Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The most expansive federal report in over two decades on guns and crime shows a shrinking turnaround between the time a gun was purchased and when it was recovered from a crime scene, indicating firearms bought legally are more quickly being used in crimes around the country.It also documents a spike in the use of conversion devices that make a semiautomatic gun fire like a machine gun, along with the growing seizure of so-called ghost guns, privately made firearms that are hard to trace.

Kids are now in the (illegal) business of carrying out armed robberies -- at least according to cops in Michigan, backed by surveillance video that seems to show the smoking gun. A 12-year-old was arrested this week out in Hartford, MI after local authorities allege he carried out a gas station stickup job on Wednesday ... all while firing off a warning shot inside the establishment to make sure everyone knew he meant business. The horrifying moment was caught on tape, and it's about as dramatic as it sounds. The boy casually approaches the gas station clerk with a bag...

LAUDERHILL, FLA. (WSVN) - Police have arrested a woman accused of shooting her former boss, the manager of a cellphone store in Lauderhill, over being fired. Lauderhill Police said 27-year-old Rachel Boisette has been charged with attempted murder in connection to Friday’s shooting at the Metro by T-Mobile store at Inverness Plaza, located along the 5500 block of West Oakland Park Boulevard. Investigators said the suspect and her former employer had an altercation about her termination that escalated until she took out a gun and opened fire, striking the victim several times in the chest. According to the arrest affidavit,...

New York and three other states signed a pact this week to share information on guns used in crimes. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and three other Democrats—Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, and New Jersey Phil Murphy on Thursday announced the agreement (pdf), which says that “gun violence continues to plague communities” throughout their states and the nation. Law enforcement agencies being able to share “crime gun data” with agencies in other states “will assist in their efforts to detect and deter gun crime” and investigations into so-called straw purchasers, suspect dealers, firearms traffickers, and other criminals,...

Two people have died and a third is not expected to survive in Florida after authorities in Florida say a man went on a rampage with a baseball bat and a knife. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a press conference that the suspect, 39-year-old Shaun Runyon, was in Polk County, Florida, with a Pennsylvania electric company doing work for Publix Supermarkets’ when a dispute at work prompted him to return to his company-rented housing and attack several people. Police say Runyon punched a supervisor at work around 2 A.M. on Friday and fled. He was not seen or...

Officers found 67 guns and numerous magazines in four bags in the truck, according to the complaint. One was loaded with live ammunitionWhen a Minnesota State Trooper stopped a pickup truck for speeding on a U.S. highway this week, he not only discovered an arsenal of 67 suspected crime guns inside but two Toronto fugitives — one wanted for murder and the other for the kidnapping of a wealthy Chinese student. Dayne Adrian Sitladeen, 29, and Muzamil Aden Addow, 29, are both wanted for high-profile crimes in Ontario. With lockdown restrictions tightening, these indoor activities could make your day Sitladeen...

Original NPR Headline:Correct Headline: NPR was forced to change their headline and post a correction:NPR: Vehicle Attacks Rise As Extremists Target Protesters"Editor's note: A previous version of this story included a photo of a protester being struck by a car in Louisville, Kentucky. The photo, chosen by editors, does not appear to be an example of the assaults described in the story, and has been replaced. Police have not charged the driver, but have charged two of the protesters involved in that incident. Authorities continue to investigate."This is what actually happened:Driver that hit protester tells police she 'feared for her...

The left’s latest charge against North Carolina Republicans is a doozy: They’re too cheap to prosecute criminals. That’s how they’re spinning a recent Charlotte Observer report that about half of all weapons charges in the state are dismissed —including 68% of cases in Mecklenburg County, 58% in Durham County and 45% in Wake County. The left’s attempt to blame the GOP rests, of course, on the idea that we can solve this — like every other problem — by spending more money. There’s some truth to this, as the Observer reports that North Carolina spends less per capita on its...

Get ready for my confession. I'm white, male and Republican. I dislike the government. I believe in the Constitution. I demand a wall to secure our border. But I'm just getting started. I've watched violent TV shows and movies for my whole life. I don't watch unless it features cops versus bad guys, the military or the mafia. And I've owned guns for self-defense my entire adult life. I have a concealed weapon permit. I'm packing right now. I love to go shooting ... with my kids. I took my daughter shooting to celebrate her graduation from Harvard. We shot...

