Cash Register Attendant Pulls A Handgun On A Criminal During Attempted Robbery In Viral Video

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A cash register attendant’s quick thinking might have saved his life.

In a viral video tweeted by Zaid Jilani, a cash register attendant armed himself after spotting a suspicious person, and it turned out that his instincts were 100% correct.

A masked man pulled a gun at the register in what appeared to be a robbery attempt, but the attendant was ready to rock and roll as he presented his own firearm. Fortunately, no shots were necessary, and the bad guy took off. You can watch the insane situation unfold below.

Saw this video on Reddit of a cashier noticing a suspicious customer and preparing himself. Should probably run the CIA.

pic.twitter.com/3cwYCHupGr

— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) May 14, 2022

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All right reserved.

Are AR-15 Rifles a Public Safety Threat? Here’s What the Data Say

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Is it true that the AR-15, a popular firearm owned by millions of Americans, is a unique threat to public safety?

From Parkland, Florida, to San Bernardino, California, the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle and its variants have seemingly become the weapons of choice for mass shooters in the United States.

Many people simply cannot believe that regular civilians should be able to legally own so-called “weapons of war,” which they believe should only be in the hands of the military.

According to Pew Research, for example, 81 percent of Democrats and even 50 percent of Republicans believe the federal government should ban “assault-style rifles” like the AR-15. Given the massive amount of carnage AR-15s and similar rifles have caused, it makes sense that the civilian population simply cannot be trusted to own such weapons, right?

Perhaps, but is it really true that the AR-15, a popular firearm owned by millions of Americans, is a unique threat to public safety, so dangerous that it deserves to be banned or even confiscated by the federal government?

It cannot be emphasized enough that any homicide is a tragedy, but in order to get a sense of how dangerous to public safety “assault-style” rifles are, it’s useful to compare their usage in homicide to other methods.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are the two authoritative sources for homicide statistics in the United States.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the CDC reports “produce more accurate homicide trends at the national level” because they capture less under-reporting than the FBI statistics.

However, the homicide data recorded by the CDC includes all homicides committed by civilians regardless of criminal intent. The FBI data instead focuses on intentional homicides (i.e murder) known to law enforcement and excludes non-negligent homicide (i.e. manslaughter.)

According to the BJS, the FBI data is “better suited for understanding the circumstances surrounding homicide incidents.” This is especially true given that the FBI, but not the CDC, records the type of firearm used in a given homicide. For the purposes of this analysis, the data from the FBI will be used.

There are two further limitations of FBI data worth noting.

Firstly, the FBI reports do not look at “assault-style” rifles specifically, but rather, murders involving all types of rifles, whether they are committed with an AR-15 or a hunting rifle.

Secondly, each year there are a few thousand homicide cases where the type of firearm used goes unreported to the FBI. This means that some murders listed under “unknown firearm” may, in fact, be rifle murders.

To account for this under-reporting, we will extrapolate from rifles’ share of firearm murders where the type of weapon is known in order to estimate the number of “unknown” firearms that were in actuality rifle homicides.

If we take the time to look at the raw data provided by the FBI, we find that all rifles, not just “assault-style rifles,” constitute on average 340 homicides per year from 2007 through 2017 (see Figure 1.). When we adjust these numbers to take under-reporting into account, that number rises to an average of 439 per year.

Figure 2 compares rifle homicides to homicides with other non-firearm weapons. Believe it or not, between 2007 and 2017, nearly 1,700 people were murdered with a knife or sharp object per year. That’s almost four times the number of people murdered by an assailant with any sort of rifle.

Figure 1. The Relative and Absolute Frequency of Rifle Homicides 2007-2017

Figure 2. Homicides per year by weapon 2007 – 2017

In any given year, for every person murdered with a rifle, there are 15 murdered with handguns, 1.7 with hands or fists, and 1.2 with blunt instruments. In fact, homicides with any sort of rifle represent a mere 3.2 percent of all homicides on average over the past decade.

Given that the FBI statistics pertain to all rifles, the homicide frequency of “assault-style” rifles like the AR-15 is necessarily lesser still, as such firearms compose a fraction of all the rifles used in crime.

According to a New York Times analysis, since 2007, at least “173 people have been killed in mass shootings in the United States involving AR-15s.”

That’s 173 over a span of a decade, with an average of 17 homicides per year. To put this in perspective, consider that at this rate it would take almost one-hundred years of mass shootings with AR-15s to produce the same number of homicide victims that knives and sharp objects produce in one year.

With an average of 13,657 homicides per year during the 2007-2017 timeframe, about one-tenth of one percent of homicides were produced by mass shootings involving AR-15s.

Mass shootings involving rifles like the AR-15 can produce dozens of victims at one time, and combined with extensive media coverage of these events, many people have been led to believe that such rifles pose a significant threat to public safety.

However, such shootings are extremely rare, and a look at the FBI data informs us that homicide with these types of rifles represents an extremely small fraction of overall homicide violence. Banning or confiscating such firearms from the civilian population would likely produce little to no reduction in violent crime rates in America.

AUTHOR

Being Classically Liberal

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RELATED ARTICLE: 9th Circuit Rules California’s Under 21 Gun Sales Ban Unconstitutional

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

A Gun Rights Reminder: Levi’s Doesn’t Support You

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As President Joe Biden pushes to even infringe your Second Amendment rights, we wanted to remind you that he isn’t doing so alone. Many corporations have decided that your right to bear arms comes second to their political advocacy – advocacy which violates your human and constitutional rights to self-defense.

One of the worst offenders is Levi’s (1.00), the clothing company which has donated over a million dollars to strip your ability to defend yourself and your family from intruders, criminals, and tyrants. As we highlighted in 2018:

Levi Strauss is a clothing company with an agenda. It has a “1.00” ranking in all five of 2ndVote’s categories where it takes corporate action and just a month ago launched a million-dollar anti-gun campaign.

You may remember that Levi’s desire to control your life isn’t limited to guns. The company recently forced out a senior executive who didn’t hold to their restrictive policies on masks and vaccines. It is the height of irony that Levi’s views self-defense against a man-made virus more important than self-defense against criminals and corrupt government – even though masks and vaccines are of limited value, at best, when it comes to stopping the spread of COVID-19.

Levi’s offenses are myriad. The company donates to Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign, and wants you to put climate alarmism ahead of real issues like having a job and defending your family. It’s no wonder we rank them at a paltry “1.00” out of 5.00. Truth be told, our algorithms score them well below a one, but we trim it there to keep things in perspective.

It’s time to ditch Levi’s in favor of better options for your 2ndVote money. Consider shopping at Everlane (3.00), Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (3.06), Lululemon Athletica (3.16), and Cabela’s (3.26) — all companies which focus on impressing you, the customer, not a few loud liberal talking heads.

