Free Republic

Fareed Zakaria has tried to make “The Case for Gun Control” in Time. The results are not pretty. Virtually every argument he makes misrepresents the underlying data. After a lead that cites the Sikh-temple shooting, the Aurora massacre, and the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others, Zakaria trots out the usual international comparisons: “The gun-homicide rate per capita in the U.S. is 30 times that of Britain and Australia, 10 times that of India and four times that of Switzerland. When confronted with such a large deviation, a scholar would ask, Does America have some potential cause for this...

DHS-funded video gives tips to survive a shooter. http://www.federalnewsradio.com/473/2966001/DHS-funded-video-gives-tips-to-su... After last week's shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., the city of Houston has released a how-to video on surviving a shooter event. The video was created with funds from the Homeland Security Department. "I can't imagine the horror and grief. If it is at all possible for any good to come out of it, perhaps it can be letting people know the options to consider if it happens again," said Mayor Annise Parker in a statement. Entitled "Run, Hide, Fight," the video depicts a fictional shooting incident at...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty Tuesday to going on a shooting rampage at a political gathering, killing six people and wounding his intended target, then-Congresswoman Gabriele Giffords, and 12 others. Loughner's plea spares him the death penalty and came soon after a federal judge found that months of forcibly medicating him to treat his schizophrenia had made the 23-year-old college dropout competent to understand the gravity of the charges and assist in his defense.

The horrific mass murder at a movie theater in Colorado on July 20 and another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 5 are the latest in an epidemic of such gun violence over the last three decades. Since 1982, there have been at least 58 mass murders* carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii. We've mapped them below, including details on the shooters' identities, the types of weapons they used, and the number of victims they injured and killed. Of the 134 guns possessed by the killers,...

Wade Michael Page, the tattooed white supremacist and former Army soldier police say gunned down six Sikhs in a Milwaukee-area temple before a police officer killed him, spread his message of hate through several rock bands for more than a decade before mounting his bloody rampage Sunday.

Anyone remember a fourth-century-BC Greek named Herostratus? He's the guy whose name history has recorded solely on account of his having burned down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, in 356 BCE -- so that history would record his name. In a 1993 paper called "Ethical Problems of Mass Murder Coverage in the Mass Media, published in the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Clayton Cramer explored a variation on the question my colleague Robert Wright is rightly asking now, following Roger Ebert's New York Times op-ed on Friday: Given that intense media...

In a day when our culture too readily dismisses words like "valor" and "chivalry," it's worth pointing out the heroism of three men who died protecting the women they had escorted to see the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colorado. In a cynical age where the very concept of "heroism" is too often dismissed as hopelessly naive, even the famous "women and children first" part of the Titanic story has been denigrated -- with the naysayers arguing that it happened only because the ship's captain threatened to shoot any men who climbed into lifeboats ahead of children...

20 Hurt in Colo. Shooting at Dark Knight Movie BOMB SQUAD ON THE SCENE IN AURORA By Mary Papenfuss, Newser Staff A least 20 people were injured early this morning in a shooting and a possible explosion at a movie theater in Colorado, NBC is reporting. The violence occurred at a Century 16 theater in an Aurora mall following a midnight showing of the new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. One suspect is in custody, and a police bomb squad is on the scene. Three local hospitals were alerted to prepare for a "mass casualty" incident involving at least...

BROOKLYN, Ohio (AP) — Police shot and killed an armed man at a crowded Cracker Barrel restaurant where a woman and a girl had been killed and another person was wounded, sending customers fleeing out the back door. The restaurant said the violence appeared to be the result of a domestic dispute between two customers. Authorities said a woman called 911 from the restaurant Thursday night, saying her husband was upset because she told him she was leaving him. He left the restaurant and was circling the parking lot, the woman told police.

When Jared Loughner opened fire in Tucson on January 8, six people were killed and fourteen injured. No matter where you were sitting, as the 24-hour news carried the details of the story, the world seemed almost to stop spinning. The raw evil of what Loughner had done was simply too great for decent, law abiding citizens to comprehend. Sadly, it didnÂ’t take long for various talking heads on the left to see the shooting as just another crisis that could be used to further their agenda: tightening gun control, besmearing the Tea Party, and destroying Sarah Palin. For instance,...

PANAMA CITY, Florida — The Florida security guard who confronted a gunman during a school board meeting said Thursday that he was "no hero" and wasn't thinking about bullets or dying. His biggest fear, he said, was that he had let down his superintendent. "I saw that first shot and I knew the superintendent fell backward," Mike Jones said during a press conference on Thursday. "I thought he'd killed him, that I'd let him down." Jones, a 20-year police veteran, calmly, and at times tearfully, described the events leading up to Clay Duke taking his own life after firing at...

