Free Republic

As of July 3, there were just 124 concealed handgun permit holders in Washington, D.C. But, after a two-to-one federal Circuit court decision on Tuesday morning striking down D.C. ’s current concealed handgun law, the district has a chance to become like the 42 states with right-to-carry laws. If it were on par with those states, D.C. would have about 48,000 permits. Right now, poor people in particular have no real hope of being able to get a permit in D.C. Over 16.3 million Americans currently have concealed handgun permits. All fifty states issue permits, but eight of them are...

3 Men Blocked I-80 Ramp Before Early Morning Carjacking A report indicates three suspects carjacked a vehicle on the I-80 ramp to I-355 in New Lenox early Saturday morning. By Tim Moran (Patch Staff) - Updated July 23, 2017 12:41 am ET NEW LENOX, IL -- A reported car jacking took place early Saturday morning on an expressway ramp. An incident was reported on police scanner traffic on the westbound Interstate 80 ramp to northbound Interstate 355. Three men were blocking the ramp and asked the victim to use his phone before one of the men approached on the passenger...

A recent increase in law-abiding gun ownership bodes well for the country’s future. The great arming is underway, and that’s a very good thing for our nation, for our culture, and for the relationship between citizen and state. On Thursday, John Lott and the Crime Prevention Research Center published a comprehensive survey of the growth in concealed-carry permits in the United States. The numbers are stunning — not just in their growth, but in their depth and consequence. Here’s a sampling. During Barack Obama’s presidency, the number of concealed-carry permit holders increased by a whopping 256 percent. The numbers have...

Newly appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has posted his support for stringent gun-control laws – a position that would be at odds with President Trump’s views. “I have always been for strong gun control laws,” Scaramucci tweeted after the December 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 kids were gunned down. In August 2012, he tweeted: “We (the USA) has 5% of the world’s population but 50% of the world’s guns. Enough is enough. It is just common sense it apply more controls.”

An Australian woman living in Minnesota has prompted outrage in her home country, which has among the strictest gun-control laws in the world. As The Associated Press reports, Damond's relatives and friends are demanding answers about her death at the hands of Minneapolis police last weekend. The debate over Damond's death has also shone a light on the way the United States regulates access to guns compared to the rest of the world. Below, Stanford University Law professor John Donohue delves into some of those differences and examines their effectiveness.

Concealed handgun permits in the United States soared by 1.83 million since last July, setting a record for the fourth consecutive year, according to an analysis released Thursday. That brings the total number of concealed handgun permit holders in the country to 16.3 million, with some of the biggest increases occurring among women and African-Americans, the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) said.

A lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday alleges the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) violated the gun rights of foster parents. Caseworkers from MDHHS and a county judge told William Johnson of Ontonagon, Mich., that he had to choose between his Second Amendment rights and fostering his grandson, according to a complaint filed with the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. The 54-year-old Johnson is a retired, disabled Marine with a Michigan Concealed Pistol License. He and his wife were asked by the state of Michigan to foster their grandson. According to...

Each year brings a new record increase in the number of concealed handgun permits. The rate of growth in permits among women and minorities has far outpaced growth among white men. The data paint a picture of incredibly law-abiding permit holders, the vast majority living outside America’s insular media capitals. A new report from the Crime Prevention Research Center shows that there are now more than 16.3 million concealed handgun permits in the U.S., up 1.83 million since last July. Far more people carry guns today than in 2007, when there were only 4.6 million permits. Thirteen states now no...

California has faced a number of setbacks in implementing the state's latest gun-control measures, causing a number of deadlines to be pushed back and leaving some measures in legal limbo. After passing laws that expand the definition of "assault weapon" and make it illegal to possess gun magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, the state is facing myriad problems in trying to enforce the new laws. The first trouble came when the California Department of Justice (DOJ) attempted to draft their plan to register all of the rifles in California which have "bullet button" reloading devices...

Gun control advocates keep claiming that guns are only used to kill people and that people should just rely on the police to protect them. But gun controllers’ actions keep showing that they don’t believe that. When it comes to their safety, they understand that guns save lives. Guns are for them, not the untrusted, unwashed masses. Over the weekend, Women’s March leaders, such as co-president Linda Sarsour, were walking around with private armed security. Given that local police were already present at the demonstration, one wonders why couldn’t police provide sufficient protection? After all, the police were just yards...

They use their guns to assassinate black people. They use their schools to funnel black students through a school-to-prison pipeline. They use their state institutions, bought politicians, business conglomerates and white-supremacist domestic terrorists to incite violence over and over again. And then they use their new president to enact a law-and-order administration. All to make them shoot first, to make them ask questions later, make them scream, “I thought he had a gun in his hand” and “I feared for my life” and “he matched the description of a suspect” and “she was threatening us.” To shoot and kill Philando...

