Sutton said the store fired her and the two other employees for trying to stop the thief.  "Sutton said that they were let go due to Academy Sports + Outdoors policy on loss prevention, which states that employees are not allowed to chase or physically restrain a fleeing person suspected of theft," according to the report.

Sen. Susan Collins Is Hard at Work Crafting Gun Control Legislation for the Troops.  Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is working on legislation ostensibly intended to prevent mass shootings like the one that happened in Maine on October 27.  The tragic incident took place when Robert Card, a member of the Armed Forces, went on a spree in various locations, killing 18 people.  He was later found dead after a manhunt.  It was later revealed that Card had a history of mental illness and had even threatened violence against his fellow servicemembers at a military base.  Yet, he was still able to legally purchase a firearm despite Maine's yellow flag law, which allows for the temporary seizure of firearms from those deemed to be a risk to themselves or others.  It appears Sen. Collins seeks to strengthen these laws.

The Editor says...
Why wasn't he discharged from the military, if he was known to have mental problems?

Police video shows police knew Maine shooter was a threat.  They also felt confronting him was unsafe.  Police in Maine feared confronting an Army reservist prior to the worst mass shooting in state history would "throw a stick of dynamite on a pool of gas," according to footage released by law enforcement.  The videos were released to the Portland Press Herald and then sent to The Associated Press on Friday [12/22/2023].  Robert Card, a 40-year-old Army reservist, committed the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history when he killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar on Oct. 25 in Lewiston.

Shouldn't Have Happened:  The Oxford High Shooting.  After a year-long investigation, the 562-page final report was recently released regarding the Michigan Oxford High School shooting tragedy on Nov. 30, 2021.  I previously reported on this shooting within a month of the tragedy and focused on the serious decline in morality that exists in America.  Now we have the details of what actually happened in that shooting.  After I read the final report, I concluded: this shooting didn't need to happen!  There were so many red flags, warnings, gaps, and deficiencies in security preparedness and implementation.

Israel and Gun Control.  There are recent headlines and talk about Israel relaxing gun control laws and arming citizens since the Hamas terrorist attacks October 7th.  But these narratives can be deceiving.  One Israeli tactical expert, Yonatan Stern, has exposed some concerning actions on behalf of the Israeli government that tell a different story. [...] According to Stern, "almost nobody is allowed to own guns at all" in Israel.  But most citizens enter the Israeli military at 18, and they are issued a rifle.  Americans who enter the military are also issued rifles, but the difference is that American soldiers aren't permitted to keep their rifles in their possession off base.  "But in Israel it doesn't work like that, in Israel, the soldiers usually leave their bases carrying their rifles with them," says Stern.  Upon discharge from the IDF, however, the rifle is taken from the Israeli soldier.  And from the sounds of it, that soldier may never be able to even get a handgun, never mind a rifle, again.

Army Reservist Warned Maine Shooter Was 'Going To Snap And Do A Mass Shooting' Weeks Before Massacre.  An Army reservist warned a training supervisor that the man who shot more than two dozen people late last month in Lewiston, Maine, was having serious mental health issues and that he could snap and go on a shooting spree.  Law enforcement officials in Maine found the 40-year-old shooter dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound a couple days after he murdered 18 people and injured more than a dozen after he opened fire at two locations.  ABC News reported late this week that the shooter, who The Daily Wire is not naming due to company policy about not giving notoriety to mass killers, scared a fellow Army reservist so much that the reservist warned Army reserve training supervisor Kelvin L. Mote back in September that the passcode to the unit gate needed to be changed and that he needed to be armed if the shooter showed up.

Don't Blame the Maine Shootings on 'Woefully Weak' Gun Laws.  Five months before an Army Reserve sergeant killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine, his relatives told police he was increasingly paranoid, erroneously complaining that people were describing him as a pedophile.  Two months later, he underwent a psychiatric evaluation after service members who were training with him at West Point reported that he was behaving erratically, and last month he told a friend he was "going to shoot up the drill center" at his base in Saco, Maine.  The fact that the 40-year-old petroleum supply specialist nevertheless managed to commit his horrifying crimes last week, after which he killed himself, underlines the challenge of identifying and thwarting mass murderers.  But contrary to what some critics claimed, the problem was not Maine's "woefully weak" gun regulations.  On its face, Maine's "yellow flag" law, enacted in 2019, could have made a crucial difference in this case.  It authorizes police, after taking someone into "protective custody" based on probable cause to believe he is "mentally ill" and poses a threat to himself or others, to ask a "medical practitioner" for an assessment of whether the detainee "presents a likelihood of foreseeable harm."

Red Flags:  How Many Chances Did Authorities Waste to Stop Maine Mass Shooter?  Officially, the number of attempts to detain Robert Card comes to two.  However, in this Bangor Daily News exposé of the efforts to warn that the Army reservist had become a serious threat, it becomes clear that red flags were flying for months — and yet no one intervened effectively.  The police were warned twice, very specifically, that the man who massacred 18 people had become dangerously paranoid and had begun collecting firearms.

Cops visited Maine gunman's home six weeks before massacre.  Police across Maine were alerted just last month to 'veiled threats' by the U.S. Army reservist who would go on to carry out the worst mass shooting in the state's history, after concerns he would 'snap and commit a mass shooting'.  It was just one of a string of missed red flags that preceded last week's massacre at a bowling alley.  The revelations came as more than 1,000 people packed a cavernous church on Sunday night, with hundreds more spilling outside, to hug, sing, weep and seek comfort in the wake the state's most deadly mass shooting.

The Maine bowling alley where so many died is a gun-free zone.  [Scroll down]  The killer went to one, and maybe two, gun-free zones.  Maine, like many northern coastal states, is very leftist along the coast and very conservative inland.  That conservativism shows in the fact that Maine has not attacked the Second Amendment.  Instead, its Constitution strongly reinforces it:  "Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned."  (Maine Const., Art. 1, Sec. 16.)  With that mindset, it's no wonder that Maine is a constitutional carry state with a "shall issue" rule for concealed carry permit requests.  There are no bans on long guns, including semi-automatic long guns, and there are no restrictions on magazine size.  Given Maine's willingness to let ordinary citizens carry guns, I couldn't understand how nobody tried to shoot back.  Well, it turns out that, as in all states that allow open or concealed carry, individual establishments may ask that people who enter disarm themselves before doing so.

Robert Card Was in Custody Back in July, Hearing "Voices" in His Head.  So here we are with yet another police/FBI epic failure.  18 people are dead, 13 more are injured at the hands "allegedly" of Robert Card in Lewinston, Maine.  Yet, Card was in police custody by in July and complained about hearing "voices" in his head or something.  Yet somehow, he went unchecked, got an AR-15 and killed at least 18 people.

Police Took Suspected Maine Shooter for Evaluation in July, Yellow Flag Law Not Triggered.  Police took Robert Card, the person of interest police are seeking in connection with Wednesday's shootings in Maine, for an evaluation in July 2023 after he acted "erratically," according to reports.  Card, an Army Reservist, had caught the attention of military officials after "acting erratically in mid-July" while taking part in training at West Point, the Associated Press reported.  Police in New York were called and Card was taken to West Point's Keller Army Community Hospital for evaluation.

Gun Control:  The End Results.  [Scroll down]  The BBC adds, "Israeli gun ownership is low at about 2% of the population. ... Usually citizens are allowed to hold a pistol and a limit of 50 bullets" which underscores the gross incompetence of the Israeli legislators who were responsible for the laws in question.  Ongoing attacks and infiltration by Hamas made the events of last week easily foreseeable but the government left this law in place.  Israel's "commonsense gun laws" resulted in hundreds of preventable fatalities which brings to mind phrases like "dereliction of duty."  Israeli voters need to hold those responsible for this disaster accountable in the next election.

Hamas Massacres:  The New Face of Gun Control.  On October 7, the day Hamas attacked Israel, Inbal Rabin-Lieberman, a 25-year-old security coordinator at the Kibbutz Nir Am settlement located near the Gaza Strip, saved lives because she had a gun.  After the kibbutz came under attack, Inbal hurriedly opened the armory and distributed guns to the twelve-member security team.  She caught the Hamas murderers unawares because they were not expecting to meet armed resistance.  Lieberman killed five terrorists while the others gunned down twenty-five before the Israeli Defense Force arrived.  Because of her actions, Nir-Am was the only settlement bordering the Gaza Strip that did not suffer Israeli casualties during Hama's attack.  The number of Israelis killed in the terrorist attack is over 1,400.  How many of those deaths could have been averted had more Israelis owned guns?  Israel has draconian gun-control laws, worse than those in New York City.  Only three percent (3%) of Israeli citizens own guns (compared to about thirty-two percent (32%) of U.S. citizens).

In One Of The Strictest Gun Control Countries In The World, Marseille France, A Migrant With A Machine Gun Mows Down 3, Killing 2.  Two men aged 24 and 41 were shot dead and a third man aged 41 was injured in a shooting that occurred in working-class neighborhoods in the north of Marseille this Thursday, September 28.  Two men were shot dead and a third was injured.  The facts occurred on the public highway around 7:40 p.m. in Chutes-Lavie, in the 4th arrondissement of Marseille.  One of the two victims died instantly while the second died "20 to 30 minutes after the first".  [Video clip]

Another Gunman Terrorizes UNC's 'Gun-Free' Campus.  Yet another gunman terrorized the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a "gun-free zone" by state law, a little over two weeks after a pistol-wielding Wuhan University alum allegedly shot dead a professor inside a school laboratory late last month.  Like the case of the "mostly white Asian male" shooter, as satirically described on social media, the press — typically titillated by the thought of a trigger-happy maniac wreaking havoc on school grounds as a means to push the Left's gun-control agenda — isn't going to like this one.  The suspect, a black man, is a career criminal reportedly with a rap sheet dating back a decade.

Notorious Underworld Boss Is Executed In Public In Australia Even Though Guns Are Banned.  Hey, I thought banning guns meant no more gun violence.  Looks like thugs and gangsters didn't get the memo.  CCTV has captured the moment two gunmen shot and killed a notorious underworld figure and injured the son of a late crime boss during a brazen daylight crime in Melbourne.  Gavin "Capable" Preston and Abbas "AJ" Maghnie, the son of late crime boss Nabil Maghnie, were sitting at a cafe in Keilor Village having breakfast when two men dressed in black fired multiple shots at the pair at about 10.20 am yesterday.  [Video clip]

Couple Fatally Shot While Sitting in Car in Gun-Controlled California.  A young couple was shot and killed on Labor Day while sitting in a car with their one-year-old baby in gun-controlled Los Angeles, California. [...] The baby was in a booster seat and only suffered minor wounds from bullet fragments.  There were at least five bullet holes in the driver's-side window of the Infiniti as police collected evidence Monday, video from the scene showed.  A Nike Air Max shoe sat next to the car by an evidence marker, the LA Times reports.  FOX News noted the baby's wounds were treated and then the baby was released to family members.  The shooting is believed to have been gang-related.  California is the No. 1 state in the nation for gun control, according to Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety.

Report: Texas Mall Shooter [was] Removed from [the] Army in 2008 over Mental Health Issues.  ABC News reported that 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, who allegedly opened fire at the Allen, Texas, outlet mall Saturday afternoon, was removed from the U.S. Army in 2008 "due to mental health concerns."  Breitbart News noted that eight people were killed and numerous others injured when the suspect opened fire at the outlet mall around 3:30 p.m. Saturday.  The attack was stopped by a police officer who was at the mall on an unrelated call.  The officer shot and killed Garcia.

How long before the Allen, Texas, mall shooting is memory-holed?  Yesterday, something terrible happened in Allen, Texas:  An evil man murdered eight people, and injured several others, at an outlet mall.  However, based on the currently available facts, this shooting will soon be memory-holed because it does not fit the left's preferred narrative. [...] Instead, it's looking as if the shooter was Hispanic and, given the tattoo on his hand, possibly an MS-13 gang member.  [Tweet]  This opens the possibility that the shooting was a gang hit or initiation.  Additional reports indicate that the shooter may have been mentally-ill because he had "unusual behavior" and lived at home with his family (which required a translator to communicate with law enforcement).  The mall at which the shooting occurred is a "Gun Free Zone":  [Tweet]  These zones, of course, are never truly gun free, unless they have a complicated security system checking every arriving person for guns.  What they are is "we ask that you voluntarily make yourself helpless" zones.

Why did Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon refuse to charge an armed suspect that threatened a school?  On March 21, police arrested an unnamed suspect after he had made several threatening posts against a school on social media, and also had possession of stolen guns on him when he was taken into custody.  Yet, despite obvious proof that he was a threat to those within the school, Gascon refused to press charges.  The reasoning?  Absolutely asinine.  According to Fox News, Bell Gardens police noted in a statement, "On March 21, 2023, the filing District Attorney at Downey Superior Court initially rejected the entire case, stating they needed additional information regarding the criminal threat."  So let me see if I've got this right.  They found the suspect had made threats against a school.  Online.  In California, where several "active shooter" events have taken place.  They also found he had stolen guns, not registered to him.  And yet, with all that, Gascon felt they needed "additional information regarding the criminal threat?"  Excuse me, that is the criminal threat.

The carefully planned Nashville shooting coincides with a so-called 'Trans Day of Vengeance'.  While Democrats are busy blaming inanimate objects (i.e., guns) for the fact that an evil person murdered three children and three adults at a Christian school, conservatives are doing useful journalism and have discovered some interesting facts.  First, the shooting took place even as so-called "transgender" organizations were pushing hard for a "Trans Day of Vengeance.  Second, the killer targeted the school because it was a gun-free zone. [...] While I don't know of any evidence tying the evil female shooter to the "Day of Vengeance," it's certainly true that anger is integral to transgenderism.  The way I think of these people, especially if they're taking hormones, is that they have the aggression of men and the emotionalism of women, which is a very dangerous combination.  That's why I found it disturbing to know there's a movement among transgender people to be armed.

No School In America Will Ever Be 100 Percent Safe Again.  I attended public schools throughout my entire education, and I always felt perfectly safe.  Of course this was long before the Columbine school shooting and the hundreds of other school shootings that have taken place since that time.  But if I was a child in this day and age, I would be absolutely horrified to be put in any school, because they simply are not safe.  In fact, no school in America will ever be truly safe again because we have way too many dangerous predators running around now.  Yes, I know that school security has come a long way.  But it hasn't come far enough.  The Covenant School in Nashville had their doors locked, but Audrey Elizabeth Hale just shot through the glass doors and let herself in.  From this point forward, no school in America should ever have glass doors again.  From a security standpoint, they are almost completely useless.

If the mentally ill 'mustn't own guns,' what about 'trans' people?  The timing of the tragic Nashville shooting, in which a MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka "transgender") individual killed six at a Christian school, is a bit odd.  National Public Radio had just recently done a piece on how MUSS and other "LGBTQ" people are buying guns because, the story goes, they believe they're imperiled by conservatives.  As one sexual devolutionary NPR quoted put it, "If the world is dangerous, then you have to be dangerous back, and that very much has pushed me into where I am now."  As for what pushed 28-year-old Audrey Hale into opening fire Monday at The Covenant School, which she once attended, the media largely pretend to have no clue.  They don't want you to have one, either.  This is why, shamelessly, they often hide Hale's MUSS status and instead focus on guns.

The Michigan State suspect was previously arrested for illegally carrying a concealed gun but prosecutors dropped the felony charge against him.  [I]f this is a man with a history of mental health issues who had police called to his home multiple times for gun-related reasons — then why did the prosecutors drop the charges against him or fail to bring any new charges (or an extension of his probation at the least!) forward?  You'll never hear it from the prosecutors, of course.  But if if McRae was a white man with a MAGA hat, somehow I think the gavel of justice would have banged a little harder.  I know that's a loaded statement, but if you know anything about the far-left policies of Michigan's capital city and MSU (which comprises most of the eastern portion of the city), you'd suspect that woke justice reform policies might very well have led to this outcome.

Gun Control Kills People.  Did you notice that the national socialist media spent little time trying to exploit the recent mass shootings in the people's republic of California?  Anti-liberty authoritarians of the fascist far left live to exploit other people's pain for their political gain.  And yet aside from a few perfunctory calls for more restrictions on liberty, they only issued only desperate excuses for why their gun-grabbing agenda didn't work. [...] It wasn't just the perpetrator profiles; the national socialist media and the gun-grabbers have just about everything they ever wanted in controlling other people in the state.  With that, the leftist gun-grabbing ghouls have run into a brick wall.  They've run out of ideas aside from outright gun confiscation, so now they have two big problems:
  •   They have nothing else to offer.
  •   Everyone is wondering why their liberty restriction agenda doesn't work.
According to moms looking for action in Everytown, California is the perfect model for their agenda, with every demand they've ever wanted on the books.  And with the people disarmed, they were easily slaughtered, as always is the case with gun control.  You would think they would show some remorse for disarming the innocent and thereby increasing the carnage, but you would be wrong.

Australia's Gun-buyback Program Is a Bust.  Australia's Attorney General (AG) tried to put the best face possible on the disastrous result of its latest gun-buyback program that began in February of 2022:  ["]The first year of the National Permanent Firearms Amnesty was a successful event. ... With just under 18,000 firearms and weapons surrendered in its first year, the permanent amnesty has provided an ongoing and robust framework for a reduction in the overall number of firearms ... and has promoted public safety.["]  To put things in perspective, there are reportedly between 260,000 and 600,000 "illegal" (i.e., unregistered) firearms in Australia, and 18,000 of them were "surrendered" in the 12 months ending last July.  That's either seven percent or three percent of the targeted firearms privately owned.  Second, half of them were useless, non-working, or just simply relics inherited from a previous generation.  Slightly more than one percent were given up by persons seeking amnesty for their possession.

Does DC want to be the carjacking capital of the USA?  Washington, D.C.'s city council has just provided incontrovertible proof of the willful incompetence of the gun control movement.  The same people who want to outlaw the possession of firearms by law-abiding people passed legislation to reduce penalties for carjacking, home invasion, and similar violent crimes.  Use of a gun to commit a violent felony in the nation's capital can now be punished by no more than four years in prison.  This makes it clear that the D.C. city council has no real desire to keep firearms away from violent criminals who really shouldn't have them, and the legislation is so dysfunctional that Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is certainly no conservative, intends to veto it.  It also makes Washington, D.C. the ideal place for carjackers, robbers, home invaders, and gun felons to ply their trades because, in contrast to almost every other jurisdiction in the United States, they won't get much prison time.  If you want to stick a gun in somebody's face to demand money, then you should do it in D.C., where you can't get more than four years (unless U.S. attorneys step in, as discussed below).  If you want to force somebody out of a car at gunpoint, then D.C. is the place to do it.  If you do it in Florida, you can get up to life in prison.

5 Freedom-Based Solutions to Mass Shootings.  [#1] Get rid of gun-free zones.  Gun control and gun-free zones are based on the absurd idea from the left that if no one has a gun, no one needs a gun.  Except that when these inevitably fail because criminals don't obey the law, the excuse is offered that this happened because guns came in from the surrounding areas.  Innocent people are thus being deprived of their common sense civil rights under a false pretense:  that you will be safe and won't need a gun because no one else will have one.  The problem is that the gun-grabbing ghouls contradict themselves with this "logic" because there will always be a surrounding area that can be a source for firearms. [...] The fact is that 94% of attacks since 1950 took place in gun-free zones.  That statistic is well beyond the realm of random chance, with several recent incidents confirming this finding.

Why are they always known wolves?  Why are these mass murderers so often what they call "known wolves?"  Perpetrators who were known to law enforcement before they explode into horrific violence?  The short answer is I'm not sure, but the longer answer is that there is something deeply wrong with law enforcement in this country.  [Tweet] [...] Time and again we are bombarded by calls for so-called "Red Flag Laws" that are supposed to prevent just this sort of occurrence.  The idea behind those laws is to allow the government to prevent violent or psychotic individuals from obtaining weapons, yet we keep getting bombarded by stories of people known to law enforcement being allowed to go on their merry way and eventually become mass murderers.  If even law enforcement won't do its job protecting the public, why is anybody supposed to believe that Red Flag laws will do anything other than empower individuals with a grudge to harass somebody they don't like?  If a guy can threaten to blow up his grandparents and face no consequences, clearly something is terribly broken.

Name changes and political connections: Colorado shooter story gets even weirder.  Just who is Anderson Lee Aldrich, the suspected mass murderer of the shooting spree in Colorado Springs?  For one thing, he's not actually Anderson Lee Aldrich, or at least he wasn't until relatively recently.  His background contains an interesting connection or two to politics, crime, and an online persona or two.  And all of this raises even more questions about the decision not to prosecute him last year: [...] Until age 15, he was known as Nicholas Brink, living in San Antonio, public records show. [...] Five years later, Brink/Aldrich threatened to blow up the entire neighborhood because his grandparents wanted to relocate to Florida.  It required a large police response, an evacuation, and resulted in multiple charges that never got pursued.  To this day, no one knows why charges got dropped against a 21-year-old perp, and no one knows why the district attorney and the court sealed the records of the case. [...] Had his family and/or prosecutors used Colorado's red flag laws, they could have seized what weapons he did have and kept him from buying more through legal channels.  That doesn't mean that Brink/Aldrich couldn't have gotten firearms illegally, but at least it would have shown some effort to use existing laws to deal with a clear threat to the community.

It Only Took a Year for Lightfoot's $1M Anti-Gun Hotline to Blow Up in Her Face.  Back in July 2021, Chicago's Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot made a fuss about a gun tip hotline that she funded with one million dollars of the city's budget, so people "who have a conscience" can take a bite out of crime and get rewarded to do so.  But one year after the program began, only a small number of tips have been verified and rewarded with a payout.  And to date, only just over .01 percent — $10,395 — of the one million-dollar fund has been paid out to tipsters, according to the Chicago Tribune.  Lightfoot made a big flourish over the tipster program in July of last year.

Houston Bans 'Ghost Guns' From Buyback Events After [a] Man Found [an] Opportunity to Print Money.  Houston city officials banned 3D-printed firearms at future gun buyback events after one man recognized an opportunity to exploit the system and print money.  The anonymous man told local news Fox 26 that he made 62 3D-printed guns and handed them over in Houston's first gun buyback event last weekend.  He said the city offered him $50 per gun, cutting him a check for $3,100.  The man said the cost of production per gun was $3, netting a profit of $47 per weapon.  He said, "the goal was not personal profit, but to send [Houston leaders] a message about spending $1 million tax dollars on something that has no evidence of any effect on crime..."  He added another goal:  to make the city "pay fair prices [at gun buyback events], use private donations rather than tax dollars, and don't destroy historic guns."

Houston Democrats Gun Buyback Program Gets Trolled, People Print $3 'Ghost Guns' Sell them to Dem's for $50.  Democrats love to double down on failure, here is yet another example of them wasting taxpayer dollars for a program that is clearly being abused.  The city claims to have bought back 800+ guns, but refuses to say how many of them were 'ghost guns', instead is only focusing on one man who sold them 60 back.  Videos from other local stations showed numerous boxes full of 'ghost guns' that were different colors than the ones focused on in this segment.  So the question is, did the Dem's just get destroyed AGAIN by failing to properly understand the guns they're trying to 'buyback' (insinuating they're the ones who sold them in the first place?  Buy BACK?).

"Almost every warning sign": Years of failure by family, friends in Uvalde shooting.  What would have prevented the Uvalde shooter from legally purchasing a firearm — the laws demanded after the shooting, or enforcing existing laws prior to it?  An investigation by a state legislative committee into the background of the perp shows years of red flags and almost no serious attempt to engage law enforcement that could have prevented access to firearms.  The shooter exhibited "almost every warning sign," while his family, friends, and schools kept dropping the ball: [...] No one around the perp bothered to bring his behavior to any kind of officials — not law enforcement and not any mental-health agency either.  In order to use a red-flag law, someone has to report the behavior that could lead a court to suspend a civil right.  Law enforcement can attempt it on their own in states with red-flag laws, but no one called the police on this shooter until he arrived at Robb Elementary.

How To Stop Mass Shootings.  It took a tragedy on America's birthday, and the death of seven people, to demonstrate once and for all that gun control doesn't work.  Shooter Bobby Crimo bought the murder weapon himself, legally, in Illinois, a state with some of the strongest gun control laws in the country.  Red flag laws didn't stop him.  There's no reason to think they would work anywhere else.  What's more, the city of Highland Park passed a total ban on assault rifles in 2013.  Around the time, Mayor Nancy Rotering bragged:  "Banning assault weapons ... is one common-sense action to reduce gun violence and protect our children and our communities from potential mass violence and grief."  It turned out Republicans against gun control were right all along.  On July 4, Highland Park's residents came to know the terror, carnage, and grief that come with living in a "gun-free zone," areas better described as killing fields.  No one can deny it anymore.  Gun control comes with a body count.  It makes everyone less safe.

Why did the Highland Park shooter's father help him get a gun?  A sequel to last night's post about "red flags."  In 2019 police were twice called to the suspect's house, once because he was allegedly suicidal and the other time because he was supposedly threatening to "kill everyone."  In the latter case, they confiscated 16 knives but filed no charges.  A few months later, the suspect applied for a "Firearm Owners Identification" (FOID) card in Illinois that would allow him to purchase a gun.  Because he was under 21, he needed parental consent to do so.  Luckily for him and unluckily for the residents of Highland Park, that parental consent was given.  A two-year-old there will grow up without parents of his own as a result.

Highland Park gunman's history, weapon purchase raise questions whether Democrat gun laws work.  The suspected Highland Park, Ill. gunman used a "high-powered" rifle that was previously banned by the city's local government, and he was able to purchase the weapon despite the state's red flag law.  The suspect carried out a mass shooting at a July 4 parade in Highland Park that killed seven people and wounded many others.  Illinois has had a red flag law in place since 2013, but it didn't prevent the gunman from acquiring the firearm.  The police visited the shooter's home in 2019 and seized weapons, but the shooter was still able to later purchase a semiautomatic weapon he used in the mass shooting

How the Highland Park Shooter Reportedly Obtained His Guns Is Beyond Ridiculous.  The number of red flags that have been raised about Robert Crimo III is staggering.  Again, this was another preventable tragedy.  Crimo went to a rooftop and opened fire on a crowd in Highland Park, Illinois, who were there attending an Independence Day event.  Seven people were killed, with at least another 45 wounded.  Crimo was apprehended by police Monday evening, but as with other mass shooters — the number of red flags could stuff the trunk of a car.  Crimo was a prolific social media user with numerous posts featuring violent content.  He was known to law enforcement.  His mental health issues date back as far as middle school. [...] So, how did Crimo get his weapons?  They were all purchased legally, but in Illinois, you need a Firearm Owners Identification card (FOID) to own guns and ammunition.  Crimo's father co-signed for his son's card in 2019, even after his past behavior.  I have a feeling that this whole family is going to land in hot legal water.

Highland Park parade shooter was "known to law enforcement".  The 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois had barely gotten started yesterday when shots began ringing out from a rooftop near the parade route.  By the time it was finished, six were dead and 38 more were injured, many seriously.  The hospitalized victims reportedly range in age from 8 to 85.  The police had soon identified a suspect, Robert Crimo III, a self-styled rapper who went by the name "Awake."  Crimo was later spotted in his vehicle and taken into custody following a brief chase.  Browsing through his social media history, most of which has since been taken down, authorities seem to be asking how nobody saw this coming.

Highland Park shooter was interviewed by cops twice in 2019 including once after he threatened to 'kill everyone': Police.  Highland Park shooter Robert 'Bobby' Crimo III, 21, has been charged by the Illinois State's Attorney's office with seven counts of first degree murder.  The charges were announced in a press conference by State's Attorney Eric Rinehart the day after the July 4 parade shooting that claimed the lives of seven people and injured dozens more.  Each charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole[.]  In his remarks, Rinehart said that Crimo could be facing nearly a dozen further charges, including assault and attempted murder.

Highland Park Attack Occurred Despite Red Flag Law, Other Stringent Gun Controls.  A red flag law, a waiting period for gun purchases, licensing requirements, and numerous other gun controls did not prevent the July 4, 2022, Highland Park attack.  Mike Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety lists Illinois as the state with the sixth most stringent gun laws in the country.  Moreover, Gabby Giffords gun control group gives Illinois a grade of A- on gun control.  Illinois has a red flag law, a waiting period for gun purchases, gun owner licensing, domestic violence gun laws, "open carry regulations," and numerous other gun controls.

As Homicides Skyrocket In New Orleans, Young Teens Openly Walk Around With Their Illegal Firearms.  As crime run rampant in New Orleans, young street thugs walk around with their semi-automatics, none of which are purchased legally.  Want to bet these guys will laugh at any new gun control bill to come out of the uni-party in DC?  Homicides in Democrat-run New Orleans are up nearly 50 percent over year-to-date numbers from 2021.  The Metro Crime Commission's Weekly Orleans Crime Bulletin shows that as of June 5, 2022, homicides in New Orleans were up 46 percent over where they were in 2021 and 89 percent over where they were in 2020.  [Video clip]

Disarming Victims Is a Dumb Way to Fight Crime.  If a Martian landed on Earth and wanted to quickly determine how dangerous an area was, all he would need is a quick review of local gun laws:  the stricter the gun laws, the more gun violence there will be.  It is almost as absolute as the law of gravity.  How, then, can it be "common sense" to adopt the policies that have made Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and Detroit human target galleries?  Democrats argue you have blood on your hands unless you join them in making all of America into the violence-free paradise that is Chicago.  It is absurd nonsense.

Except the children who haven't been born yet...
Nancy Pelosi: 'Let All of Us Do Everything We Can for the Survival of Our Children'.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) spoke in San Francisco at a "Wear Orange" event, where she advocated the enactment of gun-control legislation and said: "[L]et all of us do everything we can for the survival of our children."  "Wear Orange" is a movement to prevent gun violence.  On its website it says:  "On January 21, 2013, Hadiya Pendleton marched in President Obama's second inaugural parade.  One week later, Hadiya was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago.  Soon after this tragedy, Hadiya's childhood friends decided to commemorate her life by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others.

