Free Republic

In his Buffalo, New York speech last week following a mass shooting, President Biden showed he still has only two things on his mind regarding crime: guns and white supremacists. No one can defend white supremacists. But with violent crime soaring and this latest attack in Buffalo, people want something done. Yet Biden’s agenda won’t make people safer. “Look, we’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta. This week in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York,” Biden said. “White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison....

If you believe the Los Angeles Times, the Buffalo shooter who left 10 dead emerged from “a far-right ecosystem.” A Rolling Stone headline echoed the claim: “The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He’s a Mainstream Republican.” The New York Times links the mass murderer to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Not to be left out, Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) blames Republicans for the attack, claiming: “The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism.”

To President Biden, public health researchers, and the media, violent crime is all about guns. But a new survey finds that people are badly misinformed about how much violent crime involves guns. The average likely American voter is way off, thinking that over 46% of violent crimes involve guns. In fact, the true figure is less than 8%. Not surprisingly, those who believe that most violent crime involves guns are more likely to view gun control as the solution.

On March 22, in the broad daylight of a typically gorgeous day in Beverly Hills, thieves in hoodies and sunglasses took a sledgehammer to the plate glass window of Peter Sedghi’s boutique and furiously rummaged through the shards. In less than 90 seconds, the robbers stole more than $3 million worth of jewels. Two days later, in response to a wave of high-end robberies, the Los Angeles Police Department announced there would be no arrests. Instead, it cautioned Hollywood residents not to wear high quality jewelry in public. “Beverly Hills is one of the most affluent, safest neighborhoods in the...

By a margin of 52% to 40%, voters believe that “cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.” That’s per a Rasmussen Reports survey from this month. This stands in stark contrast to the countless news stories editorializing about “no evidence of voter fraud” and “the myth of voter fraud.” It isn’t just Republicans who believe this cheating occurred. Even 34% of Democrats believe it, as do 38% of those who “somewhat” support President Biden. A broad range of Americans think this: men, women, all age groups, whites, those who are neither white nor black, Republicans, those who...

If a criminal figures out a more effective way to break into people’s homes to steal more, should he receive a lighter sentence per dollar of what he steals? Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, certainly thinks so. The legal system doesn’t normally work that way. If a rapist rapes two women, he gets two sentences, one for each crime. Each crime a criminal gets convicted for gets a separate penalty. That has traditionally been true for child pornography, where more pictures of children mean crimes have been committed.

Some Democrats are pushing back on President Biden’s plan to buy oil from totalitarian governments like Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. “We shouldn’t be advancing other countries who don’t share our values,” said Sen. Jon Tester last week. Tester is exactly right. But Biden is working hard to destroy all our domestic energy industries, and, unfortunately, Senator Jon Tester keeps supporting Biden’s radical nominees who are implementing these policies. Biden is using all the regulatory tools at his disposal to “debank” those industries he doesn’t like. That means he will force financial institutions not to do business with these companies....

With the anniversary of January 6th this week, Democrats are using it to push massive election reforms. They claim the reforms are necessary to save Democracy. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says the situation is so dire that it is necessary to change long-held Senate rules so that Democrats can pass the bill on a pure party-line vote. The For the People Act of 2021 replaces state voter ID rules with a signed statement from the voter, and makes permanent the pandemic’s mail-in ballot voting. The mailing out of blank absentee ballots en masse would become a fixture...

You would never know it from the reaction of President Joe Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Friday about the Texas abortion case didn’t overturn Roe v. Wade. It dealt with arcane legal precedent over who can sue and be sued – what is called “standing” – and the constitutionality of Texas’ law is far from settled. On Saturday, hopefully because Newsom hadn’t yet read or understood the decision, he announced he would now use the ruling to help Californians enforce gun control laws. Biden and Newsom’s comments are more likely to gin up...

