Say hi in the comments.

… And while we recreate the key points from the report, the one item that should be highlighted is that, as we have suspected for a while, the social undertow of fear, skepticism and anger is coming to a boil, as Google queries of the “Buy A Gun” search query have just hit an all time high. How much of this is due to the recent events from Tucson, AZ is unclear. What is clear is that the trend is most certainly not your friend (unless you are of course the CEO of Smith and Wesson)

Belton mother foils attempted break-in by shooting at menr – May 31

BELTON — A mother who was caring for her young child foiled two men’s attempts to break in to her house about 1:30 p.m. Monday when she, from her kitchen, shot at the men.

The woman’s identity was not released, and the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office did not release any other identifying details, saying only that “a homeowner” had fired shots. But the woman’s husband confirmed that it was his wife who fired at least two shots when the men tried to break in to their home on Broadway School Road in Belton while he was out of town.

Authorities did not know whether the woman had hit and injured either of the men. As of Monday night, no one had been arrested, and authorities were still looking for two black men in a burgundy compact car.

“The homeowner said two black males came to the front door and rang the doorbell, but the homeowner did not know them and so did not open the door,” said Chad McBride, a spokesman for the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office. “They drove their car to the back of the house and then picked up an object — a rock or a tool — and threw it through a glass door at the back of the house. “At that point, the homeowner fired a couple of shots.”

After the shooting, the men fled the location and drove away in their car, McBride said.

McBride said investigators found “no evidence at the home that would indicate” someone had been shot, but said authorities have not ruled out the possibility that at least one of the men had been injured.

McBride said sheriff’s deputies have worked several break-ins lately in which the robber or robbers have gotten into the homes the way these men tried to get into the Belton house on Monday. But he said investigators are not prepared to say the break-ins are connected.

Woman uses rifle to run off invader – June 14

A Port Charlotte woman foiled a home burglary early Sunday when she confronted the would-be burglar with a .22-caliber rifle.

Authorities are now looking for an unidentified black man who tried to break into the LaSalle Avenue home around 6 a.m.

Sheriff’s detectives said the woman scared away the man while investigating a suspicious noise outside her house.

The suspect, described as about 6 feet tall, was standing on the lanai when the armed homeowner frightened him.

The man, who was last seen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black shorts, hopped a privacy fence and disappeared.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office at (941) 639-2101, or Crime Stoppers at (800) 780-5477.

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It’s tempting to consider BAG Day every day from January 19, 2009 through January 2013.  But those who remembered the original effort to wrest April 15 from the clutches of those who’d seize our arms and assets are noted here.  Well done.

The on-line news agency this morning released an investigative report that record numbers of American citizens are now legally carrying firearms for personal protection. Yet, the report also reveals that homicide rates have declined dramatically during a period when gun sales have skyrocketed. Further, the report noted that Washington, DC with its extreme gun control has the highest murder rate in the nation, while Utah, with very liberal gun laws, has the lowest rate.

“This is further evidence that everything the gun prohibitionists have been claiming and predicting over the past two decades has been fundamentally fraudulent,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “They have repeatedly argued that more guns will equate to more crime and more firearms deaths, and MSNBC.com just let the air out of their sails with this exhaustive and well-balanced report.”

Gottlieb said the public “has gradually, but steadily come to the realization that the gun ban lobby has built its campaign of citizen disarmament on a mountain of falsehoods, one heaped on top of another.”

“This is why,” he said, “anti-gun groups have lost their momentum and their credibility. They failed to gain traction even with a Democrat-controlled Congress and an anti-gun White House. They are so desperate for attention that they have now declared war on private businesses just to generate publicity. Their high-profile campaign of hysteria against Starbucks for complying with state laws that allow concealed and open carry in their coffee shops is based on an issue they fabricated just to grab headlines and television face time, and the public knows it.

The highest gun homicide rate is in Washington, D.C., which has had the nation’s strictest gun-control laws for years and bans concealed carry: 20.50 deaths per 100,000 population, five times the general rate. The lowest rate, 1.12, is in Utah, which has such a liberal concealed weapons policy that most American adults can get a permit to carry a gun in Utah without even visiting the state.-MSNBC.com

“Every restrictive gun law, every ban, every gun-free-zone they have advocated and defended have one thing in common,” Gottlieb concluded. “They gave us a body count. The MSNBC.com report suggests America has had enough.”