The Editor says...
That's brilliant!  If you don't want to get shot, just wear orange.  Unfortunately, guns are colorblind, and they're really mean!  We hear about "gun violence" in the news every day.

6 Times A Stronger Civil Society Might Have Prevented Tragedy In Uvalde.  By now it's maddeningly clear a perfect storm of institutional failure allowed the Uvalde shooter to carry out his ugly plan.  The school was not adequately secured and the police were unacceptably slow.  Every day, their bungled response looks worse. [...] At so many steps leading up to the first victim's death, the bare minimum of protocol seems likely to have stopped the shooter before the killing began.  His trail of warning signs, both online and offline, is equally maddening.  Of course, it's easy for Monday Morning Quarterbacks in media to cast judgment with the benefit of hindsight.  The shooter is to blame for these deaths; they are not the fault of anyone who followed him on social media or had a strange discussion with him.

See nothing, say nothing, do nothing.  [Scroll down]  Perhaps the most alarming common thread among the school, church, and supermarket shootings from Newtown, Connecticut, to Parkland, Florida, to Sutherland Springs, Texas, to Buffalo, New York, and to the sidewalk massacre in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to last week's Uvalde, Texas, apocalypse is that the gunman or perpetrator in each tragedy had previously displayed severe signs of mental illness/instability, and/or possessed abundant criminal records whose morbid premeditations were well known by their family members, schoolyard pals, teachers, law enforcement, social services, and social media surfers.  No one saw anything, no one said anything, no one did anything.

From Senseless Trauma to Predictable Hackery.  The more details emerge from Uvalde, the more disheartening the picture becomes.  The reporting of recent days has called attention to the role that negligent security practices at the school (along with the inexplicable delay and hesitation of the police) may have played in worsening the tragedy.  We are also compelled to recognize that this horrific episode was ultimately rooted in a failure to effectively address, or even recognize, yet another individual case of dangerously deteriorating mental health.  How can such madness go unnoticed?  Why was there no intervention?  This was clearly someone that should not have been able to pass a background check — and yet did, and that must be addressed.  Here, perhaps, is an opportunity for bipartisan action; evidence of adolescent insanity should prohibit one from purchasing a firearm as a legal adult.

A Series Of Critical Failures Led To The Uvalde Tragedy.  [Scroll down]  Details remain unclear, but the shooter in Uvalde drove to the school and then crashed his vehicle.  An eyewitness reports that he fired on nearby people as he left the truck.  It was twelve minutes before he entered the school.  It's unclear why either the police or the school did not get the message that he was headed to the school.  Had that message been passed on, the school could have locked down, preventing his entry.  This isn't new, since Uvalde schools get locked down almost every week due to violence related to illegal immigration.  Another link in the chain remained intact.  Related to this link is the fact that the back door of the school was unlocked.  Had entry been restricted to one or two monitored points, his gun would never have been pointed at defenseless children.  And that brings us to the last link in this critical incident chain.  No one was armed inside the school.  Uvalde is a high threat environment, as we see from all the lockdowns.  It is criminally negligent not to prepare to meet the threats.  But Texas law allows local school districts to declare themselves "Gun Free Zones," thereby becoming the favorite target of mentally disturbed mass murderers.

The Buffalo Shooter Told Six People About His Plans to Commit Mass Murder, And No One Said Anything.  There are many commonalities with regard to mass shootings in America.  The shooter was known to authorities for past antics.  The shooter exhibited signs of mental illness.  And the authorities either dropped the ball keeping tabs on the suspected person or didn't enforce the laws that would have prevented them from obtaining firearms.  The preventability aspect has become known with the recent Buffalo mass shooting where avowed white supremacist Payton Gendron shot and killed 10 people at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo.  Gendron picked the location due to its high proportion of black residents.  The kid threatened to shoot up his school last year.  He was brought in for a mental health evaluation but was cleared.  Now, a new development in the investigation shows that Gendron told six people about his plan to commit a mass shooting some thirty minutes before the crime.  One of the people in the group is a retired federal agent.  NO ONE said anything.

Authorities investigating if retired federal agent knew of Buffalo mass shooting plans in advance.  Law enforcement officers are investigating whether a retired federal agent had about 30 minutes advance notice of a white supremacist's plans to murder Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, two law enforcement officials told The Buffalo News.  Authorities believe the former agent — believed to be from Texas — was one of at least six individuals who regularly communicated with accused gunman Payton Gendron in an online chat room where racist hatred was discussed, the two officials said.  The two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation stated these individuals were invited by Gendron to read about his mass shooting plans and the target location about 30 minutes before Gendron killed 10 people at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue on May 14.  The News could not determine if the retired agent accepted the invitation.

'It's Just Incompetence': There Were Red Flags Everywhere With the Buffalo Shooter.  Tragedy has struck Buffalo.  A mass shooter gunned down and killed 10 people at the Tops Friendly Market.  The shooter, Payton Gendron, was taken into custody.  There is a 180-page manifesto that the FBI is currently authenticating.  Gendron appears to be a racist and targeted this area due to its high concentration of black Americans.  Unlike other mass shootings, like Boulder in 2021 and or the most recent New York City subway shooting, this one will remain in the news.  Gendron is white.  He's racist.  He's everything the liberal media wants when an incident like this occurs.  Boulder's mass shooting was committed by a Syrian.  The New York Subway shooter was black.  Both stories vanished into the ether rapidly because they didn't fit the liberal narrative.  Yet, there's another common element with this story, and that is the shooter exhibited red flags that authorities knew about but did nothing.

Buffalo white supremacist, 18, threatened a school graduation shooting last year and was given psychiatric treatment, but still legally bought three guns.  A teenage white supremacist who murdered 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket threatened to shoot a classmate at his high school graduation last year.  Officials at the Susquehanna Valley High School brought in New York State Police to investigate Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, NY, in June of 2021 after he made statements that he would shoot fellow students.  A year later he ended up shooting 13 people — 10 of them fatally — during an attack motivated by his hatred for black people at a Top Market supermarket in Buffalo.

Air Force ordered to pay more than $230M in church shooting.  The U.S. Air Force must pay more than $230 million in damages to survivors and victims' families of a 2017 Texas church massacre for failing to flag a conviction that might have kept the gunman from legally buying the weapon used in the shooting, a federal judge ruled in San Antonio on Monday [2/7/2022].  More than two dozen people were killed, including eight children, when Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire during a Sunday service at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.  Kelley, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after being shot and chased by two men who heard the gunfire at the church, had served in the Air Force before the attack.

Mayor Eric Adams to Resurrect NYPD Anti-Gun Unit amid Shooting Spike.  Following the fatal shooting of a police officer in Manhattan last week, Mayor Eric Adams on Monday unveiled his new strategy to combat rising gun violence in New York City, starting with the deployment of an anti-gun crime unit next month.  "We will not surrender our city to the violent few," Adams said.

Mayor of St. Louis doesn't flinch when when her press conference on violent crime in her city is interrupted by gunfire.  The mayor of St. Louis did not flinch during a press conference when gunfire erupted nearby, saying she was unfortunately used to it.  Mayor Tishaura Jones was speaking to the press on Friday about her and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas' efforts to reduce violent crime following a roundtable discussion about public safety when what sounded like gunfire went off nearby.  But Jones did not miss a beat and sarcastically responded 'Oh isn't that wonderful,' before getting back to the topic at hand.

A Pennsylvania mall that bans guns has mass shooting.  Although the daily news always provides plenty of examples of people doing genuinely bad things (assault, robbery, rape, murder, etc.), the fact is that most people in America are law-abiding.  And while some will sit passively while a violent rape occurs directly in front of them, many of these good citizens will act when called upon to do so.  Nevertheless, America's retail stores and entertainment venues insist on disarming the good guys under the delusional belief that it will stop the bad guys.  The latest example of this urge to disarm comes from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where a shooting occurred at the Park City Center shopping mall on Sunday afternoon [10/17/2021].

Cop big rips Indianapolis prosecutor for not 'red flagging' FedEx shooter Brandon Hole.  The head of the union for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department is lashing out at an Indiana prosecutor he says failed to use the state's "red flag" gun law against the alleged FedEx shooter.  Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears has admitted his office declined to pursue a competency hearing against Brandon Hole, 19, last year, as allowed under the gun law.  Such a hearing could have been held when a shotgun was seized from Hole last year after his mother told cops she feared he wanted to commit suicide by cop, officials said.  The lack of hearing cleared the way for Hole to legally purchase the two weapons he used in the massacre, the police union head is complaining, according to local station WLKY.

Indianapolis police union blames prosecutor in failing to use state's red flag law to prevent FedEx shooting.  There was a failed opportunity by the Marion County prosecutor in using Indiana's red flag law to monitor the FedEx shooter who killed eight and injured several others, an Indianapolis police union said.  The prosecutor's office should have at least asked for a court hearing on 19-year-old Brandon Hole, the alleged shooter who appeared in previous police reports, said Rick Snyder, Fraternal Order of Police president.  Investigators looking into the April 15 incident have not yet uncovered a motive.  "The system didn't fail.  Instead, prosecutor [Ryan] Mears failed to give the system the chance to work," Snyder said, according to Fox 59.

Why red flag law didn't stop Fedex shooter from obtaining rifles.  Public records suggest that the gunman behind the FedEx massacre was able to legally obtain two rifles — even after having another gun taken away last year — because he never had a competency hearing.  Under Indiana's so-called "red flag law," authorities are supposed to seek court intervention when they confiscate guns and believe that returning them to a person would constitute a threat, in a bid to keep guns out of the wrong hands.  The measure is also known as the "Jake Laird Law," in memory of an Indianapolis cop who was killed by a mentally ill man after his guns were returned to him.  But Brandon Hole — the 19-year-old behind Thursday's bloodbath at the FedEx facility he used to work at in Indianapolis — was apparently never the subject of such a hearing, even though he had been involved in a weapons case amid mental issues that involved the FBI last year, according to records.

Colorado Shooting Suspect Passed Check in Legal Gun Purchase.  The suspect in the Colorado supermarket shootings bought a firearm at a local gun store after passing a background check, and he also had a second weapon with him that he didn't use in the attack that killed 10 people this week, authorities and the gun store owner said Friday [3/26/2021].  Investigators are working to determine the motive for the shooting, but they don't know yet why the suspect chose the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder or what led him to carry out the rampage, Police Chief Maris Herold said at a news conference.  "Like the rest of the community, we too want to know why — why that King Soopers, why Boulder, why Monday," Herold said.  "It will be something haunting for all of us until we figure that out.  Sometimes you just don't figure these things out.  But, I am hoping that we will."

Colorado Shooter Passed Background Check before Gun Purchase.  A Colorado gun store owner said Ahmad Al-Issa, the murder suspect in custody following the supermarket shooting in Boulder, Colo., passed a state background check before buying the weapon which he used to kill ten people.  Al-Issa, who was arraigned in court Thursday [3/25/2021], purchased his AR-15 style weapon at the Eagles Nest Armory in his hometown of Arvada, a suburb of Denver.  An arrest affidavit said that the purchase occurred on March 16 — six days before the shooting.  The gun store owner confirmed the affidavit in a statement, adding that the purchase was approved by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and that the store "will continue to fully cooperate with law enforcement as their investigation continues."

A short primer on the importance of our Second Amendment rights.  Gun control is insanely racist.  It's true that the most likely people to be killed by guns are young black males, almost always at the hands of other young black males.  That makes it sound as if seizing guns will benefit blacks.  The contrary is true:  When law-abiding citizens can defend themselves, the bad guys slink away.  The same happened in Israel, incidentally, when the government loosened gun control laws during the knife intifada, which stopped it immediately.  Crime goes up when governments ban guns.  If you doubt that, just look at England:  Once it banned guns, it became a country with violent crime and murder rates consistent with South Africa's — and that's not something any civilized country wants to boast about.  Additionally, when deprived of guns, criminals will find other ways to kill.  Currently, in London, you're not allowed to carry even dinner knives.  Women, especially, are more vulnerable when denied guns, because they are no match physically for men.

Lawmaker Wants To Make Gun-Free Zones Liable If Someone [is] Hurt.  A Republican state representative has introduced legislation that would hold government offices and private businesses liable if anyone is injured during a shooting in a gun-free zone on their premises.  State Rep. Gary Eisen, R-St.  Clair Township, introduced House Bill 4975, which would revoke governmental immunity from lawsuits arising from injuries sustained on government property where guns are banned.  Eisen is also the sponsor of House Bill 4976, which would make a government, business or individual that designates a property a gun-free zone responsible for the safety of individuals who enter it.  Eisen said the intention was to require a business or government that enforces a gun-free policy to take responsibility through measures like hiring security guards.

Texas church shooter had massive rap sheet — with almost no prison time.  [T]he shooter who killed two people at the West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas on Sunday [12/29/2019], was not allowed to own a gun.  Under current law, it was 100 percent illegal for him to own or carry any firearm.  He had a massive rap sheet dating back to 1998, including gun felonies.  Yet he wasn't locked up.  That is why he was able to kill two people in the church. [...] Texas allows citizens to carry concealed weapons, so he was stopped before he could shoot and kill more.  But the ugly fact is that most mass shooters are repeat offenders and known to law enforcement.  If we actually had criminal control, almost all of these attacks would be prevented.  If the Left really wants to prevent most mass shootings, how about we bring back and reinforce mandatory minimum sentencing on gun felons?  Throughout Americans cities, so many violent offenders have rap sheets full of gun violations, yet they are not seriously punished.

CA Background Checks Had No Effect According To Johns Hopkins Study.  We've been told that background checks are the key to preventing certain parties from getting their hands on guns.  In particular, it's needed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the insane.  Background checks, especially universal background checks, are supposed to be the perfect answer to everything.  One state has had them for a while, of course.  California has never met a gun control bill it didn't like, so of course, legislators jumped on the universal background check wagon as soon as they could.  However, a study from Johns Hopkins found out just how effective that measure was.

How The Media Frames Inconvenient Shootings.  As Cam reported yesterday [12/23/2019], a shooting that left 13 people injured took place over the weekend in Chicago, one of the most dangerous cities in the nation. [...] As writer Emily Zanotti notes, Chicago has some of the most strict gun control laws in the nation governing it.  For 13 people to be shot would illustrate a complete failure of gun control laws and that's something the mainstream media simply can't abide.  Instead, they frame the deceased as a victim of gun violence when he was shot in self-defense, then ignore the fact that a shooting took place that conforms to their preferred definition of mass shooting so they don't have to discuss how all those gun control laws failed completely.

Sorry Democrats:  New Zealand's gun confiscation program just failed miserably.  Proposals range from Joe Biden's voluntary gun buybacks to the more radical mandatory confiscation proposed by Cory Booker.  (He still misleadingly calls it a "buyback.")  So it's worth examining how such buybacks played out recently in New Zealand, which passed a ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons and a mandatory gun buyback program after a tragic shooting in April.  The deadline for the mandatory gun buyback program was Friday [12/20/2019].  The New Zealand program successfully led to the compensated confiscation of 51,000 of the targeted firearms.  But as the left-leaning Guardian newspaper reports, this is out of an estimated 170,000 such guns currently in circulation.  And there are still a minimum of 1.2 million legally owned firearms in New Zealand on top of that.

Would-be terrorists could exploit gun law loophole used by Saudi pilot in Pensacola shooting rampage:  FBI.  The FBI has issued a warning that would-be terrorists and criminals could exploit the same U.S. gun law loophole that allowed a Saudi military pilot to legally purchase a handgun he allegedly used in a deadly shooting rampage this month at a Florida naval air station.  The warning was included in an intelligence report released on Monday in which FBI officials said, "This assessment is made with high confidence."  Mohammed Alshamrani, 21, a second lieutenant in the Saudi air force who was in the United States for flight training, was able to buy a Glock 9 mm pistol from a Florida gun shop by taking advantage of a federal gun law exception that allows foreign nationals to legally purchase weapons with a valid hunting license.

Gun Control Did Nothing To Save Boy, 9, from Gang Execution - Thugs Given 155 Years in Prison.  As someone who's written about gun and gang violence in Chicago for some time, it's pretty easy to become inured to it.  Even for the most hard-hearted of writers, however, the death of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee had to be an exception.  Two gang members will almost certainly be spending the rest of their natural lives behind bars for the execution-style murder of the young boy back in 2015 — a murder which was retaliation for a gang attack allegedly carried out by his father weeks earlier.

Gun-Free Military Installations Make U.S. Troops Sitting Ducks.  The Associated Press reported that the Pensacola gunman was an aviation student from Saudi Arabia, and NBC News reported that the gunman's name was Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani.  He used a handgun to carry out his attack.  Pertinent to news of this horrific firearm-based attack is the fact that Naval Air Station Pensacola is a gun-free zone.  Breitbart News reported the air station's gun-free status shortly after the attack. [...] In other words, men and women who have signed up for years of service to use advanced weaponry — including fully automatic weapons, guided missiles, drones with precision striking capability, and numerous other mechanisms — are forbidden from carrying a handgun on the station for self-defense.

Saudi Naval base killer exploited loophole to legally purchase handgun he used in shooting — despite ban on non-citizens buying firearms.  The Saudi military student who killed three and injured 12 when he opened fire at Navy Station Pensacola on Friday used a loophole in the law to purchase the handgun he used in the attack.  Mohammed Saeed al-Shamrani, 21, bought the firearm legally from a store in Pensacola by providing the business owner with his hunting license, sources told NBC on Saturday [12/7/2019].  Non-citizens are prevented from buying firearms, unless they are in possession of such a license.  The New York Times has reported the handgun as being a Glock 45 9-millimeter with an extended magazine.

Student Shooter Used 'Ghost Gun' Built From Parts.  The gun used in the Southern California high-school shooting last week was a "ghost gun" with no serial number, law-enforcement officials said Thursday [11/28/2019].  The .45 caliber handgun used by Nathaniel Berhow to kill two fellow students and wound three others at Saugus High School on Nov. 14 was built from parts that can be easily purchased online, the officials said.  The 16-year-old shot himself as well and died the next day.  Homemade ghost guns have grown in popularity in recent years and cannot be traced because they lack serial numbers.  Law-enforcement officials say they appeal to people who can't pass background checks.

Gun from Chicago buy-back program found near dead gang member in police shooting.  According to an AGG report, William Stewart Boyd traded his father's old .38 caliber Smith & Wesson snub nose for less than $100 in a gun buyback in 2004.  It was supposed to be destroyed, but somehow the same handgun with serial number J515268 was found next to a dead body involved in a police shooting eight years later.

If Gun Control Stops School Shootings, There Wouldn't Be A Santa Clarita.  With Santa Clarita not even a distant memory, anti-gun voices are already using it to demand more gun control.  Even before the facts were known, Sen. Dick Blumenthal demanded the Senate capitulate to his whims and pass a universal background check bill that wouldn't have done anything to prevent the shooting as far as anyone can tell.  This is normal for anti-gunners.  They routinely prattle about how we need more gun control after a mass shooting.  However, Santa Clarita is in California, the most gun controlled state in the nation.  There's virtually no measure being seriously discussed by lawmakers at the federal level that hasn't been on the books in California for years.  If gun control worked, Santa Clarita wouldn't have happened.

Democrats ignore mass shootings of blacks in Chicago.  Despite Chicago's horrible track record of failing to protect the lives of blacks, the police chief of Chicago, Eddie Johnson, boycotted a national police convention in Chicago supposedly because of Trump's bad values. [...] To put that in perspective, from 2016 to 2018, a total of 48 Americans died in Afghanistan.  The number of Americans wounded in that same period isn't readily available; however, the ratio of killed to wounded in Afghanistan was about 1 to 10 from 2001 to 2014, so a reasonable estimate would be roughly 500 Americans wounded in the same three years in Afghanistan.  That means that in the last three years in Chicago, there have been 11.8 murders for every American soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Jerome Hudson Calls Out the Left's Climate Hypocrisy, Gun Control Hysteria.  Breitbart News Entertainment Editor Jerome Hudson joins Fox News host Jesse Watters and reveals the most explosive facts found in his new book from Harper Collins, 50 Things They Don't Want You to Know.  "From 1950 to 2018, we're talking about almost 70 years, we now know that 97 percent of mass shootings have occurred in 'gun-free-zones,'" Jerome Hudson said.  "This is an indictment on the media, Jesse," Hudson said about the establishment media blackout on drug overdose deaths compared to their coverage of mass shootings.

NJ gun owners [defy] the governor who banned high-capacity magazines.  To date, ZERO have been turned in.  The governor of New Jersey signed a law in 2018 banning high-capacity magazines.  Gun owners in the Garden State didn't exactly pay attention or behave like obedient subjects and turn in their high-capacity magazines to the government.  Can you guess how many high-capacity magazines have been turned into the government?  How about none!

[An] NRA Member Makes Some Humble Suggestions on Gun Control.  It's highly unlikely, indeed almost impossible, that confiscating weapons like AR-15s or similar will do anything at all to combat killings, mass or otherwise, in the USA or anywhere else for that matter.  People who are crazy enough to want to mass murder will, unfortunately, find a way.  You only have to look to Paris, where personal gun ownership is virtually illegal for private citizens and multiple dozens of people were murdered by jihadis at the Bataclan Theater and across the city, or Chicago, another supposedly gun-free zone, relatively anyway, where five were murdered and at least 29 wounded over the last weekend alone, for corroboration.  People who believe this kind of confiscation or control will solve everything, or even close, are living in a virtue-signaling/morally narcissistic dreamland.

No red flag law would have stopped this guy.  Criminals don't care about gun-control laws!
West Texas shooter was already barred from purchasing firearms because of court ruling on his mental state:  Report.  The man behind this past weekend's deadly shooting in Midland and Odessa, Texas, was not legally allowed to purchase or posses a firearm due to a court's decision that he was mentally unfit to do so, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday afternoon [9/3/2019].  Law enforcement officials told the newspaper that the 36-year-old shooter had been deemed mentally unfit by a court and when he tried to purchase a firearm, he also failed the background check because of the adjudication.  Under federal law, people who have been "adjudicated as a mental defective" or "committed to a mental institution" are prohibited from purchasing, possessing, shipping, or transporting firearms.

A 14-year-old is facing five murder charges after confessing to killing his family in an Alabama home, police say.  A 14-year-old has been charged with five counts of murder after confessing to shooting his family members in their Elkmont, Alabama, home, police said Tuesday. [...] The handgun was in the home "illegally," [Limestone County Sheriff's Office spokesman Stephen] Young said without elaborating.

To Reduce Gun Violence, Arm All Americans.  So there was another shooting in Texas.  At last count, including the perpetrator, there are seven dead and around 20 injured.  We don't really know anything much about the perpetrator except that he's been identified as white. [...] [Y]es I think it's awful that people got shot and killed.  On the other hand, five people have been killed and 42 injured in Chicago already this weekend.  Just this weekend.  And I can't help but wonder why the extremely high murder rates in places like Chicago and Baltimore don't seem to be news stories.  I'll leave that for another rant, however, and point out that when you consider murder rates there is a very very high correlation between really stringent gun laws and really high gun violence.

Five people [were] shot dead in one bloody New York night: cops.  Five people were fatally shot in a 24-hour period throughout Brooklyn and Queens — and the gunmen in each case are still at large, police said Wednesday [8/21/2019].  The bloodshed began early Tuesday, when 18-year-old Angel Nixon was fatally shot in the head, torso and legs around 12:30 a.m., when a fight broke out near the corner of 176th Street and 145th Avenue in Springfield Gardens, police said.  Later in the evening, Queens cops found Gregory Haskins, 25, lying on the pavement with a gunshot wound to the chest on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, according to police sources.

Murder Rate Soaring in Gun-Free U.K..  In spite of a complete ban on guns, murders in London now outpace murders in New York City.  But I'm sure there's a rational explanation, right?  There have been hundreds of knife-related homicides this year.  If only there were methods to determine if a pattern exists or any discernible attributes might relate to these crimes... [...] But, by all means, let's ban guns here in the U.S. while opening our borders to anyone, in spite of criminal predilection, mental health, or record of gun violence.

Cops Keep Getting Shot By Criminals Who Aren't Allowed To Have Guns.  I haven't heard much from the mainstream media about the shooting in Philadelphia of six police officers by a felon who wasn't permitted by law to possess a firearm.  Maurice Hill is believed to have fired more than 100 rounds during his standoff with police.  Reportedly, he was armed with an AR-15-style weapon and a handgun. [...] [District Attorney Larry] Krasner, who is fairly new to the job, concedes that Hill should not have been on the streets and "obviously was a tremendous danger to the public and to law enforcement."

Mass Shootings in Gun-Free Zones.  [Scroll down]  In that regard, the Walmart store had no armed security guard, no police presence, and was located in a shopping mall that was a self-proclaimed "gun-free zone."  Similarly, in the Dayton, Ohio, mass shooting on Sunday, which immediately followed the El Paso murders, the victims were attacked as they exited a nightspot that was a gun-free zone.  And, in the Garlic Festival shootings in Gilroy, California last week, the victims were trapped inside a fenced area after going through metal detectors to make sure that they were disarmed.  The shooter avoided the metal detectors by cutting through the fence and then attacking a victim pool that the Gilroy authorities had rendered incapable of defending themselves.

Mass Shootings in Gun-Free Zones.  [Scroll down]  Similarly, in the Dayton, Ohio, mass shooting on Sunday, which immediately followed the El Paso murders, the victims were attacked as they exited a nightspot that was a gun-free zone.  And, in the Garlic Festival shootings in Gilroy, California last week, the victims were trapped inside a fenced area after going through metal detectors to make sure that they were disarmed.  The shooter avoided the metal detectors by cutting through the fence and then attacking a victim pool that the Gilroy authorities had rendered incapable of defending themselves.  So it is that these most recent massacres share the one common element of almost all mass casualty shootings:  gun-free zones.

Mother of El Paso shooter called cops before the massacre because she was worried about her son.  An attorney for the family of the man charged in the El Paso Walmart shooting rampage says the man's mother contacted police weeks before the rampage out of concern that her son had a rifle.  Attorney Chris Ayres told CNN that the call was made to police in Allen, a Dallas suburb, by the mother of Patrick Crusius, 21.  He and fellow attorney R. Jack Ayres also said the mother didn't identify herself or her son in the call.

CNN: El Paso Shooting Suspect's Mom Called Police Weeks Before Attack.  The El Paso shooting suspect's mother reportedly called police weeks prior to the August 3, 2019, attack that killed 22 people.  CNN reports that the suspect's mother "called the Allen, Texas, Police Department... because she was concerned about her son owning an 'AK' type firearm."  She expressed concern over her son being able to own the firearm, "given his age, maturity level and lack of experience handling such a firearm."

Mother of El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius called police about son owning assault rifle:  Lawyers.  The El Paso shooting suspect's mother called the Allen Police Department weeks before the shooting because she was concerned about her son owning an "AK"-type firearm, lawyers for the family told ABC News.  Chris Ayres and R. Jack Ayres, the lawyers representing the family of alleged shooter Patrick Crusius, said his mother contacted police because she was worried about her son owning the weapon given his age, maturity level and lack of experience handling such a firearm.

So will Democrats support a border wall to halt out-of-California gun-buying?  California already has gun control.  In fact, it has the nation's strongest strictures on the books.  There's nothing more that they can do in the state, other than house-to-house searches, expropriating guns from anyone who possesses a legally held weapon.  In a one-party state rigged up so there's no competition, don't put it past them.  But from the Gilroy shooting, what we can come away with is that gun control doesn't work.  The shooter, some miserable loser with alienation problems and too much Internet, like so many of them, went out of state to get his gun, purchasing it legally in Nevada.  All the gun control laws in the world in California had no effect, because he just went around them.

Chicago Mayor Delusional About City's Violence.  Chicago has become something of a joke among the gun rights crowd.  After all, if gun control worked, Chicago would likely be a Utopia.  People would gather in the streets and spontaneously break into song and dance like they were in a Broadway musical or something.  It would be absolute Heaven on Earth.  That's not what happens in Chicago, though.  Chicago is a rough, violent city that is held up as a hallmark of anti-gun policy failures.

Noncompliance Kneecaps New Zealand's Gun Control Scheme.  Once again, responding to a horrendous crime by inflicting knee-jerk, authoritarian restrictions on innocent people proves to be an ineffective means of convincing people to obey.  Specifically, New Zealand's government — which also stepped up censorship and domestic surveillance after bloody attacks on two Christchurch mosques earlier this year — is running into stiff resistance to new gun rules from firearms owners who are slow to surrender now-prohibited weapons and will probably never turn them in.  Officials should have seen it coming.

Student Active-shooter Deaths 9 Times as Likely With "Gun-free Zone" Status Quo.  Would you put a sign on your lawn stating "This Home is Proudly Gun Free"? No?  Don't worry, some years back pro-gun-control journalists were actually offered such a sign; they balked, too.  Yet this raises another question:  If telegraphing one's declawed status is a bad idea for you, me, and all and sundry — and for kids in our homes — isn't it also a bad idea for kids in our schools?  Despite this, the Gun-Free School Zones Act became law in 1990, and since then students have been nine times as likely to be shot to death in school.

Students' Deaths in Active Shooter Situations More than Nine Times as Likely Since Gun-Free Zones.  Since the Gun-Free School Zones Act became law in 1990 parents of K-12 students have become more than 9 times as likely to suffer the heartbreaking reality that their children might not be coming home because they were killed in a school shooting.  An examination of 73 active shooter events at K-12 schools (at least 2 or more killed and/or injured) from 1956-2019, documented at www.schoolshootingdatabase.com, has found that these tragedies have nearly tripled in number since the inception of gun-free zones.

