Vermont’s Socialist Senator and top-tier Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is one of the true disruptors in American politics. His unconventional ideas defy easy categorization as he campaigns around the country on his own idiosyncratic brand of Democratic Socialism.
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When the Virginia State Crime Commission and the House Judiciary Committee held hearings earlier this fall regarding firearm policies, it was striking how little many gun control advocates and policymakers know about basic facts related to guns and gun violence.
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It seems as though every day another celebrity or politician demands that we place more severe restrictions on the ability of law-abiding citizens to exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
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Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, the former congressman from Texas who couldn’t beat Ted Cruz in a U.S. Senate race but who nevertheless believes he can win the presidency, said a curious thing at the Democrats’ third primary debate in Houston on Thursday night.
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Former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas suggested pushing financial institutions into refusing service to Americans who are seeking to purchase semi-automatic rifles, among other forms of artillery.
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It never fails. A split-second after a mass shooting occurs, grandstanders and ideologues issue statements demanding new gun controls—even if the laws already on the books failed or the laws they want would have made no difference. Case in point: the tragic incidents in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, in early August 2019.
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Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island filed a legal brief before the Supreme Court in a challenge to New York City’s gun transportation regulations, advancing a broad indictment of the Roberts Court itself as he urged the justices to turn away the NRA-backed case.
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by Amy Swearer The right to keep and bear arms is based on the natural, immutable right to defend oneself and one’s liberties from crime and tyranny. Unfortunately, too many well-intentioned people today advocate severely restricting the ability of law-abiding Americans to defend themselves and others with the most effective firearms. Their desire for strict gun control laws is based largely on misperceptions. They believe that Americans rarely use firearms to protect their rights and liberties, and they think commonly proposed gun control laws will meaningfully address gun-related violence. But the reality is quite different. Measures like universal background checks, depriving young adults of their Second Amendment rights, and banning commonly owned semi-automatic firearms or magazines impose huge burdens on law-abiding gun owners, and they fail to address the underlying realities of suicidal and criminal behavior. Moreover, it is undeniable that Americans use guns in self-defense on far more occasions than criminals use them to commit crimes. Yet those defensive gun uses rarely receive the amount of attention given to criminal gun uses. Every month so far this year, we’ve highlighted just a few of the tens of thousands of Americans who exercised their right to keep and bear…
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More than 1,000 rifles and handguns and thousands of rounds of ammunition were seized Wednesday at a mansion in a posh area not far from the Playboy Mansion. Acting on a tip regarding illegal firearms sales, police and federal agents served a search warrant around 4 a.m. at the property, a home valued at millions of dollars on the border of the Bel Air and Holmby Hills neighborhoods, authorities said. Photos and video from the scene showed stacks of rifles, handguns and shotguns laid out in the driveway. Others showed a table stacked with boxes of ammunition. Although many appeared to be modern, some were 50 years old or more and a few may have been collectibles dating back to the Civil War, KABC-TV reported. “I had never seen so many weapons in my career of 31 years,” police Lt. Chris Ramirez said. “That’s such a big arsenal in a residence like this, in this type of neighborhood. It’s astounding.” One man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of violating a state law that outlaws the manufacture, possession or sale of assault weapons and high-caliber rifles. His name wasn’t immediately released. Investigators didn’t immediately release other details, such…
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by Amy Swearer Gun control advocates long have controlled the narrative about defensive uses of firearms, calling the “good guy with a gun” scenario a “myth meant to scare people into buying guns for self-defense.” This is a false narrative that does not reflect reality. Despite a backdrop of rhetoric asserting that “the average person … has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2013 report concluded that studies routinely find that Americans use firearms in defense of themselves or others between 500,000 and 3 million times every year. Data collected by the CDC itself, but long hidden from the public, indicates that the number is likely around 1 million defensive gun uses per year. But even the lowest end of this statistical range far outpaces the number of times Americans use firearms for unlawful purposes. It’s one thing to hear that incredible number and know that the “good guy with a gun” is not a myth. It’s another thing entirely to dig deeper into the firsthand accounts of individual law-abiding Americans whose lives and livelihoods were saved because they were able to exercise…