EDITORS NOTE: This 2ndVote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

More People Use a Gun in Self-Defense Each Year Than Die in Car Accidents

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In the USA there are between 2.1 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses every year.

UPDATE: Related tweet.

How is it that so many kids raised on “Harry Potter”, “The Hunger Games”, “Star Wars”, and all the Marvel action figure movies manage to miss a critical point of the stories? The lesson being: If you want to prevail over evil villains, you must have the proper tools to fight back.

Millions of people protect themselves and their families with guns every day in the United States. They choose guns as a means of self-defense for the same reason the Secret Service uses them to protect the president: guns stop bad people from doing bad things to good people.

It’s absurd to speak about the right of self-defense in theory but then deny people the tools they need to exercise that right.

Without a gun, most Americans are defenseless at the hands of a violent criminal. How many of us have training in hand-to-hand fighting, the physical strength, and the mental resilience to react in a fight-or-flight situation to repel an aggressive predator, especially someone who attacks us first and is armed with a deadly weapon?

Does a gun guarantee your safety? No, but it gives you the ability to defend yourself against an armed, physically superior, or mentally unstable attacker (or all three).

Why in the world would anyone not want to have the means to protect themselves and their families against criminal predators and lunatics? Worse yet, why would anyone actively lobby their government to deprive themselves and every other law-abiding citizen of the most effective means to protect themselves?

The gun grabbers are convinced that if we shut down the National Rifle Association and take away guns from law-abiding gun owners, then bad people will no longer have the tools to do bad things.

A gun is a tool, plain and simple. You should own a gun for the same reason you install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, purchase fire extinguishers, and buckle your seat belt. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Smart people are prepared. Foolish people bring a knife—or nothing at all—to a gunfight.

The gun grabbers say: “There is no evidence that guns save lives.” The truth: If there is no proof that guns save lives, then why does every American law enforcement agency, including the U.S. Secret Service, carry guns? What’s the point of the guns?

There is an old saying in the world of investing: “Do what the smart money does.” This means that when you personally invest, it makes sense to buy and sell the same investments as the “smart money” people—large banks, institutional investors, hedge funds, and investment gurus like Warren Buffett. The idea is that these industry leaders have a better understanding of the marketplace and better access to information than ordinary investors do. And that is usually true.

What do the “smart money” people do when it comes to protecting lives?

Virtually all professionals carry guns—and lots of them. Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies charged with protecting the streets you walk on all carry guns. The Secret Service protects the president with guns. The federal Department of Homeland Security, with its $44 billion annual budget, issues its own agents handguns and fully automatic rifles (rifles far more powerful than the AR-15s many gun grabbers don’t want you to have to protect yourself).

So, the smart money in the business of protecting lives chooses guns. That’s right. They choose guns!

But if you don’t want to follow the smart money on guns, then let’s turn to the statistical scoreboard. Does civilian gun use help in self-defense against criminals?

The U.S. Department of Justice investigated firearm violence from 1993 through 2011. The report found, “In 2007–2011, about 1 percent of nonfatal violent crime victims used a firearm in self-defense.” Anti-gun zealots attempt to use this statistic to discredit the use of a gun as a viable means of self-defense, and by extension, to discredit gun ownership in general.

But look deeper into the numbers. During that five-year period, the Department of Justice confirmed a total of 338,700 defensive gun uses in both violent attacks and property crimes where a victim was involved. That equals an average of 67,740 defensive gun uses every year. In other words, according to the Justice Department’s own statistics, 67,740 people a year don’t become victims because they own a gun. (I suspect that if more states allowed concealed carry to be widespread, the number of instances of defensive gun uses would be even higher.)

Is it significant that at least 67,740 individuals use a gun in self-defense each year? Well, in 2016, 37,461 people died in motor vehicle accidents in the United States; in 2015, the number was 35,092 people. Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration (NHTSA), called those road fatalities “an immediate crisis.” If the NHTSA administrator considers it a crisis that approximately 37,000 people are dying annually from car accidents, then saving nearly twice that many people each year through the use of firearms is simply stunning.

In reality, the Department of Justice findings about defensive gun uses are very conservative. A 2013 study ordered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and conducted by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council found that:

Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence… Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008… On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey…”

The most comprehensive study ever conducted about defensive gun use in the United States was a 1995 survey published by criminologist Gary Kleck in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. This study reported between 2.1 and 2.5 million defensive gun uses every year.

Ultimately, the number of defensive gun uses doesn’t matter much to the anti-gun zealots. Whether the number is 67,000 or 2.5 million or anywhere in between, they’ll do whatever they can to dismiss defensive gun uses as insignificant. They want to focus only on the dead people lying in the street rather than those folks who use a firearm to remain standing.

I suspect those people still alive would have a different view.

Reprinted from The Daily Signal

Excerpt from“#Duped: How the Anti-gun Lobby Exploits the Parkland School Shooting-and How Gun Owners Can Fight Back”.

COLUMN BY

Mark W. Smith

Mark W. Smith is a constitutional attorney and author. Smith currently serves as the vice president of the New York City chapter of the Federalist Society and is also a presidential scholar and senior fellow in Law and Public Policy at The King’s College in New York City.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Ukraine Grants Citizens the Right to Bear Arms—Hours Before Putin’s Invasion

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The right to bear arms has always been about liberty, and many are beginning to see in the wake of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russian soldiers flooded into Ukraine Thursday under orders from President Vladimir Putin, threatening to obliterate a peace that has existed on the European continent for more than 75 years.

News reports say cities were bombarded by land, air, and sea, and Ukrainian forces were struggling to hold ground surrounding Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, against tens of thousands of Russian soldiers.

Prior to the attack, Ukrainian officials took steps to help Ukrainian civilians protect themselves.

“Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday voted to approve in the first reading a draft law which gives permission to Ukrainians to carry firearms and act in self-defense,” Reuters reported.

The 30-day emergency order, National Review reports, would “grant citizens the right to bear arms.” It would also allow the government to conscript Ukrainians between the ages of 18 and 60, “adding nearly 200,000 troops to the country’s defense.”

Permitting Ukrainians to arm themselves is a sensible measure. But as Charles Cooke points out at NRO, “it’s also a bit late.”

While Ukraine has relatively loose gun control laws by European standards, estimates suggest only about 1.3 million firearms exist in the country, which has a population of some 43 million. This diminishes the chances of Ukrainian civilians being able to offer serious resistance, an idea that is hardly far-fetched, Stephen Gutowski points out at The Reload:

“…the history of warfare is rife with examples of smaller, weaker, and less organized forces besting even the greatest militaries in the world. From the American Revolution to Vietnam, Iraq, and multiple wars in Afghanistan, it isn’t difficult to find templates for how a Ukrainian resistance could eventually prevail if Russia attempts to capture and hold it.”