Leftist Outcry:  Let No Tragedy Go to Waste.  [Scroll down]  Before these megalomaniac progressives fight to pass new gun control laws maybe they should just focus on enforcing the laws already on the books.  It is a felony to lie on ATF form 4473 — Firearm Transaction Record.  In 2017[,] 112,000 gun purchases were denied thanks to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.  12,700 of those denials were investigated by the Department of Justice.  Twelve people were prosecuted.  Twelve, that is the best the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms could do.

The Editor says...
I'm not so sure that's a failure.  It could be that the background check system deterred hundred of others from even trying to buy a gun.

Mayor Pete's Anti-Violence Commission Fails To Reduce Shootings.  Composed of a group of community leaders and overseen by Police Chief Ron Teachman, the South Bend Group Violence Intervention sought to use both community and law enforcement methods to reduce gang violence and provide offenders — especially young people — a "moral" alternative to a life of crime.  Buttigieg also said the city would double the number of mentors reaching out to at-risk youth through the SBGVI in the next three years. [...] It was a rocky road in the beginning, but the SBGVI has continued its push to end violence in South Bend.  While crime overall is down this year, injuries or death from shootings has held steady:  78 people, the same number as 2012.

Gun-Free Zone Stopped Va.  Beach Victim From Carrying Pistol to Work, Lawyer Says.  A lawyer representing the family of one of the Virginia Beach shooting victims said on Monday [6/10/2019] she wanted to carry a gun at work due to her fear of the attacker but decided against it because of the city's no-gun policy.  Kate Nixon told her husband shortly before the shooting that she was concerned about the coworker who ended up murdering her and 11 others on May 31, according to family lawyer Kevin Martingayle.  The lawyer told WHRO Nixon considered carrying a firearm to her office for protection from the eventual attacker but decided not to because concealed guns were banned on the premises.  His comments were first reported by the Virginian-Pilot.

Why the Media Suddenly Lost Interest in the Latest School Shooting.  What are we "refusing to do"?  Schools are already "gun-free zones."  After the last Colorado mass shooting in Aurora in 2013, the state banned gun magazines that hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition.  That was "doing something" which apparently did not stop the most recent shooting this past week.  Colorado also passed a "red flag" gun bill last month which, "Allows a family member or law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove someone's guns for up to a year."  This was passed by a Democrat-controlled state legislature and signed by a Democrat governor, representing the will of elected Democrats rather than the will of the people. [...] After the shooting, other than some virtue signaling by the media, the story has left the front pages, as the narrative may be inconvenient for the leftist agenda.

Some Things to Ponder.  America's gun control advocates have the belief that outlawing guns would drastically reduce crime.  Almost all handguns have been outlawed from private citizen use in the U.K. since 1996.  Nonetheless, violent crime in the U.K. has risen almost every year since the ban.  Criminals love the idea of a disarmed populace.  While there are few gun crimes in the U.K., there's a recent report that in 2018 there were over 40,000 knife crimes committed.  It's gotten so bad that some stores have stopped selling kitchen knives.

Illinois State Police acknowledge it wrongly issued a gun license to Aurora shooter.  Illinois State Police acknowledged Monday that the agency wrongly issued a gun license to the shooter in the Aurora warehouse murders, but in a detailed statement the agency also suggested that the Aurora Police Department may have failed to do its part to ensure the man no longer owned a weapon.  According to state records, Gary Martin applied for a firearm owner's identification card on Jan. 17, 2014.  He provided his name and birth date for a background check, and falsely answered "no" when asked if he had ever been convicted of a felony.

Illinois Shooting Occurred in Gun-Free Zone.  The February 15, 2019, shooting at Henry Pratt Company (HPC) occurred even though HPC is a gun-free zone.  Crime Prevention Research Center reported, "This attempted mass public shooting occurred in yet another gun-free zone.  98% of mass public shootings since 1950 have taken place in areas where people can't defend themselves."  Georgia Carry also posted a photo of a sign indicating no guns allowed on HPC's front door to its Instagram account.

Red Flag Law, Universal Background Checks Fail to Stop Illinois Shooting.  A red flag law and universal background checks failed to stop the Aurora, Illinois, shooting that killed five people Friday [2/15/2019].  Illinois also licenses all gun owners, but gun control was impotent to stop the shooting.  The Chicago Tribune reports that 45-year-old Gary Martin opened fire at Henry Pratt Company around 1:20 pm.  He allegedly fatally wounded five individuals, then exchanged fire with officers before being killed during a shootout.

Background Check Didn't Catch Aurora Shooter's Prior Felony Conviction.  An initial background check performed on Gary Martin in 2014 failed to catch a 1995 felony conviction for aggravated assault that would have barred the Aurora, Ill. gunman from purchasing a firearm.  Martin, who police say killed five people and wounded several others at an Aurora warehouse facility on Friday, reportedly passed the background check in January 2014 and was subsequently issued a firearm owner's identification card.  According to Aurora police chief Kristin Ziman, Martin used the card to purchase a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber handgun two months later.

Aurora workplace shooter was set to be fired by company, police chief says.  The gunman in a deadly shooting spree at a manufacturing warehouse in Aurora, Ill., where five employees were killed and five officers were wounded Friday [2/15/2019], was set to be fired by the company, Police Chief Kristen Ziman told reporters at a news conference Friday night.  The suspect, identified as Gary Martin, 45, of Aurora, used a handgun and had worked for the Henry Pratt Co. — one of the largest makers of industrial water valves — for 15 years, she said.  He was killed at the scene.  The attack lasted 90 minutes.

The Editor says...
Hmmm.  The attack lasted 90 minutes.  Why?

Missouri: Entrepreneur Uses Gun Buy Back Program to Sell Junk Guns for Cash to Purchase New Ones.  Yes, every time that government seeks to overstep its bounds and do things it was never intended to do or ban certain items, they simply spark human ingenuity and entrepreneurship to work around their pretended legislation.  In this case, government decided to engage in an unlawful "buy back" of guns with taxpayer money, something they are not authorized to do.  One entrepreneur in Missouri had his eye on new guns and decided that he could put together scrap metal as guns and sell them off to the "no questions asked" buy back program for cash to purchase new ones.  He succeeded.

Why Ald. Ed Burke May Have Been Allowed To Have 23 Guns In Government Building.  He's been a staunch supporter of gun control measures for decades, but in a surprising twist, federal prosecutors revealed Thursday that nearly two dozen firearms were discovered in Ald. Ed Burke's offices during their raids in November.  It's still not known if the guns that were found in November were discovered at Burke's ward office or at City Hall, but it's hard to miss the irony of a staunch gun control advocate having to turn over 23 guns as a condition of his bond.

Vermont Learns Police Can't Conduct NICS Checks AFTER Passing Bill.  Vermont thought background checks were these easy things that anyone could get.  The state passed a universal background check bill and figured all was well.  However, the state has learned that the background checks performed by state police are less comprehensive than the NICS checks.

Baltimore woman using city gun buyback to 'upgrade to a better weapon'.  The Baltimore Police Department collected more than 500 firearms Monday [12/17/2018] as part as a buyback program that pays residents anywhere between $25 to $500 for their unwanted weapons and high-capacity magazines.  Mayor Catherine Pugh said the buyback is aimed at getting dangerous weapons off the streets, but at least one woman said she's using the program to buy a bigger, better gun.  A woman by the name of Darlene told a local Fox affiliate that she turned in her 9 mm on Monday in order to "upgrade to a better weapon," adding that she hadn't "quite decided" yet what that weapon would be.

Gun Control Fail:  California Firearm Homicides Up 18 Percent.  California, a state with every gun control imaginable, witnessed an 18 percent rise in firearm homicides from 2014 to 2016.  This rise in firearm homicides comes despite the fact that Democrats, gun control groups, and the establishment media constantly claim that states with the strictest gun controls see lower rates of violence and death.  California has universal background checks, gun registration requirements, red flag laws (i.e., Gun Violence Restraining Orders), a ten-day waiting period for gun purchases, an "assault weapons" ban, a one-gun-per-month limit on handgun purchases, a minimum firearm purchase age of 21, a ban on campus carry, a "good cause" restriction for concealed carry permit issuance, and controls on the purchase of ammunition.

Gun Confiscation Hasn't Helped D.C. Crime Rate.  Gun control advocates routinely argue that gun control laws will reduce crime, that they take guns out of the hands of criminals.  Gun rights advocates typically counter with plenty of examples of places with sky-high crime and lots of gun laws.  This tends to not go over well with people who get their knowledge of firearms policy from MSNBC.  It doesn't go over well because it's true and they're not prepared for that.  Kind of like how they won't be prepared to see how gun confiscation hasn't really helped the District of Columbia.

Another layer of incompetence and failure is revealed:
Parkland suspect Nikolas Cruz trespassed at high school months before massacre, teacher says.  Months before a February attack that left 17 dead at a high school in Parkland, Fla., suspected gunman Nikolas Cruz trespassed on campus grounds and mingled with students, newly released witness statements allege.  Computer science teacher Sandra Rennie told investigators that she saw Cruz wearing a hoodie and backpack on the first day of classes at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in August 2017, South Florida's Sun Sentinel reported.  Cruz had been kicked out the school a year before.

Jacksonville Shooter Bought Guns Legally Despite Mental Health Issues.  Within minutes of the news that someone opened fire at the Madden 19 tournament in Jacksonville, [Florida,] the gun control zealots started blaming the NRA once again.  But of course, their narrative is chock full of holes.  Why?  Because the Jacksonville shooter was able to purchase BOTH weapons legally, in spite of the fact that he had been hospitalized TWICE for mental health issues.

Shooting at high school football game leaves 1 dead, 2 injured, police say.  A shooting at a high school football game in Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday night left one person dead and two injured, officials said.  The shooting happened about 10 p.m. ET, 15 minutes after the game ended at Raines High School, where about 4,000 spectators attended, the Florida Times Union reported, citing Jacksonville authorities.

Despite Their Already Strict Gun Laws, Canada Plays Host To Another Mass Shooting.  Anti-gunners continue to claim that mass shootings don't happen in other countries, despite recent history to the contrary.  They look at what happened in Toronto as an anomaly, something that happened as an outlier but isn't really a thing to worry about.  They ignore it and pretend that it doesn't completely undermine their arguments.

Democrat Rep Says Gangland's Not a Trump-Free Zone After 63 Are Shot.  At least 63 people were shot from Friday [8/3/2018] through Sunday in Chicago, Rahm's gun-free zone.  Ten were killed, some are children.  Many of the wounded are children.  It's safer in Kabul than it is in the Democratic hellhole run by Rahm Emanuel and his cronies.  It's not the gun laws that are the problem since it's a gun-free zone.  The gangs and possibly the Ferguson Effect are core problems.  The Communist ideology is a problem.  At least 40 people were shot, four fatally Sunday within seven hours in tightly gun-controlled Chicago.

Report: Parkland Shooter Denied Special Needs Care 14 Months Before Shooting.  Following the Parkland shooting that left 17 people dead, the Broward County School District commissioned an independent review.  The review, conducted by the Collaborative Educational Network of Tallahassee, found that the shooter was inappropriately denied special needs accommodations at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.  A Broward County judge ordered public release of the report, entitled "Independent Review of 'NC's' Education Record," and though much of it was redacted, the Sun Sentinel found that the redacted portions could be read by copying and pasting the text into another document.

Parkland Shooter Asked For Help Before Massacre, Was Denied.  A newly released report has revealed that the 19-year-old gunman who shot up Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February asked for help months before he went on the rampage, but the school district failed to act on his request.  The report was released on Friday [8/3/2018] after Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer ordered Broward County Public Schools to release its report on the gunman who murdered 17 people during the Valentine's Day massacre.

They really need to outlaw guns in New York!  Oh, wait...
Gunfire explodes over seven bloody hours in NYC.  Gotham echoed with gunfire Saturday night into Sunday as 16 people were shot in 10 incidents over a span of less than seven hours — with one person dead and three others clinging to life after the overnight violence.  The carnage kicked off at 9:43 p.m. in the Bronx when a man wearing a red bandanna in a black sedan squeezed off six rounds at the corner of West 166th Street and Nelson Avenue, nailing an 18-year-old in the shoulder and a 20-year-old in the eye and abdomen, according to police.  The eye-shot victim checked himself into Lincoln Hospital, police said.  Later that evening, an 18-year-old man was shot in the chest at Brooklyn's Gravesend Houses, according to cops.

Alabama woman fatally shot by ex-husband had twice asked judge to take his guns away.  An Alabama man fatally shot his ex-wife and two others over the weekend — after she had asked a judge on more than one occasion to have his firearms taken away.  Police said Darwin Brazier, 43, killed Debra Ann Rivera, his ex-wife; Radex Rivera, her new husband; and Timothy Hayward-Boger, a roommate, at their home near Ardmore, Ala., on Sunday, AL.com reported.  Brazier later fatally shot himself, police said.

Florida skips gun background checks for a year after employee forgets login.  In Florida, the site of recent mass shootings such as at the Stoneman Douglas High School and the Pulse nightclub, more than a year went by in which the state approved applications without carrying out background checks.  This meant the state was unaware if there was a cause to refuse a licence to allow somebody to carry a hidden gun — for example, mental illness or drug addiction.  The reason is dismayingly banal:  an employee couldn't remember her login.

Update / rebuttal:
Re:  Florida skips gun background checks for a year after employee forgets login (Goldberg, RISKS-30.82).  This blog post is incorrect and misleading.  The Florida Department of Agriculture Licensing department did, in fact, perform the required background checks on applicants for licenses to carry concealed weapons or firearms.  According to later news reports checks were done through FCIC (Florida Criminal Information Computer system) and NCIC (National Criminal Information Computer system — the national FBI fingerprint data base) and they also did a NICS check (National Instant Check System), which is the name-based background check system.  What did NOT happen was that 365 applications where the background check flagged one or more disqualifiers were not immediately rejected.  That is a problem.  But it is NOT the same problem as claiming that the checks weren't done.  It's also 0.001% of the applications processed during that time period.

Gun Lies, Myths, Half-Truths, and Conspiracy Theories.  Democrats know, but don't care, that bad people are more empowered and emboldened to do bad things when they know with a virtual certainty that their prey is unarmed.

Where there's a will, there's a way:  he used a hatchet instead.
Man accused of killing boss tried to buy gun before attack.  The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said the man accused of killing his former boss with a hatchet tried to buy a gun just days before the attack.  Acting TBI Director Jason Locke said Domenic Micheli tried to buy a gun before the attack at Balance Training in Belle Meade.  The TBI said the sale was denied because Micheli failed the required TBI background check.

Denver Banned Bump Stocks And Zero Are Turned In To Authorities.  The city of Denver decided that bump stocks are too dangerous for private citizens to own, despite years of private citizens owning them and absolutely nothing happening before Las Vegas.  They passed a law within the city banning the ownership of the devices.  They were bound and determined to crack down on such dangerous items. [...] But in a city the size of Denver, I'm willing to bet that more than a few bump stocks are in private hands and they're not going anywhere.  The truth is, gun owners are sick and tired of governments treating the mass shooters in the making.  Those private hands weren't responsible for Las Vegas.  They're tired of being treated like they were.

Time to talk about gun free zones.  In other mass shootings, the shooters' motivations have varied, from racism to religion to anti-religion.  There has not been a single common theme, except for one.  In almost all mass shooting situations, particularly at schools, the common theme is a gun-free zone, with the shooter being the only one armed person in the building for minutes or longer.  And in each case, the shooter couldn't care less about the gun-free nature of the building, and if anything, was drawn to such a location.  Gun-free zones presume the good intentions of those entering the zone.  And the overwhelming majority have such good intentions.  But for those who have bad intentions, gun-free zones turn schools and other locations into shooting galleries.  The good people are unarmed, the evil person is armed.

'Surrender Your Firearms Within 24 Hours or Be Shot'.  I am reading a fascinating book by Stephen P. Halbrook from the Independent Institute called Gun Control in Nazi Occupied-France:  Tyranny and Resistance. [...] One of the most startling facts in the book is in the last chapter entitled "Liberation": [...] ["]...only 835,000 of three million hunting guns — less than one-third — were turned in by French citizens threatened with the death penalty for not doing so.  That is an incredible testament to the inefficacy of gun control in the most extreme circumstances.["]

FBI admits it got multiple tips about Oklahoma City shooter.  The FBI is now saying that it received tips about the Youtube channel of the Oklahoma City Shooter, but deemed it wasn't worth a followup.

Study Shows Just How Easily Criminals Can Get Gun Regardless Of Laws.  No matter how many times we tell people that gun laws don't work, that criminals will continue to find guns, some people just don't want to get the memo.  They continue to prattle on about how this law will reduce crime, or how that law will cut down on murders.  The reality is that none of that will happen.  We have told people how criminals get guns.  CBS accidentally stumbled onto it too.  Criminals get their guns illegally, off the street.  We've said it time and time again, but we're typically ignored.  I think part of it is that because the people we tell don't know how to get an illegal gun, they figure it's not that easy.  I get it.  Of course, they're wrong.  Recently a study was conducted that showed just how easily the bad guys can get a gun, and it's not difficult at all.

Liberalism's Impact on Abhorrent Behavior.  Even in instances of terror like the Boston bombing, Fort Hood shooting, Pulse nightclub shooting, and the Charleston church shooting can one find liberalism's politically correct philosophy.  If people want to know why "See Something, Say Something" hasn't been successful, they should analyze the impact of political correctness on our justice and education systems.  Even when people's gut tells them that something isn't right, liberalism's shadow lurks overhead — ready to call them out as a bigot simply for reporting suspicious behavior.  The FBI under Obama's liberal bent was ordered to look the other way when the system was blinking red on Army Lieutenant Nidal Hasan, Omar Mateen, the Tsarnaev brothers, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.

Criminals In Anti-Gun France Do The Impossible.  Anti-gun jihadists will tell us over and over that gun control works.  They claim the violent crime rates throughout the developed world are more than sufficient evidence to prove it works.  I, however, usually counter that by pointing out that those countries tend to have a lower rate of violence in general.  However, terrorists and other people with similar, criminal inclinations, have an annoying tendency to still get firearms into the country to conduct their nefarious deeds.

Rand: Shooters Aren't Shooting Up the Sheriff's Office.  During an interview with the Fox News Channel on Friday [5/18/2018], Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) argued that schools can't be defenseless and disturbed shooters "aren't so disturbed that they're going to shoot up the sheriff's office.  They're showing up where there is no self-defense."  Rand said, "I think the first thing we should do is, there needs to be an announcement by every school district that we're going to defend our children, and that we're not going to have a sign outside that [says], 'We're defenseless.'  And I think that's the problem, is that we do have these homicidal or crazy or mentally disturbed kids, but they still aren't so disturbed that they're going to shoot up the sheriff's office.  They're showing up where there is no self-defense."

Lessons from Santa Fe High:  The Left's Favorite Gun Controls Will Not Stop School Shooters.  After nearly every high-profile, firearm-based crime, the Democrats and other leftists push an "assault weapons" ban, a "high capacity" magazine ban, universal background checks, waiting period for firearm purchases, etc., and not one of these would have stopped the Santa Fe High School attack from occurring.  Someone might say:  Well, Texas doesn't have any of those laws, so how do you know they wouldn't have worked?  The answer is simple:  Those laws would not have worked because the gunman did not use an "assault weapon" or a "high capacity" magazine.  Rather, he used a revolver and a shotgun.  Moreover, universal background checks would have had no impact because the guns did not belong to the attacker.  Rather, they were his father's firearms.  Because of this, a waiting period would have been impotent as well.

School officials failed to send Nikolas Cruz to court after he violated Obama-era diversion program.  After trashing a middle-school bathroom in 2013, Mr. Cruz received a three-day referral to a newly created diversion program called Promise designed to help kids who had committed misdemeanors avoid arrest and stay out of the "school-to-prison pipeline."  He didn't show.  At that point, school policy dictated that he should have been hauled before Judge Elijah Williams of the Broward County Delinquency Division, and yet there is no record that it ever happened, based on what the district has released, according to Timothy Sternberg, a former assistant principal who helped run Promise from 2014-17.  "There's possible negligence here if no one ever followed up," Mr. Sternberg told the Washington Times.

School district shuts down information after Stoneman Douglas shooting.  The Broward school district's repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege.  Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.  The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video.  It flatly refused to issue any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state's open-records law.

Looking for 'solutions' to mass killings?  Start with punishing failure.  Law enforcement keeps failing, and people keep dying.  Where are the consequences?  Where is the accountability?  Despite receiving a warning directly from the Russian government, the FBI failed to stop the Tsarnaev brothers from staging the Boston Marathon bombing.  Despite having plenty of resources, the Charlottesville police failed to stop a car attack that left a woman dead.  The FBI interviewed Omar Mateen, the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooter, and considered criminally investigating him.  They didn't — possibly because his father was an FBI informant.  The FBI also missed numerous "red flags" before the San Bernardino shooting.  And despite having lots of warning, the FBI, the Broward County schools and the Broward Sheriff's Department under Sheriff Scott Israel all failed to stop Nikolas Cruz from shooting up a high school.

Mass Public Shootings keep occurring in Gun-Free Zones: 97.3% of attacks since 1950.  Why does anyone pay attention to Bloomberg's claims on guns?  Take their previous discussions on mass public shootings.  As we have previously pointed out, Bloomberg's groups have made serious errors on the number and trends of school shootings.  Well, that hasn't stopped the media from sympathetically covering Everytown for Gun Safety's recent report on mass shootings.  Everytown for Gun Safety's recent report on mass shootings contains many errors.  In addition, it muddies the discussion on mass public shootings by including shootings in private homes along with ones in public places, and the vast majority of the cases they include are in private homes.

Broward Student Lays Out Devastating Case Against School Board For Neglecting School Safety.  On Thursday [4/26/2018], Broward County student Kenneth Preston, 19, published the findings of an in-depth investigation he has conducted over the last two months that has uncovered some alarming details about how the Broward County School Board neglected school safety leading up to the Parkland massacre.  Preston confronted the school board two weeks ago and gave his account of what he'd learned to The Hill.  In his initial findings, Preston said that he believed that since 2014, the school has only spent around 5% of the over $100 million available to it specifically for school safety.  In his new report, he details ways that the failure to invest in school safety may have led to the deaths of some of the students in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting.  The school board's embrace of progressive programs, including The Promise Program and the Behavior Intervention Program, Preston maintains, has protected problem students — like the student who eventually slaughtered 17 people in February — shielding them from effective disciplinary measures and thus allowing them to remain threats to their peers.

The Hidden Legacy of Columbine:  Ignorance About School Violence.  Today [4/20/2018], on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre, students around the country skipped classes as part of a National School Walkout to protest gun violence.  This is the latest attempt by survivors of the recent mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, to keep the public focused on school violence and on the various gun control proposals they believe would deter it.  Invoking Columbine is meant to remind people that such attacks have been happening for decades, and to imply that this is because national leaders have continually failed to implement solutions.  But Columbine should teach us a different lesson:  The press, the public, and policymakers are often ignorant, and doing the wrong thing can be just as counterproductive as not doing anything.  In the wake of Columbine, so-called experts completely misdiagnosed the causes of the crime, and they decided to implement "safety" policies that gravely undermined students' rights without making schools any safer.

D.C.'s Silent Gun Slaughter.  Ryane Nickens stood in a patch of grass as sleet rained down on one of the most historically troubled neighborhoods of Southeast Washington. [...] Around the corner we had just walked past, sirens blared and lights flashed as emergency vehicles converged.  Another shooting, right near Hendley Elementary School.  The kids there had been on lockdown 10 times since October, people in the neighborhood said.  This made 11.  (Hendley's principal did not respond to an email request to confirm the frequency of lockdowns.  Washington police records show 12 violent crimes including two killings within 1,000 feet of the school so far this year.)  Somebody had been "beefin," Nickens said, referring to the ongoing disputes that travel from one apartment building in this neighborhood to the next — drug deals, turf wars, perceived slights that elsewhere may have been resolved with words, not with guns.

Broward School Violence:  Cruz's Massacre Is Far From the Whole Story.  Broward County, Fla., school officials portray as a great success their Obama administration-inspired program offering counseling to students who break the law, instead of having them arrested or expelled.  They insist that it played no role in February's school massacre by Nikolas Cruz.  They also claim that in fact juvenile recidivism rates are down and school safety is up, thanks to the program.  The evidence tells a far different story.  Broward County juvenile justice division records, federal studies of Broward school district safety and the district's own internal reporting show that years of "intensive" counseling didn't just fail to reform repeat offender Cruz, who allegedly went on to shoot and kill 17 people at his high school.  Records show such policies have failed to curtail other campus violence and its effects now on the rise in district schools — including fighting, weapons use, bullying and related suicides.

Muslim Mayor of London Declares New 'Knife Control' Policies as Fatal Stabbings Soar.  The Muslim Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan declared a new knife control policy as stabbings in London soar to unprecedented levels.  This of course completely crushes the 'guns cause violence' narrative the left pushes since the UK has some of the strictest gun laws in the world.

5 Compelling Reasons Why The Youtube Shooting Has Disappeared From Headlines.  [#3] The shooting happened in California — a state that has already enacted some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  When a mass shooting occurs, one of the first things the mainstream media and gun control advocates tend to do — after blaming the weapon — is to look at the location where the shooting took place and how that state's gun laws can be tightened to prevent another attack.  In this case, the shooting happened in San Bruno, California, which already has some of the strictest gun laws in the United States.  As a "May Issue" state, California issues concealed handgun permits to individuals at the discretion of the local sheriff, and restrictions can be based on where that permit can be used in the state itself.  California also requires all guns to be registered, and it does not honor permits from any other states.

Parkland Teacher:  School Ignored Suggestions After 2017 Threat Assessment Of Campus.  A Marjory Stoneman Douglas teacher says a threat assessment was performed at the high school just a few months before the deadly massacre, but school officials failed to heed the recommendations that followed. [...] According to the faculty member, the threat assessment occurred in December 2017 and arranged by what is known at school as the safety committee, which includes an assistant principal, the head of security at Stoneman Douglas, and two Stoneman Douglas teachers.  An inquiry was sent Monday morning and afternoon to members of the Broward County School Board and principal of Stoneman Douglas about the 2017 threat assessment for a response.

Obama's Strategy:  Planned Failure.  In one of the most brilliant evil genius schemes ever devised, Obama utilized planned political failures to manipulate the masses and steer the country toward long-term leftist goals.  This story only recently broke.  Leftists noticed a change in the firearms background check system, and they tried to pin it on Trump.  In so doing, they uncovered yet another corruption plot that took place under Obama's watch.  In a nutshell, Obama's Department of Justice redefined existing legislation to change the definition of the word "fugitive."  This change ultimately removed 500,000 names from the FBI NICS database and enabled formerly banned persons from being able to legally obtain firearms.  We aren't yet sure how many people this affected, but so far the FBI is suggesting that failed background checks declined by 80 percent after the change.  That's a lot of illegal weapons.

Chicago Murder Rate Shows 'False Narrative' on Strict Gun Control Laws.  As the debate over gun control rages, Chicago continues to be plagued by gun violence, despite having some of the strictest firearms laws in the country.  In 2017 alone, the city saw more than 2,700 shooting incidents.  Fox News political analyst and Chicago native Gianno Caldwell said this issue can't be solved by expanding gun laws, because criminals don't obey the law.

Parkland School Shooting Survivor:  Don't Blame Guns, Blame the 'Cowards of Broward County'.  During the March 25 airing of Face the Nation, Parkland school shooting survivor Kyle Kashuv suggested people looking for something to blame ought to be pointing at the "cowards of Broward County" rather than guns.  Kashuv was referencing the Broward County Sheriff's Office from which a deputy arrived on scene 90 seconds into the attack and waited outside the building while the gunman spent nearly five more minutes shooting innocents.

Fake Crime Statistics Lead to 17 Murdered in Parkland.  It seems that every day more revelations come out about the collapse of the system in Parkland that failed to stop the murderer from roaming the halls of a high school with a gun he should never have had an opportunity to legally acquire.  Yet the tale of failure starts way before the fated day he entered the school.  This starts with the Superintendent of Broward County, Robert Runcie, who arrived in his position from Chicago where he worked with Arne Duncan.  Mr. Duncan went from there to serve as President Obama's Secretary of Education for seven years.  Runcie stated, in October 2011, "I arrived in the district and, shortly after that, began to dive into the data on student performance in the district.  We quickly recognized that Broward had a high number of arrests, suspensions and expulsions.  In fact, the highest number in the state.  We realized we were not going to be able to create equitable opportunities for success in our school system if our students are not in school."

Shooter revealed gory fantasies to his therapists years before the Parkland massacre.  A May 3, 2014, notation in a Broward County schools psychiatric file said [the Florida shooter] "reported [a dream] last week of him killing people and covered in blood.  He smiled and told the therapist that sometimes he says things for shock value." [...] Portions of his psychiatric file, obtained by the Miami Herald on Friday [3/9/2018], show a young man whose mental health exhibited frequent and extreme swings.  His attitude would brighten for weeks at a time, then descend again into paranoia and anger.

Parkland Survivors to Sue Broward County Sheriff's Department, Schools.  Despite the attempts to make the Parkland, Florida, massacre a story about gun control, it seems law enforcement and the school administration failed miserably before and during the slaughter of 17 innocent high school kids.  That's why it's not surprising to see lawsuits now being filed naming both the sheriff's office and the school system as defendants.  Anthony Borges is a 15-year-old student who has been hailed as a hero by classmates after he was shot five times while trying to close and lock a classroom door.  His attorney Alex Arreaza has notified Broward County officials of the family's intent to sue:  "The failure of Broward County Public Schools, and of the principal and school resource officer to adequately protect students, and in particular our client, from life-threatening harm were unreasonable, callous and negligent."

