Free Republic

In President Obama’s hometown of Chicago on Halloween night Saturday, a robbery was thwarted when a concealed carry permit holder with a valid firearm owner’s ID card under Illinois law shot the thug dead. It showed that even in Obama’s Chicago, more guns mean less crime and, in this case, one less career criminal. It also shows that opponents’ fears that concealed carry laws will mean carnage in the streets as garden-variety disputes escalate into a proverbial gunfight at the OK Corral are false. Since the U.S. 7th Court of appeals struck down Illinois’ ban on concealed carry as unconstitutional...

The number and rate of firearm murders has hit a new low since the sky-high gun killings during the 1990s, with California topping an FBI list despite having some of the toughest anti-gun laws on the books. Data from the FBI and Pew Research Center show that all gun violence has declined since the Clinton era, though suicides blamed on guns has ticked up. In a new report, Pew said that between 1993 and 2000, the firearm murder rate dropped by almost half, from seven homicides to 3.8 homicides per 100,000 people. It also said that all gun deaths --...

More Guns, Less Crime: Since Illinois began issuing concealed-carry permits this year, robberies, burglaries, car thefts and, yes, even murder, are down significantly. Last month, when an 86-year-old Crestwood, Ill., man decided to visit his local phone store, he arrived to find a robbery underway. After staying outside to keep others from entering the store, he saw the suspect fleeing through a back door. He pursued the suspect, legal firearm in hand, stopped him, then held him until police arrived to make the arrest. The actions of the unidentified law-abiding citizen were made possible by Illinois becoming the 50th and...

Second Amendment: An African-American single mom on her way to a birthday party for one of her kids faces 10 years in prison for straying into the Garden State carrying a firearm in her purse licensed in Pennsylvania. Shaneen Allen is less well-known than Michael Brown, the man shot by police in Ferguson, Mo., and it's doubtful Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton will pay her a visit anytime soon. They're busy elsewhere. A mother exercising her Second Amendment right not only to keep but to bear arms to protect her family is of little interest to them. Allen is a...

Gun Control: A federal judge rules that the AR-15 and similar weapons commonly used in self-defense "fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual arms," and we have no right to keep or bear them. Nobody looted the gun shop and tattoo parlor that share a storefront in a strip mall less than 10 minutes from Ferguson, Mo., where riots followed the police shooting of Michael Brown. According to the local Riverfront Times, the owners of County Guns and Tattoo Studio arrived with friends to protect their businesses. One owner carried a rifle and pistol and wore a vest,...

FBI Report: Early 2013 Crime Decrease Coincides with Gun Sales Boom The FBI released the Preliminary Seminannual Uniform Crime Report for the first six months of 2013 on Tuesday. According to the statistics found in the report, all of the offenses in the violent crime category—including murder, forcible rape, assault, and robbery—showed a significant decrease in early 2013 from the same period in 2012. This drop in violent crime coincided with one of the largest booms for gun sales in recent history. The FBI report was compiled with data submitted by 12,723 law enforcement agencies in the United States for...

U.S. gun makers led by Sturm Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. (SWHC) churned out a record number of firearms in 2012, government data show, continuing a trend of robust production during Democratic presidencies.

First, some background about me: I am a Ph.D.-holder and tenured professor whose immersion in the insular politics of academia had led me to harbor many negative perceptions about firearms. Though I was never staunchly "anti-gun," I was not a gun owner, did not understand the appeal of firearms, and generally believed that gun control legislation was only common sense. That changed four years ago when I (finally) decided to look into the data on guns, crime, and public safety for myself. I am a trained researcher, but I conducted my research for personal not professional reasons. My wife was...