Speaking on CNN, Nina Lvovna Khrushcheva, a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York, also said small arms could be decisive.

“If every Ukrainian takes a gun, Russians don’t have a prayer,” she told John Berman. “I mean the military can fight, but… Ukrainians are really ready today.”

Ukrainian leaders apparently agree. The government on Thursday took the unusual step of issuing thousands of automatic weapons to civilians, following the issuance of its emergency order.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of serious resistance is low because the Ukrainian government embraced the right to bear arms so late.

“Next time,” Cooke points out, “bear arms earlier.”

Cooke’s words could be construed as flippant, but his point is a deadly serious one.

The Founding Fathers enshrined the right to bear arms in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, and they made it clear that they were not “granting” citizens the right, but codifying what was a natural right.

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, explained in 1789. “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”

As some astute observers pointed out on social media, the Second Amendment was never “about hunting” or even self-defense (in a civil sense). It was always about liberty.

“This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty,” the legal scholar Tucker St. George wrote in 1803. “The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

These sentiments were echoed decades later by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States.

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers,” Story wrote, “and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”

It’s wonderful that Ukrainian officials finally sought to extend the full, natural right to bear arms to their people. The only tragedy is that it took so long.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Kyle Rittenhouse Plans to Sue Whoopi and Other Celebrities For Defaming and Blood-Libeling Him

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So living for this …… Rittenhouse told Tucker Carlson “We’re looking at quite a few, politicians, athletes, celebrities, Whoopi Goldberg is on the list, she called me a murderer after I was acquitted.”

Kyle Rittenhouse says he will sue Whoopi Goldberg and other ‘celebrities, politicians and athletes’ for calling him a murderer after he was acquitted of killing two men during Kenosha protest

  • Kyle Rittenhouse has said he intends to take legal action against media outlets and ‘celebrities, politicians and athletes’ that have called him a ‘murderer’
  • Rittenhouse told Fox News he feels several organizations and people were misguided in their coverage of the Kenosha incident He said he was going to set up The Media Accountability Project as a tool to help fundraise and hold the media accountable for the’ lies that were told about him’
  • Claims he has plans to sue talk show host Whoopi Goldberg and Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur both of whom continue to call him ‘a murderer’ NBA superstar LeBron James also accused Rittenhouse of pretending to cry after the teen broke down on the stand during his double murder trial
  • President Biden tweeted how Rittenhouse was a ‘white supremacist’
  • Rittenhouse shot the men during during a street protest in Kenosha in 2020
  • He killed Anthony Huber, Joseph Rosenbaum and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz
  • A jury last year acquitted him of multiple charges, including homicide

By James Gordon For Dailymail.com, 21 February 2022 |

Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse plans to take aim at the people and organizations who called him a ‘murderer’, a ‘white supremacist’ among other things in the run up to his trial and subsequent acquittal.

Rittenhouse killed two men and wounded a third during confrontations amid anti-police protests in Kenosha in August 2020. He testified that he acted in self-defense.

Last November, the 18-year-old was found not guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and other charges, and walked out of court a free man.

Speaking on Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Monday night, Rittenhouse said he wanted to hold major media and entertainment figures ‘accountable’ noting that he had talk show host Whoopi Goldberg in his sights.
Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse has said he intends to take legal action against media outlets and ‘celebrities, politicians and athletes’ that have called him a ‘murderer’

Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse has said he intends to take legal action against media outlets and ‘celebrities, politicians and athletes’ that have called him a ‘murderer’
Rittenhouse told Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Monday night that he feels several organizations and people were misguided in their coverage of him and the Kenosha incident

Rittenhouse told Tucker Carlson on Fox News on Monday night that he feels several organizations and people were misguided in their coverage of him and the Kenosha incident

‘We are looking at quite a few politicians, celebrities, athletes, Whoopi Goldberg is on the list. She called me a murderer after I was acquitted by a jury of my peers. She went on to still say that, and there’s others,’ Rittenhouse told Carlson.
Rittenhouse said he was going to set up The Media Accountability Project as a tool to help fundraise and hold the media accountable for the’ lies that were told about him’

Rittenhouse said he was going to set up The Media Accountability Project as a tool to help fundraise and hold the media accountable for the’ lies that were told about him’

He also revealed that Cenk Uygur the founder of the Young Turks show is on his scope adding that he ‘continues to call me a ‘murderer.”

The Young Turks show is a liberal and left-wing news commentary show on YouTube that additionally appears on selected television channels.

‘What about the people who called you a white supremacist? It makes it pretty hard to get a job for the rest of your life if you are a white supremacist. Will you be responding to them?’ Carlson asked.

‘Absolutely. We’re going to hold everybody who lied about me accountable, such as everybody who lied called me a White supremacist,’ Rittenhouse said in response. ‘They’re all going to be held accountable. And we’re going to handle them in a courtroom.’

Rittenhouse refused to be drawn on who else may come under fire from him but there may end up being quite a list including the President of the United States, Joe Biden.

Two months before Biden was elected president, he criticized then-President Trump for refusing to condemn people who are against the Black Lives Matter riots as ‘white supremacists.’

The tweet from the then-candidate included an image from a video clip of Rittenhouse, who was 17 at the time of the shooting.

‘There’s no other way to put it: the President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacists on the debate stage last night,’ Biden tweeted in September 2020.

After a jury determined that Rittenhouse did not act with ‘utter disregard for human life’ when he shot the two protesters, Biden delicately weighed in on the verdict – but walk back on his pre-election Tweet.

‘While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken.

‘I urge everyone to express their views peacefully, consistent with the rule of law. Violence and destruction of property have no place in our democracy.’

At the time, Rittenhouse’s lawyer, Mark Richards, said he was dismayed by Biden’s depiction of him as a white supremacist.

‘I’ve never had a case, I don’t think I ever will, where within two days or three days of one another, you know, the President and the presidential candidate comment on it. And both of them had such different beliefs,’ Richards said.

‘President Biden said some things, I think are so incorrect and untrue — he is not a white supremacist. I’m glad that he at least respects the jury verdict.”

NBA superstar LeBron James also accused Rittenhouse of pretending to cry after the teen broke down on the stand during his double murder trial.

In response to the video of him sobbing as he claimed self-defense for killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber in 2020, James tweeted, ‘What tears?????’

‘I didn’t see one. Man knock it off! That boy ate some lemon heads before walking into court.’

In December, Rittenhouse fired back at LeBron saying: ‘I was really p****d off when he said that because I liked LeBron, and then I’m like, you know what, f*** you, LeBron.’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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VIDEO: Gunmaker’s New ‘AR-15 for Kids’ Has Left Shooting Intellectual Blanks

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UPDATE: This article initially indicated that the AR-15’s standard round was “moderate in muzzle velocity.” I should have written that it’s lacking in “killing power” according to this analysis. The article has been corrected to reflect this reality. I deeply regret the error, which was the result of a lamentable brain cramp.