Official: School metal detectors not in use day of shooting.  Metal detectors at an Alabama high school were not in use the day a 17-year-old student was killed in a shooting on campus, the district's superintendent said Thursday [3/8/2018].

FBI staffers knew warnings about Nikolas Cruz were related but closed the case, lawmakers learn.  The FBI this week detailed to Congress a series of mistakes and missed opportunities to intervene before a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida — including a revelation that staffers knew two warnings about suspect Nikolas Cruz were related, but still closed the case.  FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich made the comments in a closed briefing Tuesday with members of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.  In a summary released Wednesday [3/7/2018] to Fox News, Bowdich cited two tips that the FBI received about Cruz in September 2017 and January 2018 that were mishandled.

Elementary School Shooter Admits He Picked Target With No Armed Security.  President Trump has been criticized for daring to suggest school teachers arm themselves to protect students in the event of a shooting.  Since the killing of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the counter debate to Trump's proposal is keeping schools gun-free.  However, [...] a school shooter who was in a South Carolina courtroom the day of the Florida massacre said he picked his target because there was no armed security.

What good are police?  The Douglas school shooter was not unknown to police.  Media reports indicate that police responded to calls of domestic violence, bizarre behavior, threats and other violent episodes involving the shooter some 26-43 times in recent years.  The FBI was repeatedly tipped off that he posed a threat to the school and to others.  Yet the state — which the left believes should have a monopoly on violence and its agents should be the only ones with guns — did nothing.  Nor are police required to act.  The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that police don't have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm.

Gun Laws and the Second Amendment.  The lack of our government's ability to keep us safe is alarming.  The failures of the FBI, local law enforcement, schools, mental health facilities and others to act upon the very clear warnings and tips are extremely troubling and demand serious investigations and immediate actions to ensure such failures don't happen again.  If it's predictable, it's preventable!  Honestly, these failures reinforce the need for Americans to be armed for their protection.  Clearly, we can't depend upon them to keep us safe. [...] Before greater restrictions are imposed on law-abiding, respectable Americans, (who by the way are the only ones that will follow any new laws introduced), our government must effectively utilize the tools and enforce the laws that are already in place to keep guns out of the hands of those who should already be prohibited from obtaining them.

We Banned Assault Weapons Before ... And It Didn't Work.  Maybe they are too young to know, or have faulty memories, but whatever the reason, all those pushing for a ban on "assault weapons" in the wake of the Florida school shooting ignore the fact that the last time the country imposed such a ban it failed to make a measurable difference.

Lefty admits it is anti-gun hysteria.  The Fake News press finally is winning as it feeds a storyline that could have come from Stalin.  The press ignored the systemic failure of the government to stop a killer.  The FBI ignored tips.  The school system and the sheriff's office worked to not arrest or even suspend delinquents, in an effort to hide racial discrepancies in crime and misbehavior among students.  The Obama administration praised this.  Finally, the sheriff ordered his deputies to stand down, as if he were the mayor of Baltimore.  They even blocked paramedics.  Instead of blaming government, the media selected the National Rifle Association as the whipping boy for Obama, Sheriff Scott Israel, and Broward County Schools superintendent Robert Runcie.

2016 School Shooter Chose Target For Lack Of Armed Security.  A new report shows South Carolina teenager Jesse Osborn, accused of the fatal 2016 school shooting at Townville Elementary in Greenville, chose his target because no armed guards were on the school's campus.  The Washington Post reported Saturday [3/3/2018] that the 14-year-old Osborn, hoping to outdo the casualty numbers of previous mass shooters at Columbine High, Sandy Hook Elementary, and Virginia Tech, meticulously planned his rampage on his Instagram account six days before he allegedly fired upon the Townville grade school playground.

Sheriff Scott Israel Is a Lesson in Failed Leadership.  The law enforcement community is not the same as the military, but the two are as close a set of "cousins" as one can find.  Their ethos of service, their ideal of protecting the public, their determination to leave no one behind, all mirrors the military.  Police officers have a right to expect their leadership to operate on a similar plane with the military's ideal of leadership.  Sadly, Sheriff Israel has been anything but that.  He immediately threw his deputy under the bus.  He piled blame on the deputy at the scene (not to mention the NRA). He also attempted to absolve himself of all responsibility, saying he had provided "amazing leadership" to his department.  This is a crisis of leadership, and it is emblematic of leadership failures across our society.

How Did the Parkland Shooter Slip Through the Cracks?  In the aftermath of the horrific shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, political debate has focused almost exclusively on the role of guns in American society.  Largely ignored is the question of what role Broward County's overhauled approach to school safety played in the total system failure leading up to the massacre, in which authorities took no action on repeated warnings about the eventual shooter.  In an effort to combat the "school to prison pipeline," schools across the country have come under pressure from the federal government and civil rights activists to reduce suspensions, expulsions, and in-school arrests.  The unintended consequences of pressuring schools to produce ever-lower discipline statistics deserve much more examination.  Florida's Broward County, home to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, was among the leaders in this nationwide policy shift.  According to Washington Post reporting, Broward County schools once recorded more in-school arrests than any other Florida district.  But in 2013, the school board and the sheriff's office agreed on a new policy to discontinue police referrals for a dozen infractions ranging from drug use to assault.  The number of school-based arrests plummeted by 63 percent from 2012 to 2016.

Broward Deputy Sheriff Demands Transparency, End to 'Political Posturing'.  The deputy sheriff of the county where the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting occurred demanded transparency from the higher-ups in his department, in a "Story" exclusive report.  Broward County Deputy Sheriff Jeff Bell told Martha MacCallum that call logs presented to him by Fox News "appear to be authentic."  MacCallum reported that, at 2:21 p.m. on the day of the massacre, the shooting began.

An Open Letter to David Hogg.  The ability of our citizens to keep the guns that our Federal law have given them without question are now under attack by many who are fearful of guns. The progressive socialists and leftists quaintly call it "Gun Safety" with the full intent on working even further to confiscate the firearms that the citizens hold.  We find ourselves after another school shooting that the progressive socialists once again raise voices over the bidies of the victims.  Not mentioned is the total breakdown of federal and local enforcement that could have kept [the shooter] from getting any firearms.  We now have children who will be traumatized for the rest of their lives for something that could have been prevented.  It was the PROMISE ACT implemented by Obama and his contempt of court Attorney General that set this massacre in motion.  Because they were concerned about what they called a disproportionate number of blacks in prison they started the Promise Act to break the classroom to prison train.  All it did was require that schools in the country allow violent and mentally ill students to harass the other students without fear of arrest.  [The shooter] was one of those students.  All of this was done so that schools could get more federal funds.

Survey: Americans Blame School Shooting on Government, Not Guns.  The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that Americans blame government rather than guns for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.  According to Rasmussen, 54% of Americans believe government failure is to "blame for the mass shooting."  Only 33% of Americans blame guns.  Eleven percent of Americans say they are unsure what contributed to the occurrence of the mass shooting.  When the sample group was adjusted so as to focus only on Americans "who have children of elementary or secondary school age," the percentage of Americans who cite government failure as causal jumped to 61 and the percentage who blamed guns dropped to 23.

Broward State Attorney's Opened At Least 66 Cases Of Criminal Misconduct Into Sheriff's Office.  There are more than 66 investigations by the Broward County State Attorney's office into Broward County Sheriff's deputies and employees, ranging from drug trafficking to kidnapping since 2012, according to a 2014 Brady list produced by the Broward State Attorney's office.  Forty of the investigations occurred under embattled Sheriff Scott Israel's watch.  His office is now under investigation for allegations that his deputies failed to allow first responders from treating patients at the scene of Stoneman Douglas High School shooting on Feb. 14, and failure of his deputies to enter the school during the rampage that left 17 people dead, according to reports.  Over the weekend Israel fought back on calls for his resignation saying the actions of his deputies were "[not] his responsibility" when they failed to enter the high school that was under siege [...].  Police responded to calls regarding [the shooter] over 45 times over a seven-year period, although Israel disputes the report, stating his office only received 23 calls during that time frame.

The Children's Crusade.  [Scroll down]  In 1990, Congress mandated that schools bar guns from their campuses to create "gun-free zones."  Other places, such as theatres and churches have also declared themselves such.  The idea is that a sign prohibiting guns will, by some magic, prevent anyone from ever brandishing one on those premises.  This does little more than turn these places into "free fire zones."  That's what happened in Parkland and in too many other places.  Few of those who advocate the tactic would put a "Gun-Free Zone" sign on their own lawns and risk criminals stopping by for a murderous rampage.

Misguided Anti-Gun Assumptions.  President Trump expressed interest in improving the effectiveness of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which is designed to identify those whose possession of a firearm could be a risk to themselves and others.  The NICS, which requires the completion of an extensive questionnaire and review by federal authorities, seeks to prevent gun sales to convicted felons, fugitives from justice, domestic violence perpetrators, those under indictment, those adjudicated with mental health issues, illegal aliens, those dishonorably discharged from the military, and those who have renounced their U.S. citizenships.  However, this safeguard has failed repeatedly — just as it did in Florida.

Incompetence Wasn't the Problem in Broward County.  It is hardly shocking that in 2014, the now notorious Scot Peterson was named School Resource Officer of the Year by the Broward County Crime Commission for handling issues "with tact and judgment."  The motto of that crime commission?  "Evil triumphs when good people stand idly by."  Yikes!  Peterson, the commission noted, was also "active in mentoring and counseling students."  It appears that [the shooter] got counseled a lot.  Better to educate him, after all, than incarcerate him.  Although there are many details still to be known, the Miami Herald reported on Friday that, in November 2017, a tipster called the Broward Sheriff's Office (BSO) to say Cruz "'could be a school shooter in the making,' but deputies did not write up a report on that warning."  The Herald added that this tip came just weeks after a relative called urging BSO to seize his weapons.  Two years prior, "A deputy investigated a report that Cruz 'planned to shoot up the school' — intelligence that was forwarded to the school's resource officer, with no apparent result."

A Total Failure of the State.  During Wednesday's horrible fiasco of a "Town Hall", Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel spelled it out:  ["]What I'm asking the law makers to give police all over this country is more power.["]  I was sufficiently struck by the above to write it down — because it was clear even then that Sheriff Israel is an incompetent deployer of the power he already has.  The scale of his department's appalling failure in the Parkland massacre gets worse almost hourly.

Protect Kids or Confiscate Guns?  The perpetrator, the sick and evil 19-year-old who killed 17 innocents with a gun is said to be contrite.  Having confessed, he faces life in prison.  For the next half-century, [he] will be fed, clothed, sheltered and medicated at the expense of Florida taxpayers, including the families of those he murdered.  [His] punishment seems neither commensurate with his crimes nor a deterrent for sick and evil minds contemplating another Columbine. [...] [This man] should never have been allowed to purchase or possess a gun.  He was angry, alienated, isolated.  Police had been to his family home to deal with complaints 39 times.  Yet he had no arrest record when he purchased his AR-15.

Teacher Fires at Gun Control: 'Why Not Give Me the Chance to Fight Back?'.  After the school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people, many people have called for teachers to be armed, and I agree.  Teachers should be trained to carry in order to actually protect students from maniacs.  Teacher Kasey Hansen told MacCallum exactly why she carried her gun every day to work.  She stated that she started doing so after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 that killed 26 people.  "The teachers just huddled their kids in the corner and stood in front of them and hoped for the best.  They didn't have any defense for them, and all that they could do was hope that the bad guy didn't come in and shoot up their room," she continued, "For me, I needed a better option, I needed a better plan set in place rather than hunker down and just hope for the best."

Trump: Gun-Free Zones [Attract] Killers.  Thursday during meeting at the White House on preventing school shootings, President Donald Trump said gun-free zones in schools are part of the problem.  Trump said, "We have to harden the schools, not soften them up.  A gun-free zone to a killer or somebody that wants to be a killer, that's like going in for ice cream.  That's like, here I am, take me.  We have to get smart on gun-free zones.  When they see it says this is a gun-free zone, that means nobody has a gun except them.  Nobody will be shooting bullets in the other direction.  And they see that as such a beautiful target.  They live for that."

Florida Capitol Republicans promise 'complete investigation' of what went wrong.  A bombshell that South Florida police ignored tips that a teenager was planning an assault on a school and then failed to stop him when he attacked seems destined to complicate the election-year discussion around mass shootings.  Even in the face of a student-led gun-control protest that has captured the attention of the nation, Thursday's admission that the Broward Sheriff's Office repeatedly blew chances to prevent a teenager's rampage in Parkland adds to the overwhelming evidence that the worst high school shooting in U.S. history happened in no small part due to law enforcement failures at every level.  State social services and local schools officials were aware of the signs that [the shooter] was dangerous.  The FBI blew a tip that he was planning to shoot up a school.  And an armed Broward sheriff's deputy stood outside the freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Feb. 14 and did nothing for four minutes as [the shooter] killed 17 teens and adults and shot 15 more with a semi-automatic rifle.

Worst Responders.  If the Parkland shooter's 39 prior encounters with law enforcement coupled with the FBI's failing to "follow protocol" regarding a tip were not enough, the most recent report that School Resource Officer Scot Peterson did not engage the shooter, but instead waited outside for four minutes as the massacre took place, has truly changed the story from one of evil hardware to a story of a government unable to protect us.

Another Mental Case Shoots Up Florida School.  [The Florida shooter] left abundant clues about his mental instability:  gruesome pictures he published on social media of animals that he had brutally killed, claims that he wrote "Allahu Akbar" on Instagram, revelations that the FBI knew of his erratic behavior months ago when it was reported to them by one of Cruz's classmates, the decision to expel him last year from the same school he attacked for "disciplinary" reasons, classmates being intimidated by him and avoiding contact with him because he was "weird" and a "loner," and so forth.

Parkland shooter [was] always in trouble, never expelled.  At times, Nikolas Cruz's behavior could be a school administrator's nightmare:  Teachers and other students said he kicked doors, cursed at teachers, fought with and threatened classmates and brought a backpack with bullets to school.  He collected a string of discipline for profanity, disobedience, insubordination, and disruption.  In 2014, administrators transferred Cruz to an alternative school for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities — only to change course two years later and return him to a traditional neighborhood school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.  Cruz was banished from Douglas a year later for other disciplinary violations — then toggled between three other alternative placements, school records obtained by the Miami Herald show.

Media Stacking the Deck for Gun Control Following Florida Shooting.  During the two-day White House conference on school safety, Andrew Pollack, the father of a child who was killed during the Florida school massacre last week, summed up the feelings of many:  "How many schools, how many children need to get shot?  I am not going to sleep until it is fixed!"  The question is, what is "it" that needs to be fixed?  Is it the fact that authorities did see that [the Florida shooter]'s odd behavior could have led to trouble?  Is it that once those authorities were alerted to a potential problem, they did nothing to intervene or avert the problem from breaking out into violence?  Is it that [he] was able to purchase a firearm legally even though he had a history of violent behavior?  Is it "bump stocks," which allow semi-automatic rifles to become rapid-fire weapons?  Or is it that no one on the school grounds was able to return fire before Cruz obliterated the lives of 17 students and devastated the lives of many others before being neutralized?  To members of the mainstream media, there is only one solution:  more restrictions on innocent, law-abiding gun owners who had nothing whatever to do with the Florida shooting.

Try enforcing existing gun laws before launching new ones.  Let's be fair here just for a sec:  Law enforcement gets thousands of tips about bad stuff.  Most are bad tips.  We only hear about ones that get through the cracks.  The FBI took a Russian tip and interviewed the Boston bombers.  But did nothing.  Now it says it couldn't find Nikolas Cruz.  Seriously?  Red flag waving.  Forget for a moment arguing whether any civilian outside the Middle East needs such a weapon, this kid followed all existing rules and laws.  He passed the established background check.  He purchased an AR-15 and ammo and numerous magazines.  Why?  Because existing red flags weren't in the system.  In January, on a government tip line a man told an FBI employee about his friend's behavior, gun and plans to shoot up a school.  The tip went nowhere.  Seriously?  Red flag waving.  Also rockets going off.

There Is Only One Sure Way to Stop School Shootings.  Even though we have laws meant to prevent persons who are mentally ill from acquiring guns, this kid passed a background check!  This is yet another catastrophic failure of a whole panoply of law enforcement agencies, social services, and school authorities.  Adding insult to injury, the FBI barely bothered to check out the YouTuber who reported [the shooter's] comment about becoming a "professional school shooter," and the bureau completely ignored a second, specific warning in January about his intentions to kill people.  Both tips to the FBI included his full name.

School Shooting Was Outcome of Broward County School Board Policy — Now Local and National Politicians Weaponize Kids for Ideological Intents.  CTH has intentionally stayed away from discussion of the Parkland school shooting as we watched and reviewed the response.  However, it's time to call the Broward School Board officials to task and simultaneously prepare the class-action lawyers to cripple the system.  Broward County schools intentionally created polices from 2010 through 2016 that culminated in the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland.  We know this with great specificity because five years ago we warned Broward County Florida school board members this could happen.

Hero Aaron Feis, the Disarmed School Guard.  Aaron Feis was the right man in the right place at the right time, but he was legally prevented from using the right, constitutionally protected tool to do the job. [...] This raises the question of why only one person was trained and armed to fight back against an assailant.  One reason is that the "Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990," originally passed as part of the Budget Control Act of 1990, bars school personnel from arming themselves.  18 USC § 922(q)(2)(A) states:  ["]It shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm that has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.["] [...] Supposedly, these laws are to protect us from ourselves while assuring us that the government will do its job.

Nolte: Catastrophic Law Enforcement Failures Abound as MSM Target NRA for Parkland School Massacre.  Anyone looking for proof that the disgraced American media could not care less about dead children need only take a few minutes to survey the various national news platforms.  While the jaw-dropping list of local and federal law enforcement failures continues to mount, all of our corrupt media's energy is focused on blaming the completely innocent NRA for Wednesday's school-shooting massacre.

Gun Control Isn't the Answer.  The murderer who took the lives of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla., was on everybody's radar, from the school authorities to the local police to the FBI, which failed to follow its own protocols when a person close to the future killer called to warn the bureau that he was contemplating a school massacre.  Everybody knew, nobody did anything. [...] The Florida shooter had no criminal record and had not been judged mentally incompetent, and so he was able to purchase rifles and other long guns legally, passing a background check in the process.

Cops Were Called To Florida School Shooter's Home 39 Times Since 2010.  "If you see something, say something," we've been told for years regarding threats like terrorism and potentially violent coworkers and classmates.  The assumption, naturally, is that if we say something, the authorities will then do something.  The news reports about the school shooting in Parkland, Florida are making it infuriating clear that plenty of people said something but people failed to do something.

Say Something, Do Nothing — FBI Statement On Parkland Florida School Shooting.  The FBI released a stunning admission today admitting they received prior a specific warning about Broward County Nikolas Cruz and his threats to carry out a school shooting.  The FBI took no action.

What Do We Do about the Biased and Incompetent FBI?  It's bad enough for a law enforcement agency to be biased.  It's even worse for it to be biased and incompetent.  But the latter seems to be an apt characterization of our Federal Bureau of Investigation in the wake of the killings in Parkland, Florida, where, by their own admission, the organization overlooked warnings about the killer that could have saved seventeen students and teachers from mass murder.  This is no mere bureaucratic slip-up and the demand by Governor Scott for the resignation of FBI Director Wray is understandable considering the number of dead children in his state.  The incompetence, moreover, is not just restricted to Parkland.  It pervades an institution that — frequently blinded by the most rote political correctness — interviewed and then released terrorists who ultimately perpetrated horrific attacks from the Boston Marathon to the Orlando nightclub massacre.  (There are several more.)

Police Called To Florida Gunman's Home 39 Times Since 2010.  On Friday [2/16/2018], local Florida media revealed that local law enforcement was called to the home of [the] Florida gunman [...] over three dozen times over the last several years, which raises serious questions about why no action was taken when there clearly appear to have been significant warning signs.  Broward County Sheriff's deputies were called to [the shooter's] home at least 39 times since 2010, Fox 61 reported.  The Associated Press later added that the sheriff's office said it received approximately 20 calls about [the shooter] over the past few years.

The FBI looks like the Federal Bureau of Incompetence after ignoring warning about Florida gunman.  Wasn't there something eerily and disgracefully familiar about the news that the FBI had a highly specific warning about the murderous intentions of [...] the gunman who has confessed to shooting and killing 14 students and three adults at a Florida high school Wednesday?  Doesn't it remind you of the way that after nearly every single one of the Islamist terror attacks of the last few years — whether in America, in Britain or elsewhere — a devastating phrase soon emerges?  The attacker was "known to the authorities."

Sheriff says office got 20 calls about suspected school shooter in recent years.  A sheriff said Friday [2/16/2018] that his office received around 20 calls about [...] the 19-year-old suspect in this week's shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead and wounded more than a dozen others.  Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters that his office had uncovered "approximately 20" 911 calls relating to [the shooter] over the last few years, and that his office would investigate how those calls were handled.  "We have uncovered at the Broward Sheriff's Office that we've had approximately 20 calls for service over the last few years regarding the killer," Israel said.  "Every one of these calls for service will be looked at and scrutinized."

One Organization Has Blood On Their Hands:  It's the FBI.  Leftists and the media can complain and whine all they want about the NRA, Trump or Republicans in Congress.  Problem is, there is really one government organization in this country that has yet more blood dripping for their hands after the Parkland shooting.  It's not the NRA, it's the pathetic, partisan, FBI.  All the warning signs were there [...].  All the social media posts with wanting to be a "professional school shooter" and such were available for everyone to see on Youtube.  Instead, the FBI couldn't be bothered with [the shooter] because they had more important things to do.

The FBI Admits They Screwed Up.  But They're So Sorry.  Well, guess what, everyone — the FBI is finally admitting they dropped the ball on [the Florida] high school shooter [...].  This kid left a trail of breadcrumbs a mile long, and yet law enforcement just said, "Meh."  It's so egregious that Florida Gov. Rick Scott is now calling for the FBI director to resign.  On Friday [2/16/2018], the FBI said that just last month — let that sink in — a person close to [the shooter] contacted them.  The information the caller told the FBI was ominous.  [The shooter] not only owned a gun, but he expressly said that he wanted to kill people, and school shootings seemed to be a thing with him.  The caller reported this on January 5th, and yet the FBI did nothing.

FBI Received a Credible Tip about Florida Shooter.  Did Nothing.  "We need to do more to prevent gun violence" crows every rube with brains consisting of mainly sawdust.  The "do more" typically takes the form of "more government intervention."  [...] We already have background checks.  We already have law enforcement.  We already have agencies tasked with investigating crime and credible threats.  Law enforcement and the FBI failed here.  Resulting in the gunman passing a background check.  So, if law enforcement and the FBI had done that which they're tasked with doing, isn't it possible to conclude Nikolas Cruz would've failed a background check?  Thereby would not have purchased guns legally?

Alleged Florida school shooter was reported to FBI, cops, school — but warning signs [were] missed.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday [2/16/2018] ordered an "immediate review" after it emerged that the FBI had not acted on a recent tip that Florida school shooting suspect [...] wanted to "kill people" and there was the "potential of him conducting a school shooting."  In a statement, the bureau admitted to receiving a call on Jan. 5 from a person close to Cruz who contacted the FBI through its Public Access Line (PAL) tipline to express concerns about his erratic behavior and disturbing social media posts.

Deputies [were] called to suspected shooter's home 39 times over seven years.  Before Nikolas Cruz carried out his mass killing at a Florida high school this week, police responded to his home 39 times over a seven-year period, according to disturbing new documents.  Details about the calls to the Broward County Sheriff's Office — obtained from police records by CNN — were not immediately available and it was impossible to determine if all involved Cruz.  But the nature of the emergencies at his Parkland home included "mentally ill person," "child/elderly abuse," "domestic disturbance" and "missing person," KTLA reported.  And a schoolmate, Brody Speno, told the network that cops were called to Cruz's home "almost every other week."

Florida school shooting suspect was ex-student who was flagged as threat.  He preened with guns and knives on social media, bragged about shooting rats with his BB gun and got kicked out of school — in part because he had brought bullets in his backpack, according to one classmate.  He was later expelled for still-undisclosed disciplinary reasons.  The portrait of [the person] suspected of fatally shooting 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and wounding 15 others at his former school, is a troubled teen with few friends and an obsessive interest in weapons.  Administrators considered him enough of a potential threat that one teacher said a warning was emailed last year against allowing him on the campus with a backpack.

Ohio police killings:  Suspect illegally had gun, records show.  The man identified by police as the suspect in the killing of two veteran law enforcement officers was prohibited from having a weapon by law, records show.  Incident reports released by the Westerville Police Department show 30-year-old Quentin Smith's wife, Candace, 33, had told police in November her husband carried a "gun all of the time."

Chicago Isn't Even Close to Being the Gun Violence Capital of the United States.  Chicago's rate of non-fatal shootings was 12th highest of 68 cities in 2015, with a rate of 88.9 per 100,000, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association.  The association collects data from the country's largest law-enforcement agencies.  St. Louis led the list with a rate of 660 per 100,000 — nearly seven times as high as Chicago — followed by Memphis and Oakland.

6 dead, 18 wounded in Chicago weekend shootings.  Shootings across Chicago have left six people dead — including a 15-year-old boy who was shot while delivering newspapers with his stepfather — and 18 more wounded since Friday afternoon [12/15/2017].  The teenage boy, identified as Brian Jasso from the Chicago Lawn neighborhood, and his stepfather were delivering newspapers about 6:50 a.m. in the 5100 block of West 47th when someone in a white van rammed their 2000 Honda CRV from behind, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner's office.  The boy's stepfather tried to speed away, but the van drove alongside them and someone inside opened fire into their SUV.  The boy was struck in the head and pronounced dead at the scene.  The stepfather was not injured.

Terrorists Use Banned Guns To Murder 235 Egyptians, Media Fails To Report.  Islamic terrorists ruthlessly murdered at least 235 Egyptians at a mosque on Friday when they detonated a bomb which forced mosque-goers to run outside where the terrorists were waiting with automatic rifles.  Terrorists tried to prevent people from fleeing the area by blowing up cars and using them as roadblocks, Sky News reported.  Officials suspect ISIS to be responsible for the attack, which is being billed as the worst attack in the nation's modern history, as it left at least 235 people dead and over 130 injured, the Daily Mail added.

California Tehama Mass Killer Made Own Guns, stole Pickup, Opposed Hitler.  The Tehama mass murderer had a restraining order against him.  He was not legally allowed to have firearms.  He had certified that he had turned in his guns. [...] During the mass murder on the morning of November 14th of 2017, he had two semi-automatic rifles that were homemade.  By making the guns himself, he evaded the purchase, registration and serial number requirements in California law.  He possessed two pistols that were registered to another person.  He stole the pickup truck he used to crash through the school gate and to transport him on his rampage.

Shooter In Northern California Was Legally Barred From Possessing Guns.  Once again the narrative that more gun laws are needed is proven fruitless when applied to real-world cases.  According to court documents, the Northern California shooter who killed five people and injured another nine in a rampage in the town of Rancho Tehama was prohibited from possessing firearms.

Chicago Cracks Down on Crosswalk-Texters as Gun Murders Hit Record Highs.  The city has Chicago has become almost synonymous with "gun violence," which is accompanied with some of the strongest gun laws in the nation.  There aren't many gun control measures to call for in Chicago, because they probably already have them.  It's pretty hard to call for gun control when you've already come just short of banning the things.  And how has that turned out for them?  One word:  bloody.

Mocking prayer after the massacre.  Mocking people who pray in response to shock and suffering is obscene and corrupt.  And while it is not the only answer, prayer is a foundational part of change, and is a powerful and important act.  It also must be paired with action, because the divine is not encumbered by the human interest in micromanaging our daily lives.  The irony of the reaction by liberals to maniacs who use guns is to call on their God of Government for more gun control.  We now know that government bureaucracy failed us in Texas.  It failed us in Charleston.  And it failed us at Virginia Tech.

Gun Control and Magical Thinking.  [Scroll down]  Lest we be accused of "magical thinking" when it comes to the Texas tragedy, let's look at the empirical facts.  Here's a big one:  In the case of the deaths of 26 people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, the government — the same sprawling, bureaucratic behemoth that die-hard gun control advocates insist we trust with every element of our personal safety — screwed up big time.  In 2012, while he was in the Air Force, Devin Kelley assaulted his wife, kicking, beating, choking, and reportedly pointing a gun at her.  In the same incident, he fractured the skull of his baby stepson, using what the Air Force described as "a force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm."  He was court-martialed and imprisoned for a year.  (Seems like a ludicrously short prison sentence for such a crime, but that's a whole other story).  Based on existing federal gun laws, Kelley's record made him officially ineligible to buy firearms.  But the Air Force failed to submit his records into the federal background-check database, allowing him to purchase the guns used in this weekend's rampage.

Texas Shooter Escaped Mental Institution In 2012, Tried To Kill Superiors By Sneaking Guns Onto Base.  Why [...] wasn't Devin Kelley, the Texas church shooter, in jail?  On Tuesday [11/7/2017], WFAA reported that Kelley escaped from a mental institution in New Mexico in 2012, then threatened his superiors and attempted to smuggle guns onto base. [...] There are surely thousands of men like Kelley walking around free today.  In 2010, some 152,850 felons tried to buy guns and were denied.  Only a few thousand were prosecuted, and just 44 were prosecuted on a federal level.  In California, as of 2015, over 16,000 gun owners registered as mentally ill and felons were known by the state; from 2013 to 2015, the state dealt with just 3,400 people.  The Texas shooting wasn't a failure of blackletter law.  We don't need more regulations.  We need the ones on the books enforced.

