Free Republic

Dick's Sporting Goods told customers last week that it would no longer sell assault rifles or high capacity magazines at its Field and Stream stores, joining a number of companies taking some sort of public stance in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. A former student with mental health issues killed seventeen people with an AR-15, and lawmakers and gun control activists have quickly demanded the firearm again be placed on a ban list.While understanding that Dick's thinks it's doing the right thing, a South Carolina gun seller called Palmetto State...

In Florida, the Broward County Sheriff's office and Broward County school district are fighting to keep exterior surveillance video from the day of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School hidden from view. As journalists and citizens who've waged uphill battles against secrecy well know, government agencies too often invoke broad disclosure exemptions in the name of protecting public safety when they're really just trying to protect their own jobs. Feckless Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel and media-luvin' school Superintendent Robert Runcie are defendants in an open records lawsuit filed Tuesday by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the...

Did Dicks make the corporate decision to stop selling the dreaded AR, high capacity mags and change the age to sell a firearm to 21 on their own or were they pressured? At any rate I will not be shopping at Dicks any longer over their stupid heart string tug decision. The AR has never killed a sole or creature without the assistance of a human to make the interaction function as designed.

We've heard a whole range of reasons for why individuals are opposed to arming trained teachers in schools after President Trump suggested it as a way to stop would be school shooters. Some of those explanations have been a bit more irrational than others. For instance, Matt reported on MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell suggesting handgun bullets simply don't move fast enough to stop a gunman.We now have this hot take from CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Tom Fuentes, who argued Monday that women can't conceal carry because it would not work with their wardrobes. He used Sandy Hook Elementary, where...

MIAMI -- The list of failures in the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, are becoming legion. If any or all of those failures had been addressed, 17 students and teachers might be alive today. In addition to the several balls dropped by the local FBI office, it was later alleged that at least four Broward County sheriff's deputies, including armed school resource officer Scot Peterson, were outside the school during the shooting and instead of rushing in to confront the killer, later identified as Nikolas Cruz, waited four minutes until police officers...

Three high-ranking Florida officials close to the law enforcement response at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tell Fox News there was a delay in Emergency Medical Service getting into the school in the critical moments after Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire, killing 17 people and wounding at least 14 others. Two separate sources told Fox News some of the EMS teams who requested to enter the school were told they could not. One source said it was the Broward County Sheriff’s Office – which was the commanding office – that ordered some of the EMS crews not to go into...

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. - While the Broward Sheriff's Office has handled the forensic investigation into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week, it was another police agency's officers that were the first to rush into the building to save those who had been shot. About 130 cops from the Coral Springs Police Department responded to the shooting at the school, which borders the city and is about three miles from the station, Police Chief Anthony Pustizzi told Local 10 News in an exclusive interview. Roughly 40 of those officers rushed into the building, where 23 victims were carried...

[see video at link] David Hogg's mother worries her son is going 1,000 MPH in his quest for gun control, but she also knows his time to act is NOW. Hogg's mother, Rebecca, tells us David hasn't stopped making the media rounds advocating for new gun legislation after Nikolas Cruz brutally murdered 17 people from his high school last week in Parkland, Florida... And, as a teacher herself, Rebecca has strong feelings about Trump's suggestion to arm her colleagues.

https://hooktube.com/watch?v=B36d4AC8nfE

A busload of surviving students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School traveled to the Florida state capital Tuesday to lobby on behalf of gun control legislation. Despite their efforts, the Florida House has voted down a motion take up a ban on the AR-15, tabling the measure. The vote was 36-71.Seventeen people were killed and over a dozen injured when a former student opened fire on the school last week. The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, used an AR-15.Soon after the carnage, lawmakers renewed their calls for a ban on the rifle. It got support from even Republican governors like John Kasich,...

Here we go again. This time it was at a high school in Florida. It has become depressingly familiar. Not just the horrific shooting, but also the words that come after something like this. Officials assure us that the victims and their families are in their thoughts and prayers. Then come the calls for more restrictions on guns. Then we get the reminders that if we see something we need to say something. It's all so predictable. But by now we know something else that's predictable: It's going to happen again -- if not at a school, then at a...

How many people in this country have ACTUALLY read and UNDERSTAND the purpose of our 2nd Amendment??? Try reading the whole thing and understand why it was written. It is ONE sentence but Critically IMPORTANT to our liberty! It wasn't written so we can hunt!!! It was written to preserve our right to form a MILITIA to fight back against a tyrannical government. I know it's not a likely scenario, but it is essential element of our freedom and liberty and the founding fathers knew it was critical to keep government in check. It may not

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin offered comments about Wednesday’s mass murder at a Florida high school when she spoke with Breitbart News’s Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight on Friday. “It’s not a Second Amendment gun issue at all,” Palin said, adding, “What needs to be discussed is the failure of the FBI.” Incompetence at the FBI — not agitation against the Second Amendment — should be a national focus related to the mass shooting in Florida, said Palin. Adding to that assertion, Palin stated, “What needs to be discussed is the failure of the FBI. This...

CNN)Russia-linked bots are promoting pro-gun messages on Twitter in an attempt to sow discord in the aftermath of the Florida school shooting, monitoring groups say. Hashtags, topics, and URLs related to the shooting overwhelmingly feature in the tweets pushed by these automated Twitter accounts in the past 48 hours, according to Hamilton 68, a tool launched by the Alliance for Securing Democracy to track what it describes as "Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts online." The Alliance is a group housed at The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) think tank to "defend against, deter, and raise the costs...

The latest mass shooting, which claimed 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, was a horrible tragedy. But that's no excuse for the flurry of stories parroting a gun control advocacy group's false claims about school shootings. In the immediate wake of the shooting, headlines starting appearing at major news sites: "There have already been 18 school shootings in the US this year" — ABC News "18 school shootings in 45 days — Florida massacre is one of many tragedies in 2018"—CNBC "18 school shootings in US in 2018"— AFP "U.S. averages a school shooting every 2.5...

Alicia Blonde, a teacher at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, remembered school shooter Nikolas Cruz as someone who had a "pride issue" with his Hispanic background and "didn't feel comfortable in his own skin, in his culture." Blonde lamented that Cruz "didn't really like to speak Spanish too much."

MSNBC host Chris Hayes accused President Donald Trump of exploiting the Florida high school shooting to shield his administration from answering questions at Wednesday’s White House press briefing. “Is the WH really hiding behind a school shooting so they don’t have to answer questions about a host scandals in the administration?” Hayes tweeted. “Kinda looks like that’s what’s happening.” Is the WH really hiding behind a school shooting so they don’t have to answer questions about a host scandals in the administration? Kinda looks like that’s what’s happening. — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) February 14, 2018

FORT MYERS - Fort Myers Police responded to a shooting at Edison Mall in Fort Myers on Friday that left one person dead. As of late Friday night, the suspected shooter is still on the loose. The shooting occurred around 9:00 p.m. outside the entrances of Macy's and JCPenney. Police say the victim, 25-year-old Thomas Arthur Goodman, suffered multiple gunshot wounds from a high-powered assault rifle. They say they believe the shooter shot around 50 to 60 rounds at him. Officers at the scene performed CPR on Goodman until Lee County EMS arrived. He was transported to Lee Memorial Hospital...