Free Republic

When’s the last time you heard any good news out of Chicago, at least as it relates to crime figures? Well, prepare yourselves for a change from the status quo. While the murder rate and gang violence are still bad – and frequently in the local news – the robbery rate has gone down recently. And the police think they might know why. Since Illinois started granting concealed carry permits this year, the number of robberies that have led to arrests in Chicago has declined 20 percent from last year, according to police department statistics. Reports of burglary and...

For those of you who’ve been sleeping since it happened Friday, Travis County grand jurors indicted Perry on charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant. The first count carries a possible prison term of five to 99 years. The second, two to 10. I’m no expert on law or math, but I believe those potential sentences each exceed one year. And there’s more. As an indictee, Perry’s state-issued Concealed Handgun License, assuming he still has one — his office didn’t know as of Tuesday afternoon — will be suspended until the case against him is...

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's political action committee, Independence USA, has purchased $150,833 in television ads in an effort to defeat Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. and support his opponent, Milwaukee police Lt. Chris Moews. In response to the news of Bloomberg's ads, Clarke said in a statement: "I trust the voters. The voters can't be bought." The ad buys by Bloomberg's PAC come on top of $400,000 in media ads purchased by the Greater Wisconsin Committee to try to beat Clarke, who is seeking his fourth term in Tuesday's Democratic primary election. Also on Friday, Citizens...

Taylor Woolrich’s case was discussed on Fox News this afternoon. Unfortunately, Geraldo Rivera was on to discuss Taylor’s case and he was very ill informed about what was happening. Here are just five errors in his discussion. 1) Bennett could be released from jail at any time and Taylor calls up every day to make sure that he hasn’t posted bail. Bennett has hired one of the very best defense lawyers in San Diego county, and apparently has been able to post a large retainer of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the lawyer. His bail is set at $300,000,...

Wednesday, August 6, 2014 Streetlight McCarthy: Concealed Carry Same As Drunken Driving The expert in carrying a firearm while intoxicated speaks: “This is what I said from Day One: More guns is not the solution to gun violence. That’s akin to saying everybody should drive drunk to stop drunken driving. It doesn’t work that way.” So what's giving Chicago Police Supt. McCarthy flashbacks? Something he thinks will be an excuse to restrict Concealed Carry in Illinois. After Wednesday’s meeting at Kennedy-King, McCarthy also disclosed that one of the men shot this week at a North Side nightclub had one of...

Gun-control advocates are learning the downside of getting their way. Recently, a federal judge struck down the District of Columbia's ban on the carrying of concealed handguns. Anti-gun forces have been losing in legislatures for a long time. Now they are finding that even where they win, they lose. Washington used to have the strictest gun laws in America. Besides the prohibition of concealed guns, all firearms had to be registered and handgun ownership was forbidden. The restrictions had no evident effect on crime: In the 1990s, the nation's capital was known as the murder capital. But they invited...

There were no police at the time the Constitution was written and the Bill of Rights ratified.   Police as we know them did not come into being until a couple of decades later, in the UK, with Sir Robert Peel.   There, giving the police power was resisted as an infringement on local power for a considerable time, and police only gradually spread across the United States. Police forces have taken over many of the functions of local militias, and are for the most part, locally controlled.   The closest modern equivalent of to the militia of the constitutional era are...

A man with a concealed carry permit shot at an armed robbery suspect who was running from a cell phone store in Crestwood, prompting an officer who was also chasing the suspect to take cover, police said. The man with the permit told police he was about to step inside an AT&T store at 4756 W. Cal-Sag Road around noon Saturday when he noticed the store was being robbed, Crestwood police said in a statement. The man said he stayed outside to prevent anyone from entering, police said. After he saw the suspect leaving through a back door, he entered...

Greetings in Freedom, Ordinarily a County Sheriff's election wouldn't be notable for the larger state. In this case however, I'd like to share what is going on in Milwaukee County because the Sheriff's race here has drastic implications for the entire state and country. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke rocked the boat here in SE Wisconsin and nationally when he issued public service announcements in 2013 that encouraged people to take responsibility for their own safety including training to use a firearm in self defense. His public service announcements went viral because while self-defense is only common sense, its extremely...

You and I avoid visiting the doctor by eating well. Doctors like Lee Silverman carry concealed in order to care for us when we do need them. Doctors and medical professionals should be allowed to carry concealed. Last week, a psychiatrist named Dr. Lee Silverman technically broke the letter of the law by carrying concealed at work. He courageously saved innocent lives by pulling his trigger on a mad gunman before anyone else scarcely had time to dial 911. On July 24, a 49-year-old patient of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital smuggled a loaded firearm into the Darby, Pennsylvania medical complex. Richard...

