Free Republic

Democrats in Colorado’s Senate passed legislation barring licensed concealed carry permit holders from being armed for self-defense in five new places on Wednesday. The bill, SB 24-131, uses the moniker “sensitive places” to describe the new areas in which licensed concealed carriers will not be allowed to have guns to defend their lives. KDVR quoted state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis (D), a SB 24-131 cosponsor, saying, “We aligned the bill with the Supreme Court rulings of Bruen and Heller. So now the five sensitive spaces are legislative assemblies, polling centers, schools, government buildings and courthouses.”

A man shot innocent victims outside a shopping mall. The attacker was killed by an off-duty policeman who happened to be nearby. We’re hearing all kinds of claims about what we should do to be safer. Let’s look at each of those claims one at a time. It is hard to make things better, and easy to make them worse.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D–NY) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky) got into a shouting match over gun control this week. The fireworks started when Massie asserted that “there has never been a mass shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry.” Bowman called the statement “nonsense. More guns lead to more deaths.” Statistics don’t support Bowman’s claim. Gun ownership in the US has risen such that there are now more guns than people. However, federal crime data show that homicides committed with firearms have declined from 7 per 100,000 people in 1993 to to 4.3 per 100,000 people in 2018...

No sooner had word emerged that a Nashville Christian school had been attacked by a mass shooter on Monday than the Left began dissembling about guns again. The shift from “thoughts and prayers” to “grab the guns from law-abiding gun owners!” occurred at hypersonic speed. And it was all wrong. To save time, here’s a simple request by people who believe in the right to bear arms, which is explicitly guaranteed in the United States Constitution and is a God-given right. Stop lying. Try. It’s not that hard, and someone’s life depends on it. First, let’s acknowledge that gender dysphoria...

A group of first-term Democratic lawmakers is lobbying House leaders to hold a classified briefing from the FBI on mass shootings in the U.S. following recent massacres in California. Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to both Republican and Democratic House leaders on Wednesday requesting the briefing from the FBI and other agencies. HOUSE First-term Democrats urge Congress to hold classified briefing on mass shootings BY STEPHEN NEUKAM - 01/26/23 10:51 AM ET SHARE TWEET Associated Press/CHC Bold PAC A group of first-term Democratic lawmakers is lobbying House leaders to hold...

Massad Ayoob has decades of experience as a gun trainer. Massad is an accomplished author who literally wrote the book on self-defense. He is also the President of the 2nd Amendment Foundation. This is his response to Gun Free Zones. 11 minute video.

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Philadelphia's mayor signed an executive order Tuesday banning firearms in city recreation spaces. The signing comes one day after a funeral for a Parks and Recreation worker who was killed while on the job. There have been 18 incidents of gun violence at city parks and recreation facilities this year alone, including one that took the life of 41-year-old Tiffany Fletcher.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) instituted a raft of new gun control regulations including designating Times Square in New York City as a giant gun-free zone. National Rifle Association (NRA) spokeswoman Dana Loesch correctly pointed out that "criminals who depend on guns to commit robberies, rapes, and murders aren't going to obey these restrictions. That's why most mass shootings occur in gun-free zones. A policy that would yield better results is lessening the barriers to citizens arming themselves." Hochul rejected "the erroneous notion that good guys with guns can stop a bad guy with a gun. If heavily armed and well-trained...

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) advocated for his Safe Students Act — a piece of legislation that would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. “The ‘Safe Students Act’ would make it easier for state and local governments and school boards to unambiguously set their own firearms policies,” Massie argued on Twitter last week. The legislation — originally introduced by former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) in 2007 — would end the Gun-Free School Zones Act, which bans individuals from knowingly possessing firearms in a school zone, according to a press release from Massie’s office. “Gun-free zones are ineffective and make...

After a long battle, Hank Wise was charged with stalking from behind bars this month. Almost 12 years ago, Nikki Goeser's world was shattered when Hank Wise, a man who had been stalking her, fatally shot her husband Ben inside a crowded Tennessee restaurant. Yet, his subsequent conviction for second-degree murder in Davidson County Criminal Court hasn't squashed her anxiety. According to Goeser, Wise has continued to send sordid love letters to her from behind bars while for years being touted by prison officials for his "good behavior." "For 11 years, I have tried as best as I can to...

After the riot at the U.S. Capitol, gun control organizations warn that armed rioters at state capitols across the country on Inauguration Day pose a threat to our democracy. They claim the only solution is for states to ban guns on capitol grounds, thus extending their bans on carrying guns on public property generally. Never mind that the small group of rioters didn't use guns at the U.S. Capitol. Never mind that congressmen are allowed to carry in the U.S. Capitol, but not on the legislative floor, where Congress was meeting at the time to count Electoral College votes. If...

Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was brutally murdered in the Parkland school massacre, put this election in the proper perspective as one between Joe Biden, who would put the safety of our kids and our country at risk for the sake of ideology, and Donald Trump, who would protect both. Pollack rightly condemned liberal Democratic policies in general for putting the students at Parkland and elsewhere in danger by pursuing social justice and social engineering policies that protect those who would do us harm and not allow us to protect ourselves. It is the same mindset of those who today...

Preemption law reform is moving in Louisiana and becomes effective in West Virginia at the end of May. As with nearly all states, Louisiana has a statute that preempts local governments from enacting ordinances or regulations which are in conflict with state laws regarding firearms. The idea is that firearms laws should be uniform statewide, so that people exercising their right to keep and bear arms will not be in violation of the law simply by crossing a street from one municipality to another, or one county to another. Some states have rigorous preemption laws, other states have minimal laws.HB...

It shouldn't take a global pandemic shutting down schools to end school shootings. https://t.co/H9Xwn6Mhkd— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 13, 2020

COLUMBIA, SC (FOX Carolina) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson filed a lawsuit Wednesday with the state Supreme Court asking the court to strike down numerous ordinances adopted by the city of Columbia concerning guns, according to a news release... (snip) Wilson's office said, since 2015 Columbia has passed ordinances that would allow the city to confiscate firearms from those people who have Extreme Risk Protection Orders against them; banning the possession of firearms within 1000 feet of a public or private school; and prohibiting homemade firearms which have no serial number (known as ghost guns). Wilson believes the...

Two mass shootings at U.S. military installations in one week, including one in which the perpetrator was a foreign national, have prompted questions over firearm use on American bases. .... To have two shootings clustered one after another on military bases is unusual. In the past two decades, there have only been about seven other active shootings on bases; the deadliest was a November 2009 shooting spree in Fort Hood, Texas, which killed 13 and injured 32. ... Government-issued firearms are locked in an arms room on base and only distributed when they are needed for training ,... This regulation...

Donald Trump says that if elected president, he will abolish the gun free zones currently imposed on U.S. troops by “[mandating] that soldiers remain armed and on alert at our military bases.” In an interview with Ammoland he said: “President Clinton never should have passed a ban on soldiers being able to protect themselves on bases. America’s Armed Forces will be armed.” Trump went on to decry gun free zones on military bases as a product of “political correctness” and said removing those zones “will… [enable soldiers] to defend themselves against terrorists.”

There was a shooting in Philadelphia every six hours in 2018. Jim MacMillan contends that didn’t have to be. “We know how to stop gun violence,” MacMillan, founder of IBGVR.org, the Initiative for Better Gun Violence Reporting, said Saturday at a conference designed to spread the word on what he and others contend are effective deterrents. Community activists; young people from the inner city; mothers of children killed by guns; and reporters from television, online, and print news outlets gathered to talk about how better to cover gun violence in the city and share commonsense solutions.

A study from the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) shows 89 percent of mass shootings between 1998 and June 2019 occurred in gun-free zones. CPRC reports 21st mass shooters are not typically religious, “80 percent are at least 21 years of age,” and the majority of them–56 percent–views handguns as the weapon of choice for an attack. Rifles alone have only been used in 13 percent of 21st century mass shootings. Shotguns alone have only been used in four percent.

Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland, Florida, shooting victim Meadow Pollack, says lawmakers’ focus should be on banning gun-free zones, not suppressors. Pollack’s observation comes as a ban on suppressors is being pushed by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and other Democrats. But Pollack notes that the overarching commonality in high-profile public shootings is that attackers strike in gun-free zones, where they know their victims cannot shoot back. They do this at schools like Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Sandy Hook Elementary School, and Virginia Tech; at clubs like Borderline Bar & Grill and Orlando Pulse; and at movie theaters in...