A good response to the self-righteous exclamation “You let your son play with toy guns!?” might once have been, “Well, yeah, he’s too young to have a real one!” But perhaps not anymore, not with a new addition to the firearms market: a smaller, lighter AR-15 designed just for kids.

Dubbed the JR-15, the AFP relates that it’s “marketed by maker WEE1 Tactical as ‘the first in a line of shooting platforms that will safely help adults introduce children to the shooting sports.’” Clearly aghast, the news organ further reports that the “company’s website says the rifle ‘also looks, feels, and operates just like Mom and Dad’s gun.’”

Unsurprisingly, the AFP reminds people in its commentary masquerading as hard news that the AR-15 “has been used in multiple mass killings in the United States…” while quoting only anti-Second Amendment activists in its piece. Yet is mixing kids and guns really anything to fear? Let’s examine the matter.

Many people today won’t let their sons play with toy guns, perhaps afraid that it could increase the chances their boys could become murderers. But, question: Do these people also stop their kids from playing with trucks for fear they’ll turn into truck drivers? (And with the Canadian protests, this may especially trouble leftists now!)

It’s quite silly supposing that instruction in or experience with a thing increases the probability that thing will be used for evil. Does teaching a youngster to drive increase the chances he’ll mow down a crowd with a car? If a kid becomes skilled at baseball, is it more likely he’ll bludgeon someone unconscious with a bat? Does schooling a lad in carpentry raise the odds he’ll kill with a hammer?

Apropos of this, more people are murdered yearly with blunt instruments than with AR-15s or, for that matter, with rifles of any kind. Do we need blunt-instrument control?

Making this even odder is that there was a time when, unlike today, gun-control efforts had at least some relationship to reality. While I didn’t support the proposals, the emphasis back in the ’90s was on criminalizing handguns. The thinking was that most firearm murders are committed with handguns largely because, being concealable, they’re criminals’ weapons of choice.

In recent times, however, there’s been a fixation on prohibiting law-abiding sport shooters’ weapon of choice (the AR-15 is our nation’s most popular rifle). Given this jump-the-shark version of gun-grabbing, is it surprising that many Second Amendment advocates believe current proposals have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with control?

Moreover, while AR-15s have been used in some horrific massacres, they’re not actually the most effective firearms for a typical mass-shooting situation; that is, with “soft” targets (people without body armor) at close range. For this purpose, a semi-automatic shotgun would be far, far more devastating. After all, the AR’s standard round is small caliber — approximately the same as a .22 — and is moderate in muzzle velocity. (Yes, really. The weapon is the Wizard of Oz of firearms, with a reputation greatly exceeding its power.)

So why do some mass shooters choose AR’s, anyway? Part of the reason is that it’s more likely than other long guns to be on hand because, again, it’s our most popular rifle. Second, it’s appealing because it looks cool. Put differently, mass shooters may choose ARs because….

They usually know little about firearms.

Returning to the fevered fears over kids and guns, I remember reading the comments years ago of a judge who noted (I’m paraphrasing), “I’ve never seen a boy with a hunting or fishing license come before me [in court].” This is just common sense. Do you really think the lad with an engaged father — who teaches him proper gun-handling and takes him hunting or target-shooting — fits the criminal profile? The average mass shooter or career criminal is more likely to have had no dad around at all or one who was a miscreant himself.

In truth, the fear that exposure to firearms will somehow increase the chances a child will kill often reflects the godless perspective that conceives of man as just another animal. Put appealing food before a dog and he’ll gobble it down without thinking, governed by instinct; he’ll practically eat himself to death if you let him. Though also subject to temptation, only a human being will think: Should I eat this? Is it healthful? Will it make me fat?

Consider also that every child must learn to manage weapons — they’re called hands, fists and feet. Note, too, the FBI informs that more murders are committed yearly with these appendages, which the bureau classifies as “personnel weapons,” than with rifles of any kind.

The point is that man is a rational being, reflecting God in that he possesses intellect and free will. Yet those making the youth+gun exposure=trouble assumption appear to ignore the moral component. What’s more, they also don’t even rightly consider correlations. To wit: The phenomenon of increasingly frequent mass shootings manifested itself in the ’90s, but AR-15s weren’t born in the ’90s but in the late ’50s.

What does correlate with the ’90s mass shooting phenomenon, however, is the greatly increased medicating of children (especially boys) with psychotropic drugs, the intensification of mindless entertainment violence, the Internet’s rise, continued family breakdown, and burgeoning godlessness with its associated moral relativism. Any discussion about reducing crime that doesn’t include these factors simply isn’t serious.

In the same vein, in earlier times we had relatively few gun laws, and teaching boys to shoot at young ages was common. Why, in the ’40s and ’50s, lads would carry firearms openly on New York City subways (try that today) because they had rifle clubs at school. What changed in the ’60s and beyond? Access to guns?

As for the JR-15, it’s not only a brilliant marketing idea but makes sense. ARs are extremely light and have virtually no recoil, making them ideal for physically weaker people such as women and children. And since it’s smaller and uses .22 ammunition, the JR-15 is even lighter with less kick still. So it only makes sense that if you’re going to teach your kid to use a gun — in keeping with longstanding American tradition — such a weapon would be a logical choice.

None of this will matter to leftists, though, as they occupy an inverted moral universe. They believe children mustn’t be taught to shoot before 10 but must be taught about sex before 8, that it can be toxic to push a boy toward masculine pursuits but healthful to tell him he can become a girl. Operating with intellectual blanks and moral misfires, leftists are twisted souls — and their ideology has killed far more people than any gun ever could.

For those interested, below is a video from the SHOT Show 2022 (a gun trade event) in which the JR-15 is displayed and its features discussed.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on MeWe, Spreely or Parler, or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

©Selwyn Duke. All rights reserved.

2ndVote Gun Cam AR-15 Celebrates Three Years of Not Killing Anyone

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We’ve heard them all; the plethora of arguments against firearms and the second amendment are false and uninformed.

“Guns are the issue.”

“Guns are dangerous.”

“Guns kill people!”

“Guns should only be used by individuals over the age of 21.”

“We need gun-free safe spaces.”

“We need common sense gun laws.”

“Places with strict gun laws don’t have shooting problems.”

“Less guns, less gun violence.”

“Certain guns should be banned completely.”

Have you ever heard any of these arguments and just wanted to roll your eyes? Even the President of the United States has added to the long list of lies about firearms and the second amendment, after also saying that American patriots’ AR-15’s were not enough to stop his fighter jets and nuclear weapons. These anti-gun claims come from people who are lying, ignorant, or both.

