Free Republic

NOTHING WAS GOING to stop Richard Plotts from carrying a gun. Not the law, not his felony record, not his questionable mental health and certainly not a sign. "There's evidence that he took offense to the issue that there were signs posted at Mercy Fitzgerald Health System indicating that it was a gun-free zone," Whelan said. "That's the only motive we have been able to determine at this point in time . . . he was upset about that policy." And, if not for an armed doctor and two other brave staffers who subdued him, Plotts may have claimed many...

DARBY, Pa. (TheBlaze/AP) — A psychiatrist who was grazed by gunfire from a patient at a suburban Philadelphia hospital Thursday helped stop the gunman by apparently using his own weapon to shoot and wound him, but not before a caseworker was killed, authorities said. A patient opened fire after entering the doctor’s office at Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital with the caseworker, District Attorney Jack Whelan said. Witnesses reported hearing yelling before the gunshots. A spokeswoman for Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital said the facility has a policy prohibiting anyone except on-duty law enforcement officers from carrying a weapon anywhere on its campus. It...

So… how’s that whole gun free zone thing in Chicago working out? Even though they came close to setting a new record over the 4th of July, things in the Windy City aren’t slowing down much. The toll just for Friday afternoon through Saturday morning was impressive in a pretty horrid way. A 10-year-old girl was shot in the head and critically injured by a stray bullet fired into her home in the Garfield Park neighborhood Friday afternoon, authorities said.The girl, and another 12-year-old shot in the same neighborhood, are among 22 people shot between about 3:30 p.m. and...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)On July 2nd, Target "respectfully" asked law-abiding citizens to "not bring firearms" in their stores. The department store chain did this via an announcement posted on its website and shared by interim CEO John Mulligan. The announcement says: As you've likely seen in the media, there's been a debate about whether guests in communities that permit "open carry" should be allowed to bring firearms into Target stores. Our approach has always been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so. But starting today we will respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target--even in...

How can we prevent mass murderers? Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who killed six innocent people this past Friday in California, is causing everyone to ask that question, yet again. Rodger spent over a year and a half meticulously planning his attack. His 141-page “manifesto” makes it clear that he feared someone with a gun could stop him before he was able to kill a lot of people. Consider his discussion about where he thought the best place to attack people was: . . .

UPDATE: As usual, the media news stories got fundamental facts wrong here. Of particular interest, half the people killed here were stabbed to death. Also, you won’t hear this in the news, the magazines that the killer used were also apparently limited to holding no more than 10 rounds (note that the Sheriff said that all the magazines were legal under California law). Obviously neither point fits the gun control check list. My guess is that because of these points the news media interest in this story will be relatively short lived. UPDATE: The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s office had interviewed...

[Video] 8 Year Old Schoolboy Reprimanded For Thinking a Cloud Looked Like a Gun During Assignment May 22 2014 by Dan Cannon Share This Post So I think we’re officially to the point where our public schools are punishing children for their imagination. According to KKTV, Second grader Kody Smith was assigned to go outside, look at the clouds, and then use his imagination to draw what he saw. “Draw a picture of what you see in the clouds from your imagination and that picture is a gun,” explained 8-year-old Kody. Because it was a gun, the teacher at Talbott...

In a scenario that has recurred all over the nation, a restaurant in Georgia briefly put up a "NO GUNS" sign, became educated, and took it down.  This is the usual course of events that has occurred as antiquated gun laws have been reformed.   Georgia recently passed  a bill that reformed one of the last laws in the nation that forbid armed citizens from eating in restaurants that also serve alcohol.  Louisiana passed a similar reform shortly after, becoming the 50th state in the nation to have this freedom.   From wrdw.com in Augusta, Georgia: "I come up and see...

Recently, there have been two shootings at Jack in the Box restaurant less than 10 days after they decided to ask law abiding gun owners to leave their guns at home. Now we have yet another “gun free” restaurant who has been the victim of criminals with… you guessed it, guns. According to local media reports, The Pit in Durham, NC was robbed at gunpoint after just recently opening up the restaurant. According to ABC11, Authorities said just before 9 p.m. Sunday, three men wearing hoodies entered the restaurant through the back doors with pistols, and forced several staff members to...