The nation’s total violent crime rate hit an all-time high in 1991. Thereafter, it declined 18 of the next 20 years, 49 percent overall, to a 41-year low in 2011. That included a 52 percent decrease in the nation’s murder rate, to a 48-year low, nearly the lowest point in U.S. history. The FBI has preliminarily reported that in the first half of 2012, the murder rate dropped another 2.7 percent.1Concurrently, gun ownership2 and the number of privately owned guns rose to all-time highs, the number of privately owned firearms in the U.S. rising by over 120 million, including about...

The transcript of the tape shows that Moore implies that anyone who owns a gun is a racist.

Last week, the FBI issued its preliminary 2009 crime report, showing that the number of murders in the first half of 2009 decreased 10 percent compared to the first half of 2008. If the trend holds for the remainder of 2009, it will be the single greatest one-year decrease in the number of murders since at least 1960, the earliest year for which national data are available through the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Also, the per capita murder rate for 2009 will be 51 percent lower than the all-time high recorded in 1991, and it will be the lowest rate...

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. - Chained to a 55-gallon drum to protest the proposed development of a vacant lot, Jonathan Crowell wasn't threatening anyone. But he refused police orders to unshackle himself and leave, so they zapped him with a Taser, then charged him with trespassing. "It wasn't just a short burst," said Crowell, 32, of Dummerston, recalling the July 24 incident. "Five seconds is a long time to be electrocuted. My whole body was contorting and flapping around. You can't think of anything else but that pain. It's really scary. I felt like I was being tortured." Increasingly, police facing stubborn...

Rock and Roll Friday!

What else is there to do on Thursdays besides FReep and listen to TSN?!

Gun Ownership Mandatory In Kennesaw, Georgia Crime Rate Plummets by Chuck Baldwin The New American magazine reminds us that March 25th marked the 16th anniversary of Kennesaw, Georgia's ordinance requiring heads of households (with certain exceptions) to keep at least one firearm in their homes. The city's population grew from around 5,000 in 1980 to 13,000 by 1996 (latest available estimate). Yet there have been only three murders: two with knives (1984 and 1987) and one with a firearm (1997). After the law went into effect in 1982, crime against persons plummeted 74 percent compared to 1981, and fell another...

If we arm all our school teachers with deadly weapons, it should certainly put a stop to kids chewing gum and passing notes in homeroom. Go ahead, you little creeps, make our day. A proposal by Republican state Rep. Frank Lasee from Bellevue to respond to school shootings by arming teachers and principals has once again put the intelligence level of Wisconsin regarding firearms in the national news. It's the sequel to the stir we created around the country when our state's hunters voted to declare an open season on kitty cats. The common thread seems to be a rather...

Could it be that more guns cause less crime? Could it be that criminals who suspect their potential victims are armed would be deterred from committing crimes? That's what John R. Lott Jr. argued in his 1998 book, "More Guns, Less Crime." But could it be that Lott is wrong; that other researchers have been unable to confirm his thesis? That's what Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner argued in their bestselling 2005 book, "Freakonomics." How should this debate be resolved? Lott's solution is to try to get the U.S. District Court in Chicago to issue an injunction blocking...

MIDI - SAN FRANCISCO If you are going to San Francisco...please wear your tennies 'cause you may have to run If you are going to San Francisco...they have decided just bad guys get the guns They're recommending in San Francisco...protect your family with knives or baseball bats Thugs are waiting in San Francisco...on their victims they'll all be getting fat What have they been smoking...they've got to be joking They've gone suicidal Although they are now cheering...very soon they will be fearing...what fools They're suicidal...all suicidal Those of you going to San Francisco...your home's your castle will no longer...

A retired police lieutenant shot and killed one man and wounded another Thursday after the pair broke into his home, Lubbock police officials said. When James Kimber, the 65-year-old former officer, arrived home about 12:10 p.m., he found his garage door ajar and his back door forced open. Police said he then retrieved a gun from his laundry room. As he moved through his ransacked living room and reached the north bedroom, police said, he realized someone was still inside. "He heard the distinct sound of a firearm being cocked," police spokesman Lt. Roy Bassett said. As Kimber entered the...