These arguments are the very reason why we at 2ndVote decided to start live streaming an AR-15 three years ago. Over the last three years – starting February 1, 2019, we have proven that the gun itself is not the issue. 2ndVote founder Dr. David Black says he has spent literally hours over these past three years making sure this gun understood what America is all about, that we have come together to celebrate what we have in common, as opposed to our weaknesses and differences. The scary black military-style assault rifle has not argued, disagreed, or threatened Dr. Black or his staff even once.

We are proud to report the 2ndVote AR-15 shown in the Gun Cam live stream has not:

  • Loaded even a single round of ammunition into the magazine.
  • Aimed at even a single person.
  • Fired at any inanimate objects.
  • Shot at any living creature.
  • Shot at any human – the kill count remains at “000” despite being designed to “kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible”.

Unfortunately, the AR-15 shown in the Gun Cam has also refused to clean itself (either field dressing or simple dusting) so we take care of that. So we must ask again…are guns really the issue? Of course not.

We hope the gun cam proves the theory that a gun is not the issue, but simply an important reminder of our American right for protection of life, liberty, and property from thieves, ne’er-do-wells and tyrants, also known as the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

So the next time that loud, woke friend of yours starts to go into their “guns bad…no guns solve problem” argument, before they start to sound like the droning-on talking heads on TV, make sure to show them the 2ndVote Gun Cam Livestream. If they are honest, they will have to acknowledge that guns are not the problem.

As for the 2ndVote Gun Cam, it will continue live streaming and proving the left’s false claims to be the hyperbolic deception that it always was.

EDITORS NOTE: This 2ndVote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Gun Control Comes from a Place of Privilege

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Assuming we know what’s best for others is rarely a good idea.

The concept of privilege gets a bad rap in many circles, and understandably so. Many have taken it way too far, using it as a means of bullying their political opponents into submission. But while the excesses of this rhetoric are certainly problematic, I don’t think we should do away with the concept entirely. Behind all the moral grandstanding lies a kernel of truth, one that can provide some valuable insights if applied correctly.

The principle, essentially, is that certain people have unearned advantages, and those advantages can shape how they see the world. Affluence, for instance, can make someone blind to the needs of the poor. Likewise, those with an above average aptitude, intelligence, or physical appearance might find it difficult to relate to those who were not equally endowed with those gifts.

The problem with this blindness is that it can easily lead to hubris, that is, unwarranted self-confidence. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of privilege is thinking we know the best course of action for a given situation when we really don’t.

The classic example of this is the story of a famous French princess who, upon hearing that the peasants had no bread, simply replied, “then let them eat cake.” She was so unfamiliar with their circumstances that the solution she dismissively prescribed was positively laughable. Another example of privilege was when the lockdown elite told us to “just stay home,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that staying home is simply unfeasible for many working class people.

Now, progressives are typically pretty good at pointing out places where privilege is leading to blindness and hubris (indeed, they often see privilege even where it doesn’t exist). But there’s one occurance of privilege that always seems to get a pass, and that is the privilege associated with gun control.

Consider, for example, someone who’s from a wealthy, safe neighborhood. They know very little about what it’s like to live in a high-crime area. They have probably never been robbed or threatened with violence from a total stranger. And if they do face threats, they have no qualms with calling the (armed) police who are usually responsive and happy to help.

Now compare that to the experience of someone from a rougher part of town. First, the cops there are probably not as responsive. What’s more, the cops can often become antagonistic, poking their nose where it doesn’t belong (see below) and sometimes arresting the very people they arrived to help.

Unsurprisingly, confidence in police is noticeably lower in these communities.

So what do you do if you live in a high-crime area where you can’t trust the police to help you? For many, the answer is to buy a gun. Indeed, 88 percent of gun owners cite crime protection as one of the main reasons they own a gun, and people who have been recent crime victims report higher rates of gun ownership than those who have not been recent victims.

This brings us to the point about privilege. To many people who grew up in these rough neighborhoods, saying “just call the cops” is like saying “let them eat cake.” It isn’t actually helpful advice. It just demonstrates how little we know about their circumstances and how unqualified we are to speak to their issues.

To be sure, the people in these communities are often divided over the issue of gun control themselves. Even so, if someone is buying a gun, there’s a good chance it’s because they don’t feel safe without it. So before we tell them they are better off disarmed, perhaps we should take stock of how privileged we are to not need guns ourselves.

A Decades-Old Problem

The connection between gun control and privilege may sound new to many, but it’s actually an issue that goes back decades. In 1978, for instance, the economist and libertarian philosopher Murray Rothbard drew attention to this problem in his book For a New Liberty. To make his point, he quotes an article written by Don Kates for the Cato Institute’s Inquiry Magazine. Kates, for his part, pulls no punches.

“Gun prohibition is the brainchild of white middle-class liberals who are oblivious to the situation of poor and minority people living in areas where the police have given up on crime control,” Kates writes. “Such liberals weren’t upset about marijuana laws, either, in the fifties when the busts were confined to the ghettos. Secure in well-policed suburbs or high-security apartments guarded by Pinkertons (whom no one proposes to disarm), the oblivious liberal derides gun ownership as ‘an anachronism from the Old West.’”

Kates goes on to highlight exactly what kind of people are being impacted by gun control policies. Citing a 1975 national survey, he notes that the leading subgroups who owned a gun only for self-defense were blacks, the lowest income groups, and senior citizens. “These are the people,” Kates eloquently warns, “it is proposed we jail because they insist on keeping the only protection available for their families in areas in which the police have given up.”

Four decades later, FBI data showed African Americans were still disproportionately impacted by anti-carry laws, accounting for 42 percent of all possession charges even though they accounted for just 13 percent of the overall population.

Of course, none of this will make gun control any less contentious. There is no silver bullet here. But perhaps this paradigm can at least give us a lesson in humility. Namely, don’t assume you know what’s best for someone if you haven’t walked a mile in their shoes.

COLUMN BY

Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and is an Editorial Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Are Citizens Arming themselves for an ‘American Revolution 2.0’? 18.5 Million Guns Sold in 2021

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On November 20th, 2021 we wrote a column titled “An American Revolution Version 2.0?” We wrote:

We are now in the 256th year since the beginning of the American Revolution on March 22nd, 1765. “The shot heard round the world” occurred when British soldiers and minutemen—the colonists’ militia—exchanged gunfire at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts.

Questions: Is it time for a Second American Revolution? Will there be a second shot heard round the world?

To have a Second American Revolution one must arm themselves to defend one’s family, property and community. Since writing this column we have seen a rise in violence in certain communities and the murder rates in certain cities reach historic numbers.

It now appears that the citizens of America are exercising their 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

On January 4, 2022 The Reload’s Stephen Gutowski in an article titled “18.5 Million Guns Sold in 2021” wrote:

2021 was the second-best year on record for gun sales.