By now, most people have heard about Clay Duke entering a Panama City, FL school board meeting, painting a ‘V’ on the wall in red spray paint- which appears in the comic book and movie V for Vendetta- and opening fire on the board members before a security guard began exchanging shots with Duke- who ultimately died from what is believed to be a self-inflicted wound. The video below is from a different angle and contains a little more interaction between Duke and the school board members than most videos going around. You really can’t see all that much once...

Clay Duke, the man who opened fire on a Florida school board Tuesday, posted a “last testament” on Facebook decrying the wealthy and linking to a slew of progressive sites including theprogressivemind.info and MediaMatters.org. The chilling Facebook statement, posted under the “About Clay” section, talks about being born poor and how the rich “take turns fleecing us”: My Testament: Some people (the government sponsored media) will say I was evil, a monster (V)… no… I was just born poor in a country where the Wealthy manipulate, use, abuse, and economically enslave 95% of the population. Rich Republicans, Rich Democrats… same-same…...

The body count in Northwest England’s Cumbria county earlier today stands at a dozen dead and more than twice as many wounded, suspected gunman Derrick Bird is dead and he used only a sporting shotgun and .22-caliber rifle, according to published reports. Not an "assault weapon" in sight, and there are indications that Bird may have legally owned those guns as he was apparently a member of a local gun club. Armed with two weapons - a .22 rifle and a shotgun - Bird drove down the coast from Whitehaven where the first attacks took place, leaving a trail of...

Twelve people were killed by a gunman who went on the rampage across Cumbria in north-west England. Taxi driver Derrick Bird shot dead a colleague in the town of Whitehaven, before driving through the countryside apparently targeting people at random. Eleven others were injured, three critically and five seriously. Mr Bird's body was found in a wooded area in Boot in the Lake District, where a shotgun and a rifle fitted with a telescopic sight were recovered. Five victims were named locally as Darren Rewcastle, Garry Purdham, Kenneth Fishburn, Jane Robinson and Michael Pike. Mr Rewcastle was a taxi driver....

Fort Hood tragedy latest in 40-year string of U.S. mass shootings November 9, 11:33 PM by Rebecca Heath When Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on his murderous rampage killing 13 and wounding 30 others Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, he became the latest perpetrator of a uniquely American phenomenon of mass public shootings. One day later, alleged gunman Jason Rodriquez, walked into the Orlando FL., engineering firm where he had been terminated two years before. He left one person dead and 5 injured. These latest U.S. shooting sprees add to this year's deadly toll of workplace violence. Although the anecdotal...

Suspect arrested in Orlando shooting, one dead By Andy Boyle, Shirl Kennedy and Kim Wilmath, Times Staff Writers Posted: Nov 06, 2009 12:51 PM Police have arrested the man they say shot one person to death and wounded four others Friday at a downtown Orlando office building where he had been fired from an engineering firm two years ago, the Orlando Sentinel reported. The suspect, Jason Rodriguez, 40, was arrested at about 2 p.m., the Sentinel reported, more than two hours after the shooting. He was taken into custody at the home of his mother about eight miles away from...

Police in Florida say they have arrested a gunman who went on the rampage at an office complex. Latest reports said one person was killed and five were injured at the Gateway Centre in central Orlando. Workers were said to have barricaded themselves behind doors while others streamed out of the block as SWAT teams entered to track down the killer. [ ... ] The suspect was named as Jason Rodriguez, a 40-year-old former employee of Reynolds, Smith & Hills, a company based at the centre. A spokesman for the firm confirmed that Rodriguez had been an employee based at...

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. -- Several people were reported shot at the LA Fitness gym in Bridgeville, emergency officials confirmed for WTAE Channel 4 Action News. The reports came in shortly after 8:15 p.m. that authorities were called to the gym at the Great Southern Shopping Center at 1155 Washington Pike. Emergency officials said as many as 15 people may have been involved, but their conditions were not immediately known. Witnesses told WTAE Channel 4 Action News that the victims shot in the gym were in a class in the aerobics center at the time of the shooting. Former WTAE Channel 4...

A student at a middle school in Louisiana's Lafourche Parish has been hospitalized after trying to shoot a teacher and then shooting himself in the head, the sheriff said. Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre told New Orleans TV station WDSU that the 15-year-old student brought a gun to the school and fired one shot into a classroom. No one was hurt, Webre said. Sgt. Lesley Peters said the student had tried to shoot a teacher. The student then ran into the boys' bathroom shot himself in the head, Webre said. The school has been locked down, and all other students...