Free Republic

. . . About a week ago journalists at ProPublica and Slate further fueled the anger many blacks felt about the shooting. Slate’s headline read: “Black Teens Vastly More Likely to Be Killed by Police Than Whites Even After Adjusting for Crime Rates.” The incendiary finding got massive uncritical news coverage including the New York Times, NPR, major newspapers around the country such as the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Dallas Morning News, and the major networks. If their claim is right, and blacks are unjustly facing “vastly” higher rates of being shot by police, it is a serious indictment...

It’s disheartening to see the FBI used to promote a political agenda, but that’s what we got with the bureau’s release last month of a study claim to show a sharp rise in mass shootings, a la Newtown, Conn. The FBI counted 160 “mass” or “active” shootings in public places from 2000 to 2013. Worse, it said these attacks rose from just one in 2000 to 17 in 2013. Media outlets worldwide gave the “news” extensive coverage. Too bad the study is remarkably shoddy — slicing the evidence to distort the results. In fact, mass public shootings have only risen...

California has long allowed police who believe that someone represents a danger to themselves or others to take the person in for a psychiatric evaluation with a police psychiatrist. With that evaluation, a person could be held for 72-hours. After the Elliot Rodger’s killings earlier this year, California’s Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Tuesday, September 30th that makes significant changes. The irony is that deputy sheriff officers had gone to Rodger’s home but did not believe that Rodger posed a danger to himself or others. The law that was thus motivated by Rodger’s case would not have prevented...

When former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control groups release a report, they consistently garner massive, uncritical news coverage. Alas. With the huge number of factual mistakes in these reports, you would think that reporters would have grown wary of pushing their propaganda. For example, Bloomberg’s Everytown, Mothers Demand Action, and Mayors Against Illegal guns have been caught padding the number of school shootings. While Everytown claimed 74 school shootings occurred between the Newtown, Connecticut shooting in December 2012 and June 2014, Politifact, which rated Everytown’s claim as “mostly false,” put the number of “incidents such as Sandy...

With the midterms just over a month away New York City’s former mayor Michael Bloomberg is spending at least $50 million to make his gun-control agenda part of this election. His gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety has endorsed more than 100 federal and state candidates. They are also running television commercials, holding events and pushing their studies into the newsrooms of a mostly favorable press.

John Stossel’s show invited Bloomberg’s various gun control organizations to send a representative to debate on guns, but, as they have done so many times in the past, Shannon Watts and the rest of Bloomberg’s staff declined to participate. The show discussed Bloomberg’s claims regarding the risks of guns in the home as well as domestic violence. Bloomberg’s PR people did send some statements to be read on the show and they were discussed. This show aired on Fox News on Saturday at 5 PM EDT and will re-air at 10 PM EDT on Sunday, and 1 AM EDT on...

Yesterday’s “Nationwide Day of Rage for Ferguson,” demonstrations that were planned to protest police violence against blacks for the 51 cities across the U.S., was a bust. Is it possible that most blacks believe that violent crime, not the threat of police, is the real danger that threatens black Americans, particularly young black males? The high point of protests was a mere 40 people showing up outside the White House. Some 20 to 30 people showed up in cities such as Boston, Denver, and Des Moines. In places such as St. Louis and Oakland, virtually no one seemed to turn...

It is often very hard for women who have been victims of sexual type crimes to publicly discuss what has happened to them. Last week in Washington, five women came forward to discuss how gun free zones at colleges have prevented them from defending themselves. From rape and sexual assault, to stalkers, to one woman whose stalker killed her husband, to death threats,these women bravely came forward and talked of the traumas -- all but one telling their story publicly for the first time. One woman's story made national headlines. Taylor Woolrich, a junior at Dartmouth College, has been stalked...

Why are tens of thousands of unaccompanied children traveling thousands of miles to the U.S.? Is it to avoid violence? Or is it for a chance to live in a much wealthier country? The answer will likely determine whether they can stay. ADVERTISEMENT Last week, Fox News’ Catherine Herridge cited a government report showing that 219 of 230 illegal immigrants who were interviewed said they came to the U.S. because they thought they could get a free pass to American citizenship. Another study, by the Obama administration’s Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged that many “are probably seeking economic opportunities in...

CPRC’s op-ed in the Star-Ledger (the largest paper in New Jersey) starts this way: ut there is a reason that gun control supporters, such as Malloy, don’t provide evidence that Christie is factually in the wrong. There have been plenty of studies on assault weapon bans by criminologists and economists alike, but there isn’t any evidence that limiting magazine size helps fight crime. Take the work of two criminology professors, Chris Koper and Jeff Roth. They were hired by the Clinton administration to evaluate the original assault weapons ban, which limited magazines to 10 bullets. They found: “the evidence is...