Americans bought more than 18.5 million guns, according to an industry analysis of FBI background check data. That puts the 2021 numbers about 12 percent off the all-time record set in 2020. But it also puts 2021 40 percent ahead of 2019’s total.

“The fact that over 18.5 million Americans chose lawfully purchase a firearm in 2021 is indicative the value Americans hold of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which did the analysis, said in a statement.

[ … ]

Oliva pointed specifically to the nomination of former-ATF agent and current gun-control activist David Chipman as an example of the Biden Administration’s animus towards the gun industry. He said Chipman’s failure to get confirmed coupled with the big sales numbers was further evidence the president’s gun agenda, which polled poorly throughout 2021, is faltering.

“Americans have taken stock of their personal safety concerns and their fundamental, God-given rights,” he said. [Emphasis added]

Read more.

The Bottom Line

Tom Paine wrote,

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”

Today in America we are clearly seeing abuses and usurpations. The goal is absolute despotism.

When we the people see these truths to be self-evident, that our despotic government does not hold that all men as created equal. When our government takes away our inalienable rights, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is time to take action.

We the people must either alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.

George Washington  wrote:

“Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect – We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die…”

We are now all called to become Minutemen and women preparing to defend our Constitutional Republic.

Give me liberty or give me death.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED TWEET:

The Bait and Switch Con Game to Destroy our 1787 Constitution

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“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.  The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” — The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”  – James Madison

“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” –  Thomas Jefferson

“Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.” – John Adams letter to Abigail Adams, July 7, 1775

The Convention of States (COS) proponents have continuously lied to their constituents, most of whom have never opened the US Constitution and read Article V. The push for an Article V Convention is the most vicious bait and switch con-game of all time.

Amendments to the Constitution

COS adherents tell us we can simply open the US Constitution and add amendments to rein in the powers and jurisdictions of the federal government, but if elected officials won’t obey the constitution now, why would they obey changes to the document unless the changes benefited them?!

Article V unequivocally provides only two procedures for amendments to the Constitution, to wit: Method 1.  Congressional Enactment when “two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary,” OR Method 2.  Congressional Convening of a Convention in response to “the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several states.”  Furthermore, even the choice between the two declared modes of State ratification of any resulting amendments therefrom is specifically left to “be proposed by the Congress.”

How much semantical distortion of the English language; or “bouncing off the wall of legalize” does it take to create a “Convention of States” out of Article V?  Nowhere in Article V does it say that a convention can be called, opened or convened and bypass Congress, which COS promoters claim they can do.  Read it for yourselves:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. (Emphasis mine)

Why can’t we add amendments to the constitution as we have for 235 years rather than risking opening the constitution to violent partisans and nefarious individuals?

1787 Convention Precedent

The COS promoters have also stated that they could “control” the convention, but the precedent for total lack of control was set in 1787 when the Founding Fathers realized the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation could not be fixed under the current form of government and thus, started anew.  Throwing out our 1787 Constitution, written by true statesmen, and substituting “privileges” rather than individual freedoms is the goal of those behind the Convention of States and their irreputable monetary benefactors.

At the time the Articles of Confederation were written there was a widespread fear of a strong central government among Americans whose loyalties were to their own state rather than any national government.  During the American Revolution, the Articles purposely kept the national government as weak as possible and the states as independent as possible.  But there were serious weaknesses, and these weaknesses were discussed at the 1786 Annapolis Convention.  Thus, a new document was needed, but states rights were strongly included in the ten unalienable Bill of Rights.

Convention Advocates and Financiers

Mark Meckler is the man being funded with millions from Koch Brothers organizations, American Legislative Exchange Council and other odious groups and organizations. Rob Natelson, formerly of the Goldwater Institute and now with the Independence Institute, and Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College are also defenders of the egregious Convention of States.  Yet, they’re afraid to debate those constitutional scholars who know the truth of their intentions.

Their real purpose in opening another Constitutional Convention is to impose a new constitution of their own making.  One of the early rewritten constitutions was published in Rex Tugwell’s 1974 book, The Emerging Constitution.  It was a project over a period of 10 years and $25 million by Fund for the Republic (the Ford Foundation).  The proposed “New States Constitution” is a frightening combination of government privileges rather than individual freedoms, and a culmination of the final objectives of regional governance conspirators.

In addition to the proposed new Constitutions already out there; the National Constitution Center’s Constitution Drafting Project has released three proposed new constitutions to replace our existing constitution.  You can read the proposed new constitutions here. These proposed constitutions would transfer massive new powers to the federal government; would legalize the unconstitutional acts which have been going on for over 100 years; and bring about a long list of additional horrors.

Robert George and the Conservative Constitution

One look at the “Conservative Constitution” headed up by Robert George should give anyone the willies.  Robert George, globalist Council on Foreign Relations member, who poses as a conservative Christian while serving UNESCO and the CFR’s agenda, has found common ground with the purveyors who wish the destruction our 1787 Constitution.

Quite obviously, COS board member, Robert George, would like to delete the entire second amendment.  Here’s what he has written that negates the original meaning of the founder’s “teeth” of our Bill of Rights.

The modified “Second Amendment” clarifies what we understand to be the best original understanding. It provides, “Neither the states nor the United State shall make or enforce any law infringing the right to keep and bear arms of the sort ordinarily used for self-defense or recreational purposes, provided that states, and the United States in places subject to its general regulatory authority, may enact and enforce reasonable regulations on the bearing of arms, and the keeping of arms by persons determined, with due process, to be dangerous to themselves or others.” (Emphasis mine)

So, who will determine those who are dangerous to themselves or others?  Unelected councils as in Soviet Russia?  The same unelected councils as our local county health departments?  Those unelected councils determined healthy people should be locked up, schools should be closed, and everyone should don face diapers, breathing in their own exhaled bacteria, depriving their brains of oxygen, and literally doing damage to themselves. Adopted because other unelected councils told them what to do…NIH, CDC, FDA, AMA, etc… the snakeholders!  Our elected officials willingly complied.

Robert George’s revision of our unalienable second amendment is a prescription for the annihilation of our God given right to defend ourselves, and we know exactly who the targets will be.

America’s Gun Owners

Will Dabbs MD writes for Firearms News and in a recent article he said, “American civilian shooters bought as many firearms in the month of January 2021 as are maintained in the entire US Army inventory.  In a nation of 328 million people, we own more than 400 million guns and forty million of those firearms were sold in 2020.  There’s just no putting that back in the box.  As a people, we are irrevocably armed to the teeth.  No amount of legislated social engineering will ever make a dent.  That means the bad guys in the United States will be well armed until the sun burns out.”