Dear Gungrabbers:  It was illegal for Devin Patrick Kelley to own a firearm.  Gun control fanatics are already out en masse calling for "common sense gun control."  This is the playbook and the gungrabbers execute this particularly play flawlessly every time there's a shooting.  One important omission in the way the play is structured is to check out the facts before executing the play.  They know that if they do, their narrative falls apart.  This is the case with the Texas church shooting as over two dozen people were gunned down while worshiping.  The calls for gun control were instant and often offensive.  Some celebrities and leftist pundits had the gall to call out those Tweeting about prayers since it happened in a church.  Here's the problem.  They can be as loud as they want about how a lack of gun control laws is the reason for this tragic crime, but they're skipping one important detail.  Devin Patrick Kelley was dishonorably discharged following his court-martial in 2014.  He was not allowed to own a firearm based upon the current gun laws.

The Air Force says it failed to follow procedures, allowing Texas church shooter to obtain firearms.  The Air Force says it failed to follow policies for alerting federal law enforcement about Devin P. Kelley's violent past, enabling the former service member, who killed at least 26 churchgoers Sunday in Sutherland Springs, Tex., to obtain firearms before the shooting rampage.  Kelley should have been barred from purchasing firearms and body armor because of his domestic violence conviction in 2014 while serving at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.  Kelley was sentenced to a year in prison and kicked out of the military with a bad conduct discharge following two counts of domestic abuse against his wife and a child, according to Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek.

Air Force launches review after failing to enter Texas shooter's criminal history in FBI database.  He had a history of abusing his ex-wife and stepson as well as a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force, yet the suspect in the Texas church massacre was able to obtain multiple firearms legally after passing background checks.  How?  It turns out Holloman Air Force Base officials failed to enter Devin Patrick Kelley's 2012 court-martial and conviction on two counts of domestic assault into the federal database.  "Initial information indicates that Kelley's domestic violence offense was not entered into the National Criminal Information Center database by the Hollomon Air Force Base Office of Special Investigations," the USAF said in an email statement.

Air Force Error Allowed Texas Shooter To Pass Firearm Background Check.  The U.S. Air Force failed to report Texas church shooter Devin Kelley's misdemeanor domestic violence charge to the FBI allowing him legally purchase firearms.  The U.S. Armed Forces are required to report dishonorable discharges and misdemeanor assault charges to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, that in turn would alert a firearms seller to deny purchase to any such offender.  Kelley was convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence against his then-wife and stepson in 2012, earning him a year in military prison and a bad conduct discharge.  He reportedly beat his wife during the incident and badly fractured his stepson's skull.  These charges should have denied him legal access to firearms.

Gun Laws Fail Again:  And People Die.  I used to think that gun laws stopped crime and made us safer.  I would read about some violent attack and think that more regulation would stop the next criminal.  Now, I've studied some of our 23,000 firearms regulations.  That is when I changed my mind.  Now I see a violent crime as another failure of the many gun control laws we already have.  Gun laws don't work, and we can't achieve safety by piling more regulations on honest people.  Recent events are clear examples.  We had a mass murderer in Las Vegas, Nevada.  We had another one in Edgewood, Maryland.  Though the events are wildly different, our gun laws failed in both cases.  They did not protect us from these attacks.  As Senator Diane Feinstein admitted, no law would have stopped the Las Vegas gunman.  The Senator is so right.

California:  Proof That Everything The Liberals Run Turns [Bad].  The Las Vegas shooting's a tragedy.  The Left says it's the Right and the NRA.  And the only way to fix it is with more violence.  Nancy Sinatra (and others) thinking we should execute NRA card-carrying Conservatives.  Yet, not a word by the Left of the 57 killed and almost 300 shot in Chicago this year.  Not a word about a mental health issue.  Only that sane, card-carrying NRA members are to blame.

Evidence That Universal Background Checks Are A Universal Failure.  A handful of states have implemented universal background checks.  Anti-gun researcher Garen Wintemute took a look at three states — Washington, Colorado and Delaware — and conducted a study to see what the impact of the new universal background check laws would be.  Well, the short version is that they were less than useless.  Two of the states had no real change in the number of background checks performed, while the third had a modest change.  Wintemute called for more aggressive enforcement of the statute but failed to offer suggestions of just what that enforcement would actually look like.

Teen accused of shooting Yonkers officer got probation last week on gun charge.  While Yonkers Police Officer Kayla Maher recovered from a bullet to the face, PIX11 News learned on Tuesday that one of the teenagers charged in the shooting, and who was shot himself in the exchange, had been released by a Bronx judge last week in another weapons case that involved a semi-automatic gun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a machete.  Frank Valencia, 18, of New Rochelle, received probation and youthful offender status when he was sentenced by Judge George Villegas of Bronx Supreme Court on Sept. 20.  The light sentence was meted out over the objections of prosecutors representing the Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark.

5 killed, 13 wounded in Chicago shootings, including 4 dead in rifle attack.  A woman police believe was pregnant was among five people killed and 13 wounded in Chicago shootings Friday [9/15/2017] into Saturday morning.  The woman was one of four victims slain in a rifle attack in the Brighton Park neighborhood Friday night, police said.

Accused Spring Garden killer was on probation after robbery.  A 16-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting a popular neighborhood advocate during a botched carjacking Thursday in the Spring Garden section of the city was free on probation after being found guilty of robbery this year, according to Juvenile Court records and police.  His 21-year-old brother, allegedly with him when Gerard Grandzol was shot, had also been placed on probation, in May, after selling drugs in Center City, the records show.  As a result, Homicide Capt. John Ryan said Monday, police were still trying to determine how Marvin Roberts and his older brother, Maurice, obtained the 9mm handgun that the younger brother allegedly used to shoot Grandzol, 38.  Their criminal records or ages should have prevented either from buying the firearm legally.  "We don't know where it came from," Ryan said, adding that police had not recovered the weapon.

Good News: Only 30 Shootings, 4 Fatalities in Gun-Free Chicago.  The city of Chicago saw 30 people shot between Friday [9/1/2017] and Monday morning, with four fatalities and 26 casualties in hospitals around the city.  Chicago's notorious gun violence has brought the city at least 435 deaths in 2017, ABC 7 Chicago reported Monday.  Disturbing violence has marred several other holiday weekends this year, including Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Father's Day, which each saw more than 50 shootings.  Despite the grim numbers, Labor Day weekend has seen fewer total fatalities than the previous weekend, which saw seven people shot and killed.

Using cheap magnet, hacker beats protections on a "smart" handgun.  This week the world's elite hackers are gathering in Las Vegas for Def Con, the largest underground hacking event of the year.  The BBC's North America technology reporter met a hacker who had circumvented protections on a handgun designed to make it impossible for unauthorised people to shoot.

Gym bans police officers, military because they might offend minority members.  Jim Chambers, the owner of the gym, told 11Alive he took responsibility for the sign and wanted the message to be clear. [...] Chambers said law enforcement agents were not allowed in his business because their presence made his minority clientele uncomfortable.

The Editor says...
The only place more dangerous than a "gun-free zone" would be a "cop-free zone."

"No Firearms Allowed" Sign Fired After Failing To Stop Mass Shooting.  "Notice," the "no firearms allowed" sign at the front door of the Cameo night club in Cincinnati (OH), has been terminated after once again failing to stop armed criminals from simply walking right in and opening fire.

Chicago too lax on gun crimes, city's judicial system a 'joke,' critics say.  Chicago's historic crime wave has been blamed on gangs, guns and drugs.  But now, harsh critics are taking it a step further — pointing the finger at the city's judicial system and accusing it of being soft on criminals who keep pulling the trigger.  "The Cook County court system, largest in the country, is traditionally very, very soft on most gun charges," said Jim Warren, a policy and politics columnist for U.S. News & World Report.  Warren called Chicago's judicial system a "joke."  In 2016, 762 people were murdered in Chicago.  More than 4,000 people were shot.  Police recovered more than 5,000 guns from the streets.  Yet, federal prosecutors tried just 123 gun cases last year.

More guns could mean safer citizens, advocates argue.  Because criminals are going to break the law regardless, they argue, the solution to less gun violence is more guns — and fewer restrictions — for "law-abiding" residents, who might then deter potential shooters or intervene and stop them from doing more harm.  "Here we go again.  Another gun-free zone.  Another place where a shooter can take lives and cause injury, and there's nobody there armed to protect anybody or to stop the shooter," said Marion Hammer, the NRA's long-time Tallahassee lobbyist.

Oops. Bloomberg's $20M gun control bid in Nevada has fallen apart.  It was almost the perfect plan.  And if it weren't for [...] the FBI, Michael Bloomberg might have gotten away with it.  By all accounts, the billionaire dropped at least $20M through his various anti-Second Amendment groups in an effort to get Ballot Question 1 passed in Nevada.  The proposal would require virtually all private transfers of gun ownership to be contingent on an FBI background check.  And on election day, the measure passed.  Great news for gun grabbers, right?  Well... it was.  That is to say, things were looking good until the FBI came along and said they wouldn't be participating in the program.

Have Chicago politicians gone 'fetal'?  How bad is the bloody violence in Chicago, where more than 700 people have been murdered so far this year and thousands have been shot in the street gang wars?  The gangs keep shooting, the survivors mourn, police morale is down, anti-police sentiment is up and the mayor says some cops have gone fetal.  And the politicians do nothing in the bloody city.  Street gang violence in Chicago is as bad, if not worse, than the record-setting death years of the 1990s.

Ammo Control Had Failed New Jersey, So Of Course They Want More Of It.  New Jersey Democrats [...] think you're too incompetent to pump your own gas.  They want to mandate that all gun buys have smart guns... though they don't exist in any viable form.  They demand that you use FMJ or round nose lead bullets for self-defense, because they're not bright enough to understand that jacketed hollowpoint bullets are the worldwide standard because they're both more effective in stopping bad guys and reducing over-penetration risks to those downrange.  Now they're compounding their ammo foolishness (again) by noting that the previous ammo law didn't stop bad guys from shooting one another and law-abiding citizens, so they need to make the law even more restrictive for people who aren't the problem.

Lawmaker: Gun free zones kill people, warns of war on cops.  An unexpected shootout over guns erupted in a House hearing on terrorism Wednesday [9/21/2016], prompting a pro-gun lawmaker to mock ineffective anti-gun laws and call for an end to gun free zones because they have become shooting galleries.  "We cannot rely on the federal government and this big bureaucracy to continue to try keep us safe.  We've got to revert back, I believe, to the individuals, the law-abiding citizens in this country.  We've got to look at the gun laws that are out there now that prohibit law abiding citizens from being able to carry firearms in areas where they could protect themselves," demanded Rep. Jeff Duncan.

Tim Schmidt:  Concealed Carry Has 'Powerful Deterrent Effect' Against Crime and Domestic Terror Attacks.  Tim Schmidt, president and founder of the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, was a guest on Tuesday's [9/20/2016] Breitbart News Daily to talk about the weekend's terror attacks.  As SiriusXM host Alex Marlow noted, they were further examples of the jihadist strategy of hitting "soft targets" or "anti-gun safe spaces" featuring large numbers of unarmed victims.  "The bottom line is that gun-free zones, they simply do not work," said Schmidt.  "Criminals pay no attention to these gun-free zones.  Ultimately, what happens is that only law-abiding citizens pay attention to them, so what you have, in essence, is a whole bunch of soft targets."

Crossroads Mall is a Gun Free, Weapons Free Zone.  The mass stabbings that occurred at the Crossroads Center (Crossroads Mall) in St.  Cloud occurred in a gun free, weapon free zone.  It appears that the armed citizen who stopped the attack was not allowed to legally be armed in the mall.  The armed citizen was an off duty officer from another jurisdiction.

Nine Myths Of Gun Control.  For over twenty years it has been illegal for teens to buy guns and, despite such gun control, the African American teenage male homicide rate in Washington, DC is 227 per 100,000 — 20 times the US average!  The US group for whom legal gun ownership has the highest prevalence, middle-aged white men, has a homicide rate of less than 7 per 100,000 — about half of the US average.  If the "guns-cause-violence" theory is correct why does Virginia, the alleged "easy purchase" source of all those illegal Washington, DC guns, have a murder rate of 9.3 per 100,000, one-ninth of DC's overall homicide rate of 80.6?  Why are homicide rates lowest in states with loose gun control and highest in states and the district with draconian gun controls and bans?

Nearly 100 people shot in Chicago in less than a week.  Nearly 100 people have been shot in Chicago in less than a week, pushing the number of shooting victims so far this year to more than 2,500 — about 800 more than this time last year, according to data kept by the Tribune.  Between last Friday afternoon and early Thursday [8/11/2016], at least 99 people were shot in the city, 24 of them fatally.  At least nine people were killed on Monday alone, the deadliest day in Chicago in 13 years, according to [Chicago] Tribune data. [...] The number of shooting victims in Chicago stood at 2,514 Thursday morning.  At this time last year, 1,725 people had been shot.  The city has not seen this level of gun violence since the 1990s, a trend the Police Department has blamed on lax gun laws and feuding gang factions.

The Editor says...
Go try to buy a gun in Chicago and see if they have "lax gun laws."

Chicago: 'Deadliest July in 10 Years' for Gun Control Haven.  July 2016 was the "deadliest July in 10 years" for heavily gun-controlled Chicago:  Sixty-five individuals were shot and killed.  Moreover, according to the Chicago Tribune, such death figures do not set a new record — they simply tie a record set in 2006, when 65 individuals were killed in the month of July.  This brings Chicago's homicide total to "nearly 400" for the first seven months of 2016 alone.  The number of homicides for the whole year of 2015 was 490.  Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson tried to abate the feeding frenzy on the July death numbers by pointing out that they are at least better than the numbers for June, "when 72 homicides were reported."

33 Shot In One Day In Chicago Is New Record.  With 55 shootings and five deaths, the weekend in Chicago was particularly bloody, so much so that Sunday [7/17/2016] marked itself as having the most shootings in a single day in over a year.  Sunday that brought out the worst gunfire, with a whopping 33 shootings and five more deaths.  The bloody weekend raises the odious totals to 2,218 citizens shot this year thus far, with 330 shot and killed.

More than 2,200 people shot in Chicago this year, 21 of them kids 13 and under.  At least 14 people were shot in Chicago over 10 hours Tuesday afternoon through early Wednesday, pushing the number of gun victims in the city this year to more than 2,200, including at least 21 children 13 and younger.

5 Times The Government Cure Was Worse Than The Disease.  [#4] Democrats in congress proposed a federal gun buy back last December and its not surprising that they haven't learned from previous buy backs in D.C. and across California.  These programs just don't work.  When Oakland police offered $250 for any firearm, the prize money quickly ran out.  Despite their lack of funds they continued to accept guns and offered IOU's in lieu of cash.  According to empirical evidence these buybacks are ineffectual because they attract mainly non-offenders looking to make a buck or criminals with worn out guns.  In turn, the money they receive is used to purchase higher quality firearms.

With All The Restrictions — How Was A DNC Staffer Gunned Down In D.C.?  [Scroll down]  So with all the restrictions, background checks, etc., how on Earth was Mr. Rich gunned down?  The same way thousands of others in major cities are killed — by criminals.  Criminals don't obey the law.  That's what makes them criminals.  They don't subject themselves to background checks or ammo clip restrictions.  They don't care if they are within 1000 feet of a school.  Only the law-abiding are negatively affected by these silly feel-good laws.  But this will make no difference to D.C. gun-grabbers.

The Day the Gun Free Zone Signs Came Down.  The Tennessee Legislature sent SB1736 (HB2033) to Governor Bill Haslam (R) on April 21, 2016.  Governor Haslam signed it on 27 April, 2016.  It goes into effect today, 1 July, 2016.  Most places will start taking down their "No Guns" signs as of today.  SB1736, now Pub. Ch. 947 does this without stepping on private property rights.  It does so by making property owners or property managers responsible for a legal gun carrier's defense if they take positive action to disarm legal gun carriers and the gun carrier(s) suffer harm as a result.

Obama Gun Control doesn't work: 3 children among at least 60 shot over holiday weekend in Obama's hometown of Chicago.  Gun control is a favorite topic of Democrats to divert attention from real issues such as Islamic terrorism.  But, in the real world of the city of Chicago with the toughest gun control laws in the country, people are shot in droves day in day out.  Gun homicides are up an astounding 50%.  And the national media doesn't report any of this strictly for political reasons.

Maybe they should pass more gun control laws!
Bloody Fourth of July:  16 shot in 10 incidents across New York City.  Sixteen people were shot in 10 separate incidents — seven of which happened in Brooklyn — in a bloody Fourth of July night across the city.  All of the victims are in non-life-threatening condition, cops said.

Man, those guns are mean!
Chicago struck by spike in deadly gun violence.  The city of Chicago is dealing with a major spike in gun violence.  Ten people were shot overnight Friday [7/1/2016].  Last month, 72 people were shot to death.  There have already been 350 homicides in Chicago this year, outpacing the total for the same period in 2015.  The city may even surpass 600 murders for the first time in more than a decade.

New law makes gun-free businesses susceptible to lawsuits.  A new law concerning liability for gun-free businesses has gone into effect.  It's been amended from the original version.  SB 1746 originally stated that gun-free businesses could be held liable if a person with a permit is harmed while inside their business.  That person would have to make a case that the incident may have not been as severe if they had a gun to protect themselves.

Chicago Records 306 Homicides This Year, With 13 Deaths Over the Father's Day Weekend.  On Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune reported on a grim statistic following the weekend celebration of Father's Day — 306 homicides this year in the city, including 55 people shot — 13 fatally — from Friday afternoon through early Monday morning [6/20/2016].  "So far this year, close to 1,800 people have been shot across the city and more than 200 of those wounded have died from their wounds, according to records kept by the Chicago Tribune," the paper reported on its website on Tuesday.  "A total of 306 people have been killed this year, by shooting, stabbing or other means."

The Illogical As The Most Logical.  Those wounded and murdered in the Orlando nightclub were unarmed.  Had they been armed, one of them might have been able to stop the attack before significant loss of life.  Had all of them been armed, there may not have been an attack at all, because shooters like Omar are looking for just such places where weapons are not going to be brought to bear to stop them.  That is the common denominator to all of these mass shootings, it always takes place where guns are prohibited, yet it is the possession of such arms that is always called into question when such an attack takes place.  This is a classic example of the illogical being passed off as the most logical.

Vox Quietly Reveals:  Democrat-Run Blue States Have About 50% More Mass Shootings Than Red States.  And what are Democrat-run states?  They're the ones with the most gun restrictions.

Progressive Outlet Accidentally Proves Blue States Have 42 Percent More Mass Shootings.  Blue states have 42 percent more mass shootings than red states after adjusting for population, according to data published by Vox, a progressive media outlet, and examined by The Daily Caller News Foundation.  Vox published its data after the Orlando terror attack last Sunday, and it suggests that blue states, which tend to have extremely strict gun laws, are ironically much more likely to have mass shootings than red states with less strict gun laws.

56 Shot, 13 Killed During Father's Day Weekend in Chicago.  Another holiday brought another slaughter of innocents in heavily gun-controlled Chicago.  Fifty-six people were shot during Father's Day weekend, and 13 of those shooting victims died.  According to the Chicago Tribune, "The city recorded its 300th homicide this weekend and went on to record six others over a 60-hour period that saw 56 people shot, 13 fatally, from Friday afternoon through early Monday morning."  From Friday into Saturday alone, five people were killed and another nine were wounded.

The Audacity of Dopes.  The president insisted on Tuesday [6/14/2016] that "across our government at every level — federal, state and local, military and civilian — we are doing everything in our power to stop these kinds of attacks," noting that "these lone actors or small cells of terrorists are very hard to detect and very hard to prevent."  But Americans repeatedly saw something and said something.  The government did next to nothing.  A gun store worker suspicious of Mateen's request for body armor and ammunition contacted the FBI weeks ago.  Co-workers freaked out by boasts of his connections to terrorists contacted the FBI.  Public school classmates shocked by the 9/11 attacks became doubly shocked at Mateen's boisterous in-class cheers during the event's live broadcast.  Not only did the government not stop him, the government gave him a job, and not only did they give him a job but they gave him a job with a badge and later let him guard a courthouse with a gun.

10 Cases Proving Trump Right:  Armed Citizens Could've Stopped Terrorist.  Because for some reason the legacy media, liberals and President Obama want you to think you are the problem, and you being able to protect yourself is the problem, the media is offering up a shocked response to Trump's comment that if any of the Orlando Pulse club goers had been armed, they would have been able to take down the terrorist.  Yes, that would have been a good thing, and many gays and lesbians seem to think so too, as the Pink Pistols, an LGBT gun owners club is finding out.  Their membership soared after the Orlando terror attack.

Why the Orlando Victims were Defenseless.  In a stunning example of both cluelessness and callousness, President Obama arrived in Orlando to tell the families of the dead and wounded that self-defense was not an option for their loved ones.  The Islamist terrorist killer, Omar Mateen had time to methodically search for victims, stream his atrocity on Facebook, and make 16 phone calls.  It was time enough, including between reloads, for someone with a Glock to blow his head off.  Yet President Obama wants only predators to have guns.

Gun laws don't deter terrorists.  Radical Islamic terrorists are not deterred by gun control laws.  The San Bernardino terrorist attack wasn't stopped by California's so-called "assault weapons" ban.  The gun ban in Brussels didn't prevent the terrorist attack there.  And France's strict gun control didn't stop the two attacks in Paris, committed with fully-automatic rifles and grenades.

Who to Scapegoat?  Guns or Muslims?  Democrats go after gun owners the way Trump targets Muslims.  Clinton pronounced Monday [6/13/2016] as "not a day for politics."  Then she called for a ban on "assault weapons."  The Orlando shooter did use an AR-15 rifle, but, as gun owners have convinced me, a ban on one weapon only steers gun aficionados to weapons with similar firepower.  Calls for such bans do not hinder criminals and do radicalize resourceful gun enthusiasts.  Congratulations go to Clinton.  She just sold thousands of AR-15s.  Clinton made another suggestion:  "If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked."  Problem:  Such a law would not have prevented the Orlando shooter from purchasing guns.

A Weekend in Chicago:  Where Gunfire Is a Terrifying Norm.  From Friday evening to the end of Monday, 64 people will have been shot in this city of 2.7 million, six of them fatally.  In a population made up of nearly equal numbers of whites, blacks and Hispanics, 52 of the shooting victims are black, 11 Hispanic and one white.  Eight are women, the rest men.  Some 12 people are shot in cars, 11 along city sidewalks, and at least four on home porches.  It is a level of violence that has become the terrifying norm, particularly in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.  With far fewer residents, Chicago has more homicides than Los Angeles or New York.

8 Killed, 36 Injured in Weekend of Gun Violence in Chicago Overshadowed by Orlando Shooting.  At least 8 people were killed and 36 others were wounded in a string of shootings across Chicago over the weekend, police told ABC News today [6/13/2016].  The violence erupted between 8 p.m.  Friday and 6 a.m.  Monday.  Among those shot was a 5-year-old girl, a Chicago Police Department spokesperson said.

What Law — Specifically — Would Have Prevented Yesterday's UCLA Shooting?  Yesterday, at UCLA, a Ph.D. student shot his professor dead.  Not too long afterwards, he turned the gun on himself.  As soon as the story hit the news, the usual suspects began cranking themselves up.  Americans, they said, need to "do something."  It was time, they argued, for "more laws."  And the NRA? It was, of course, to blame.  Forgive me for being a broken record, but I have some questions in response to these reactions:  Namely, "what something?"; "which laws?"; and "what, specifically, did the NRA do wrong here?" Rolled into one, these congeal into a single, simple inquiry:  "What law — specifically — would have prevented yesterday's shooting?"

Chicago Sets Grisly Record with Memorial Day Weekend Violence.  There were so many shootings in Chicago over Memorial Day Weekend that the media tracking the violence had a hard time keeping up.  When the final tally was published by the Chicago Tribune, the grisly totals were 69 people shot, with six of them dying from their wounds.  This reflects a 50-percent increase in shootings this year compared to last year and is being blamed, predictably, on "proliferation of guns" and "gang conflicts" by the Chicago Police Department. [...] So far this year, Chicagoans have suffered at least 250 homicides (compared to 167 a year ago at this time) and 1,500 shootings.  At that rate, those numbers will easily eclipse the numbers from last year, estimated to reach 3,000 shootings and 500 deaths.

Chicago's Invisible Shooters Wreak Havoc.  Abe Simmons sat down on a bus bench at the corner of Chicago and Leclaire late Saturday, watching as police worked one of dozens of shooting scenes that played out across the city over the holiday weekend.  Chicago's ghost shooters — charged in only 26 percent of the city's homicides last year — wreaked havoc on summer's unofficial kickoff weekend, a three day period that saw at least 36 shot and four killed by Sunday morning [5/29/2016], according to the Chicago Tribune.  There have been more than 1,400 shootings and nearly 300 homicides in 2016 so far.

Chicago: 8 dead, 41 wounded in Mother's Day weekend shootings.  Eight people — including a 16-year-old boy — were killed and at least 39 other people were wounded in shootings across Chicago over Mother's Day weekend.

If Gun Control Works in Europe, Where Do Terrorists Get their Weapons?  Earlier this year, I argued that it was unfair and immoral to deny European Jews from being able to protect themselves with firearms.  They get targeted by terrorists and other thugs who can strike at any time, often with suicidal intent, and even the most effective law enforcement can't be in all places at all times. [...] Bad guys obviously aren't concerned about obeying laws, so gun control simply makes it difficult for honest people to possess firearms.  But terrorists get the weapons they want.  That's true in France.  It was true in the United Kingdom when the IRA was active.  And it was true when the Black September terrorists attacked during the Munich Olympics in 1972.  But what about the argument that more guns mean more violence?

Student Gunned Down During Robbery Near "Gun Free" Campus In New Jersey.  [Joseph] Micalizzi is the second college student shot to death in less than a month in Newark.  Shani Patel was killed in an off-campus apartment in early April.  The ownership of firearms for self-defense is perversely over-regulated in New Jersey, and concealed carry is almost non-existent, and it's fair to say that the men who robbed and murdered Micazelli had every reason to feel confident that he would be an unarmed victim.

Police Admit Gun Buyback Doesn't Bring in the "Ones Causing Problems".  Leave it to Chicago to throw good money at bad ideas in an attempt to end their city's violent gun crime.  But rather than going after criminals committing gun crimes, they're appealing to citizens to turn in their unused and wanted firearms.  More than 250 guns were turned into Chicago police at St.  Sabina Church on Saturday.  Police say the gun buyback may have taken hundreds of guns off the streets, but admit they "aren't the ones causing problems."

You know the case for background checks is weak if...  [Scroll down]  A lot of people like to point to the UK's lower homicide rate and fewer guns and attribute this to strict gun control laws.  Many cite this as proof that gun control reduces homicides.  But there is a problem.  The UK had an even lower homicide rate before the country banned handguns.  After the ban, homicide rates rose by 50 percent over for the next 8 years.  The point is that homicide or suicide rates can differ for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with gun control, and that simply looking across countries or states is often quite misleading.  The most accurate option is to see how a place's crime rates change after new laws go into effect and then compare that change with the changes that occurred in places where the laws didn't change.

Muslim Immigrants Turn Germany Into an Active War-Zone (Video).  Firearms are not permitted in Germany, although, as you will see for yourself... these laws do not apply to the criminal element. [Video clip]

Chicago's Homicide Rate Has Exploded This Year.  Chicago's homicide numbers this year are the worst they has been since the 1990's.  Data recorded by the Chicago Police Department and The Chicago Tribune show that there have been at least 102 homicides this year, 95 of them murders.  The incredible murder rate is the highest for this time of year in Chicago since 1997.  This time in 2015, there had only been 52 homicides, almost half the current total.

The Left's Problem with Nature and Logic.  [Scroll down]  With the exception of the shooting of Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Ariz. in 2011, "every public shooting since at least since 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns."  And still, the zealots on the left continue to offer the same, tired bromides — that we must create more, not fewer, gunfree zones to stop mass shootings.

Homicides in Chicago this year double same period last year.  Four homicides over the weekend and two more Monday morning [2/22/2016] pushed Chicago's homicide count so far this year to double the same period last year.  The city has recorded at least 95 homicides since the first of the year, compared to 47 last year, according to data kept by the [Chicago] Tribune.  The city has also more than doubled the amount of people shot — about 420 this year compared to 193 last year.

ISIS Affiliate Targeted Gun-Free Zone.  NRA has been criticized by our opponents for contending that those seeking to wreak mass violence on innocents choose their targets based on the likelihood that they will meet armed resistance, and that armed citizens could assist in halting this type of violent attack.  As part of their efforts, gun control activists and their allies in the media have frequently lampooned NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre's astute remarks that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."  The bankruptcy of this anti-gun position was exposed late last week when details from an FBI terrorism investigation revealed that an alleged ISIS supporter chose the target for a planned terrorist attack because it was a gun-free zone.

Mass Shooters Prefer Gun-Free Zones.  An analysis of mass shootings in the United States since the year 2002 shows that gun wielding mass killers are more likely to strike where the Second Amendment right to bear arms has been supplanted by "gun-free zone" ordinances; be they federal, local, or specified by the owner of the property.  The Stanford University Libraries' dataset of mass shootings ("Stanford Mass Shootings in America, courtesy of the Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries") was analyzed for mass shootings over the past 14 years.

Arm Parisians Instead.  Since March 2012 there have been 7 terrorist attacks in France involving illegal guns plus 8 more attacks using knives and guns, killing a total of 162 people and injuring 414.  As Adam Taylor writing for the Washington Post noted a day after the recent Paris massacres, France has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe, yet "(d)espite these strict laws, France is awash in guns." [...] Every gun control advocate bears within him or her three competing yet irreconcilable facts:  Government prohibition is no guarantee of elimination — as verified by the presence of prostitutes and heroin in society.  All citizens do not follow the law.  The police/military cannot be everywhere in a free society.  As a result of these facts people who follow the law and are made defenseless by the Law end up shot point blank at a rock concert in Paris where the attackers know they won't face resistance.