Over the July 4 weekend, in Chicago alone, 16 people were shot to death and another 66 were wounded. At a press briefing on July 11, the White House weighed in, stating that Obama would "continue to make the case" that lawmakers should adopt new gun control laws. Two days later, on Sunday, Gov. Pat Quinn also called for more gun control, in particular a state ban on assault weapons, as the solution. But Chicago's problems lie with the city’s politicians. Nationally, police solve almost two out of every three murders – 63 percent of them. That figure is much...

It looks like four party goers happened upon some gang members. Fortunately, one of the victims had his permitted concealed handgun. This dramatic defensive gun use got attention in Chicago, but if the permit holder hadn’t been at the scene, having multiple victims shot would have made national news. From the Chicago Tribune: A Gresham man fired on a group of people leaving a party, only to be shot himself by one of the victims, a military service member with a concealed carry permit, authorities said. The military member and three others were leaving a party Friday night in the...

A dramatic spike in the number of Americans with permits to carry concealed weapons coincides with an equally stark drop in violent crime, according to a new study, which Second Amendment advocates say makes the case that more guns can mean safer streets. The study by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that 11.1 million Americans now have permits to carry concealed weapons, up from 4.5 million in 2007. The 146 percent increase has come even as both murder and violent crime rates have dropped by 22 percent. “When you allow people to carry concealed handguns, you see changes in...

In what’s being hailed by many as a victory for gun-control advocates, the recent Supreme Court decision on “straw” purchases of guns has completely muddled the whole issue of background checks and “straw” purchases for potential gun owners. The court ruled 5-4 that, as The Hill.com put it, “one legal gun owner may not acquire a firearm on behalf of another — a practice known as "straw" purchasing. The case heard by the high court involved a Virginia police officer, Bruce Abramski, who bought a gun, a Glock 19 handgun, for his uncle. The police officer, who could get a...

The NRA’s strong statement reprimanding a few people for carrying long guns into restaurants was bound to get media attention. Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action and much of the media quickly jumped in and described various restaurants as “asking customers to leave their guns at home.” But their assertions couldn’t be more misleading. The headline at USA Today saying “No Guns Inside” or at MSNBC and Huffington Post saying “No-Gun Policies” are simply wrong. A big deal has been made of Starbucks, Jack in the Box, Chipotle, Wendy's, Applebee's, Chili’s and Sonic’s supposed bans on guns, with Bloomberg’s groups declaring “victory.”...

The death-penalty debate goes on. After a piece that I wrote about the debate last week, National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke wrote a response, followed later by a much stronger attack by the Washington Post’s Radley Balko. Cooke’s response was philosophical and drew a distinction between killing someone in self-defense and using the death penalty, though given the evidence that the death penalty deters murders and thus saves lives, that distinction isn’t as clear as he thinks. Balko, a blogger/reporter for the Washington Post, based his reply on empirical evidence. He puts a lot of faith in studies by...

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...

Economist and political commentator John Lott has once again been crunching numbers and in an article published this week for the National Review takes a look at how the Violence Policy Center “cooks the books” in an effort to prove the dangerousness of concealed carry permit holders.(see article for video and chart) However, the report fails to indicate how many of those killed resulted from an act of self-defense. And even self-defense killings are more often than not classified as homicides, simply meaning that the life of one person was taken by another person. And although sometimes these shootings are...

Gun control advocates have recently put hundreds of millions of dollars toward "public health" studies, with predetermined outcomes. These studies are beginning to find their way to the main stream media. Soon there will be an avalanche of studies, and their advice puts lives at risk. John Lott is the founder of this organization and is seeking to counter the bogus studies by providing rapid response to the new studies as well as conducting high-quality peer-reviewed academic studies. Lott, the author of More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns, has conducted decades of research showing that armed citizens...

Gun control has largely been a top down effort. Michael Bloomberg’s latest announcement that he will spend another $50 million to push gun control – 2.5 times the amount spent by the NRA annually on political activities – is all too typical. Last year, gun control groups, largely due to Bloomberg’s money, outspent gun rights groups by about 7.4 to 1 on TV advertising. With a net worth of $31.2 billion, Bloomberg can afford round-the-clock armed bodyguards, but he doesn’t recognize the need for others to have armed protection. Despite his money, mayors belonging to Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns...