The epidemic of school shootings in America could be drastically curtailed by a few simple policy changes.
First, school shooters should automatically receive the death penalty with only limited opportunities to appeal. The problem of frivolous appeals and court cases dragging on for decades afflicts our entire judicial system, but it is especially egregious in the case of school shootings.
Read the full story
A 13-year-old male was arrested and charged on Wednesday for the threat of mass violence after he had allegedly “threatened to bring a gun to Ridgedale School and shoot someone,” according to the Knoxville Police Department (KPD).
According to KPD, the 13-year-old was identified and located after allegedly making the threat through a collaborative investigation by KPD Field Operations officers and Investigations Bureau detectives, Knox County School Security, Tennessee Department of Homeland Security investigators, and the Knox County District Attorney’s Office.
Read the full story
A study published this week by Center for Justice Research, a partnership between the office of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Bowling Green State University, revealed gun crime decreased in six of Ohio’s eight largest cities following the implementation of the Constitutional Carry law.
Read the full story
Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) released a statement Tuesday after President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was federally charged with two violations of failure to pay income tax and one violation of unlawful firearm possession.
Blackburn said, “It’s no coincidence that less than a week after President Trump is arraigned, Hunter Biden is pleading guilty to a sweetheart deal with no jail time. The DOJ is going for the low-hanging fruit by charging Hunter Biden with a gun felony and two tax misdemeanors, after years of slow walking their investigation.”
Read the full story
Connecticut has filed a lawsuit against several gun manufacturers, accusing them of violating state law by selling components that are used to build untraceable ‘ghost’ guns.
The civil lawsuit, announced by Attorney General William Tong Tuesday, targets four out-of-state firearm companies accusing them of violating the state’s consumer protection laws, which carry fines of up to $5,000 per violation.
Read the full story
Antwon Brown, a convicted felon and known Unknown Vice Lords street gang member, was recently sentenced to 138 months in federal prison for drug and firearm charges.
Members of the Vice Lords street gang distribute cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and some heroin in Illinois, Tennessee, and other states, according to the Department of Justice. Vice Lords gangs in the Volunteer State are located predominantly in Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, and Nashville.
Read the full story
Oregon voters are considering passing one of the most restrictive gun control measures in the country that would raise the barriers to purchase a firearm and place gun owners on a searchable database.
Measure 114, often referred to as the Reduction of Gun Violence Act, is a ballot measure that will require background checks, firearm training, fingerprint collection and a permit to purchase any firearm, according to the legislation. Oregon already requires background checks for gun owners, and the new legislation will cost the state $49 million annually while also placing an expected 300,000 residents on a gun owner database, according to Fox News.
Read the full story
A town in northern Virginia has adopted a gun buyback ordinance, which will allow residents to receive compensation for giving unwanted firearms to the town.
The Dumfries Town Council approved the gun buyback program at a meeting this week. The ordinance the council adopted authorizes the town manager to contract an individual or entity to manage the firearm buyback program. The contract would be administered by the police department.
Read the full story
Christopher Cobb, 33, pled guilty to communicating a threat against a federal agency and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to a press release by the Western District of Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office. Joseph C. Murphy Jr., United States Attorney, announced the guilty plea on Tuesday.
Read the full story
An Eastern Ohio man was sentenced in U.S. District Court Friday to 168 months (14 years) in prison for discharging a firearm during a drug-trafficking robbery and for cyberstalking a victim for a year, according to a press release by the Southern District of Ohio U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Read the full story
Gun sales reached a five-year high in Connecticut in 2021, the year that the FBI saw the second-highest number of recorded background checks.
According to Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there were 21 million background checks for gun sales in 2020 and 18.5 million in 2021, nationwide. Those figures are the top two highest on record.
“Background checks skyrocketed in March 2020, when there were 2.3 million background checks recorded,” Oliva told The Center Square. “That was the most ever recorded in a single month. That, of course, was the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns. People became concerned for their safety when police were warning they would not be able to respond to all emergency calls because they were seeing COVID infections rise.”
Read the full story
Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed legislation that would have allowed residents to carry a concealed firearm without a license, claiming the measure would exacerbate gun violence in the commonwealth.
“This legislation removes the requirement that an individual obtain a license, and with it, the ability of law enforcement to conduct a background investigation,” Wolf said. “Removal of the licensing background investigation will hinder the ability of law enforcement to prevent individuals who should not be able to carry a firearm concealed from doing so.
Read the full story
While Americans know that guns take many innocent lives every year, many don’t know that firearms also save them.
On May 15, an attacker at an apartment complex in Fort Smith, Ark., fatally shot a woman and then fired 93 rounds at other people before a man killed him with a bolt-action rifle. Police said he “likely saved a number of lives in the process.”
Read the full story
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, said AR-15s are akin to military-grade weapons and not useful for self defense in a 2019 court filing.
The AG’s statements were included in a court case that challenged California’s gun ban titled Rupp v. Becerra, in which multiple state residents sued government officials to overturn the prohibition of certain semi-automatic firearms. Becerra, an advocate for the Affordable Care Act, was announced as Biden’s pick to lead HHS Sunday, according to the New York Times.
Read the full story
Tennesseans should have the right to protect their property, State Representative Jay D. Reedy (R-Erin) told The Tennessee Star in an exclusive interview.
Reedy introduced House Bill 11. Tracking information is here. Reedy said it mirrors the law in Texas.
Read the full story
As consumers rushed to buy toilet paper in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, data suggests Michiganders also rushed to buy guns.
That’s according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported the number of firearm background checks completed this year in Michigan more than doubled from February to March from 47,557 to 107,492.
Read the full story
Congress reconvenes this week after a summer fraught with multiple mass shootings. Reportedly, legislation implementing tighter gun control is on the table, with rumored support by some in the White House. The rhetoric surrounding guns continues to escalate.
Read the full story
by Aaron Tao Many people are often surprised to learn that I am a gun owner and firm defender of the Second Amendment. After all, I, a first-generation Chinese-American immigrant, do not fit the stereotype of the typical American gun owner. Of all of America’s cherished freedoms, the natural and unalienable right of self-defense, recognized and protected (not granted) by the Second Amendment, took me the longest to fully embrace. But as an open-minded rationalist, the lessons of history and statistical research proved overwhelming (not to mention the sheer fun of learning the basic operations and mechanics of firearms) and eventually helped me understand why tens of millions of my fellow Americans treasure their right to keep and bear arms. Cultivating Civic Virtue From the colonists winning independence from Great Britain to African-Americans vindicating their civil rights, the role of the gun is inseparable from American identity. The gun is the ultimate multipurpose tool that empowers its user with the means to put food on the table, as well as preserve one’s life, whether against common street criminals or government tyranny. The philosophical underpinnings and lived experiences that shaped American gun culture all matter (and reinforce each other), but I want to focus on one aspect in particular: the cultivation of civic virtue. Owning and shooting a gun…
Read the full story