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation’s oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

Source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/report-confirms-more-guns–less-crime-no-public-safety-threat-says-saf-89052867.html

The forces of political correctness once vowed that, should they ever take over, their free expression on all kinds of issues — from gay rights to amnesty for illegals to space aliens inspiring the pyramids of ancient Egypt — would no longer be censored.

Censored? Heck, spouting the PC line is now mandatory, as many a professor lately hauled before a college Star Chamber on charges of having “given offense” now learns.

Internationally renowned Austrian economics professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe used a standard textbook example of investment time preferences in a classroom lecture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a few years back, pointing out that gay couples often invest with shorter time horizons because they are less likely to have children to profit from investments that mature after they’re gone. A gay student filed a complaint — initially with the benefit of anonymity.

At this next lecture, Mr. Hoppe apologized. The student then complained that the apology offended him. UNLV’s diversity police wanted professor Hoppe to give up his next raise and his next sabbatical in penance. They backed down when Mr. Hoppe hired a lawyer and went public. Needless to say, Hans-Hermann Hoppe is no longer at UNLV, where benighted Keynesianism again reigns unperturbed, teaching Nevada’s youth that Tim “Tax Cheat” Geithner’s plan to print billions more greenbacks and use them to buy Treasury bonds is bound to work out just fine.

No, the PC forces are certainly not proving themselves very “tolerant” when it comes to people who want to talk about things that don’t meet with their approval.

A student who wants to form a gun-rights group at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh has been threatened with disciplinary action for her efforts, reports the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Student Christine Brashier says administrators banned her informational pamphlets, ordered her to destroy all copies of them and told her that further “academic misconduct” would not be tolerated.

“CCAC has demonstrated a shocking lack of respect for the rights of free speech and free association,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said in a May 27 news release. “Across the country, students are increasingly denied the First Amendment right to debate the Second Amendment. At CCAC, this censorship trend has reached a new low.”

In April, Ms. Brashier created pamphlets to distribute to her classmates encouraging them to join her in forming a chapter of the national organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. The handbill states that the group “supports the legalization of concealed carry by licensed individuals on college campuses.” She personally distributed copies of the flier, which identified her as a “campus leader” of the effort to start the chapter.

On April 24, Jean Snider, student development specialist at CCAC’s Allegheny Campus, summoned Ms. Brashier to a meeting that day with Snider and Yvonne Burns, dean of student development. According to Ms. Brashier, the deans told her that passing out her non-commercial pamphlets was prohibited as “solicitation.” Trying to “sell” other students on the idea of the organization was prohibited, they claimed.

College officials told Ms. Brashier that the college must pre-approve any distribution of literature to fellow students, and that pamphlets like hers would not be approved, even insisting she destroy all copies of her flier.

The young lady reports that she was also interrogated about whether she owned a licensed firearm and had ever brought it to campus (she has not), and whether she carries a concealed firearm off campus.

Dean Burns reportedly said, “You may want to discuss this topic, but the college does not, and you cannot make us.” Ms. Brashier was then told to cease all activities related to her involvement with Students for Concealed Carry on Campus at the college; that such “academic misconduct” would not be tolerated.

FIRE wrote CCAC President Alex Johnson on April 29 about these violations of Ms. Brashier’s First Amendment speech and association rights, pointing out that “her free speech in no way constituted solicitation, that CCAC is obligated to permit students to distribute literature and may not ban it on the basis of viewpoint or content, and that if CCAC recognizes student organizations at all, it must recognize an organization that supports concealed carry on campus.” FIRE requested a response by May 13; officials responded only by promising a reply from either the college or the Allegheny County solicitor’s office at some “reasonable” future time.

“If it is true that trying to ‘sell’ students on an idea is prohibited as a matter of solicitation, virtually the entire enterprise of the college is prohibited,” points out Robert Shibley, FIRE vice president. “All persuasive speech would have to be pre-approved by the college. CCAC must end this unjustified assault on its students’ rights immediately.”

This incident is the worst and latest in a significant trend of punishing students for debating the Second Amendment in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings (where students died because they were denied the right to carry arms to defend themselves), FIRE reports. At Central Connecticut State University, after a student gave a class presentation about concealed firearms on campus, his professor called the police. At Hamline University, a student was suspended — pending a mental health evaluation! — after he advocated in an e-mail for concealed weapons on campus.