In a recent Government Accounting Office report to Congress, most have focused on the firearm owners who refuse to commit crimes or fall for stings created by the ATF.Buried in the report is a chart showing how incredibly few legal gun owners are arrested each year for gun violations. The chart shows the number of arrests made in three years, 2014, 2015, and 2016, for four crimes. The number of arrests are tiny, showing how law-abiding gun owners are.The four crimes are these: Dealing firearms without a licenseUnlawful interstate transfer of firearmsSale to prohibited individualProhibited person in possession of...

An actor who played a bit part in an independent gangster film is facing 10 years in state prison because he used a prop pellet gun without a state gun permit. Carlo Goias, whose stage name is Carlo Bellario, was charged under New Jersey's strict gun law. It requires permits for firearms, including the airsoft gun Goias used while filming a car chase scene.

Final November Totals Shot & Killed: 32 Shot & Wounded: 166 Total Shot: 198 Total Homicides: 34 Since Video Release (6:00p, 11/24/15) Shot & Killed: 10 Shot & Wounded: 34 Total Shot: 44 Total Homicides: 11 Year To Date Shot & Killed: 411 Shot & Wounded: 2339 Total Shot: 2750 Total Homicides: 464

In his speech on the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon last week, President Obama sounded more upset about America's gun laws than about the horrific massacre. We barely had the preliminary facts about the shooting, the shooter and the victims, and he was already lecturing the nation again on gun control. Instead of calling the nation to prayer, he said we would learn about the victims in the coming days and then "wrap everyone who's grieving with our prayers and our love." Those words out of the way, he immediately pivoted to complaining that "our thoughts and prayers are...

A Sheriff in Texas has blamed "dangerous rhetoric" against police by anti-racism activists for the execution-style killing of one of his officers. Darren Goforth, 47, a white sheriff's deputy, was shot in the back of the head as he filled up his patrol car at a petrol station in a middle class suburb of Houston on Friday night.

After a spate[??] of shootings across Chicago that left over a dozen dead and nearly 100 wounded, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Friday toured a new federal Gun Crime Intelligence Center, saying, “You can’t fight a war without intelligence,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the office will collect data on the more than 7,000 firearms used in crimes and recovered by Chicago police each year, the Sun-Times writes. “You can't fight a war without intelligence, to know where the weapons are, where the shooters are and to stop it before...

CHICAGO (CBS) — The principal of Curie High School has put out a warning to students and parents to leave immediately after school and use a different route after six shootings in 48 hours in nearby neighborhoods. The school is located at 49th and South Archer. The warning was enough to worry people headed inside the school Wednesday night for an evening workout. “Pretty scary,” said Gabriela Perez. “You can’t be safe anywhere.” The warning specifically points to the 79th and Pulaski area. About 2 miles from there, near 8400 South Kedzie, a 17-year-old walking in an alley was shot...

A man convicted of possessing illegal ammunition now says he is being investigated for his taxes. Last month, Mark Witaschek was convicted of possessing illegal ammunition over an inoperable shell, a legal gun holster and a box of antique bullets for a muzzle-loading rifle. The next day, Witaschek said authorities went to his office, asking for payroll documents and other information concerning his taxes. He said that nobody has officially talked to him or his representative yet.

White people are racist. All white people all the time. If there’s any case ever of a white person not being racist, it’s probably because he’s racist. Are you white? Do you pay attention to black murderers? It must be because you’re racist? Wait, you don’t pay attention to black murderers? It’s because you’re racist. Why aren’t you paying attention to black murderers? We’ve moved on, apparently. Barely 48 hours after a gunman murdered 12 people and injured others in another U.S. bloodbath, the national news media had other things on their minds. … Some of the mystery of the...

The prescription that many well meaning people have to tamp down on gun violence is to restrict the private ownership of fire arms. However the Associated Press reports that a private group in Houston is pursuing a different approach. The Armed Citizen Project is giving away free shot guns to single women and residents in high crime area, starting with the northwest Houston Oak Forest neighborhood. The non-profit organization intends to expand its program, which includes a training program, to Dallas, San Antonio, and Tucson, Ariz. Plans are to have the program in place in 13 cities, including New York...

Behold the power of this fully armed and operational propaganda machine. First, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics: Firearm-related homicides declined 39 percent and nonfatal firearm crimes declined 69 percent from 1993 to 2011, the Justice DepartmentÂ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. Firearm-related homicides dropped from 18,253 homicides in 1993 to 11,101 in 2011, and nonfatal firearm crimes dropped from 1.5 million victimizations in 1993 to 467,300 in 2011.For both fatal and nonfatal firearm victimizations, the majority of the decline occurred during the 10-year period from 1993 to 2002. The number of firearm homicides declined from 1993 to...