Dr. Dabbs continues, “While the left wishes the United States was actually Sweden or Norway, we pragmatists appreciate that in the face of such a sordid state, we need to assume responsibility for our own security.  In the Information Age, this means we avail ourselves of the proper tools and train to proficiency.”

Remember the summer of 2020, when Antifa thugs pulled Adam Haner out of his pickup truck in Portland during a BLM protest march and beat him unconscious?  His crime was just trying to help another person who had been beaten by the same mob.

As Dr. Dabbs says, “I don’t know about you guys, but that’s just not happening to me.”

“We must avoid this type of chaos at all costs, but should the exigencies of life place you in that sort of place, nothing screams, ‘Don’t screw with me, dude!’ like a handy takedown AR.”

Conclusion

Too many evil entities wish to destroy the finest document of individual God given freedoms ever created by man.  Frederick Douglass said, “Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the constitution is a Glorious Liberty Document!”  He was right.

In 1788, James Madison wrote to G.I. Turberville when he was asked how he felt if another General Convention should be called.

He wrote, “You wish to know my sentiments on the project of (an Article V) Convention as suggested by New York. I shall give them to you with great frankness. If a General Convention were to take place for the avowed and sole purpose of revising the Constitution, it would naturally consider itself as having a greater latitude than the Congress appointed to administer and support as well as to amend the system; it would consequently give greater agitation to the public mind; an election into it would be courted by the most violent partizans [sic] on both sides; it would probably consist of the most heterogeneous characters; would be the very focus of that flame which has already too much heated men of all parties; would no doubt contain individuals of insidious views, who under the mask of seeking alterations popular in some parts but inadmissible in other parts of the Union might have a dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric.”

My friend, Joanna Martin, a true scholar of our 1787 Constitution as well as the Federalist papers, has written a much more in-depth article exposing the deleterious effects of allowing another constitutional convention.  Please take the time to study her work.

The war to save our 1787 Constitution continues.  Please join the battle to restore our God given liberties and freedoms.

©Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

Kansas City: Firearms store won’t let Muslima use gun range with hijab, Hamas-linked CAIR sues

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The involvement of Hamas-linked CAIR makes this suspicious on its face, as does the fact that the woman was told she could not use the range unless she removed her hijab not because of “Islamophobia,” but because of a headgear rule that is enforced for everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim. This is a highly dubious lawsuit, but despite their lack of substance, such suits are often successful — and lucrative for CAIR’s lawyers and their clients — if they come up before a judge who is susceptible to their rhetoric of hatred, discrimination and “racism.”

Lawsuit: Missouri shooting range made Muslim woman remove hijab

Associated Press, December 29, 2021:

A firearms store and gun range in suburban Kansas City refused to let a Muslim woman use the range unless she removed her hijab, a Muslim civil rights organization alleged in a federal lawsuit.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the law firm of Baldwin & Vernon in Independence alleges that the gun range at Frontier Justice in Lee’s Summit enforces its dress code in a discriminatory way that disproportionately affects Muslim women….

Rania Barakat and her husband went to Frontier Justice on Jan. 1 to shoot at the gun range. According to the lawsuit, Barakat was told she would not be allowed to use the range unless she removed her hijab, a religious head covering typically worn by Muslim women.

The gun range requires shooters to remove all head coverings except baseball caps facing forward. A store manager explained that shrapnel could cause the hijab and skin to burn….

The lawsuit contends that it is Frontier Justice’s policy to turn away Muslims wearing hijabs, citing several social media posts from other Muslims about being refused use of the shooting range. It also claims that Instagram posts from Frontier Justice show customers wearing baseball caps turned backward, and hats and scarves.

“It is completely unacceptable for a business establishment to deny service to customers based on their religious beliefs — and that is exactly what Frontier Justice has done,” Moussa Elbayoumy, chairman of the board of CAIR-Kansas, said in a statement. “The claim that a hijab somehow presents a safety issue is merely a bad excuse in an attempt to justify a pattern of discriminatory treatment of Muslim women.”

CAIR had asked the U.S. Department of Justice in July to investigate civil rights practices at Frontier Justice.

At the time, Bren Brown, Frontier Justice’s president, said Barakat was not discriminated against and was asked to follow a dress code that is applied to all patrons equally, The Kansas City Star reported.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to find that Frontier Justice’s policies regarding the wearing of hijabs violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act and prohibit the gun range and its employees from acting in ways that discriminate against anyone based on their religion.

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Iran news agency claims Egypt is writing ‘modern interpretation’ of Qur’an, moving to replace Arab-Islamic identity

Afghanistan: Taliban orders mannequins beheaded after head of Virtue and Vice ministry rules they are ‘idols’

Spain: Muslim migrant posts jihad messages online, calls for murder of blasphemers

Uganda: Man converts to Christianity, Muslims meet in mosque, then break into his home with machetes and stones

Uganda: Muslim woman converts to Christianity, her husband beats her with a stick

Nigeria: Muslims murder two Christians driving home after an evening of Christmas caroling

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Atlantic Claims ‘More People Carrying Guns Tends to Result in More Shootings.’ Decades of Data Show They’re Wrong

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The Atlantic recently suggested the surge of violence in 2020 was the result of the increase in firearms sales in 2020. The claim is pure fiction.

A couple of months ago, The Atlantic published an article written by staff writer David A. Graham that explores the surge of violence the United States experienced in 2020.

Overall the article, which analyzes findings from the FBI’s “Uniform Crime Report,” is quite good. It effectively breaks down what we know and—more importantly—what we don’t know about the latest crime trends in America, which in 2020 saw a record surge in the murder rate amid a broader rise of violence.

On one particular point, however, Graham is simply wrong.

Graham notes that sales of firearms jumped in 2020, as did police confiscation of illegal guns, and he attempts to tie this to the surge in violence.

“You can ask law-abiding people or you can ask people who do not abide by the law, ‘Why are you armed with a firearm?’ ‘I need to protect myself,’” Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, tells Graham.

Precisely what Rosenfeld meant by this statement is unclear, but Graham’s next sentence is clear.

“That creates a vicious cycle: More people carrying guns tends to result in more shootings, which in turn heightens the desire to carry a weapon for protection,” Graham writes. “When crime is decreasing, this dynamic helps it continue to fall, but once it begins to rise, the feedback loop turns ugly.”

Whether this claim is Graham’s or Rosenfield’s is unclear. No link or citation is offered to support the assertion. What we do know is the claim that “more people carrying guns tends to result in more shootings” is simply untrue.

As economist Mark Perry pointed out several years ago, the US saw gun violence steadily decrease over multiple decades as gun ownership surged.

“According to data retrieved from the Centers for Disease Control, there were 7 firearm-related homicides for every 100,000 Americans in 1993 (see light blue line in chart),” Perry wrote. “By 2013…the gun homicide rate had fallen by nearly 50% to only 3.6 homicides per 100,000 population. ”

This decline, Perry points out, occurred as the number of privately owned firearms in America surged from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million in 2013.

