Free Republic

As a response to the police shooting of Michael Brown, President Obama proposes $263 million for police training and body cameras. But more police training wouldn’t have prevented the Brown shooting and the president’s proposal plays into the hands of those who blame the police. President Obama has continually undermined police departments around the country, and his demand for more training fits that pattern. With Wilson facing civil suits and Attorney General Eric Holder’s federal investigation still ongoing, the pressures on Officer Wilson are not likely to fade away anytime soon. It’s safe to say that other police officers will...

Exaggerations have poisoned discussions about relations between blacks and the police. “Black men between the ages of 15 and 19 are 21 times as likely as whites to be killed by a police officer,” said Chuck Todd on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree echoed Todd. “The data is clear, that black boys are being killed by white police officers around the country.” The claim was repeated frequently on other shows. But those numbers aren’t entirely accurate, and they are far from the whole truth. . . . Todd and Ogletree relied on an analysis of FBI...

Academics often believe they are the smartest people around, and they like to tell others how best to live their lives. Add the government’s power to control people’s lives and you have a dangerous combination. Americans got a taste of this elitism when MIT’s Jonathan Gruber mocked "the stupidity of the American voter." But American voters aren’t the only ones who make mistakes. Time after time, the “architect" of ObamaCare underestimated costs and overestimated how many people would be covered. Like so many Ivory Tower academics, Gruber doesn’t understand how the real world operates. Could it be that those “stupid”...

Let’s say a stalker is threatening a female friend of yours. She asks you if she can borrow your handgun. She is trained and has no criminal record. Should you loan her your gun? If you live in Washington State, loaning her your gun may soon make you a criminal and will likely land you in prison. Suppose you are a Boy Scout leader. Once a year, the scouts take a trip to a local farm where the boys earn their firearm merit badges. If you continue to stick with this annual ritual you may soon find yourself in prison....

The recent spate of “lone wolf” terrorist attacks both here and in Canada seem to have come out of nowhere. And it’s clear that they have left Americans and Canadians as sitting ducks. Simply by using the Internet, ISIS has encouraged “lone wolf” individuals. These “wolves” have initiated attacks on their own with no planning or coordination with others and without leaving a trail of clues about their intentions. Law enforcement authorities and our government are not well suited to defend against such individual terror strikes. As Israel has learned about such attacks, there are just too many targets to...

. . . 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.”...