The Students for Concealed Carry on Campus chapter at Tarrant County College in Texas has been prohibited, two years in a row, from holding an “empty holster protest.” At Lone Star College near Houston, the Young Conservatives of Texas were censored and threatened with de-listing when they distributed a humorous flier listing “Top Ten Gun Safety Tips,” the free-speech group reports. Lone Star’s general counsel suggested that even a “mention of firearms and weapons” is inherently a “material interference” with the school’s operations.

Additional coverage.

women buy guns

An unprecedented number of women are taking their protection into their own hands by getting a gun. Gun stores are seeing more women customers than anyone can remember. Many women are also getting permits to carry a concealed weapon.

Local 12 Reporter Liz Bonis shows us why many women are in a hurry to arm themselves.

When Jenny Jeffery recently made the decision to get a license to conceal and carry a weapon she says it wasn’t because she feels threatened right now, but rather:

Jenny Jeffery, Gun Owner: “What I saw, where society was going as a whole, and the need to step up and be proactive in my safety and that of my family.”

Apparently, Jeffery is not alone. Homer Cole has owned Shooters Supply for nearly a decade. Cole says, when it comes to sales of guns to girls…

Homer Cole, Shooters Supply & Sporting Goods: “I guess, when we first started, if we sold one in ten to fifteen, it was pretty good. Now, it’s not unusual to have one in three, one in four to ladies purchasing handguns.”

In fact, when Homer and a business partner recently built this new range beneath Shooters in Independence, a prime consideration was the rise in those who are female choosing to be armed.

“We kind of thought of that when we designed it to have it more open, well lit, friendly atmosphere, so if a lady came in, she would be comfortable in doing that.”

Cole’s team also has cameras to monitor the range and make it even more female-friendly. Tim Harney is a retired police officer and a conceal carry instructor. He says, when it comes to demographics, Cole and many other Tri-State gun shops and agencies catering to women are right on target. Some have had so many women sign up for the conceal-carry course this year, they’ve had to add sessions.

Tim Harney, Conceal-Carry Course Instructor: “We’ve seen a five percent increase in women this year alone.”

Others have had so many inquires from women who want to get a license to conceal and carry a weapon they are offering the course free to females. So, what’s driving all this? Well, some say it’s a concern about the gun laws that could change, but others say it’s simply that when the economy goes down, crime goes up, and many are concerned about personal safety.

“They are worried about being robbed, or walking in parking lots and to and from work.”

Jeffery’s concern started when her husband left for a tour of duty in Iraq.

“While he was gone, and most people in the area knew he was gone, there was a genuine concern about being alone in the house.”

Even though Jeffery’s husband is now back, she’s still serious about shooting. And that, Harney says, is the secret to a woman’s success. When it comes to the argument against girls using guns, which is mainly the risk of being overpowered by a stronger opponent, so the gun will be used on her…

“I don’t think that’s true. I think a woman. with proper training and practice, with a weapon, she’s every bit formidable as a man.”

Practice creates what Harney calls muscle memory, something critical for anyone to appropriately respond in a stressful situation.

“There’s a lot of women that can outshoot men, it has nothing to do with gender.”

Gun safety instructors tell us some of their women students are in their 70′s.

You must be 21 to take the conceal-carry course.

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Toledo Police

During a violent break in: A gun in the nightstand is worth two cops on the way.

Toledo police layoffs leading to gun buying
Posted: May 23, 2009 05:43 PM

TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) – The first round of Toledo police layoffs, in which 75 officers were let go, may already be having an affect on gun ownership.

“I just don’t feel safe with the amount they’re laying off,” says Jonna Ewing. “I think it’s going to be a longer respond time.”

She is spending the day at a conceal carry class. She’s been thinking of getting a gun for awhile, but feels now’s the time due to the recent layoffs.

She’s not alone. Case in point, someone in Jonna’s class wears one those infamous police t-shirts: “I called 911 and all I got was this lousy garbage can” that showed up soon after the TPD cuts.

Tom Urbanski runs Ski’s Firearms Training & Consulting. He also teaches the conceal carry classes.

For him, the layoffs mean big business as people are taking safety into their own hands.

“People are panicking, they’re figuring the only way they can protect themselves is for them to protect themselves,” says Urbanski. “So yeah, my business is booming.”

Urbanski says since the presidential election and the collapse of the economy, people have become more interested in owning guns.

He says locally the police layoffs and recent attacks on the elderly are only fueling the fire, especially for senior citizens.

“They don’t have much support out there. Their family is not visiting as often so they’re having to be their own protectors. I’m seeing an increase in the elderly.”

For Toledoans like Jonna, having a gun and knowing how to use it means she’ll sleep just a little better.