Free Republic

8:15 'Lion whisperer' reveals how big cat escaped to maul girl, 22 South Africa's "lion whisperer" has admitted he was walking the big cat which mauled a 22-year-old to death. Conservationist Kevin Richardson has said he is "devastated" by the incident. In an Instagram post, Mr Richardson revealed he and an "experienced" colleague had taken three lions out for their normal weekly walk on Tuesday morning when things went wrong. "We assessed the landscape for other big five animals and as per procedure sent out a notification that we were walking in the reserve," he wrote. "One of the lionesses...

The advocates of disarming the American people have always used emotional arguments to pass legislation before calm and rational discussion can take place. It is used for two reasons. It has worked in the past and it subverts an honest discussion. When there is an honest discussion on the merits, Second Amendment supporters win. A standard ploy, so common it has become a joke is: "Its for the children". This is used for every possible policy prescription. It is the standard call, and has become meaningless, because anything and everything can be construed as "for the children". Now the...

It was 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, 9 August, 2015, in Kimberly, British Columbia when Niki and Mark Traverse' pet dog, a 9 1/2 year old Jack Russel Terrier named Sid, started barking frantically. Niki went to investigate, and came within five feed of a grizzly bear. From ctvnews.ca: "It was 10 feet from our son’s bedroom door," she said. "I ran back into our bedroom to grab my husband and say,‘There’s a bear in the house, there’s a bear in the house!’" Mark Traverse, who is a hunter, quickly grabbed his gun, loaded it, and approached the feasting grizzly....

Top 2 lines, blue, total suicides and suicides with guns. Bottom 2 lines, purple, total homicides and homicides with guns In the presidential listening session where students expressed their emotions to President Donald Trump, about the Parkland school mass murder, one of the students made a comment about school shootings and Australia. Sam Zeif in video from the presidential listening session, February 21, 2018: In Australia there was a shooting at a school in 1999.   I am reminded of the scene from Animal House, where Bluto exclaims: Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? and a listener...

After another mass murder in the defenseless victim zone of a Florida School, the dominant media and other anti-Second Amendment bullies are demanding that American conservatives and the Gun Culture accept their assumption that guns are evil. To accede to those demands is both easy and cowardly. All of the power in the leftist media, such as ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, the Washington Post, AP and CBS, are on the side of the anti-Second Amendment bullies. The easy way out, when confronted with such power to demean, denigrate, and destroy, is to surrender and beat...

Law enforcement officers will impound firearms when no crime has been committed. This is driven by a fear of “not doing enough” combined with the demonization of firearms. Law enforcement hesitation and fear of litigation have combined to legalize the theft of firearms.In Florida and many other states, it is a common problem that harms numerous innocent victims.  Often, the victims have no choice. The guns are taken by force. Other victims are asked for permission, but not warned of the consequences of agreeing to the request by law enforcement. Here is an example out of Florida: From wfsu.org:...

On the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com: “Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.” OK, give us a few examples. As you claim “legions”, it should not be too hard. I never received a response. I believe the claim was made in good faith. There has been much conjecture about the lack of efficacy of pistols for defense against bears. A little searching...

Another mass killing has taken place in the defenseless victim zone of a Florida high school in the Miami metropolitan area of Broward County. The major media in this country has blood on its hands. They know that mass murderers are incentivized by media coverage that gives a form of immortality to the deranged killers. The pattern is clear.  Many of the killers are open about their desire for infamy. The Port Arther murderer asked his lawyer, again and again: “Did I break the record?”.The media does not care how many innocents die because of their push for ratings...

On 3 May, 2015, Governor Rick Snyder signed a sweeping reform of the Concealed Pistol License laws into effect. While much of the law went into effect immediately, the reform that removed the power of county gun boards to arbitrarily deny concealed pistol licenses did not go into full effect until 1 December, 2016.  Coincident with the reform, the number of CPLs have increased dramatically. From mlive.com: Michigan has seen a 25% increase in concealed pistol licenses in 14 months, when state law changed to make it easier to get a CPL. A total of 621,327 Michigan residents had...

On Thursday, 19 March, 2015, a woman with a .44 magnum stopped a polar bear from attacking Jakub Moravec, 37, in the Svalbard archipelago. Polar bear attacks are expected there, and tourists are not allowed unless they carry a high powered firearm. In this case, the rifles were left outside the tents, but inside the protective alarm wire. The armed woman, mother of Zuzanna Hakova, shot the bear three times with the revolver. From telegraph.co.uk: They were lucky to be alive after a polar bear broke into their tent on a remote Norwegian island and tried to maul them....

Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a Second Amendment case challenging California's 10-day waiting period for firearms purchases. Writing in dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas faulted his colleagues for their "inaction" and for turning the Second Amendment into "a disfavored right in this Court." The case is Silvester v. Becerra. It arose when several lawful California gun owners, supported by the Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation, filed a lawsuit claiming that the state's 10-day waiting period for firearms purchases is unconstitutional as applied to "those purchasers who already own a firearm or have a license to carry...

Clare Schexnyder wants students and teachers across the country to leave their classrooms together, to protest every child and educator who has been killed in a school shooting and promote gun control.And the Georgia mother is getting much press about her National School Walkout as well as swelling support from all corners of the country. She is getting help from the organizers of the Women’s March too.Certainly a red flag. But curiously when reporters and Schexnyder discuss the activist’s plans and background they seem to always omit the fact she worked nearly two decades at CNN as a senior...

An Alabama representative, Lynn Greer (R), has filed a bill to clarify Alabama law to include churches with dwellings that have protection under the law to use deadly force to protect the people inside from attack.  On 15 February, 2018, the bill was passed with overwhelming support, 40 to 16, in the House.  39 Republicans and 1 Democrat voted for the bill, 2 Republicans and 14 Democrats voted against it. From montgomeryadvertiser.com: The bill, sponsored by Rep. Lynn Greer, R-Rogersville, would add houses of worship to the state’s 2006 law, allowing a person to use physical force against anyone...

In 2017, 771,556,886 passengers traveled through 440 federally secured airports. Of those, only 3,957 forget that a firearm was in their carry-on baggage. There are over 400 million private firearms in the United States, 16 million people with permits to carry firearms, and 13 states where no permit is required to carry a concealed weapon.  That less than 4,000 forgot a firearm in their carry-on is amazingly low. That is one for every 200,000 passengers. Just a little over 1/3 or 34.8% of the firearms had a round in the chamber. They could not have been accidentally discharged in...

Todd Orr is the survivor of a double mauling by a grizzly bear on 1 October, 2016.  When the bear charged him, he used bear spray in an attempt to stop the attack. It did not work. Todd was taught that bear spray was superior to pistols for stopping charging bears. He took the use of bear spray seriously, kept an up to date can of spray in a holster, and had practiced quick drawing the spray and using it. He had used bear spray on a black bear twelve years previously. In that instance he surprised the sleeping...

Autopsy results, as reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal, show the Mandalay Bay Shooter committed suicide with a shot to the roof of the mouth. From reviewjournal.com: The autopsy, which included toxicology tests and a brain examination, found that Paddock had anti-anxiety medication in his system. It also confirmed what authorities had previously said — that Paddock died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head after he opened fire at an outdoor concert from his 32nd-floor Mandalay Bay suite, killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more.“It seems that based on the autopsy reports there were no physical excuses...

On the 7th of February, 2018, three young men approached a home in Catawba County at about 6 p.m. One of the young men, a 17-year-old, shot at the intended victim.  The intended victim, also 17, was armed and fired back, hitting the attacker several times, killing him. Shane Cauthen, Masked 17-Year-Old Shot and Killed in Self Defense Gunfight The other two masked men have been arrested, and the incident investigated. The two remaining suspects are 22 and 16 years old.  The investigators met with the District Attorney on Thursday morning. A determination was made the shooting was in...

The second year of the Trump era of the National Instant Background Check System (NICS) has started with numbers the same as the first year. There were 2,030,530 checks done in January of 2018. That is 99.4% of the 2,043,184 checks done in January of 2017, virtually unchanged.January has a traditional fall-off in sales compared to the record-breaking month of December, with Christmas in full swing.  The month of January in 2013 and  2016 were higher than January, 2018, but both of those years were marked by significant concerns that politicians would ignore the “shall not be infringed” words...

In the early morning hours of Friday, 9 February, 2018, a man attempted an armed robbery of a Sunoco gas station in Tampa, Florida. The clerk had a firearm of his own and fired several shots, hitting the suspect in the leg. The suspect fled across the street, and the clerk followed him and then held him for police. Police came, took custody of the suspect, and determined that the suspect's gun was a pellet gun. The police lieutenant at the scene educated the reporter on the validity of defense from a perceived deadly threat. Link to video From...

Last year, am Oregon elk hunter shot and killed a wolf charging directly at himCheck out the video of his interview with a state game official below. Before we get to the details, a little lupine history via oregonwild.com: Gray wolves (Canis lupus) were once common in Oregon, occupying most of the state. However, a deliberate effort to eradicate the species was successful by the late 1940s. In fact, trouble for wolves began almost 100 years earlier, in the years before Oregon became a state. In 1843 the first wolf bounty was established and Oregon’s first legislative session was...