This is why progressives never stop trying to destroy the Second Amendment.  The recent massacres in Oregon and California bring home again the realization that misused power yields tragic results. [...] The result, in those cases, was the ability of the perpetrators to be reasonably sure they would be operating in a so-called gun free zone.  Here in the United States over the last two decades, politicians have misused their legislative power to carve out these gun free zones.  They have used their power to say to the good citizens of their communities, "You can't bring your firearm here," and good citizens either stay away, or when they enter these criminal empowerment zones they are required by law to leave their guns behind.

Chiraq man murdered despite being on school Safe Passage route.  With great fanfare last fall Chicago Public Schools rolled out Safe Passage route so students could walk to school with adult monitors without being worried about gang violence.  Someone on the on the West Side didn't heed the bright yellow signs this morning [1/4/2015].

Expanded background checks wouldn't have stopped recent gunmen, study finds.  Expanding gun background checks to include all sales — the crux of President Obama's new executive gun control push — would not have stopped the firearms from reaching the hands of recent mass shooters, according to studies and experts who have looked at the issue.  From the 2012 Newtown school shooting that reignited the gun debate to last month's terrorist shooting in California, the firearms used were purchased from licensed dealers by individuals who all passed background checks.

The 15 Best Quotes From CPAC 2015.  [#2] "If gun free zones save lives, why doesn't Obama just declare Iraq, Syria & Afghanistan one big gun free zone?" — Wayne LaPierre

'Common-sense' gun safety is a scam.  Two days after the massacre in San Bernardino, Marco Rubio said something that most gun-control supporters probably thought was outrageous.  The Florida senator, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, told CBS News "none of the major shootings that have occurred in this country over the last few months or years" would have been prevented by the gun laws proposed in response to them.  Last week, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, asked to investigate Rubio's statement by a colleague who thought "it was almost certainly incorrect," discovered that Rubio was right.  The implication, which Kessler was too polite to spell out, is that activists and politicians who push legislative responses to mass shootings are either fooling themselves or trying to fool us.  The latter seems more likely.

San Bernardino was Garland Without Guns.  The similarities between the jihad attack on our American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) free speech event last May in Garland, Texas and the San Bernardino jihad slaughter are both striking and unnerving.  Both events — our Muhammad Cartoon Contest and the San Bernardino Christmas party — offended Muslims.  Both events violated the sharia:  one was an art exhibit with depictions of Muhammad in art and literature over the past 1400 years, and the other celebrated a Christian holiday.  Both deeply offensive to Muslims.

Here Are All The Gun Laws That Didn't Stop The San Bernardino Shooters.  As the left continues to move in lockstep in their calls for more gun control in the wake of the San Bernardino attack, it's important to note that there were already multiple gun laws in place in the state that failed to stop the shooters.  Here's the list. [...]

End the Islamist Epidemic in America.  All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California.  Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murders might have been prevented through improved gun laws.  That is right and proper.  But new gun legislation does not matter to the dead in California, nor did it in Chattanooga, Boston, Garland, Fort Hood, New York City and far too many other places. [...]

Gun Violence Erupts in a State of Gun Control.  There are two kinds of Americans.  One sees a mass shooting — such as the recent killings in San Bernardino, California, and Colorado Springs, Colorado — and automatically thinks other people should not be able to buy or own guns or own some kinds of guns.  The other learns of a mass shooting and takes comfort in the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

California's strict gun laws failed to stop mass shooting.  The deadly shooting in San Bernardino happened in a state with some of the nation's toughest gun laws:  California bars assault weapons, blocks the sale of large-capacity magazines and requires universal background checks for all gun purchases.

Guns: Time to Call the Liberal Bluff?  Last week the left attacked Republican leaders who stayed silent about the shooting at the Planned Parenthood abattoir in Colorado Springs, but yesterday, as Scott notes below, the left attacked Republicans who expressed condolences and prayers for the victims of the San Bernardino shooting.  But the indecency of the left is only exceeded by their hypocrisy and insincerity.  Hillary called for "action" on guns in her tweet yesterday.  Okay:  what action?  Has she proposed "action" that would have prevented yesterday's shooting?  California already has in place all of the "background check" laws and bans on "assault weapons" that Hillary called for last week.  This is all posing and posturing, but sufficient for leftists to get through another day with their presumed moral superiority intact.

California Already Has Obama's Fantasy Gun Control Utopia.  For months and repeatedly after national atrocities involving the use of a firearm to kill innocent people, President Obama has called for "common-sense" gun control measures.  His White House has repeatedly put out the talking point that universal background checks are necessary to prevent future violence.  The terror attack in San Bernardino is no different.  Hours before we even knew who the suspects were, President Obama called for new gun control measures.

2703 Shootings, 440 Deaths Year-To-Date In Heavily Gun-Controlled Chicago.  As of November 23, there had been 2703 shootings which resulted in 440 deaths year-to date in heavily gun-controlled Chicago. [...] It is interesting to note that regardless of the failure of the "violence tax," the Seattle City Council adopted a similar tax on August 10.  As with Chicago, gun crime in Democrat-run Seattle is raging.

DC Police Chief who approves almost no concealed carry permits wants armed citizens to take action.  Washington D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier was on 60 Minutes this week talking about mass shootings, law enforcement response times and the duties or abilities of citizens in such scenarios.  One of her comments caught a lot of attention from those familiar with her official office policies.

North Carolina voluntary gun surrender event produces big results.  A staple among the more "reasonable" gun control advocates in America is the voluntary gun turn-in or buy-back program. [...] A staple among the more "reasonable" gun control advocates in America is the voluntary gun turn-in or buy-back program.  And while some offers of this type promise cash or gift certificates in exchange for the surrendered firearms, this one was based on nothing more than the good will of the people.  No money was offered and participants were given the chance to sign a "pledge of non-violence" for the future.  So how did that turn out?  If you read the coverage from this Time Warner Cable News Network report it was a smashing success.

Self-Defenseless.  What might have happened if a few of the 1,500 concert attendees in Paris' Bataclan theater had guns?  The terrorists had time to kill, reload and kill again.  The police unit didn't come for more than a half hour.  If a few people in the theater were armed, might they have killed the killers?

Paris attacks highlight France's gun control problems.  The arsenal of weapons deployed by the eight attackers who terrorised Paris on Friday night underlined France's gun control problems and raised the spectre of further attacks.  The country has extremely strict weapons laws, but Europe's open borders and growing trade in illegal weapons means assault rifles are relatively easy to come by on the black market.  They feature regularly in gang warfare and were used by both the Charlie Hebdo killers and an extremist who targeted a Jewish school and paratroopers in 2012 shootings around Toulouse in the south of the country.

Why Only Fools Listen to Obama.  If only France had rigid gun control, yesterday's bloodbath in Paris could have been avoided.  Oh wait, France is run by moonbats and does have rigid gun control.  That's why no one was in a position to fight back against the Muslims.

The Evil of Gun-free Zones.  One thing worse than supporting bad policy is knowingly supporting bad policy.  Worse still is knowingly supporting bad policy and shielding yourself from its destructive effects — while visiting that policy on children.  There has been much debate recently surrounding so-called "gun-free zones," places such as schools, where law-abiding people won't carry guns.  But really, there should be no debate.  This is because it's plain that even the zones' defenders — liberals — don't really believe they're a good idea.

Donald Trump to packed house in Knoxville: 'Guns could have prevented Paris attacks'.  Trump's early comments were against President Obama's release of five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay last week and that Friday's attacks in Paris could have been prevented if citizens had guns.  "If you had 25 people in there that had guns, it would have been a totally different story.  It would have been the Shootout at the OK Corral, and there would have been death, but it could have been their death," Trump said.

Donald Trump says tough gun control laws in Paris contributed to tragedy.  Donald Trump says the tough gun control laws in Paris contributed to the high death toll during a series of terrorist attacks on Friday.  The attacks, he added, also reveal the danger in allowing Syrian refugees into the country.  "You can say what you want, but if they had guns — if our people had guns, if they were allowed to carry — it would have been a much, much different situation," Trump said to cheers during a political rally at an arena in southeast Texas on Saturday afternoon [11/14/2015].

Maryland scraps gun "fingerprint" database after 15 failed years.  Millions of dollars later, Maryland has officially decided that its 15-year effort to store and catalog the "fingerprints" of thousands of handguns was a failure.  Since 2000, the state required that gun manufacturers fire every handgun to be sold here and send the spent bullet casing to authorities.  The idea was to build a database of "ballistic fingerprints" to help solve future crimes.  But the system — plagued by technological problems — never solved a single case.  Now the hundreds of thousands of accumulated casings could be sold for scrap.

Moms unite against gun-free zones.  Yes, by all means, we need to discuss the current lack of adequate treatments for mental health.  There are obviously major issues that need to be addressed in that area of health care.  But until that complicated subject is honestly addressed and corrected, there is one sure-fire, no-fail way to keep our kids safe:  No Gun-Free Zones.  Looking at every mass shooting on record, since 2009, one thing is clear:  Gun-free zones don't protect, they endanger.  The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) released a report in 2014 showing that 92 percent of mass public shootings between January 2009 and July 2014 took place in gun-free zones.

Study: Psychiatric Drugs Linked to Violent Crime.  The gun control crowd makes a point of the fact that there are an estimated 300 million guns in the United States and claims that the increase in guns is responsible for the increase in mass killings.  This, of course, ignores the fact that most — in fact the vast majority — of those guns are never used in a crime.  It also ignores the fact that the vast majority of mass killings take place in "Gun-Free" areas such as schools, malls, theaters, and churches, where law-abiding, peace-loving, citizens are compelled to disarm, preventing many of them from stopping more of these killings.  To continue this mantra, the gun control crowd will now also have to ignore the data on the effects of psychiatric drugs related to violent crime.

Washington Post: "Democratic Candidates Vowed To Toughen Restrictions On Gun Owners".  Democrats want to toughen control on all gun owners, something we've known for years, but never ends up in print.  Virtually every piece of legislation Democrats push and every talking point that passes their lips is about restricting the law abiding gun owners, rather than going after the criminals.  How has gun control worked in Democratic Party cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Camden, and Chicago, among others?

Since 2009, 92 Percent of Mass Shootings Have Occurred in Gun-Free Zones.  The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) recently released a report that indicates that since January of 2009 to July 2014 92% of all mass shootings in the US occurred in gun-free zones.  The CPRC report was released to combat the liars over at Everytown for Gun Safety, a Michael Bloomberg, communist gun grabbing organization.  According to Everytown, who pushed a gun safety study claiming that only 14% of mass shootings took place in gun-free zones, 86% of mass shootings have occurred in places where guns are allowed.  In its presentation, the CPRC report, put out by John R. Lott, Jr. and Rebekah C. Riley, claim, "Everytown's recent analysis of mass shootings is riddled with errors.

Gun Control Works: Chicago Has the Deadliest Murder Month in 13 Years.  This is why you can't fix gun violence as long as the Democratic Party is in power.  The Democratic Party isn't just a pro-crime party, it's a party of criminals.  It's their own political foot soldiers who are doing the killing.

Australia's 1996 Gun Confiscation Didn't Work — And it Wouldn't Work in America.  [Scroll down]  "Australia" is Obama's preferred euphemism for that most cherished of gun-control ideals:  mass confiscation of the citizenry's weapons. [...] But the Australian 1996 National Agreement on Firearms was not a benign set of commonsense gun-control rules:  It was a gun-confiscation program rushed through the Australian parliament just twelve days after a 28-year-old man killed 35 people with a semi-automatic rifle in the Tasmanian city of Port Arthur.

Dear 'Gun Free Zone' Campus Wizards: Nine Kids Died Because Of Your Stupid Policy.  I know this will be too difficult for your typical abecedarian leftist to grasp but ... If there had been a good guy with a gun on campus, who was trained, licensed and allowed to carry, he could have sent that murderous spawn of Satan to an early hell where he could slow roast for all eternity.  Boom.  Problem solved.  Unfortunately, there was no concealed weapon in the possession of a concerned citizen to stop this demonic dipstick because guns are disallowed on that campus.

Today's Soft-On-Crime, Anti-Cop, Democratic Party.  [Scroll down]  Fact is, over the last year, ten large U.S. cities have experienced a sobering rise in murder rates.  To no surprise, all but one are run by Democrat mayors.  Milwaukee saw a 76-percent increase in murder rates.  St. Louis followed with 60-percent, Baltimore, 56 percent, Washington, 44 percent, New Orleans, 22 percent, Chicago, 20 percent, Kansas City, 20 percent, Dallas, 17 percent, New York, 9 percent, and Philadelphia 4 percent.  Chicago's had at least 2,300 shootings this year with more than 50 on the September 26 weekend and at least 45 the weekend prior.

Jihadist Shooter Kills Two in "Gun-Free" Australia.  After the shooting in Oregon this weekend, an angry Obama took to the airwaves and insisted that he would openly politicize gun control.  The president cited Australia, a country with extremely strict gun control as a model.  Would you believe bad guys can get guns even there? [...] At the time of this writing, none of the major news outlets have posted anything about this on their official YouTube channels.

Oregon state had recently tightened gun laws.  Oregon, the location of the latest deadly US mass shooting, had recently strengthened its gun sale laws, like many Democrat-leaning states frustrated over political inaction at the federal level.  The US state is above average in terms of gun regulation, according to Laura Cutilletta, a senior attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading advocacy group in California.  Local elected officials this year made universal background checks mandatory before the sale of any firearm in Oregon, one of 18 out of 50 states to do so.

First Report on Oregon Shooter's Guns: Legally Obtained.  President Obama swiftly reacted to yesterday's horrific mass murder in Oregon with a sad, frustrated certainty that (unnamed and undetailed) common sense gun safety laws could have prevented this, and could prevent future tragedies like this. [...] It bears, sadly, repeating that the enormous staggering overwhelming majority of gun owners never commit such crimes with them.

You and your party are responsible, Mr. President.  [Scroll down]  In his parting shot, President Obama promised us that each and every time there is a mass shooting, he will be there to remind us of his position.  His final words were correct.  President Obama will indeed remind us.  He will remind us that liberals, currently following his lead, own a big part of the responsibility for the high casualty count in these shootings.  He will remind us that "gun-free" zones ensure that murderers, whether psychopaths or Muslim extremists (I know, redundant), look for what is known as a "target-rich environment" upon which to inflict their horror.  He will remind us that gun-free zones provide just such environment.  He will remind us that federal and local laws preclude, under threat of felony incarceration, the ability of law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights to stop cold the second and/or subsequent shots of mass murderers, psychopaths, or jihadis returning from Syria.

14 shot in 15 hours in Chicago; Rahm says guns are the problem.  Welcome to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Wild, Wild West show in Chicago, where bullets fly thicker than fleas around a stray dog.  Yesterday [9/298/2015], the city saw a spasm of violence rare even for Chicago; 14 people were shot in 15 hours, including 6 dead.  As is his wont, Rahmbo blamed the "poor values" of gangbangers and wants tougher penalties for gun crimes.

Chicago's Problem With Gun Violence.  The city has endured 2,300 shootings so far this year — an average of more than eight per day and 400 more shootings than at this point last year.  And, America's third-largest city continues to contend with a 21 percent increase in homicides.

Shocking study: criminals generally don't buy guns legally at gun shops.  Every time there is a mass shooting or any other criminal event involving guns there is a chorus of voices imploring us to think about the children and pass new background check laws or other restrictions on the purchase of firearms.  It's a touching story and one which gets the media all up in high dudgeon as they beseech us to help stop the violence.  So how much of an impact will these laws have in terms of keeping the guns out of the hands of the bad guys?

Study Learns Chicago Criminals Don't Buy Their Guns Legally.  The study examined and interviewed inmates in Chicago's Cook County Jail who are either facing current gun charges, or have a background consisting of firearms related convictions.  The study learned that virtually zero criminals have ever used the internet or gun shows, because that method is easily traceable.  It's much safer for a criminal to acquire firearms on the streets where they're harder to keep track of, and that's most criminals method of choice.

Mental Health and the 2nd Amendment.  Despite the undeniable mental issues affecting black, gay Democrat Vester Flanagan, who was not sporting a Confederate flag before he shot and killed his two former KDBJ coworkers, reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward, the fact is that he passed a background check and legally possessed the Glock handgun he used.  As much as we all want to prevent the mentally unstable from possessing firearms, the fact is that there was nothing in Flanagan's background to prevent him from legally owning a firearm.

ATF Confirms Virginia Gunman Vester Flanagan Bought His Firearm 'Legally'.  On August 26 Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) spokesman Thomas Faison confirmed that Virginia gunman Vester Lee Flanagan bought his gun "weeks ago" and that "he apparently passed a background check" to get the gun.  The gun was a Glock 19 9mm.  According to ABC News, Faison said Flanagan bough the gun "legally."  And BuzzFeed reports that Faison said the ATF had recovered the weapon today [8/26/2015].

More about Vester Lee Flanagan II a/k/a Bryce Williams.

Uniformed Officer Booted From Chuck E Cheese Over Duty Handgun.  The comments to the article seem split between being outraged that the store's on-duty staff and manager were ignorant of both state law and the chain's own policies, and regular folks who are outraged that the chain bans citizens from providing for their own self-defense.  Chuck E Cheese locations have been the scene of everything from attempted assassinations to assaults to a mass murder, attempted rapes, and massive brawls.  Clearly, the chain's policy of denying citizens the right to self-defense inside their establishments isn't working.

Kentucky Chuck E. Cheese refuses to serve police officer with firearm.  A Kentucky Chuck E. Cheese appears to have taken the kid-friendly chain's "no guns" policy too far, refusing to serve a police officer who entered the restaurant with a firearm.  The gun-toting officer encountered the problem at the Chuck E. Cheese in the Greenwood Mall in the city of Bowling Green, prompting outrage from some people, including a sheriff from a neighboring jurisdiction, WBKO-TV reported Friday [8/21/2015].

Study Claims Private Gun Ownership Endangers Police.  [W]hile suggesting states with high gun ownership are more dangerous for cops, the [American Journal of Public Health] did not differentiate between those who killed officers with guns that were legally obtained versus those who shot officers with guns that were stolen or otherwise obtained.  For example, when Officers Benjamin J. Deen and Liquori Tate were shot and killed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on May 9, 2015, two of the suspected gunmen were felons — completely barred from gun possession.  They faced 100 percent gun control.  Nonetheless, they figured out a way to obtain guns.

Members of the Military Have a Right to Effective Self-Defense.  Since 2008, at least 34 service-members and civilians have died in multiple-casualty shootings at military facilities.  Dozens more have been injured. Fort Hood, Little Rock, the Washington Navy Yard, Fort Hood again, and Chattanooga — the names are sadly familiar, with at least three attackers apparently sharing jihadist motivations.  Reading the accounts of these attacks, they tend to share the same, terrible storylines.  In each case there's a deadly lag between the time of the attack and the first police response; in each case trained (but unarmed) warriors either desperately try to scramble to safety or throw themselves at attackers in suicidal, hopeless charges.  In only one instance — at Chattanooga — is there evidence that a service-member fired shots in self-defense, and in that case he may have actually defied Department of Defense directives to attempt to save his own life and the lives of others.

Gun-free zones are killing us .  Hours before the latest shooting at a movie theater in Louisiana, President Obama lamented what he regards as his greatest failure as president — his inability to pass gun control measures.  In an interview with the BBC, he complained that we are "the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common sense gun safety laws." [...] Obama offers no explanation for why the worst mass shooting during his presidency occurred in Europe, not in the US.  Nor did he explain why many European countries have a higher frequency of attacks and a higher death rate from mass public shootings.  Not once during his interview with the BBC does he explain how his gun control proposals would have stopped any of the attacks he has spoken so passionately about.

Surprise! There's Been Another Mass Shooting In A Gun-Free Zone.  A mentally ill gunman killed two and injured at least seven more people before taking his own life at a crowded movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, late Thursday night [7/23/2015].  As seems to always happen within minutes of these types of shootings being reported, the gun control crowd immediately moved to politicize the incident: [...]

Even Barney Fife had one bullet.
The Few, the Proud, the Unarmed.  Ever get the feeling that you went to sleep one night and awakened to find somebody stole your country and replaced it with an insane asylum?  We trust our warriors with weapons in foreign countries but not on their home turf?  This is what's flying over the D.C. cuckoo's nest.  Imagine that you're being held hostage by the "Death to America" Islamic Republic of Iran.  Your president negotiates a nuclear "agreement" with the regime, but he's too needy and impotent to secure your release as part of the agreement.  Is there any message that would bring more joy to your heart than:  "The Marines have landed?"  They'd be packing heat, unlike the unarmed victims at Chattanooga, Fort Hood, the DC Navy Yard, and Little Rock — United States of America.

Gun Control: The Killer's Best Friend.  Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez is suspected of murdering four unarmed Marines in Chattanooga and wounding others.  As I write this, we still don't know how Abdulazeez obtained his gun or what his motivations were — though, we can take an educated guess on the latter.  What we do know is that Abdulazeez shot his victims in a "gun-free zone," which is a useful illustration of the absurdity of gun-control laws:  we constrain conscientious Americans but offer free rein to killers.  In this case, even our best trained warriors were helpless.

Guns Don't Kill People: Gun-Free Zones Kill People.  Those signs at the Naval reserve center and the armed forces recruitment station are the greatest outrage of the Chattanooga jihad story.  Or rather, they should be, but — given the universal government and media devotion to "gun-free zones" — they won't receive enough attention to dial up public opinion to the point of outrage.

'Gun Free Zone' Sign Spotted At Chattanooga Shooting Site.
Looks like this "gun free zone" sign didn't work all that well.

The unbelievable reasons why the Pentagon wants soldiers disarmed on bases.  Last year, radical Muslim Nidal Hasan murdered 13 unarmed American soldiers and wounded 30 others.  Thank you, George H.W. Bush!  Yesterday, radical Muslim Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez murdered four unarmed American soldiers.  Thank you, George H.W. Bush!  Yes, it [is] former President Bush whom we must thank for this, for it was he who put into place a regulation stating that American soldiers off the frontlines, for the most part, must be unarmed.  (Clinton perpetuated it, but Bush started it.)  That makes them sitting ducks for a single radical Muslim with a gun, who can casually go and shoot one soldier at a time, knowing they can't fire back.

Gun free zones are really just sitting duck zones for radical Islamists.  Why do we trust American soldiers with tanks, trucks, bullets, and bombs on the battlefield, but when these same soldiers are home on a military base, sidearms are just 'too dangerous'?  Why have we allowed liberals to transform American military bases into 'gun-free zones,' or as I call them, 'sitting-duck zones'?  American soldiers are the most highly-trained people in our country to handle firearms, and it's ridiculous to make them 'check their weapons at the door'.

Juan Williams: 'I Am Baffled' By Push To Arm Marines In Recruiting Centers.  On July 17 — the day after Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez allegedly opened fire on a recruiting center and then a reserve center, gunning down four US Marines — Fox News' Juan Williams said he is "baffled" by the push to end gun free zones in military recruiting centers.  He said the center which was targeted is in a "strip mall" and that changing the gun-free policy would mean people would be walking around with guns, which could lead to "workplace violence."  He also suggested it could create a situation where a simple "dispute in the parking lot" could escalate into armed confrontation.

The Editor says...
Obviously Juan Williams is completely terrified of guns, has no experience with guns, and doesn't understand what it's like to live in a peaceful city.  His assumption that guns naturally lead to "workplace violence" indicates that he doesn't know much about self-control.  Why don't karate experts beat up their neighbors and co-workers when disputes arise?  Because they exhibit self-control.  Similarly, people who carry concealed weapons know that the consequences of their actions can be permanent, which makes it especially important to refrain from action unless it's unavoidable.  In the Chattanooga case, there was indeed "workplace violence," from which the Marines were unable to defend themselves.

Abbott orders Texas National Guard to carry guns at military facilities.  Gov. Greg Abbott says he is reluctantly asking Texas Military Forces to arm soldiers at their home bases after Thursday's attacks at military sites in Tennessee that killed four Marines and one sailor.  Abbott said in a release Saturday [7/18/2015] that he will authorize Adjutant General John Nichols of the Texas National Guard to arm National Guard personnel at military facilities across Texas.  Abbott's move followed shootings on two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Gun Control: The Killer's Best Friend.  Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez is suspected of murdering four unarmed Marines in Chattanooga and wounding others.  As I write this, we still don't know how Abdulazeez obtained his gun or what his motivations were — though, we can take an educated guess on the latter.  What we do know is that Abdulazeez shot his victims in a "gun-free zone," which is a useful illustration of the absurdity of gun-control laws:  we constrain conscientious Americans but offer free rein to killers.  In this case, even our best trained warriors were helpless.  Surely, we are in for a new round of emotional pleas for more gun-control laws.

Chattanooga shooting proves it's time to arm our Armed Forces.  It turns out that at least one of the two military facilities attacked in Chattanooga, Tennessee — was a gun-free zone.  If you looked closely crime scene photographs[,] you can see the sign[,] plastered on the front of a bullet-riddled window.  Four Marines were slaughtered — a fifth wounded — along with a Chattanooga police officer.  Authorities say the gunman, identified as 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, was killed in a shoot-out.

Why should we make it easy for killers to attack our military?  Thursday [7/16/2015] saw yet another tragic attack in a gun-free zone.  Four Marines were murdered.  Others were injured.  Watching the coverage on television Thursday, it was hard to ignore the gun-free zone sign on the front door of the recruiting station.  It was surrounded by bullet holes.

FBI: Breakdown in background check system allowed Dylann Roof to buy gun.  Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people at a church in South Carolina three weeks ago, was able to purchase the gun used in the attack only because of lapses in the FBI's background-check system, FBI Director James B. Comey said Friday [7/10/2015]. [...] The breakdown was a result of errors not only by the FBI but also apparently by local law enforcement, and Comey said he has ordered a 30-day review to examine the procedures that led to the failure and to see if the process can be tightened.  The errors came to light as investigators examined a gun purchase Roof made two months before the shooting.

Background Check Flaw Let Dylann Roof Buy Gun, F.B.I. Says.  The man accused of killing nine people in a historically black church in South Carolina last month should not have been able to buy the gun he used in the attack, the F.B.I. said Friday [7/10/2015], in what was the latest acknowledgment of flaws in the national background check system.  A loophole in the system and an error by the F.B.I. allowed the man, Dylann Roof, to buy the .45-caliber handgun despite having previously admitted to drug possession, officials said.  Mr. Roof first tried to buy the gun on April 11, from a dealer in South Carolina.  The F.B.I., which conducts background checks for gun sales, did not give the dealer approval to proceed with the purchase because the bureau needed to do more investigating about Mr. Roof's s criminal history.

Donald Trump: Abolish Gun Free Zones On Military Bases.  Donald Trump says that if elected president, he will abolish the gun free zones currently imposed on U.S. troops by "[mandating] that soldiers remain armed and on alert at our military bases."  In an interview with Ammoland he said:  "President Clinton never should have passed a ban on soldiers being able to protect themselves on bases.  America's Armed Forces will be armed."

Chicago Has Had More Than 12,000 Shootings Since 2010.  When Marshall Hawkins walks around his neighborhood, he carefully picks a route based on the places where people haven't been shot.  "If there are flowers on the block, you can go there," the 38-year-old said.  "If there's been police tape or gunshots, you avoid it."

Chicago's Strict Gun Laws Show Promise, Only 64 People Shot Over July 4th Weekend.  The grand total has arrived.  The libtard response will no doubt be yet more gun control laws that won't work. [...] For the record, our guns did not get up of their own volition and shoot anyone all weekend.

Confederate Flag Kills Ten in Chicago... Oh, Wait!  If President Obama had a son, he might look like Amari Brown, the little boy killed by a bullet intended for his gang-banger father on the streets of President Obama's Chicago in yet another bloody Windy City weekend.  As the Chicago Tribune reported, over the Fourth of July weekend, Amari Brown was one of the ten that were killed among 55 that were shot, none attributed to Confederate flag loyalists.

82 shot, 15 dead in Chicago this weekend: where's Sharpton and Deray?  More than 80 people were shot, 15 of them fatally, across Chicago over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Friend Says Roof Settled for Church Because it was a Gun Free Zone.  Gun free zones are not safe, end of story.  Please pass this on to the gun control nut jobs out there.

Charleston Killer Chose Church As Target Because It Was a "Gun Free Zone".  A black friend of the mass murderer who attacked Emanuel AME Zion Church claims that the church was a secondary target, chosen because it did not have security. [...] 92-percent of mass killers intentionally chose so-called "gun free zones" where they thought they could kill a large number of people before being contested by armed guards, police, or concealed carriers.

So What Do Liberals Actually Want To Do About Guns?  Earlier this year, Dylann Roof was arrested and charged for felony possession of the prescription-only drug Suboxone.  His case is still pending.  Federal law prohibits people with pending felony charges from obtaining firearms.  Yet, here's how a glaringly misleading Washington Post headline characterizes this federal prohibition:  "The legal loophole that allowed Dylann Roof to get a gun."  The piece, you may not be surprised, doesn't offer a single "legal loophole" that allowed Dylann Roof to obtain a gun.  It only offers up examples of laws that Roof ignored.

Gun-free zones [are] an easy target for killers.  The horrible tragedy last night that left nine people dead at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., probably could have been avoided.  Like so many other attacks, the massacre took place in a gun-free zone, a place where the general public was banned from having guns.  The gun-free zone obviously didn't stop the killer from bringing a gun into the church.  Indeed, the circumstantial evidence is strong that these killers don't attack randomly; they keep picking the few gun-free zones to do virtually all their attacks. [...] Time after time, we see that these killers tell us they pick soft targets.  With just two exceptions, from at least 1950, all the mass public shootings have occurred in these gun-free zones.