Another multiple victim public shooting, yet another attack that occurred where guns are banned. Tuesday’s tragic attack at a FedEx facility in Cobb County, Georgia, left six people injured, with one still in critical condition. The media quickly rushed in with stories about an “assault rifle” being used in the attack. This claim was made everywhere, in stories including the New York Times, USA Today, CBS News and the BBC. But it wasn’t an “assault” weapon. The attack occurred with a shotgun. During the first two days of news coverage, there was a virtual complete media blackout on one of...

  In Arizona, a few women and children lobbied Governor Brewer to veto legislation designed to help keep people safe in the state.   John Lott, one of the foremost researchers on the effects of legislation restricting access to defense options, has noted that the vast majority of public mass shootings occur in gun free zones.  From a nationalreview.com interview: Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has...

The Obama administration hasn’t learned anything from the massacres at Fort Hood in 2009 or the Washington Navy Yard last year. For all my research on how to stop or prevent mass public shootings and all the victims at these attacks that I have talked to over the years, the attack this week at Fort Hood was different. My son Ryan, who is stationed at Fort Hood and recently back from a tour in Afghanistan, was just two blocks from the attack and could hear the shots. However, as was true in the 2009 attack at Fort Hood by Major...

A Buffalo, N.Y. community activist who is well known locally for pushing for a highly restrictive 2013 gun control law has been arrested for — wait for it — carrying a gun illegally at a public elementary school.

School officials are no fans of gun ban signs BY DONNA VICKROY dvickroy@southtownstar.com February 2, 2014 It is a sign of the times, as well as a sign that is sure to become ubiquitous. School officials want the public to know that in compliance with state law (House Bill 0183), schools, churches, government agencies and liquor stores statewide will be posting 4-by-6-inch stickers reminding the public, particularly those with a concealed-carry license, that there are limits on where a gun can be carried. While schools didn’t allow guns even before the concealed-carry law was passed, they still are required to...

The gunman who killed two people at a Maryland mall was a teenage skateboarding enthusiast who had no criminal record before he showed up at the shopping center armed with a shotgun, plenty of ammunition and a backpack filled with crude homemade explosives, authorities said Sunday. Darion Marcus Aguilar, 19, took a taxi to the Mall in Columbia in suburban Baltimore on Saturday morning and entered the building near Zumiez, a shop that sells skateboarding gear. He went downstairs to a food court directly below the store, then returned less than an hour later, dumped the backpack in a dressing...

I haven't seen any mall shooter photos yet. Could it be he may be of a specific race?? Betcha

<p>COLUMBIA, Md. (AP) — Police have identified the shooter in the Maryland mall shooting as a 19-year-old teenager from College Park.</p> <p>Howard County Police Chief Bill McMahon said Darion Marcus Aguilar arrived at the mall after 10 a.m. on Saturday and shot to death two people at a store on the upper level before killing himself.</p>

Police responded to an active shooting at Columbia Mall in Maryland shortly after 11:00 a.m. ET. Three people are confirmed dead and the mall remains on lockdown. UPDATE, 12:40p ET: People inside the mall are being told to wait until they are escorted out. The scene is believes to be secure. UPDATE, 12:34p ET: Randy Brooks, owner of Edward Arthur Jewelers at Columbia Mall, told Uma Pemmaraju that he heard a couple of pops and then saw people running. He said it appeared that the shooter had a shotgun and was killed, but police have not confirmed that. Brooks said...

Several people have been injured after a shooting at the Columbia Mall. The exact number of injured people or extent of their injuries isn’t known.

Reasoning that more guns mean greater safety, Kansas lawmakers voted last year to require cities and counties to make public buildings accessible to people legally carrying concealed weapons. But for communities that remained wary of such open access to city halls, libraries, museums and courthouses, the Legislature provided an exemption: Guns can be banned as long as local governments pay for protections like metal detectors and security guards, ensuring the safety of those they have disarmed. It turns out that in Wichita, the state’s most populous city, and in some other towns, the cost of opting out before the Jan....