The same predictions of doom and bloodshed keep coming from gun-control activists. They warn us of pending disaster should Pennsylvania become the 22nd state to adopt so-called constitutional carry rules that would allow law-abiding adults who legally own a handgun to conceal-carry it without a permit. Thirty-four states, including Pennsylvania, already allow open carry without a permit. With the U.S. Supreme Court set to decide how the Second Amendment applies to people's ability to defend themselves outside the home, the debate in states like Pennsylvania matter.

Preface: Last Friday, the National Law Journal ran an op-ed by Lisa Vicens and John Donohue with many errors in it regarding a case that the U.S. Supreme Court heard last Wednesday on New York’s concealed handgun law. The article gave readers very inaccurate information on the academic research regarding the risk of crime by concealed handgun permit holders. This false claim of public safety is really all the state of New York has to base its case on. The left-leaning National Law Journal, a business partner with Michael Bloomberg, is unwilling to respond to repeated requests to correct the...

This year has seen the largest increase ever in the number of concealed handgun permit holders—more than two million, for a total of 21.52 million. That is a 48 percent increase since 2016. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of NYSRPA v. Bruen, which has a chance to further increase this total and make permitting rules more similar across states. Six states now have more than 1 million permit holders: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Florida is the first state to have more than 2.5 million permits. Alabama has the highest rate of adults with...

When it decides on NYSRPA v. Bruen—scheduled for oral arguments today—the Supreme Court will have a chance to stop governments from restricting the right to "bear arms." The part of the Constitution guaranteeing that right has long been ignored by many state and local governments, despite previous Supreme Court rulings that there is an "individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation" in the home. The situation is worst in New York, California and six other "may-issue" states, where officials can turn down requests for a carry permit for any reason, or for no reason at all.

If one terrible thing happens with a gun, gun control activists reflexively call for bans or other new regulations. There is rarely a consideration of costs and benefits. Actor Alec Baldwin has demonstrated this thinking again after the accidental fatal shooting on the set of his movie in New Mexico. "[H]ow many bullets were fired in movies and TV shows over the last 75 years?" he said on Saturday. "… Billions? In the last 75 years? And nearly all of them without incident. ... Some new measures have to take place. ... No live ammunition. No real weapons in the...

The first rule of gun safety is you don’t point a gun a something unless you intend to shoot it. Even if you believe the gun is unloaded, you don’t point it directly at others. Alec Baldwin didn’t follow basic gun safety when he accidentally shot his cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, 42. Anyone who has been to a shooting range would have that drilled into them. And Baldwin, an actor who has been in many movies using guns, must surely have had this explained to him many times. Since the killing, numerous news stories have come out blaming others on the...

A new study shows that the number of concealed handgun permits soared in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic and has increased over 10% since the end of last year. According to a study conducted by the Crime Prevention Research Center, the number of concealed handgun permits surged to 21.52 million in 2020, a 48% increase since 2016 and a 10.5% increase from the same time last year.

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.” On June 30, a 12-year-old Louisiana boy used a hunting rifle to stop an armed burglar who was threatening his mother’s life during a home invasion. On July 4, a Chicago gunman shot into a...

Crime Prevention Research Center President Dr. John Lott tells One America News the terror watchlist now includes some million names, is growing rapidly and could soon be used as a back door means to limit Second Amendment rights for many law abiding Americans. One America’s John Hines has more from Washington.

John Lott, founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center, argued that the conventional wisdom about guns and gun regulation is incorrect. He said the media does a poor job of analyzing gun-related events, especially mass shootings

Last September, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted the federal debt wouldn’t hit $29 trillion until 2028. Just short of a year later, the national debt stands at $28.6 trillion and is set to surpass $29 trillion within weeks. Since Congress hasn’t yet enacted all its new spending proposals, the CBO debt estimates don’t yet include them. The $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill still has to pass the House, and a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill will add to the current budget. The proposed 2022 budget will likely be more than $6 trillion (up from $4.8 trillion in 2020).