Carol Bowne Needlessly Dead Thanks to New Jersey and Chris Christie's Unconstitutional Gun Laws.  Carol Bowne is dead.  The petite hairdresser was murdered by her ex-boyfriend[,] and by the state of New Jersey.  Bowne had received threats from her ex-boyfriend.  She did everything a law-abiding citizen could do in New Jersey.  She obtained a protective order.  She installed security cameras inside and outside her home.  Sadly, the restraining orders and cameras are only useful for collecting evidence and bringing charges against an assailant after she was attacked.  These measures didn't matter.

The Deadly Consequences of Draconian Gun Laws.  Carol Bowne is dead — murdered in cold blood on her own property by a violent criminal who would not be restrained by good intentions.  But there is no smoking gun, because she lived and died in New Jersey.  Bowne was a 39-year-old hairdresser from Berlin Township who had become increasingly nervous about her ex-boyfriend.  Convinced that he intended to do her physical harm, she took out a restraining order, had security cameras installed at her home, and purchased an alarm system.  She also hoped to buy a firearm for her defense.  On April 21 of this year, she began the glacial process of obtaining a New Jersey permit to purchase a gun.  She never heard back.  She never will.

New Jersey Woman Stabbed to Death by Ex While Waiting for Gun Permit.  A New Jersey woman was murdered by her ex-boyfriend on Wednesday [6/3/2015] as she waited for approval from the state to buy a handgun.  In addition to obtaining a restraining order against her ex, Michael Eitel, and installing security cameras in her home, Carol Bowne had applied for a permit to purchase a handgun on April 21.  Police told the (New Jersey) Courier-Post that she had inquired about the application as recently as Monday.  "We did not get the fingerprint information yet," Berlin Township Police Chief Leonard Check told the paper.  Unlike most states, New Jersey's restrictive gun laws require a permit to purchase a handgun.  The permit process can take several months to complete.

Phoenix protests Islamism.  [Scroll down]  Contrast this with leftist-run Maryland, which in the same extensive survey ranked nearly last — 44th out of 50 — in its Second Amendment support.  The reasons?  The Old Line State unconstitutionally burdens its citizens to obtain a license to own a gun, requires them to be registered in a government database, and makes obtaining a carry permit difficult to the point that they are rarely issued.  The Baltimore protests-turned-riots earlier this year showed some of the implications of these unconstitutional add-ons: shop owners couldn't defend themselves against the mobs, and peaceful protesters ended up at the mercy of the criminal gangs.

Gun Control Killed Ana Charle.  Don't count on the gun controllers to express any guilt over the death of Ana Charle, the director of a homeless shelter in the Bronx.  But the fact is that gun control is partly responsible for the death of the 42-year old woman.  Last month, a former resident of the shelter stalked and kidnapped Charle.  After the man forced her to undress in her car, she was able to escape and began running away naked.  Her abductor, also naked, began chasing after her and then shot her dead.  An autopsy is being performed to determine whether Charle was raped.  Of course, Charle was not armed.  New York City has strict gun-control laws.  If she had been armed, she would be subject to a felony conviction and a long term in jail.  There are not many people who want to take that kind of chance by illegally carrying a weapon.

Giffords' Husband Failed Same Background Checks Her Attacker Passed.  Breitbart News reported that Gabby Giffords renewed her push for background checks to require purchasers at gun shows to pass the same background check her attacker, Jared Loughner, passed.  Some media outlets and gun control advocated responded to the report by claiming Loughner's successful passage of a background check simply proves the background check system isn't sufficient.  But those making this argument miss a very important point:  Namely, that Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, was turned away twice on gun purchases in 2013 because of certain requirements and stipulations of the current background check system.

Comforting: Mall of America Protected from Jihadist Terror Attack by Sternly Worded Gun-Free Zone Signs.  England is notorious for the number of radicalized Muslim immigrants that are in the country, as is Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a large population of Somali Muslims has been imported and resettled by the American government.  Edmonton, Canada, also has a significant population of Somali Muslim immigrants from which jihadis are being recruited.

Thomas Massie: Gun-Free School Zones Make People Less Safe.  The aptly named Safe Schools Act repeals the unconstitutional "Safe and Gun-Free Schools Act," which, by ensuring that schools are "gun-free" zones, endangers schoolchildren.

Trump: Paris Proves 'When Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns'.  In the wake of the January 7 armed terrorist attack in Paris, real estate tycoon and social commentator Donald Trump said the attack proved the truth of the maxim, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."  Breitbart News previously reported that three men armed with AK-47s charged into Charlie Hebdo headquarters on January 7 and opened fire, killing 12 persons — including two police officers.  They wounded up to 11 more.

Eugene Robinson: France attack might have been worse here, because guns.  [I]n France, despite tight gun control, the terrorists had automatic weapons.

A D.C. Holiday: Shooting Spree, Slashing Rampage in the Land the 2nd Amendment Forgot.  Over the past week, D.C. has seen 15 people shot in at least a dozen different incidents.  More than half of them were killed.  All of this is actually really odd, considering that guns are outlawed here.  The only way to legally obtain a gun is to take courses that are not offered and submit to background checks that are not made.  Then you can purchase a gun from a licensed D.C. gun dealer that does not exist.  Then you have to go down to the police station to be fingerprinted like some kind of criminal.

Helter Skelter amid a perfect storm.  The bold execution of two uniformed officers sitting in a police car in broad daylight, in a city that has one of the most oppressive gun control laws in the nation, is destined to quickly become one of a series of seminal events in our nation's history.

NAACP: NY Cop Shootings "Show Need For Gun Control".  On December 20 the NAACP Legal Fund issued a press release saying the execution of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos show "the need for sensible gun control."  According to the release, we need also "need to thoughtfully address untreated mental illness."

The Editor says...
New York already has tough "gun control" laws, and they obviously aren't idiot-proof.

This is what happens in a city with the toughest gun-control laws in the country:
15 shot in NYC within 8 hours, 2 dead.  Fifteen people were shot in a rash of violence in New York City.  The violence left two people dead and 13 others injured within a span of just 8 hours.

Philadelphia Breach Raises Fresh Questions About Security in Federal Buildings.  A disgruntled ex-cop carrying a loaded gun bypassed metal detectors at a federal building in Philadelphia and entered the FBI's office there this week after flashing a fake police badge and his inactive ID card, according to sources and court records obtained by ABC News.  The FBI ultimately took the man's gun after becoming suspicious, but "he could've shot up half the office by that point," as one law enforcement expert put it after reading the court records.

Psychiatrist uses his own gun to shoot patient who killed caseworker in front of him.  A Pennsylvania doctor is being hailed a hero today after he seriously injured a patient who went on a shooting spree in his office.  Dr. Lee Silverman, a psychiatrist, told police that the patient, identified as Richard Plotts, fatally shot a caseworker at their hospital complex before the doctor pulled out his own gun and exchanged fire with him and wounded him, a prosecutor said Thursday night [7/24/2014]. [...] Yeadon Police Chief Donald Molineux said that 'without a doubt, I believe the doctor saved lives.' [...] Silverman was armed, apparently against hospital policy.

The Editor says...
If Doctor Silverman had obeyed the "gun free zone" rules, he would be dead today, and many others would likely be dead, too.

Police praise 'heroic' doctor and caseworker stopped psychiatric patient.  Medical staff who helped stop a gunman from killing more people at a Pennsylvania hospital on Thursday [7/24/2014] have been been hailed as heroes.  Dr Lee Silverman, who police say may have been the intended target, and caseworker John D'Alonzo, were able to quickly stop Richard Plotts after he shot dead their co-worker.  The 49-year-old, who has a history of mental illness, was attempting to reload his gun when Silverman fired several shots, and D'Alonzo wrestled him to the ground. [...] Hospital policy bars anyone except on-duty law enforcement officers from carrying weapons on campus, a Mercy Health System spokeswoman said.

Two Robberies at Target Since Chain Asked Law-Abiding Citizens to Shop Unarmed.  On July 2 Breitbart News reported that interim Target CEO John Mulligan "respectfully" asked law-abiding citizens not to bring their guns in Target stores.  Since then, Gainesville, Georgia, police have arrested three over a Target parking lot robbery and are looking for another man who punched a woman and stole her Mercedes at a Decatur, Georgia, Target as well.

Fourth of July weekend toll: 82 shot, 14 of them fatally, in Chicago.  Responding officers kept cutting each other off on their radios as they reported other gunfire in the area late Sunday night and early Monday morning.  Then the heavy equipment rolled in:  A helicopter and SUVs packed with lockers of rifles.  SWAT teams in green coveralls patrolled the streets with uniformed officers.  It was just one of dozens of shooting scenes across Chicago over the long Fourth of July weekend.  In all, at least 82 people were shot, 14 of them fatally, since Thursday afternoon when two woman were shot as they sat outside a two-flat within a block of Garfield Park.

At Least 20 Shot in Chicago Since Fourth of July Evening.  At least 20 people have been wounded in shootings across the city since the evening of Fourth of July.  The shootings include an incident in which police shot and killed a suspected gang member in Portage Park and an incident in West Englewood in which suburban teenagers riding in a car may have been mistaken as gang members.  Additionally, there was a Mayfair shooting in which a bullet fell on a man's head during what may have been a July 4th celebration.

The Editor says...
Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country.  Therefore it is impossible to get shot in Chicago, except by the police.  We can only assume that the incidents reported above must not have happened.

Target Joins the Anti-Gun Movement.  Target Corporation made the announcement on Wednesday [7/2/2014] that they have acquiesced to the Bloomberg fanatics who believe no one should be armed while shopping. [...] Their decision is absurd.  It's pretty well documented that "gun free" zones tend to advertise a victim-rich environment to would-be criminals.  Jack in the Box learned this the hard way when armed robbers took advantage of newly disarmed customers, mere days after the company declared their new anti-gun policy.  And, if you really need proof of failure, just look at America's favorite gun-free zone:  Chicago.

Twenty Seven Shot Over the Weekend in Gun Free Chicago.  Of course, Chicago isn't totally gun free.  The criminals still have plenty of them and a few law abiding citizens have managed to get a small quantity.  But 27 people were shot over the Father's Day weekend.  Two of them were fatal.  The number may turn out to be even higher.  Twenty seven is just what was reported as of this morning [6/16/2014].

Obama, Media Mislead on Gun Crime Statistics in U.S., Australia.  The Troutdale, Oregon, shooting on June 10 gave both the president and the liberal media another opportunity to rehash old arguments and repeat old lies about the need for more gun control in the United States.  When Jared Padgett entered a boys' locker room at Reynolds High School on June 10, he murdered a classmate before being confronted by armed officers.  Following that confrontation, Padgett took his own life.  The fact that he stole the weapons from his family home, defeating various security measures, meant that he also defeated any background check measures that were in place to prevent such a shooting from occurring.

Report: Far More People Killed In Chicago Than In All Mass Shootings Combined.  While announcing that they would not longer give killers the opportunity at glory that comes from having their names mentioned and their photographs aired on television, Sun News also address the extremely low rate of "mass shootings" in America compared to the excruciatingly high rate of murder in gun-controlled Chicago.  According to the Sun News, mass shootings around the world — including the U.S. — are so rare that news agencies make a mistake by seizing on them.

Police didn't search database showing Calif. shooter had bought guns.  With the toughest gun-control regulations in the country, California has a unique, centralized database of gun purchases that law enforcement can easily search.  It offers precious intelligence about a suspect or other people officers may encounter when responding to a call.  But this rare advantage wasn't enough to help authorities head off the May 23 rampage in Santa Barbara that claimed six victims.

The Arms Struggle in Chicago.  The city of Chicago, bedeviled by street gang violence, refuses to give in to ever more restrictive court rulings against enactment of sensible gun safety laws.  The Supreme Court's misguided 2010 decision ended the nearly 30-year-long ban on handguns in Chicago.  In January, a federal judge ruled that the city's ban on retail gun shops was unconstitutional. Instead of rolling over, Mayor Rahm Emanuel responded this week with some reasonable proposals designed to pass constitutional muster while upholding the city's basic obligation to protect citizens.  This time, zoning regulations would be used to limit gun shops to less than 1 percent of the city's geographic area, with tight auditing of the shops, sales limited to one handgun per customer per month, a 72-hour waiting period to buy handguns and the simple videotaping of gun sales to deter buyers from using false identification.

Since the current laws work so well...
Mayor of Chicago Seeks to Further Tighten Gun Laws.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel outlined a plan on Wednesday [5/28/2014] to make Chicago's gun laws, already some of the strictest in the country, even tougher.  Calling gun violence Chicago's "most urgent problem," Mr. Emanuel, who has said the issue is one of his administration's top priorities, introduced a proposal to the City Council that would impose tighter restrictions on gun retailers and buyers.  Under the proposal, all gun sales would be videotaped, an effort to deter buyers from using false identification.  Gun buyers could make only one purchase each month, and gun shops would not be allowed within 500 feet of schools or parks.

Robbers ignore sign, rob 'gun-free' restaurant at gunpoint.  Why not make a sign that says 'robbers welcome'?  [Video clip]

NC Restaurant With "No Weapons" Sign Robbed at Gunpoint.  What groups like Everytown for Gun Safety or Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America seem to have an issue grasping is that criminals have no respect for the law by nature of being criminals.  Criminals aren't going to be stopped by a "no guns allowed" sign.  If somebody is going to rob or shoot up a Chipotle, for instance, they're not going to care that they cannot (or have been politely asked not to) bring a gun onto the premises.  Criminals are not going to submit to background checks.  They'll use straw purchases or just buy a gun from an illegal source.  All these policies and laws do is make it harder for legal gun owners to protect themselves.

Bulletproof Subways A Sign Of Violent Times?  The store was clean and looked just like any other well-run Subway restaurant, except for the bullet-proof protection for the employees and lack of a bathroom for customers.  In fact, a few patrons asked for hand sanitizer because they couldn't wash their hands.

Before 1993, there were no mass shootings on U.S. military bases.  In 1993, most soldiers were stripped of their right to carry a weapon onto United States military bases, effectively turning them into gun free zones.  While the directive was composed under big government progressive George H.W. Bush, it was implemented shortly after big government progressive Bill Clinton assumed office.

Gun Control States Have Much Higher Gun Murder Rates.  ["]Given that the average gun-related murder rate over the period in question was 3.44, the results of the present study indicate that states with more restrictive CCW laws had gun-related murder rates that were 10% higher.  In addition, the Federal assault weapons ban is significant and positive, indicating that murder rates were 19.3% higher when the Federal ban was in effect.  These results corroborate the findings of Lott and Mustard (1997).["]

NYT: Fort Hood does virtually nothing to stop people from bringing guns onto the base.  So it's like every other "gun-free zone," basically.  Anyone who can be trusted with a weapon can't have one, and anyone who can't be trusted will have little trouble ignoring the rule.

Fort Hood carries on after another rampage.  The post is a major economic driver for the area, especially when it's a pay week like this one.  Car dealerships, pawn stores and barbershops ring the base.  [Terry] Johnson, 41, a car salesman, said some high-ranking officers have told him they felt safer deployed in combat zones than they did on their own post.

The Editor says...
Stuff like this doesn't happen in Israel, because all their soldiers have guns at all times, and there are no "gun-free zones."

Sowing the seeds of disaster for the sake of political correctness:
Kroger Grocery Chain Disarming Its Security Guards.  The Kroger grocery store chain "is in the process of transitioning to unarmed security guards across the company."  According to 10TV in Columbus, Ohio, "Kroger said armed guards will remain in some of its locations," but it is not saying where.  U.S. Protection Service is the company that provides security for Kroger.  The service recently sent a letter to its employees informing them that "effective March 29, its guards will be 'completely unarmed — no weapons, no handcuffs, no chemical repellant, no baton, etc.'"

The Editor says...
If you're shopping for groceries, and somebody comes in to rob the store and everybody in it, would you prefer the assistance of an armed guard or a greeter?

How gun control helped a stalker kill my husband.  In April 2009, my husband was shot six times in front of me in the middle of a busy restaurant by a man who was stalking me.  I have a permit to carry a handgun but because of the law at that time in my home state of Tennessee, I had to leave the gun that I normally carried for self defense, locked in my car that night.

Collectors work crowds at gun buyback events for rare finds.  [Schuyler] Taylor, a 24-year-old gun enthusiast, is one of a growing number of collectors who has been showing up at the events, where towns, police departments, churches and nonprofits offer money or gift cards for old guns.  The events have been held all over the country, credited by some for getting weapons off the streets and ridiculed by others for paying money for rusting junk.  But collectors have taken notice that some of the guns, which are typically destroyed, are worth far more than they fetch at buyback events.

DC Saw Nearly 1400 Armed Robberies in 2013. How Can This Be?  Washington DC has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, even after the Heller decision.  So how can it be that the city of just 632,000 saw nearly 1,400 armed robberies last year?  I mean, don't the robbers know about all that gun control on the books?

Good news from Chicago: Only 413 murdered Americans this year.  Good news from Chicago: The catastrophic murder rate in the Democratic-controlled city was slightly less catastrophic in 2013 than in 2012.  Only 413 Americans were shot, stabbed or bludgeoned to death in the city, where all 50 aldermen are Democrats.  Most of the victims in the blue-voting city were African-Americans or Hispanic, and very few were white.  Still, the city's Democratic leaders cautiously cheered the deaths of the 413 Americans, more than one victim per day, which included one young woman who marched in President Barack Obama's 2013 inauguration parade.

Obama's home town by the numbers.  Chicago, which has some of the toughest gun control laws in America, had a rough November.  Despite the cold weather, it was a popular month for shooting.

Mother of Sandy Hook Victim: Background Checks Wouldn't Have Prevented Tragedy.  Nicole Hockley, whose child was tragically murdered at Sandy Hook last year, said that background checks would not have prevented shooter Adam Lanza from getting the guns he used to carry out the atrocities.  She also stated that the 911 tapes from that day should not be released.

The hypocrisy of gun controllers and the fallout.  The truth is there are only consequences [for violating the D.C. gun laws] when you are only a citizen, but politicians and connected individuals get special treatment.  On two separate occasions both Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Meet the Press host David Gregory knowingly broke DC gun laws in order to prove a point.  Much like [Adam] Kokesh broke the law to make a point.  Yet, while Kokesh faces more than 5 years in prison, neither Feinstein or Gregory faced ANY type of punishment.

Arm The TSA? I thought we were trying to get guns OUT of the hands of criminals.  With the recent targeting and shooting of TSA personnel in Los Angeles there has been some discussion that the TSA should be an armed government agency. [...] Why would the TSA need to be armed?  For all intents and purposes, airports are gun free zones.  People travelling with their firearm must have it unloaded and locked in a case.  And no firearm can be present in the secured part of the airport which officially begins in the line of the security checkpoint.  So, if the gun free zone that gun controllers champion really work, then TSA agents don't need to be armed to defend themselves [...]

Gun free zone fails again.  Richard Shoop, 20, of Washington Township NJ entered the mall, armed with a sporting rifle that he stole from his brother, apparently with the intent to commit suicide either by killing himself or via suicide by cop.  He had ample time and opportunity to shoot innocent bystanders but did not.  While the people of the mall are extremely lucky that Shoop's main agenda was to harm himself alone, a note was recovered at his house, one cannot disregard yet another stunning failure of gun control and so called "gun free" zones in doing anything to actually stop this sort of thing.

Gun Free Zones are Designed to Spread, Like Smallpox.  The ugly truth is that gun free zones are not about irrational dreams of safety.  They are about power and control.  The irrational spouting about safety is just a way to get emotional support from those who do not think about the issue.  Gun free zones are just another incremental way to move toward total control.

Illinois State Police releases official 'no weapons' sign for businesses.  With some businesses eager to let people know guns aren't welcome, the Illinois State Police on Friday released the official sign to indicate a concealed carry ban.  Businesses can download the state-approved sign for banning concealed carry on the Illinois State Police Web site.

The Editor says...
Obviously, a sign like this is an invitation to armed robbery.

Making Sense of Insane Military Base Security.  Once again, a U.S. military base has suffered a security breach.  Whether it's at Fort Hood or at the Washington Navy Yard, or elsewhere, family members and the soldiers themselves should never have to endure the fear of not being safe on a U.S. military post.  Yet President Obama eulogized the twelve victims by calling for more gun control.

Liberalism and Mass Shootings.  According to John Lott, Jr. every last mass killing since the 1950s has occurred in a "gun-free zone."  The Navy Yard massacre is only the latest.  In an early example of using the military to pioneer obnoxious social doctrines, Bill Clinton signed a bill in March 1993 rendering military bases "gun free."  As with similar civilian venues, this action in effect put up a sign saying, "Come on in and Kill People."  Major Nidal Hasan and now Aaron Alexis have taken advantage of this offer, along with Jared Loughner, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, and Cho Seung-hui.

On guns, why won't Obama lead?  Where gun violence is up in recent months, it's in gun-free towns like Chicago and New York.  And whether it's the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Aurora, Colo. movie theater, the Washington Navy Yard or earlier, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood or Columbine High School, it's clear that gun-free zones don't prevent the mentally unstable from wreaking havoc on innocent victims.  In the case of Aaron Alexis, he bought a shotgun legally and then reportedly stole handguns inside the facility to perpetrate his crimes.  The laws of the facility — and the District of Columbia — didn't stop him.

Another Massacre in Another Gun-Free Zone.  [A]n unprecedented thirteen separate cases of mass murder have taken place on U.S. soil since Barack Obama was sworn into office on January 20, 2009.  127 killed and 124 injured, all of them innocent Americans randomly targeted for death and all of them targeted in "gun-free" zones.  Three occurred on "gun-free" school campuses.  Four occurred on public grounds in largely "gun-free" zones, in states or cities with our nation's strictest gun laws.  Three occurred in the work place, also "gun-free" zones, and two occurred in "gun-free" zones on Military bases.  One occurred at a "gun-free" place of worship.  None of the shooters were "right-wing extremists" or Tea Party types.

You Don't Need Permission from the State to Carry a Gun.  Over the years more and more citizens have been conditioned to think guns are scary.  Thus the "Gun Free Zone" was established.  Yet economist John Lott found that "every public shooting since at least 1950 in the United States in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns."

A Gun in Your Hand is Still the Best Protection.  On November 11, 2009, in the week following the killings at Fort Hood — still labeled workplace violence, not a terrorist attack — a Washington Times editorial noted that "Among President Clinton's first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases.  In March 1993, the Army imposed regulations military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection."  It makes you wonder why we refer to our military as "armed forces."

Gun Control? Obama's Chicago New U.S. Murder Capital.  President Obama doesn't often mention his hometown when he talks about gun control.  Then he'd have to explain, in arguably the most gun-restricted big city in America in the last state to allow concealed carry of firearms, why Chicago is now officially the murder capital of the United States.

Same Lies, Different Day.  In some locales, commonsense measures to protect vulnerable children, including armed guards, faculty and staff in schools, have replaced the tacit invitation to violence in schools which once proudly proclaimed themselves "gun free zones."  Somehow, violent and mentally-ill attackers did not recognize that status as a deterrent.

FBI: Chicago passes New York as murder capital of U.S.  The city of Chicago registered more homicides than any city in the nation in 2012, surpassing even New York — despite the fact that the Second City has only one third as many residents as the Big Apple.  In new crime statistics released Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 500 murders in Chicago in 2012, up sharply from the 431 recorded in 2011.  New York reported 419 murders last year, compared with 515 in 2011.

Defenselessly 'sheltered' as anti-gun fortress is breached.  As any decent American knows, there is no feeling more powerless than to realize that a couple of mass murderers are loose in your neighborhood and you are denied the right to keep a gun to defend yourself, your family or your home.  A sickening knot tightens in your gut. [...] Then came the latest Orwellian phrase in the "homeland security" lexicon:  "Shelter in place!"  So, not only are you not allowed to defend yourself against mass murderers, you are not supposed to run from them, either.  This, my fellow countrymen, is pure insanity.

Washington Navy Yard Already Suffers the Restrictions That Gun Control Advocates Favor.  [Scroll down]  But the unhappy truth is that the scene of the crime, the Washington Navy Yard, is subject to many of the restrictions that gun control advocates favor.  And the perpetrator, Aaron Alexis, had passed a background check for a security clearance.  Unfortunately, laws and databases don't create magic forcefields against criminal intent.

Navy Yard Shooting Another Clinton Gun-Free Zone Fail.  As the usual suspects call for stricter gun control, the fact remains that a gunman with two prior gun-crime arrests entered a secure military facility with a stolen ID and found no one able to shoot back.  It was Fort Hood all over again.  Aaron Alexis, a gunman whose prior behavioral warning signs were ignored, opens fire in an installation belonging to the most powerful military on Earth and those who protect our nation and design our weapons are not allowed to have a weapon to defend themselves.

'If We Had the Ammunition, We Could've Cleared that Building,' Son at Navy Yard Told Dad.  The Navy Yard shooting brings up the legitimate issue of carrying — and using — firearms on military installations.  Back in 1993, the Clinton administration virtually declared military establishments "gun-free zones."  As a result, the policy banned "military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that 'a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region" before military personnel 'may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection."

Gun Free Zones And The Disregard For Human Life.  I recently heard an interview with the base commander at the Navy Yard in Washington speak to the issue of how it feels to be defenseless in the face of an active shooter.  What bothered me most was the cavalier way in which he approached the subject.  Twelve people perished today, not including the shooter, and the sad part is that it didn't have to happen.

Flashback: US Military Bases are 'Gun Free Zones' Because Democrats Decreed Them To Be.  After Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded more than 30 in November 2009, John R. Lott wrote about one of the craziest policies to come out of the Clinton era:  making military bases "gun free zones."  Yes, that's correct.  In 1993, President Bill Clinton decreed that US military personnel were to surrender the Second Amendment rights that they swear an oath to support and defend.

How many must die in gun free zones before we learn?  The Navy's arsenal could wipe most nations off the face of the earth.  It was the Navy that killed Osama Bin Laden.  So why was one of our most important Naval facilities so vulnerable?  It is because it was made a gun free zone.  Like Washington D.C., one of the crime capitols of America, the Washington Navy Yard was a gun free zone.  Translation:  It was a target rich environment.

This isn't about guns, it's about the random evil of angry men.  Washington DC actually has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, which have done surprisingly little to bring the city's murder rate down and nothing to prevent yesterday's nightmare.  While locals are limited in their freedom to defend themselves, criminals simply buy guns out of state and do whatever they want with them illegally within DC.  In other words, the only way to strictly enforce Washington's authoritarian gun laws would be for them to become federal policy — and that isn't going to happen.

Rahm Emanuel's Gun Free Zones.  With its record-breaking number of 500 homicides in 2012, 435 of which were by gun shot, and 318 homicides thus far in 2013, 264 shot and killed, 1,363 shot and wounded, Chicago is clearly one of the best places in America to be if you have the desire to get shot.  Entire websites are dedicated to tracking the numbers shot and killed or wounded weekly in the Windy City.  Measured on a daily, weekly even annual basis, the number of people number shot and killed in Chicago eclipses those of gunshot casualties by U.S. service members in Afghanistan.

Eight Killed, More than 25 Shot in Chicago Holiday Weekend Bloodbath.  At least eight people are dead and more than 25 others were wounded in shootings over Labor Day weekend in Rahm Emanuel's Chicago. [...] At lease one shooting occurred in one of the city's newly created "Safe Passage" routes, designated to provide a gun-free zone for Chicago students to get to school.  In the midst of Chicago's bloody holiday, Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy continued to tout the city's overall decline in murders from 2012 and push for "stronger gun laws."

The Editor says...
Nobody guarantees the "safe passage" routes to be safe on a long holiday weekend when the schools are closed.  On the other hand, nobody with any sense believes that more gun restrictions will have any effect, since it's apparently very easy for criminals to find guns.  People who are intent on homicide don't care about gun laws.  Neither do people who have been to prison already and didn't find prison life all that rough.

'Safe Passage' Signs Are a Signal That Chicago Has Surrendered.  Yellow is the hue of both completely justifiable caution and abject surrender in the "Safe Passage" signs posted three to a block on the 53 routes that Chicago officials have mapped out in preparation for the new school year.  Vests of the same color and same dual significance will be worn by 600 unarmed civilian sentinels posted along what the police have determined to be the most secure routes for youngsters from 49 newly closed elementary schools to walk to farther flung "welcoming" schools [...]

Remember, "Safe Passage" is just a motto, not a guarantee.
5 shot, 1 fatally, in Uptown, 'There was blood everywhere'.  [Scroll down]  Police say the shooting was sparked by a conflict between two gangs in that section of Uptown, and patrols have been watching for any retaliation.  The shooting occurred along a Safe Passage route mapped by Chicago Public Schools for the coming year.

L.A., Chicago Rank 1 and 2 for Gun Murders; N.O. Has Highest Rate.  The Los Angeles and Chicago metropolitan areas had the most gun murders among the nation's fifty most-populous metropolitan areas in 2009 and 2010 (the latest years for which data is available), according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  During those two years, 1,141 people were gunned to death in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and 1,139 were gunned to death in the Chicago metropolitan area.  The New York metropolitan area ranked third with 1,101 gun homicides.

The Editor says...
I read a lot of news articles, and this is the first time I've ever seen a firearm-related homicide described as someone having been "gunned to death."

Four Children Gunned Down in Chicago During Zimmerman Trial.  In the 20-day period of the George Zimmerman trial, four minors — three teens and a five-year-old boy — were gunned down in Chicago, according to Homicide Watch Chicago, a Chicago Sun-Times publication, which details every murder that takes place in the city.

Never confuse motion with action.  This won't help anything, but at least they're doing something.
City Council strengthens assault weapons ban, imposes higher fines for gun crimes nears schools.  With no illusions about the impact on gun violence, the City Council on Wednesday [7/17/2013] jumped through a fast-closing window to strengthen Chicago's assault weapons ban and imposed sharply higher fines for gun crimes near schools and along "Safe Passage" routes.

