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A Freedom of Information Act request by the Baltimore Post reveals that former Obama White House officials discussed how best to exploit the Sandy Hook Elementary School attack for gun control before the victims of said attack were even buried. The strategizing took place between Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Chicago Mayor, former Obama White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel (D). The Post published an email thread shared by Duncan and Emanuel on December 16, 2012: At 6:57PM EST on December 16, 2012, Duncan wrote to Emanuel in a message titled “CT shootings.” Duncan asked the Chicago mayor,...

Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers owner, Paul Allen, is pushing a Washington State gun control initiative in response to the May 18 Santa Fe High School shooting. The initiative, No. 1639, is called “Safe Schools, Safe Communities,” and it expands the gun controls placed on law-abiding citizens via the universal background check initiative that passed in 2014. Allen tweeted: Paul Allen ✔ @PaulGAllen 18h My statement on a gun safety initiative in my home state of Washington: Initiative 1639 is a reasonable and necessary measure that will improve the safety of our schools and our communities, which is why...

The 2018 Billboard Music Awards hit a new low Sunday night in the coveted demographic of ages 18-49, dropping 10 percent from last year’s low in overnight numbers. According to Variety, the three-hour music award show broadcast from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas scored an average of 2.1/8 share in the key demographic with 7 million viewers. In comparison, the 2017 awards show, which aired on ABC, averaged a 2.3 in the 18-49 age group with 7.7 million people tuned in. Jennifer Lopez performs onstage during the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on...

Why couldn’t the Santa Fe, TX school shooter have used an AR-15? A large magazine? Or at least a bump stock? That would have made it easier to call for more gun control. That was the subtext of Chris Cuomo’s lament on CNN this morning. Cuomo said that the shooting, “doesn’t set up great for the gun debate.” Cuomo was presumably referring to the fact that the two weapons used by the shooter were a .38 revolver and a shotgun. Instead of being high-tech “assault weapons,” they are both based on 19th-century technology, dating back almost 200 years old in...

Shawn Mendes made a powerful statement in solidarity with gun violence victims at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards on Sunday (May 20). The singer-songwriter performed his new single “Youth” with another rapidly rising star, Khalid — as well as members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School choir from Parkland, Fla. Dressed in a t-shirt that read “Protect our guns” with a slash through the word “guns” and the word “children” replaced, Khalid harmonized with Mendes, who strummed an acoustic guitar as they delivered the song’s affecting lyrics. The song thematically champions keeping one’s spirit although times are difficult and...

Down at the beach, every other trash can is wrapped in what suddenly seems an unnerving image, given the recent school shootings, including last week’s in Texas. There’s baby-faced Alden Ehrenreich, as Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story from Lucsfilm and Disney, aiming squarely at the viewer with an outsized handgun (and it is exactly that, whatever fantasy blast it is presumed to emit in the latest installment of the sci-fi epic). Just below, a smiling Emilia Clark, as Qi’ra, clutches a double-barreled pistol. They are flanked by Joonas Suotamo, Chewbacca, who totes the space equivalent of an...

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said on Sunday that voters need to use the ballot box to achieve change on gun control in the wake of the deadly shooting at a Santa Fe high school last week. "People at the state level and the federal level in too many places in our country are not doing anything other than offering prayers," Acevedo told CBS's Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation." "We need to start using the ballot box and ballot initiatives to take the matters out of the hands of people that are doing nothing that are elected into the...

Jimmy Kimmel on Friday opened his ABC show by addressing the latest school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, which left 10 dead and 10 others wounded. But unlike his previous monologues that addressed the Las Vegas and Parkland massacres, the late-night host eschewed sadness for anger as he berated the “cowardly” politicans who continue to sit idly by and do nothing. “Before we get to our guests and jokes tonight, I want to take a moment because, as you know, we had another school shooting today,” Kimmel began. “And once again, most of our leaders are sending their thoughts and...

Introductory Proviso: The following essay on possible gun confiscation is a purely conjectural gedankenexperiment about the future that extrapolates from recent history and current trends. Nothing herein is seditious (per 18 U.S. Code § 2384), nor a call to arms, nor a threat to our government or to any individual, agency, or group. THE COLLECTIVIST DREAM The current mass media-driven “debate” on firearms (actually more like paternalistic lecturing or chiding) seems to be leading toward greater restrictions by Congress. The collectivist gun grabbers have the dream of ignoring the Second Amendment and somehow magically removing all detachable magazine semi-auto rifles...

After the passion of March for Our Lives, some groups see the best hope for legislative success in states such as Washington and OregonThough America has seen a string of mass shootings over the past year, no gun control legislation has been passed at the federal level.Three months after 17 people were killed and 17 injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, leading to a national push for reform led by student survivors, the debate has shifted, from Capitol Hill to states across the country.As November’s midterm elections approach, advocates of stricter gun laws hope to place...