And in case you’re wondering, non-fatal shootings followed a similar decline as fatal shootings, as Vox reported at the time. This is part of a larger decline in gun violence that saw “a 39 percent decline in gun homicides between 1993 and 2011 and a staggering 69 percent decline in non-fatal firearms crimes.”

Mr. Graham, who has also reported for Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal, is no doubt a fine writer and reporter. (Many of his points in the article on the FBI’s recent crime report are insightful.) But he’s simply wrong that more people possessing guns “tends to result in more shootings.” The data simply do not support this claim. During this “staggering” decades-long trend of falling firearms crimes, gun ownership steadily increased the entire time.

None of this is to say that gun ownership caused the decline in gun violence. It very well may have, but that’s a more difficult question to answer. For instance, Max Ehrenfreund, a Harvard scientist, has posited that the decline in gun violence may have stemmed from a decline in alcoholism, more police working the streets, the bullish economy of the Reagan years, and even less lead exposure.

Ehrenfreund says researchers don’t really know for certain why the decline in violence happened, but he said one thing is clear: “America has become a much less violent place.”

The decline in gun violence was no doubt linked to many factors, but it’s certainly possible the rise of gun ownership was one of them.

As Lawrence Reed has pointed out, compelling research shows guns prevent some 2.5 million crimes a year in America—6,849 every day—nearly a half million of which are of a life-threatening nature. And it’s not exactly hard to see why. After all, 60 percent of convicted felons told researchers that they avoided committing such crimes when they suspected the target was armed.

If you’re suspicious of these statistics, it’s worth noting that the Centers for Disease Control, in a report commissioned by President Obama following the 2012 Sandy Hook Massacre, estimated that crimes prevented by guns may be even higher: up to 3 million annually (8,200 per day).

Again, we don’t know for certain. These are estimates. What we do know is that guns aren’t just used to commit crimes; they are also used to stop and deter crimes.

In his famous essay That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen, the great economist Frédéric Bastiat noted there is a pervasive tendency for people to focus on the visible effects of a given policy or action and miss the unseen consequences.

Gun control proponents often make this mistake. They focus on crimes committed with guns (the seen)—some of which are truly the things of nightmares—but ignore all the unseen, all of the crimes prevented by firearms.

Some may not be prepared to accept the idea that guns prevent thousands of crimes in America every single day. That’s ok.

But The Atlantic should correct its claim that “more people carrying guns tends to result in more shootings.” It’s pure fiction.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

De Blasio Blames Guns After Career Criminal Attacks NY Cops

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Anti-police leftist New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio predictably blamed guns after a career criminal shot two NYPD officers responding to reports of a man with a gun on Thanksgiving Eve in the Bronx.

The shooting suspect was shot three times during the gun battle with officers. His condition has been upgraded to “serious” from “critical.” NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea noted that the suspect was a “career criminal with far too many arrests.” Shea also stated that the firearm used by the suspect was reported stolen in Georgia last year.

The officers — one male, one female — are both expected to survive, no thanks to Democrat policies and rhetoric that demoralize and demonize police.

In response, de Blasio complained vaguely that there are “too many guns out there.” He added that the criminal’s alleged use of a stolen gun is “another example of a gun from out of state, comes into our city, hurts a New Yorker” — as if the gun hopped a boxcar in Georgia, crossed state lines, and randomly shot cops all by itself.

Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch replied to Blasio’s unhelpful comment, “Yes there’s guns on the street, but perps aren’t afraid to carry them. They’re not afraid to put it in their belt, put it in their pocket, and pull it out on a police officer. That’s the problem.”

In the broader sense, soft-on-crime, anti-Second Amendment Democrats like de Blasio are the problem.

Bill de Blasio

52 Known Connections

Defunding the NYPD & Disbanding Plainclothes Officers Unit

In the aftermath of the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd — a black man who died after being physically abused by a white police officer in Minneapolis — a number of U.S. cities were overrun by violent riots led by Black Lives Matter and Antifa. That chaos gave birth to a movement demanding that police departments nationwide be defunded. De Blasio joined that movement when he announced, in a June 7 press conference, a plan to “mov[e] funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services.” “The details will be worked out in the budget process in the weeks ahead,” he added. “But I want people to understand that we are committed to shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people.” “This is a beginning,” the mayor continued. “I want it to be abundantly clear to all New Yorkers. These are first steps to what will be 18 months of making intense change in this city…. This is a transformative moment.” He also announced that street vendor enforcement would “no longer be the responsibility of the NYPD,” and that a civilian agency would thenceforth be responsible for policing citizens’ interactions with city vendors.

On June 15, 2020, the NYPD disbanded its anti-crime unit of some 600 plainclothes officers, reassigning them to new roles in detective bureaus, neighborhood policing, and other areas.

In late June 2020, de Blasio said he had agreed to shift more than $1 billion in annual funding out of the NYPD, thereby reducing its overall annual budget from $6 billion to $5 billion. Much of the diverted money, the mayor stated, would go instead toward the improvement of youth centers and public housing.

To learn more about Bill de Blasio, click here.

RELATED ARTICLE: A Dozen US Cities Blow Away Their Annual Murder Records — With One Glaring Thing in Common

RELATED VIDEO: “I Carry A Gun” – Ultimate 2nd Amendment Gun Control Video

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

A Tale of Two Cities: Beware the Cold of Winter

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A reader sent us this comparison of the cities of Chicago, Illinois and Houston, Texas. The point being made is that the environmentalists want to link violence with climate change. There is actually a Nation Whistle Blower (NWC) website where you can “Report Climate Crimes.”

According to the NWC website:

The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) is the leading nonprofit dedicated to protecting and rewarding whistleblowers around the world. We assist whistleblowers in finding legal aid, advocate for stronger whistleblower protection laws, and educate the public about whistleblowers’ critical role in protecting democracy and the rule of law.

So does crime come from the individual or the climate. Check out these interesting facts.

CHICAGO HOUSTON, TX
Population 2.7 million 2.15 million
Median Household Income $38,600 $37,000
% African-American 38.9% 24%
% Hispanic 29.9% 44%
% Asian 5.5% 6%
% Non-Hispanic White 28.7% 26%

Pretty similar until you compare the following:

Chicago, IL Houston, TX
Concealed Carry –Legal No Yes
Number of Gun Stores None 184 Dedicated gun stores plus 1500 legal places to buy guns– K-mart, sporting goods, etc.
Homicides, 2012 1,806 207
Homicides per 100K 38.4 9.6
Avg. January high temperature (F) 31 63

Conclusion:  Cold weather causes murders.  This is due to climate change.