Would he support ‘common sense’ gun control? Wray won’t say Testifying July 12 before the Senate Judiciary Committee, President Donald Trump’s FBI Director nominee Christopher Wray said he wouldn’t rule out supporting a universal background check bill, non-committedly saying he’s “review it and make an assessment based on the circumstances.” Wray, during a full day of confirmation hearing testimony, was questioned by Connecticut’s Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a longtime gun control supporter, about his views on firearms laws. “Would you support common sense measures to stop gun violence?” Blumenthal asked, implying that he has a clue what “common sense” means, especially...

The Women’s March protest today at NRA headquarters was partially sparked by false allegations that the organization hasn’t defended Philando Castile — an African American and concealed handgun permit holder shot by Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez. While the March’s co-president, Tamika Mallory, demands that the NRA defend Castile's Second Amendment rights, she ignores statements that do just that by the gun group's female and black spokespersons. Perhaps the Women’s March organizers don't really want the NRA to be seen defending gun rights for blacks or any other minority groups. Rather, they want people to think of the NRA as...

Ever since Dana Loesch’s NRA ad, “The Violence of Lies,” came to light, gun control advocates on the left have used one major talking point: that the NRA is made up of white conservatives want to oppress black Americans. The left was so upset with Loesch’s condemning of violence that Black Lives Matters created an ad refuting the NRA. In the ad, BLM calls for black people to stand up and “fight this violence with a raised clenched fist of black resistance.” NRATV’s Colion Noir explains the hypocrisy behind the Black Lives Matters organization getting upset over Loesch’s ad:

s there a women’s view on guns? The organizers of the massive Women's March — which took place the day after President Trump's inauguration — are holding a protest against the National Rifle Association on Friday. After a 2.6 million strong turnout in January, they have high expectations to live up to. But Donald Trump received a respectable 42 percent of the women’s vote, so it’s hard to say that there is “a women’s view” on guns. According to an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll from early last year, 49% of married women say that they or someone in their home...

Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- – Rural Australia from Wh'od a Thought it Lookout in Quirindi.Shortly after I started traveling into rural Australia, I found people willing to talk to me about firearms. When they learned I write about firearms, they were happy to have a conversation. In the morning of July first, the day after I arrived in Australia, I packed up and pulled my wheeled luggage to the Central railway station in Sydney.  The staff at the station were very helpful. They printed out a ticket I had purchased over the Internet.  I boarded the train a half hour before...

A House measure that would allow those with a concealed carry license to ignore “no gun” signs is headed to the Ohio Senate. Termed the Decriminalization Effort for Ending Notorious Deaths Act by its sponsor, HB 233 states that members of the military or those with a carry permit would not be guilty of violating most areas deemed gun-free. The measure passed in a Republican-heavy 65-31 vote on Thursday.“The bill decriminalizes so-called ‘gun free’ zones for concealed handgun license holders,” said bill sponsor, Rep. John Becker, R-Clermont. The proposal’s language protects CHL holders and military members found carrying a weapon...

Would you rely almost exclusively on trends in Hawaii to predict violent crime rates in Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, and Utah? Would you look at Illinois to predict changes in Louisiana and South Carolina? Illinois has a drastically difference crime landscape, with half of its violent crime occurring in Chicago. Though it wouldn’t pass the laugh test for most people, an unpublished report making just these sorts of comparisons has been all the rage in the media. Lead author John Donohue, a professor at Stanford Law School, makes a claim which goes against existing national research: that right-to-carry laws increase...

A new, unpublished study by John Donohue, Abhay Aneja, and Kyle Weber has received a lot of attention for supposedly finding some evidence that right-to-carry laws increase overall violent crime rates. It has been covered in Newsweek, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, Vice, Snopes, and many newspapers such as Newsday and the Salt Lake City Tribune. As is typical of Donohue’s work, there is no attempt to mention or respond to prior criticisms, and he just repeats the same, seriously biased methods and errors. Publications such as Time and Newsweek would always interview critics when they ran stories on Lott’s original research....

In 2013, LA Weekly obtained a list of the 341 concealed carry permit holders in Los Angeles County, California. That is only about 0.0045% of the 7.7 million adults living in the county in 2013. LA Weekly pointed out that the people given permits were judges, reserve deputy sheriffs, and a small group who gave campaign contributions or gifts to then-Sheriff Lee Baca. Something that LA Weekly didn’t do was look at the list to determine the race of those lucky few getting permits. In Los Angeles County in 2013, about 48.1% of the people living there were Hispanic, and...