How a scary name for an arbitrary group of firearms distorts the gun control debate James Huberty, a 41-year-old survivalist who had recently lost his job as a security guard, spent the morning of July 18, 1984, at the San Diego Zoo with his wife, Etna, and their two daughters. The family ate lunch at a McDonald's restaurant in the Clairemont neighborhood before returning to their home in San Ysidro. After Etna lay down to rest, Huberty approached her and said, "I want to kiss you goodbye." When she asked him where he was going, he said he was "hunting...

mass shooting of congressional Republicans... many lawmakers are mad, or frustrated, or saddened, at how quickly the story disappeared from the headlines given that the shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, targeted Republicans... Hodgkinson carried a list of names of lawmakers in his pocket: ... The list included their office numbers and short physical descriptions. He’d recorded video of the field in April of of that year — a sign, the prosecutor wrote in his official report, that Hodgkinson “had already selected Simpson field as a potential target as early as April 2017.” His social media was filled with Bernie and anti-Republican...

Hollywood stars Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, and others associated with the No Rifle Association initiative (#NoRA) have signed a letter demanding Bank of America revoke a loan made to Remington Arms. Alyssa Milano tweeted the list of signatories, which included Alec Baldwin, Michael Ian Black, Mia Farrow, Chelsea Handler, Debra Messing, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore, and Rosie O’Donnell, and a page full of others. Signatories also included Parkland gun control activist David Hogg.

One person was killed in a stabbing attack in the Opera district of central Paris Saturday night. At least eight people were stabbed in the attack, and one victim is reported dead. At least two of the victims are reported to be in serious condition and are receiving first aid. Eyewitnesses told police that the stabber shouted, "Allahu Akhbar!" during the attack. Police forces eliminated the stabber, and are investigating the incident. According to a report by the BBC, witnesses said police officers initially attempted to neutralize the attacker with a stun-gun, but after it failed officers fired two rounds...

Oklahoma's Republican Gov. Mary Fallin on Friday vetoed a bill supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that would have allowed state residents to carry a firearm without a permit or training. "I believe the firearms laws we currently have in place are effective, appropriate and minimal," Fallin said in announcing her veto of Senate Bill 1212, which would have removed the requirement for Oklahoma residents to complete a training course and demonstrate competency with a firearm before carrying in public. The governor argued that the bill would have taken away the ability of the state's law enforcement personnel to...

The media’s pro-gun control bias doesn’t just distort news coverage. TV networks have used their primetime entertainment shows to portray gun rights advocates as dishonest, extremist and unconcerned about the loss of innocent lives. At the same time, advocates of gun control are portrayed as caring, upstanding and responsible citizens. The gun control debate isn’t portrayed as having two sides. It’s a morality play of good versus evil. NBC might be the worst network, but it’s a tight race. It seems to have given marching orders to its TV writers to churn out scripts demonizing law-abiding gun owners and lionizing...

Broward County schools, after over two months of claiming the opposite, admitted on Sunday that confessed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz had been referred to the PROMISE Program. The PROMISE Program, an alternative discipline program designed to limit on-campus arrests, has been widely reported as ineffective and corrupt. It has come under intense scrutiny in the weeks since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but until Sunday, school officials were still denying that Cruz ever had any connection to that program.

New reports reveal a deadly wave of gun violence in Chicago. A 15-year old boy, a young mother, and even a four-year-old girl sitting on her porch have all been shot dead. These are just a few of the nearly 40 people who were gunned down in Chicago over a mere three-day period this week. This level of violence is usually not seen until the middle of summer in Chicago, but as temperatures reached into the 80’s this week criminals were drawn into the streets. On Monday, one person was shot dead and nine others were wounded. A day later,...

The nation’s largest firearms trade association expelled Dick’s Sporting Goods on Friday morning, citing the retailer’s decision to hire multiple gun control lobbyists. The vote to expel Dick’s from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, or NSSF, was unanimous, the group said in a press release issued Friday morning. “The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industries, Board of Governors today unanimously voted to expel Dick’s Sporting Goods from membership for conduct detrimental to the best interests of the Foundation,” the group announced.

It was an ordinary day in 2011 when I found myself watching a YouTube video of a gun owner making a semiautomatic rifle discharge bullets rapidly, as if it were an automatic weapon. My gun-owning husband watches firearms videos like this one, however, I had never seen one. Intrigued, I sat down on the couch to absorb the imagery. Hooking his thumb through the belt loop of his pants, the YouTuber demonstrated how pushing the gun forward, rather than pulling the trigger, allowed the gun's recoil to "keep the gun going." In other words, he was bump firing his rifle.