'Cairo On The Lake' Meets Concealed Carry In Illinois.  Illinois has become the last state in the union to allow citizens their full Second Amendment rights, and officials in the murder capital of America worry about the consequences of citizens defending themselves.  Illinois' legislature on Tuesday [7/9/2013] voted to let gun owners carry concealed weapons.  The action followed a violent and bloody Fourth of July weekend in President Obama's hometown during which 74 people were shot and 12 were killed.

Dante's 'Chicago'.  Sunday morning's Chicago Tribune went to bed a full day before reporters could complete their lengthy computer spreadsheet of Independence Day weekend gun casualties:  more than 70 people shot, 11 of them fatally, from Wednesday afternoon through Sunday evening [7/7/2013].  Two other murders — a stabbing and a beating — pushed the city's homicide toll to 13.

The echo of gunfire.  Six months into the year, more than 1,000 people have been wounded or killed by gunfire in Chicago.  And this is an improvement.

What Happens When You Ban Handguns? You Get Chicago.  96% of Chicago's murders are committed with weapons that have been banned since the 1980s.

There's a shooting every six hours in America's gun control utopia.  America's urban gun control utopia, Chicago, is a bastion of strict gun control laws.  So far this year, the city is averaging a shooting every 6 hours and roughly a homicide a day.  And the weather hasn't even warmed up to 80 degrees yet!  Does this sound like a place you should be visiting from business or pleasure?  Not if you're a reasonable person who makes prudent choices with regard to your personal safety.

Fact-Free Crusades.  Amid all the heated, emotional advocacy of gun control, have you ever heard even one person present convincing hard evidence that tighter gun control laws have in fact reduced murders?  Think about all the states, communities within states, as well as foreign countries, that have either tight gun control laws or loose or non-existent gun control laws.  With so many variations and so many sources of evidence available, surely there would be some compelling evidence somewhere if tighter gun control laws actually reduced the murder rate.

Gun control at work: 4 dead, 21 wounded in Chicago over the weekend.  Because if there's one thing that gun control does well, it's keep guns out of the hands of criminals. [...] It's hard to imagine how the city's gun laws could be any stricter short of outright banning and confiscation.  Piling one ineffective law on top of the next is not going to deal with the problem.

Sheriff slaying suspect was barred from owning gun.  A prosecutor says a suspect in the fatal shooting of a West Virginia sheriff was legally prohibited from possessing [a gun].

If laws alone were effective in regulating criminal behavior, prisons would be empty.
Why isn't human nature ever considered when it comes to gun laws?  Today, the Democratic governors of Connecticut and Maryland, who must be seen to be doing something important about gun violence, are congratulating themselves for passing some of the "toughest" gun laws in the nation.  These states already have tough gun laws, which in the case of the Newtown shooting last December did not deter Adam Lanza from grabbing his mother's legal weapons, murdering her and then killing 26 people, most of them children.  Tough gun laws in Maryland have not deterred the mentally ill or criminally minded intent on getting guns, especially in Baltimore and Prince George's County, where reports of gun crimes often lead each night's local newscast.

Liberal States Look To Tax Guns And Ammunition.  Would you be surprised that Illinois, which contains the murder capital of the US (Chicago) despite draconian and oppressive gun laws aimed at law abiding citizens, is leading the way?

Some examples of the impact of gun bans on murder rates.  These figures are from the third edition of More Guns, Less Crime from the University of Chicago Press (2010).

Florida's Campus Gun Ban Didn't Save UCF From Planned Gun and IED Attack.  Early today a student at University of Central Florida committed suicide after pulling a gun on another student.  When police arrived, they found that he had put together improvised explosive devices, and had a plan to attack the students at UCF.  He had multiple weapons and 200 rounds of ammunition.  So why didn't Florida's ban on guns on campus keep this crazed maniac from owning guns?

Disarming the law-abiding is not sound gun control.  [Scroll down]  For example, the Governor has proposed banning the simple possession of a firearm within 300 feet of a school.  Such a law is meaningless to criminals who are likely prohibited under state and federal law from possessing a firearm in any location.  The true impact of the school zone law proposed by Markell and Biden will be felt by law-abiding citizens, for whom every trip to the range or the hunting field would be akin to running blindfolded through a legal minefield.

Delaware Shooting Illustrates Meaningless of Gun Control Laws.  Instead of spending millions of dollars to promote an agenda that will be as successful at stopping gun violence as the legendary Washington, D.C. and Chicago, gun ban failures, politicians need to stop pandering and concentrate on actually protecting people in ways that are meaningful to addressing the problem, not meaningful to hyperventilating campaign contributors and low-information voters.

Cultural Deviancy, Not Guns.  Last year, Chicago had 512 homicides; Detroit had 411; Philadelphia had 331; and Baltimore had 215.  Those cities are joined by other dangerous cities — such as St. Louis, Memphis, Tenn., Flint, Mich., and Camden, N.J. — and they also lead the nation in shootings, assaults, rapes and robberies.  Both the populations of those cities and their crime victims are predominantly black.  Each year, more than 7,000 blacks are murdered.  Close to 100 percent of the time, the murderer is another black person.

The Root Cause of Gun Violence.  [T]he monthly Chicago tragedy just further illustrates the fallacy of the assault weapons ban that Obama is promoting nationally to counter gun violence, and the limits of government power.  Not only do these monthly massacres continue in the face of the strictest gun control laws in the country.  But the murders Chicago is suffering are gang-related violence.  All the guns used by gangs are already held in violation of the law.  But that is not stopping the monthly [equivalents of] Newtown massacres in Chicago.  Nothing Obama is proposing will have any effect on these gangs.  They have no respect for the law whatever it is.

Gun crime on the rise in Mass. since 1998 firearms law.  Murders, aggravated assaults, and robberies involving guns have risen dramatically in Massachusetts since the state passed a comprehensive package of gun laws in 1998, the Boston Globe reports.

Seattle PD's Gun Buy Back Program Gets Turned into a Gun Show.  You know those idiotic gun buyback programs that a lot of police departments are sponsoring around the country?  The ones where the police will give you a $100 gift card or grocery card if you'll voluntarily turn in your guns (no questions asked as to where you got it)? [...] As it turns out a whole bunch of the guns that some of these idiots are looking to hand over for a mere $100 grocery card are often worth much, much more than that.  So, [some] guys set up an impromptu "Gun Show" across the street from the buyback and started outbidding the cops.

So much crime, Chicago cops can't respond to 9-1-1 calls.  Chicago's orgy of criminal violence is so bad that Chicago's leaders have given notice that Chicago Police will not respond to burglaries or car thefts any longer.  Anyone want to hazard a guess what's going to happen in the real world?  Do you think criminals are going to take advantage of that?

David Axelrod Attributes Chicago Murder Rate to Lax Gun-Control Laws in 'Surrounding Areas'.  As President Obama prepares to stump for gun-control legislation in Minneapolis today, David Axelrod offered him a helping hand on morning television.  In doing so, Axelrod attributed the murder rate in the city of Chicago, which is subject to some of the most stringent gun-control regulations in the nation, to the lack of such laws in surrounding areas.

Most Shooters In Chicago Don't Face Charges.  It's getting easier to get away with shooting people in Chicago.  Last year, gunmen who shot and wounded someone got away without criminal charges 94 percent of the time, according to a DNAinfo.com Chicago analysis of police data.  That's even worse than 2011, when 91.5 percent of shooters escaped charges, according to the data.

Why isn't gun control working in Chicago?  Despite the media's intense attention to mass shootings, homicides, violent crime and gun deaths are all decreasing nationally, according to the latest FBI statistics.  But not in Chicago.  So what is causing the unacceptable wave of gun violence in Chicago?  It's not because of lenient gun control laws.  Chicago has the strongest gun control regime in the nation.  Both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are completely banned in the city.  And up until the 2010 Supreme Court decision that legalized them, handguns were banned too.

Even the New York Times admits...
Strict Gun Laws in Chicago Can't Stem Fatal Shots.  Not a single gun shop can be found in this city because they are outlawed.  Handguns were banned in Chicago for decades, too, until 2010, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that was going too far, leading city leaders to settle for restrictions some describe as the closest they could get legally to a ban without a ban.  Despite a continuing legal fight, Illinois remains the only state in the nation with no provision to let private citizens carry guns in public.

States' crime rates show scant linkage to gun laws.  President Obama has called for stricter federal gun laws to combat recent shooting rampages, but a review of recent state laws by The Washington Times shows no discernible correlation between stricter rules and lower gun-crime rates in the states.  States that ranked high in terms of making records available to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System also tended to have tighter gun laws — but their gun-crime rates ranged widely.  The same was true for states that ranked poorly on disclosure and were deemed to have much less stringent gun-possession laws.

Of the nearly 520 murders committed in Chicago in 2012, none were committed with so-called "assault weapons."
Rahm Goes Fascist on Firearms.  Fascism is a system by which enterprise remains owned privately but is marshalled by the power of the state to serve its ends.  Fascists use the state's power to suppress opposition.  Take a look at what Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to do to the firearms industry.

Gun control is about control, not guns.  [Scroll down]  The only "reasonable" thing we can do is put an end to so-called gun-free zones, which are really just victim zones.  How many more times must we read about people in gun-free zones cowering in corners waiting to be massacred like sheep?  If first-grade teacher Victoria Soto had a gun, she would be a hero for a different reason.  And a whole lot of children would still be alive today.  What an odd world in which we live.  We are willing to protect our money with guns, but not our precious children.

Bill Introduced To Repeal 'Gun-Free School Zones Act' Because Deadly Mass Shootings Up Five-Fold Under It.  Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) has introduced a bill to repeal the "Gun-Free School Zones Act" of 1990 (updated in 1995) on the grounds that mass shootings at schools have increased five-fold since its passage.  The "Safe Schools Act of 2013" (H.R.35), co-sponsored by Rep Broun, Paul C. [sic] [GA-10] notes that the 1990 "gun-free" law has made schools unsafe because "shooters now know that they can victimize American school campuses with no fear that victims will be armed."  Stockman's bill notes that there have been 10 school shootings killing at least four people each in the 22 years since the "gun-free" bill passed — compared to only two in the 22 years before passage.

Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns?  If, as gun control advocates claim, gun control laws really do control guns and save lives, there is nothing to prevent repealing the Second Amendment, any more than there was anything to prevent repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that created Prohibition.  But, if the hard facts show that gun control laws do not actually control guns, but instead lead to more armed robberies and higher murder rates after law-abiding citizens are disarmed, then gun control laws would be a bad idea, even if there were no Second Amendment and no National Rifle Association.

You Never See Mass Shootings At Gun Shows, Tea Party Rallies, Or NRA Meetings.  There is a common thread clearly able to be seen here.  These sorts of criminals and nutjobs who like to commit mass murder are picking places that liberals have deemed, arbitrarily of course, to be safe.  You know, like Gun Free School Zones?

Chicago Thugs Celebrate Obama's New Gun Laws By Shooting Woman on Bus.  The report says police are looking for three men.  No descriptions of the suspects, of course.  We doubt they are law-abiding gun owners or members of the NRA.

New York Passed a Gun Control Law So They Could See What Was in It.  Earlier this week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo rushed to sign sweeping and extremely restrictive gun control legislation into law.  Negotiations were made behind closed doors in the middle of the night, debate was rushed, public input was ignored and the votes were taken.  The legislation that was passed only allows New York residents to carry seven bullets in a maximum ten round magazine at a time and requires gun registration.  The problem?  Cuomo didn't read the bill and failed to notice legislators forgot to exempt law enforcement.

New York forgot to exempt cops from its new ban on high-capacity magazines.  Action had to be taken, and it had to be taken quickly to impress a left that's grown suspicious of [Governor Cuomo] lately.  Result:  For the moment, it's illegal for cops to carry magazines with more than seven bullets in New York State.

Gun Violence is Not a Republican Problem, It's a Democratic Problem.  67% of firearm murders took place in the country's 50 largest metro areas.  The 62 cities in those metro areas have a firearm murder rate of 9.7, more than twice the national average.  Among teenagers the firearm murder rate is 14.6 or almost three times the national average.  Those are the crowded cities of Obamerica.  Those are the places with the most restrictive gun control laws and the highest crime rates.  And many of them have been run by Democrats and their political machines for almost as long as they have been broken.

A Gun Ban That Misfired.  The D.C. gun ban, enacted in 1976, prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officers from carrying a firearm in the city.  Residents were even barred from keeping guns in their homes for self-defense.  Some in Washington who owned firearms before the ban were allowed to keep them as long as the weapons were disassembled or trigger-locked at all times.  According to the law, trigger locks could not be removed for self-defense even if the owner was being robbed at gunpoint.

Gun buybacks don't reduce gun violence, either.  Buybacks are even less effective than more gun control.  Why?  For the same reason gun control doesn't work — buybacks deal mostly with law-abiding citizens, not criminals.

Rahm Emanuel Out of Excuses for Chicago's Murder Rate.  In 2012, Chicago recorded 505 murders.  That may not sound all that bad, since in some years in the past two decades the city had over 900 murders (1991, 1992, and 1994).  But it looks like a terribly high number when compared to New York (which recorded 414 murders in 2012) or any of the other ten largest cities in America, because Chicago is not only the murder capital of America in terms of experiencing the most murders.  It also has, by far, the highest murder rate among America's ten largest cities.

Americans, never give up your guns.  These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains:  the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions. [...] In all cases where guns are banned, gun crime continues and often increases.  As for maniacs, be it nuts with cars (NYC, Chapel Hill NC), swords (Japan), knives (China) or home made bombs (everywhere), insane people strike.  They throw acid (Pakistan, UK), they throw fire bombs (France), they attack.  What is worse, is, that the best way to stop a maniac is not psychology or jail or "talking to them", it is a bullet in the head.

Tucson Gun Turn in — First Hand Account.  As I walked the line for the next two hours, I saw very few guns that had any value in excess of the value of the $50 gift card being offered.  Quite frankly, most of the guns were rusted, inoperable junk.  I saw only three firearms that I would value in excess $400, two S&W revolvers and a single 4" blue Colt Python.  Most of the guns worth anything were comprised of .22 rifles, and all of those were of nominal value.

20 Ways America Has Begun to Reap What It Has Sown.  [#13]  We create gun free zones; then we're surprised when crazy people with guns go there to kill people because they know no one will be armed.

Dear Mr. Security Agent,  [Scroll down]  Consider this: the average number of victims per incident when the shooter is stopped by an armed civilian:  three.  The average number of victims when the shooter is stopped by a policeman:  fourteen.  Why?  Because when every second is a matter of life and death, the police are still minutes away.  Think about those numbers.  Eleven people die needlessly if the shooting takes place in a "victim disarmament zone," where legal firearms are prohibited.  This is why deranged shooters head for schools, malls, and theaters, where signs forthrightly proclaim that guns are forbidden.

Chicago has tough gun laws, but leads nation in gun violence.  Last year, the city hit 506 homicides, and this year, killings again are stacking up at a rate faster than one a day.

500 Murders In Chicago Show Gun Bans Don't Work.  The mayor of what is at once America's most gun-controlled city and its murder capital wants an assault weapons ban like the one he pushed in 1994.  Except it didn't work then, and it won't work now.

Why Can't Schools Secure Themselves?  Schools in particular have been singled out as a place without the ability to defend against violence.  The law has been challenged and revised and debated ever since, but the bottom line stands.  Have school shootings declined?  Most major shootings now occur in gun-free zones, and nearly twice as many since the act passed than in the 20 years prior.

Despite Gun Control, Dutch Shooting Rampages Becoming Common.  Two men were shot dead in Amsterdam after a shooting spree involving automatic weapon fire. [...] This shooting occurred ten days after another shooting spree that left two men dead.  The Netherlands has restrictive gun laws and the automatic weapons used in the December 29, 2012 incident were outlawed and unavailable to law-abiding citizens.

Never Let a Crisis go to Waste.  The Sandy Hook tragedy presents yet the latest example of the liberal political strategist's adage "Never let a crisis go to waste."  This slaughter of young children occurred in a "gun free zone," not merely under the jurisdiction of a ban on "assault rifles."  The result was that there existed no means of self-defense.  Perhaps this a reason why such vulnerable targets are chosen.

'Gun Control Fails,' Say Statistics from Gun-Control Advocates.  I personally believed in civilian disarmament until an acquaintance in law enforcement challenged my gun-banner's assumptions with questions and points I could not rebut.  This began a research journey limited only by my decision to exclude any data cited by the NRA.  At the time, I was convinced only caring people like the Brady Campaign would present the truth.  Surprisingly (to me, at the time), I found no dataset proving civilian disarmament made anybody safer.

Happy New Year! Chicago Murder Tally Hits 500 for 2012.  Yes, but at least they have very strict gun control laws in Chicago that keep weapons out of the hands of criminals.

A long list of school shootings unaffected by the assault weapons ban:
The Assault Weapons Ban Didn't Work Then and It Won't Work Now.  Senator Dianne Feinstein is queuing up come January 2013 to retable — yet again — an Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) in order to "severely mitigate the possibilities of another Sandy Hook atrocity."  Great idea, Dianne, as the first AWB that Clinton signed into law worked wonders in schools from 1994-2004.  It was awesome.  It panned out wonderfully aside from the following [...]

The Epic Failures of Strict Gun Control Laws.  Out of the many homicide statistics that anti-gun proponents would show us as evidence for the need for "strict" and "common sense" gun control, they fail to acknowledge that most all of these killings are committed by people with illegal guns.  Gun control does not work for criminals because they never cared about gun laws in the first place.

Grim milestone: Chicago hits 500 homicides.  Here's your gun control failure of the year.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Bradys were unavailable for comment.

How Gun Control Kills.  Gun control deters violent crime about as well as the death penalty.  Worse, stricter gun control is the surest way to insure that virtually every would-be shooter is successful.  Two days after the Sandy Hook Elementary rampage, a gunman in San Antonio, Texas attempted to open fire on a movie crowd watching "The Hobbit."  Luckily, the man's gun jammed.  Even more luckily, there was an off-duty police officer who stopped that man with one bullet.

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control.  We aren't alone in facing this problem.  Great Britain and Australia, for example, suffered mass shootings in the 1980s and 1990s.  Both countries had very stringent gun laws when they occurred.  Nevertheless, both decided that even stricter control of guns was the answer. [...] The results have not been what proponents of the act wanted.  Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports.

NRA Chief's School Security Ideas Worth Consideration.  [Wayne] LaPierre couldn't be more right when he points out that "Politicians pass laws for gun-free school zones.  They issue press releases bragging about them.  They post signs advertising them.  And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk."  He pointed out that banks, airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses, stadiums, the president, and members of Congress are all protected by armed security.

Make Newtown the last town.  Beware the person who says to you, "You don't need a gun."  That kind of person will get you killed.  Nothing proves this more than the terrible event of Friday last at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut.  Children and adults alike had their lives tragically cut short by a shooter in a gun-free zone.

NY Gunman Who Shot Firemen was Already Barred from Owning Guns.  While liberals on Twitter pointed at the shooting of four firefighters in upstate New York as evidence that more gun control is necessary, NBC News reports that the gunman, one William Spengler, was already banned from owning guns.  Spengler served 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer in 1980.

440+ School Age Children Shot in Gun-Controlled Chicago.  Chicago has been a shining city on a hill for gun-grabbers for decades.  In fact, so extreme is the gun control in the Windy City that prior to the 2010 Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. Chicago, you couldn't even have a gun in your own house with which to defend yourself or your family. [...] Yet the truth is more than 440 school-age children have been shot in Chicago in 2012.

The facts, worldwide, do not validate the case for gun control.  Most Americans may not be aware of it, but attacks on children and teenagers are nowadays as prevalent in China — a country where ordinary citizens are not allowed to own firearms, even selectively — as in the United States. [...] Norway is another democratic country with restrictive gun regulations.  That did not prevent Anders Behring Breivik from randomly shooting students on Utoya island near Oslo in 2011, and killing 69 of them.

The Assault Weapons Ban: How Silly Was It?  Revisiting the comically incompetent law which President Obama wishes to reinstate.

What Happened When Guns Were Banned in Australia:  After Australia banned and confiscated guns from their citizens, promising them safety in return for their weapons, violent crime dramatically increased:
Armed robbery +69%
Assault with guns +28%
Gun murders +19%
Home invasions +21%

Gun Free Zones.  By making schools a "gun free zone", you automatically disarm all law abiding citizens at those locations.  This is tantamount to placing a sign on the front of the building inviting criminals and mentally deranged persons to come shoot up the place.  "Come on in.  We're all unarmed, by law.  We won't interfere with your mayhem."

County Police Chief Recommends Arming School Personnel.  St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says it is time to talk about arming civilian school personnel following Friday's massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, comparing it to arming airline pilots after September 11, 2001.

Gun Restrictions Leave People Vulnerable and Helpless .  With just one single exception, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the United States in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.  This isn't random.  If it were, 98 or 99 percent of the attacks would occur in areas where people are allowed to carry concealed handguns for protection.  Yet, all these attacks are squeezed into the tiny areas where guns are banned.

446 school age children shot in Chicago so far this year with strongest gun laws in country — media silent.  The cesspool known as Chicago probably has the toughest gun laws in the country, yet despite all the shootings, murders, and bloodshed, you never hear a peep about this from the corrupt state run media.  In Chicago, there have been 446 school age children shot in leftist utopia run by Rahm Emanuel and that produced Obama, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, etc.  62 school aged children have actually been killed by crazed nuts in Chicago so far this year with almost two weeks to go.  So why isn't this news worthy?

Disastrous Gun Law Sparked School Shootings .  During the height of gun control fever during the first Bush Presidency, the Congress passed the Gun Free School Zones act of 1990.  It was designed to make it impossible for ordinary people to carry guns most places, because it forbid the carrying of guns within a thousand feet of a school.  If you overlap the 1000 foot gun free zones that surround schools in most cities and towns, no one can go about their daily business without intersecting one of these zones at some time.  The Gun Free School Zone act was quickly challenged in the courts, and found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under the interstate commerce clause, in U.S. v. Lopez, 1995.

Time for Schools to be Gun-free Free.  If there's anything the Newtown massacre has proven, it's that school zones billed as "gun-free" cannot be guaranteed to thus be.  They're only virtually certain to be good-guy-gun-free.  And it's time for this symbolism-over-substance policy to end.

The Only Way to Stop School Shootings.  Suppose that [Senator Dianne] Feinstein had somehow been able to make all magazines larger than 10 rounds disappear overnight.  Mass murderer Adam Lanza would have had to switch magazines more frequently but, as he was the only armed person present in the school, he could have done that at his leisure.

School Security, Not Disarming, Should Be Debated.  Disarming our citizenry won't protect schools; it didn't, for instance, stop 52 public school students from being fatally shot during the 2009-11 school years in heavily gun-controlled Chicago.

Media Ignore Shootings in Chicago.  My guess is that the media's lack of interest in Chicago's ongoing murder spree has a lot to do with the lack of political upside in reporting on the story.  Because what's happening in Chicago can't in any way be blamed on Republicans, conservative ideas, or a lack of left-wing ideas, the media would prefer to pretend the murders aren't happening.  You see, the media can't blame the murders on a lack of gun control, because Chicago has the toughest gun control laws in the country.

Until We All Understand Police Limitations, Some Will Put Faith in Gun Control.  [Scroll down slowly]  The police are by and large practical people.  They do their best to do what works, because anything else can cost lives.  They know that gun-free school zones are actually "victim disarmament zones," areas killers can attack with the assurance no one will be able to resist them.  They know people planning the mass murder of children will not be deterred by any law restricting guns.  They also know guns aren't the only means of causing harm, as was the case recently in Casper, WY, where a teacher was murdered by his son, who fired an arrow into his head and ultimately killed him by stabbing him with a knife.  A knife the son then used to kill himself.

Gun Control Laws Don't Work.  [Scroll down]  We have crossed a line in America where violence is no longer a rare event.  It should be expected.  Why?  Decades of declining moral values, increasing violence in movies, television, music and video games, the increasing removal of religion, and the crumbling family unit.

Invincible Ignorance.  Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of "gun control" advocates?  The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns.  They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.  If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.

Gun Crime Soars in England Where Guns Are Banned.  [Scroll down]  For further reference, it is important to keep in mind that Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington are all located in Virginia, a state that allows concealed carry of handguns with a permit.  The chart above shows these areas have always had the lowest crime rates compared to Washington D.C. and Maryland where concealed carry is either banned or extremely difficult to do lawfully.

Lesson Of Sandy Hook, Clackamas — Ban Gun-Free Zones.  In the target-rich environment of the Clackamas Town Center two weeks before Christmas, the shooter managed to kill only two people before killing himself.  A far worse tragedy was prevented when he was confronted by a hero named Nick Meli.  As the shooter was having difficulty with his weapon, Meli pulled his and took aim, reluctant to fire lest an innocent bystander be hit.  But he didn't have to pull the trigger:  The shooter fled when confronted, ending his own life before it could be done for him.  We will never know how many lives were saved by an armed citizen that day.

And yet...
No Co-Sponsors for Bill to Repeal 1990 Gun-Free Zone Act.  In the wake of the of the horrific Sandy Hook School massacre, questions are arising about the effectiveness of the 1990 Gun Free School Zones Act (GFSZA). [...] Despite claiming success as a result of the legislation's enactment in 1991, the NCPC does not mention students and faculty across the country who have been slaughtered in various shootings on school grounds.

The Wages Of Gun Control.  Gun control laws — as well as "gun free zones" — do nothing more than disarm the law abiding, with of course disastrous effect when a gun is needed for defense of self and others.

Guns Save Lives.  Gun laws are laws against self-defense.  Criminals have the initiative.  They choose the time, place and manner of their crimes, and they tend to make choices that maximize their own, not their victims', success.  So criminals don't attack people they know are armed, and anyone thinking of committing mass murder is likely to be attracted to a gun-free zone, such as schools and malls.

10 people shot on Friday in Chicago, the city with the strictest gun control laws.  In August 2012, 13 people were shot in 30 minutes in Chicago.  Now, you might think that Chicago has some of the most permissive gun control laws in the country — especially if you were a leftist.  But that's not the case. Chicago is run by an anti-gun radical named Rahm Emmanuel, and they basically have a de facto ban on guns in the entire city.  So how is banning guns working for them?

Chicago Shootings Spike 49% In November Despite Strict Gun Laws.  There were 192 shootings in Chicago throughout the month of November — a 49 percent increase from a year earlier — according to police records obtained by the Chicago Tribune.  In November of 2011, Chicago recorded 129 shootings compared to the 192 shootings this November.  Police records also reveal that shootings increased more than 11 percent in the first 11 months of 2012 compared with a year earlier.

Gun-free zones provide false sense of security.  If there's someone present with a gun when a mass shooting begins, the shooter is likely to be shot himself.  And, in fact, many mass shootings — from the high school shooting by Luke Woodham in Pearl, Miss., to the New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo., where an armed volunteer shot the attacker — have been terminated when someone retrieved a gun from a car or elsewhere and confronted the shooter.  Policies making areas "gun free" provide a sense of safety to those who engage in magical thinking, but in practice, of course, killers aren't stopped by gun-free zones.  As always, it's the honest people — the very ones you want to be armed — who tend to obey the law.

It's Time to End Gun-Free Zones.  At home I own several firearms, and frankly, anyone forcing entry to my home would have a very short life expectancy.  However, each day I have to send my children off to a place where the only protection they have is the ideology of wishful thinking.

Progressive Policies Are to Blame for the Mass Shooting in Sandy Hook.  [Scroll down]  What is clear, is that decades of failed liberal policy have made it difficult to force people with severe mental diseases to be treated or institutionalized.  And, then we are all shocked when these same dysfunctional individuals go on a shooting rampage like we witnessed today [12/14/2012] in Newtown.

Libertarian Party: Repeal Law Designating Schools as 'Gun-Free Zones'.  "We've created a 'gun-free zone,' a killing zone, for the sickest criminals on the face of the Earth," said R. Lee Wrights, vice-chair of the Libertarian Party.  "We've given them an open killing field, and we've made the children of this country the victims."  Wrights argued that the presence of guns on campus would be a strong deterrent:  "They're not going to walk into a police station, and why not?  Because that's where the guns are," he said.

Another Mass Murder in Gun Free Zone.  This tragedy happened despite the school district implementing new a "new safety policy designed to prevent situations such as what happened on Friday."  These new protocols included:
  •   Locking exterior doors during the day.
  •   Visitors required to ring the doorbell and register at the office.
  •   Photo ID required if staff didn't recognize you.
There was no provision for training and arming teachers and qualified parents.  This was wishful thinking, assuming that everybody was "nice" and that an insane person bent on publicity would behave by the rules.  As with nearly all mass murders, this occurred in a gun-free zone.  The shooter was breaking the law as soon as he carried a firearm onto school property.

Chicago Shootings Spike 49% In November Despite Strict Gun Laws.  There were 192 shootings in Chicago throughout the month of November — a 49 percent increase from a year earlier — according to police records obtained by the Chicago Tribune. [...] [Mayor Rahm] Emanuel's intentions are no doubt well intentioned, but like many cities with strict gun laws, the disarming of law-abiding citizens doesn't remove guns from the hands of those who wish to do harm.

Gun Control In Action: 3 Killed by a Knife-Wielding Attacker on a 'Gun-Free' Campus.  An attack on Friday [11/30/2012] at a college in Wyoming left three people dead, including the alleged attacker.  The assailant used a bow and arrow and a knife and, despite the "gun-free campus" policy, was still, nonetheless, able to kill.  How many more people have to die before society can just accept that this world is filled with dangerous people and that guns, when placed in the proper hands of responsible citizens, can greatly aid in the decline of senseless mayhem?

        "After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it."

— William S. Burroughs               

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart

        "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that is good."

— George Washington