Free Republic

<p>Matt Brandon, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents the aviation police officers, said he doesn’t understand why the officers are prohibited from carrying guns.</p> <p>He said the union has been unable to get the aviation department to change the no gun policy, which dates to the early 1990s.</p>

Two people are dead and one is in critical but stable condition after a shooting occurred in South Bakersfield on Sunday. At about 12:36 a.m. Bakersfield police officers were flagged down for a report of a shooting that just occurred in the 6300 block of Ming Ave.

(STMW) — Three men were killed and at least seven people have been wounded in shootings across Chicago since Thursday afternoon. A man was shot to death on Christmas Day in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side, police said.

Nicholas “Michael” Thalasinos, one of 14 murder victims of Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Mailik, at a San Bernardino, California, Christmas party last week, was described by friends "an awesome man of God," and a Christian "prayer warrior." But on Saturday, New York Daily News columnist Linda Stasi, using harsh invectives, blamed the victim for the terror attack by the ISIS loyalists, characterizing Thalasinos as "a hate-filled bigot" who wrote "NRA-loving, hate-filled screed on Facebook" and now is "inaccurately being eulogized as a kind and loving religious man" and who "died as the male equivalent of Pamela Geller." In...

About 10:05 p.m., a 30-year-old man was wielding a brick during a fight with a female in the 2300 block of West Jackson, police said. The security guard attempted to intervene, and the man then attempted to strike the guard with the brick. The guard opened fire and shot the man in the chest.

It hadn't even been a week since Wednesday's terrorist attack in San Bernardino, CA killed fourteen people at a Christmas party, yet by Saturday at lunch we already learned of another shooting crisis in Neenah, Wisconsin. A hostage situation was fortunately resolved, but as a result one person was hospitalized. Should we be at all surprised? The tough lessons for all the media (written and television) are that endless reporting on events involving horrific violence, i.e. terrorists, only encourages copycats by psychotic individuals who are already "on the edge." To save innocent lives, the entire national media must cease their...

Shortly after news broke of a shooting in San Bernardino (which we now know was a terrorist attack), Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit were abuzz that the events of December 2, 2015 were the "355th mass shooting" of 2015. Obviously, this was a concerning statistic--if it were actually true.It turns out it wasn't, and even figures on the left agree. There's been nowhere near 355 mass shootings in 2015, and according to Mother Jones editor Mark Folman, there have been exactly four. At Mother Jones, where I work as an editor, we have compiled an in-depth, open-source database covering more than...

Our youngest son just transitioned from crib to bed. Since we don't plan to have any more children, we decided to sell the crib, a hand-me-down from his older brother. It's a nice, well-made crib, made from real wood and bought from a reliable company. We could easily resell it for a handsome price, but we found out a few weeks ago that we can't. It's a drop side crib, and unbeknownst to us the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) banned the manufacture, sale, and resale of drop-sides in 2010, even though individuals can unadvisedly still use them. Drop-sides were...

Two Republican senators are demanding that the Obama administration hand over the immigration history of the alleged attackers in Wednesday's shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that killed 14 people. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is running for president, and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Thursday sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry asking for the history of Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, who were killed during a shootout with police. "In our struggle against terrorism, we are dealing with an enemy that has shown it...

Draw your weapons. That's what Sheriff Joe Arpaio is urging nearly a quarter-million Arizona gun owners to do to fight terrorism and mass shooters. On Tuesday, the so-called "Toughest Sheriff in America" said he cannot guarantee the public's safety and called on them to take matters into their own hands if necessary.

When the Redlands Tea Party Patriots objected to the resettling of Syrian Muslim migrants in their community, CAIR accused them of "paranoia and phobia is rooted in a combination of ignorance and bigotry." But "paranoia and phobia" are the modern condition that the free world has found itself living in. Islamic terrorism can strike anytime and anywhere from a Paris concert hall to a San Bernardino County facility where disabled children were being helped. It's ignorance to ignore that and bigotry to defend it. "What will be done to ensure the safety of our community? Our biggest concern is the...

Commenting on how some liberals claim Islam has nothing to do with radical Islamic terrorism, and how the leftist media report on the shooting at a Planned Parenthood office but totally ignore the nearly "60 million" babies killed by abortion since Roe v. Wade, actor and author Kevin Sorbo said "it is total insanity," and "we're dealing with insanity." Sorbo, who starred in the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and in such films as Walking Tall, Soul Surfer, and God's Not Dead, made his remarks during a Dec. 1 interview with Steve Malzberg on NewsmaxTV. Druing the show, Malzberg...

<p>COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The latest on the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.</p> <p>A friend says of one of the three people who died in a shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic was an Iraq War veteran who had recently left the military.</p>

Five people were killed and at least 12 others have been wounded in shootings across Chicago since late Friday afternoon, police said.

Shooting broke out during anti-terrorist operation in a Paris suburb Reports of an exchange of gunfire during operation in Saint-Denis A special armed response unit of the French police carried out the raid Police officers have been harmed during the operation - extent of their injuries is not yet known...

One person was seriously injured in a shooting Monday night at a Clayton State University student apartment building. The shooting at the Clayton Station Apartments happened shortly after 8 p.m. in the 3000 building of the Clayton Station Apartments, university spokeswoman Maritza E. Ferreira said in a statement. The victim is not a student, but is believed to be the relative of a student, Ferreira said. Police were still searching for the suspect Monday nigth, she added.

The U.S. Supreme Court appears on track to revisit the constitutionality of the death penalty, with recent remarks from justices and world leaders sparking fresh optimism from opponents of capital punishment. The high court under Chief Justice John Roberts has in recent terms agreed to rule on cases related to how states handle death penalty prosecutions and conduct executions, but has yet to weigh in on whether the practice violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  Some court watchers say that will soon change, pointing to signals suggesting an appetite among some of the justices to...

First, let's all pray for the repose of those killed in the mass murder last week. It is no secret that this gunman Chris Mercer, targeted Christians. He queried his victims before he shot them; the Christians were shot in the head while non-Christians were shot in the legs. That aspect was curiously absent from Obama's remarks after the shooting. Had the victims been shot because they were anything but Christian, Obama would have denounced the hate-crime aspect of the murders. But it is not Obama's screed that I want to address at this time, loathsome as it was. As...

A sign in the Roseburg Gun Shop. Interviews with almost a dozen residents of the rural Oregon community on Friday yielded unanimity on their biggest threats: gun control and Barack Obama.The deadliest mass killing in the state’s history had taken place a few miles away and to the staff and customers of the Roseburg Gun Shop it was clear they faced a grave threat – from Barack Obama. Authorities had just discovered a cache of 13 weapons possessed by the shooter, Chris Harper Mercer, but the man they feared was thousands of miles away in the White House, plotting, as...

Why has no one asked President Obama what “common sense” gun control measures in addition to those already at work in Chicago he would like to see? Why has no one asked him about the disparity in his concern over a handful of white victims in Orgeon versus his complete ignoring of hundreds of black murder victims in his hometown? Chicago, the town Obama adopted as his own and where his mansion still sits, puts the lie to the vague gun control nostrums he is selling. A highly amusing site called heyjackass.com (“Illustrating Chicago Values”) graphically illustrates the ongoing carnage...