Free Republic

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.

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...

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...

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...

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.

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).

In Twitter debates, people have no problem pointing to articles such as Newsweek’s: “White Supremacists Killed More Americans Than Muslim Extremists in Recent Years.” The article explains, “The mass shootings at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas, last August and at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand last March are just two high-profile examples [motivated by white supremacy].” But if you try to explain that this isn’t the whole story, you will get a warning from Twitter. On Saturday, after someone pointed to the Newsweek article, I responded that the El Paso and Christchurch murderers were both environmentalists/socialists who...

President Biden keeps telling Americans that gunmakers are “exempt from being sued. … This is the only outfit that is exempt from being sued.” Apparently, someone forgot to tell the Mexican government about that. Last week, the Mexican government sued several U.S.- gun makers, seeking $10 billion in damages. They claim that the companies are “conscious of the fact that their products are trafficked and used in illicit activities against the civilian population and authorities of Mexico.” Among those facing the lawsuit are well-known names: Smith & Wesson Brands, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Beretta USA, Glock, and Colt. The case was...

President Biden has had little trouble getting even his most controversial nominees confirmed. Democrats, including Montana Senator Jon Tester, have all voted in unison. Only Neera Tanden, Biden’s pick to head his budget office, faced bipartisan opposition. But with David Chipman’s nomination to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) possibly being determined by a single vote, Senator Tester continues to refuse to say how he will vote. Chipman, like Biden’s judicial nominees, is a radical gun control supporter. Yet, Tester appears to not wanting to upset national Democrats and is waiting until his vote no longer...

President Biden has had little trouble getting even the most controversial nominees confirmed. Democrats have voted in unison, with only Neera Tanden, Biden’s pick to head his budget office, facing bipartisan opposition. But the White House is pulling out all the stops to push through David Chipman’s confirmation to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). And Democrats want the vote to take place this week. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claims that the largely Republican opposition to Chipman “speaks volumes to their complete refusal to tackle this spike in crime we’ve seen over the last...

If there was any doubt that President Biden wants to ban the vast majority of guns in the United States, he again clarified his position last week. “The idea you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 shots from that weapon — whether it’s a — whether it’s a 9-millimeter pistol or whether it’s a rifle — is ridiculous,” Biden said at a televised CNN townhall meeting. “I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things, but I’m not likely to get that done in the near term.” The president’s...

I recently drove 950 miles to give the keynote commencement address at an online high school based in Las Vegas. Two thousand students were supposedly going to attend, but it turned out that the school didn’t exist. The fake high school and the deceptive editing of my speech weren’t the only falsehoods here. A gun control organization called “Change the Ref” hoodwinked news outlets worldwide to propagate a lie about how extensive gun violence is in the United States. The videos made from this address focus on the “lost class.” Specifically, “they are the 3,044 graduating high school seniors that...

I was honored to deliver a commencement address to a Nevada high school this month. But the school didn’t exist. It was a hoax perpetrated by gun-control activists.