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Friday, Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Judge Robert Rhuehlman granted an injunction against an ordnance by the city of Cincinnati that would have made “trigger activators,” which are more commonly know as bump stocks, illegal in city limits. A bump stock is any device that uses “bump fire,” to increase the rate-of-fire of a semiautomatic weapon, and some revolvers. The device uses the natural recoil of the gun to permit the weapon to fire at a much higher rate. The ATF, led by appointees of the Obama Administration ruled in 2010 that these devices were legal and could be sold without regulation. Despite widespread availability and at relatively modest prices, they were not commonly adopted. This changed dramatically in 2017. On October 1st, 2017, a gunman opened fire in Las Vegas, Nevada, killing 58 people, wounding more than 400 with gunfire, and injuring 851. Upon investigation, it was found that he was utilizing bump stocks on several of his weapons. This propelled the otherwise innocuous firearm modification into the national spotlight. Overnight, demand for bump stocks spiked. Many progressive groups began calling for immediate bans. To many second amendment advocates, this appeared to be an overreaction by the federal government that infringed upon the second amendment.…
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by Neetu Chandak Parents and a grandparent filed a lawsuit against a Pennsylvania school district on Thursday over a policy allowing teachers to carry guns in school. Tamaqua Area School District in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, approved the policy in September 2018, according The Associated Press reported Friday. The policy allows teachers, staff and administration to carry district-issued guns after going through the appropriate training. The lawsuit claims approving the policy “endangered their community” and broke state law. “It’s uncharted territory, but there is no law that says we can’t have legally trained armed staff,” school board member Nicholas Boyle said, WHYY reported. State law allows campuses to have trained school resource officers or school police, The AP reported. Executive director for gun control group CeaseFirePA, Shira Goodman, said she found the district’s interpretation of the law questionable, WHYY reported. “I would say it’s not at all clear that they can be doing this,” Goodman said, according to WHYY. Boyle said that the initiative would make the rural school district less vulnerable against an attacker, according to WHYY. “The rationale for the policy is to prevent the apocalypse,” Boyle said, The AP reported. “When we have a shooter in the building,…
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by Neetu Chandak A preliminary report released Thursday found U.S. police officer deaths on duty increased by 12 percent in 2018 from 2017. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a non-profit dedicated to making police officers’ work safer, found 144 police officers died between Jan. 1 and Dec. 27. Nearly 129 police officers died in the same time frame in 2017. The leading cause of death was gun-related followed by traffic-related incidents. Other forms of death included being struck by a train, having a heart attack and drowning. “The rising number of law enforcement officer deaths in 2018 is disappointing news after a decline in 2017,” the fund’s CEO Craig W. Floyd said in a press statement. “Sadly this reminds us that public safety is a dangerous job and can come at a very steep price.” Texas, Florida, California, and New York had the highest number of officer deaths with 11 each, according to the data. The District of Columbia along with 14 states did not have any police officer fatalities. The number of deaths could change as the numbers are not final, according to the fund. The report comes as an illegal immigrant allegedly shot and killed…
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Members of the Caryville Police Department confiscated other people’s guns and tried to trade them before getting the proper permission. There’s other things they did with those firearms they weren’t legally allowed to do. Tennessee law, for instance, says they can only hold onto those guns for 180 days, but they’d kept some of them a lot longer than that — since the time Lyndon Johnson was president. These were among the findings of a Tennessee Comptrollers’ Report released Friday. No one at the Caryville Police Department was available to speak Sunday. Tennessee law gives law enforcement officials the power to exchange firearms they have in their possession. The police chief, according to the audit, took 50 confiscated weapons to a local gun shop owner for an appraisal and trade offer. “The chief told investigators that he left these weapons at the gun shop and intended to return with the court order authorizing the exchange, believing that approval would occur on the following day. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the court order approval was delayed,” according to the Comptrollers’ report. “Shortly after the guns were delivered to the gun shop, the chief acquired a handgun and ammunition from the gun shop…
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The handgun that Shaneen Allen was carrying when she was pulled over on a New Jersey highway could have sent her to prison for years if not for a pardon from Republican Gov. Chris Christie. Now the legal saga that kept the Pennsylvania mother of two in jail for 48 days has helped inspire a measure…
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A Hillsboro High School senior was arrested Friday morning on gun charges after allegedly pointing a pistol at two other students from his car as school dismissed Wednesday. Monday was the first day of the new school year for students in Metro Nashville Public Schools. Hillsboro High is located in Green Hills. The two victims told school resource officers about the incident Thursday afternoon, according to a news release from the Metro Nashville Police Department. Friday morning, an officer waited in the school parking lot for the 17-year-old to arrive. As the student got out of his car, the officer took him into custody. A loaded .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol was found during a search of the student’s car concealed under the dashboard. The 17-year-old was taken to juvenile detention. He was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful gun possession.
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