Armed Doctor Who Opened Fire on Active Shooter in Hospital Shooting Could Lose His Job July 25 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post As we reported yesterday, it would seem that an armed doctor in Pennsylvania prevented a possible mass shooting at the hospital he was working at. The doctor managed to land several chest hits on the suspect after he had shot another person and wounded the doctor. However, despite his heroic, likely life saving acts, the doctor (identified as Lee Silverman), may end up unemployed as gratitude. According to the Employee Code of Conduct for Mercy Health...

A gunman opened fire inside Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Delaware County on Thursday afternoon, killing a female caseworker and grazing a psychiatrist in the head, police said. Officials believe the doctor then drew his own weapon and shot the assailant, hitting him three times and critically injuring him, said Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan. The psychiatrist , 52, is expected to recover. Donald Molineux, chief of the nearby Yeadon Police Department, said the doctor "without a doubt saved lives" by firing back.

The Rise of the Anti-Media is a profound academic examination of how the gun culture has been able to triumph in the face of overwhelming opposition from the ruling elite.   This is not a book that is light summer reading.   The issues examined, the research done, and the theory put forward to explain the phenomena, are worthy of serious study.    Information in the book is dense.  Brian Anse Patrick packs a great deal into only 282 pages.  The book captured my attention.  I devoured it in a day, but find myself repeatedly returning for more insight. It helps to...

************************************************************** 3. If you like being insulted, do we have a Virginia gun store for you! ************************************************************** A VCDL member brought to our attention a “No loaded guns” sign on the door of Absolute Outdoors in New Kent. EM Ed Levine sent them an email to confirm that policy. First, let me say that many gun stores have a “no loaded guns” policy. That’s because, unlike pretty much any other public place around, people are actually drawing guns and handling them in a gun store. That said, many stores have a better policy of saying that a person can have...

When school resumes in the fall in the Toppenish School District [near Yakima, WA], some administrators will be armed for an added level of security.

A growing trend in state governments is the reform of antiquated knife laws.  The laws were often passed decades ago.  They have been overtaken by Constitutional law.   Clearly, if firearms are protected under the second amendment, so are knives. Last year, in 2013, Kansas reformed their knife laws, enacting a statewide preemption to prevent local governments from chilling the exercise of second amendment rights for knives.   The law was found to have some ambiguity, so this year, as part of an overall weapons law reform bill, it was made clear that old local laws were repealed, and that it...

A Joliet man is suing Bass Pro Shops for falsely advertising “a worthless class” that failed to meet the required training hours to obtain an Illinois concealed carry permit, according to a lawsuit filed Monday. Ambrose attended the class after seeing an advertisement in October 2013 inside a Bolingbrook Bass Pro Shops called, “Illinois Concealed Carry Permit Class,” the lawsuit said. The classes were such a failure, however, that the Illinois State Police issued a news release April 1 stating that Andel was no longer approved to train Illinois Concealed Carry Curricula and that all of his 327 applicants were...

Even Chicago isn’t hopeless. Just its politicians. In July of 2013, Illinois became the last state in the union to enact a concealed carry law. In January of this year, the state began accepting applications for permits. This week, Chicago police announced that the city’s first quarter murder rate was the lowest since 1958.The first three months of the year saw 6 fewer murders than the same time frame in 2013–a 9 percent drop–and 55 fewer murders than 2012, according to a statement from Chicago Police.There were 90 fewer shootings and 119 fewer shooting victims, drops of 26 and 29...

On July 9, 2013, a bill to recognize Illinois gun owners’ right to carry concealed firearms was passed by both chambers of the state Legislature. Illinois became the last state in the nation to allow public possession of concealed guns. Gun control advocates warned that high-crime areas, like Chicago, would only see more violence if residents were allowed to carry guns in public. In reality, the opposite may be happening. On Tuesday, the Chicago Police Department announced that the city experienced its lowest murder rate since 1958 in the first quarter of 2014. There were 6 fewer murders than the...

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm announced Wednesday that Jeremy Rossetto will not be charged in connection with the March 12 shooting death of two teens who were hitting him with a souvenir baseball bat. The district attorney's office reviewed the police investigation, interviewed witnesses and viewed witness cellphone video before concluding that Rossetto shot the teens in self defense.