Free Republic

The Barrett .50 caliber rifle is a powerful gun. Widely used in the military, its rounds can "penetrate light armor, down helicopters, destroy commercial aircraft, and blast through rail cars," according to a report from the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety group. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence describes .50 caliber rifles like the Barrett as "among the most destructive weapons legally available to civilians in the United States." And as of Wednesday, the Barrett .50 caliber is now the official state rifle of Tennessee, joining an illustrious roster of other state symbols including the raccoon (state wild...

Which are you more likely to be killed by: a car or a gun? We all know how many people die on the roads each year, so it would be mindblowing if there were actually more gun deaths than motor vehicle deaths. Well, that’s exactly what the Associated Press is claiming happened in Tennessee in 2014. Media outlets from the San Francisco Chronicle to the Washington Times all ran stories on this. Others are even reporting that gun deaths exceeded traffic deaths in a total of 20 states. Their source? Primarily a report by the Violence Policy Center (VPC). In...

With many independent voters still undecided in the presidential election, May 30th was as good a time as any for Media Matters and the Violence Policy Center to try to push those independents toward the groups' own fringe territory. They did so with the "end justifies the means" attitude that's typical of how they and their political allies pursue their goals. Media Matters is a George Soros-funded propaganda operation that describes itself as "a progressive research and information center dedicated to . . . correcting conservative misinformation." The Violence Policy Center was founded (and is still led) by a former...

People walking the streets armed with guns must be dangerous, right? The Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center keep claiming that even those individuals who have legally obtained permits to carry concealed handguns are extremely dangerous. With millions of Americans already having been issued such permits from the various states, this is an important issue. The gun control organizations have frequently made these claims in the press. The Associated Press articles by Erik Schelzig and by Jim Abrams have given extensive, uncritical coverage. Members of the gun control organizations have made these claims unchallenged on such places as Fox...

Yesterday’s column about the record number of concealed pistol license holders overlooked one point that should be mentioned: The anti-gun Violence Policy Center has a website devoted to homicides allegedly committed by people who have carry permits. The website, Concealed Carry Killers, keeps a running tally that claims more than 150 victims of legally-armed citizens, and the count includes nine police officers. This was put together, of course, to discredit the 6 million citizens who haven’t killed anybody with their legally-carried handguns. One might wonder if this scorecard includes Barbara Graham of Washington, D.C. Well, no, it couldn’t, because she...

The rabidly anti-gun Violence Policy Center (VPC), which sometimes criticizes the Brady Campaign for not being anti-gun enough, has released another of it's "studies." This one covers familiar territory for the VPC, being one of many of its calls for a federal ban of so-called "assault weapons"--defined vastly more expansively than the 1994 ban. Before we get to the study itself, though, let's take just a second for background. The VPC has for decades been one of the leading cheerleaders for bans of what are, basically, semi-automatic rifles. Back in 1988, their executive director Josh Sugarmann was surprisingly candid about...

Bigotry assumes many forms, hides behind many facades, but always it is the same; the social demonization of entire groups, classes or races of people in an effort to make them appear inferior and detrimental by their very existence. In the wake of a nasty multiple shooting at a Pittsburgh, PA-area fitness club by a not-so-clearly psychotic man identified as George Sodini, America’s gun prohibitionists – led by the Violence Policy Center and Freedom States Alliance – are clamoring for restrictions or repeal of concealed carry statutes. In the case against legally-armed citizens, the VPC has even manufactured an innuendo-riddled...

Earlier in July, the Violence Policy Center’s Josh Sugarmann – writing on the Huffington Post website – made what had to be one of the more bone-headed attempts in recent memory to drive a wedge between people in the firearms community when he critiqued remarks written by Jan Libourel, editor of Gun World magazine. Libourel is an extraordinarily bright guy, well-read in every sense, and – as is common among gun writers – unabashedly opinionated. As a recognized firearms authority, he’s supposed to be opinionated. That’s his job, and he is very good at it. Gun owners enjoy those opinions,...

I wrote recently about the forcible citizen disarmament lobby's desire to ban .50 caliber rifles. In that piece, I pointed out that if such a ban were ever implemented, the gun prohibitionists would soon discover that a sniper limited to a .499 caliber rifle would not be seriously hampered by the loss of 1/1000th of an inch of bullet diameter, leading, no doubt, to calls for the banning of that caliber as well. Of course, a .498 caliber rifle would not really be noticeably less capable . . . etc. The disarmament lobby considers it bad form for gun rights...

For the Brady Campaign, Violence Policy Center, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, U.N. gun-ban extremist Rebecca Peters and her globalist billionaire sugar-daddy George Soros, for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his horde of big-city politicians—in fact, for all those individuals and organizations who would harm or destroy our Second Amendment rights—Barack Obama’s mantra of “change” means their agenda will be harnessed to the total power of an aggressive, activist and radical federal government. “Change” means gun owners will be under siege like never before. Especially for NRA members who fought through the never-ending threats of the Clinton-Gore administration, the...

Food pantries in Iowa have been given approval to resume serving venison to the needy,” read the National Shooting Sports Foundation press release. “Earlier, anti-hunting entities had convinced state officials the meat was tainted by lead. Similar scare campaigns in North Dakota and Minnesota resulted in venison for the homeless being discarded.” How serious was the “problem”? “10 samples of ground venison from a food pantry were tested by the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory,” NSSF writes. “[E]ight had no detectable amounts and two had only trace amounts.” For this, a laudable program was halted, and the most unfortunate among...

[Barack Obama will have a big problem attracting the blue-collar Democrat voters he needs to win the presidency - they like guns and he wants to take them away.] As she clawed for survival against Barack Obama in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary this past weekend, Hillary Clinton lamely asserted her Second Amendment bona fides over that of her rival by claiming that she once shot a duck in Arkansas. As pathetic a pander as that tale was, it did serve to point out one gaping weakness in the armor of the Illinois senator, a man who must rely on blue-collar white...

Statement of National Gun Violence Prevention Organizations in Wake of Northern Illinois University Shooting Washington, DC--Following yesterday’s mass shooting at Northern Illinois University which left six dead, including the shooter, and 16 wounded, America’s leading national gun violence prevention organizations, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and the Violence Policy Center, issued the following joint statement: “Our sympathies go to all those affected by this terrible tragedy. America is in a gun crisis. Yesterday’s shooting at Northern Illinois University was the sixth mass shooting in less than two weeks. On college campuses,...

Obama as board member of the Joyce Foundation. As a member of the Joyce Foundation board, Obama approved funding for the Violence Policy Center whose primary purpose is to ban handguns used by law-abiding citizens for self-defense. I wonder how Obama’s involvement in efforts to ban handguns will be received by 73% of voters who disagree with him?

I wouldn't have believed it. In fact, I didn't believe it. So, I went to the ATF myself to check it out. It's true, Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center, formerly with the National Center to Ban Handguns, holds a federal license for gun dealing. I saw this first on Dave Hardy's site, Arms & The Law, which is always well worth reading. While I trust Dave implicitly, Dave didn't list a source and I didn't want to find myself chasing an Internet legend. So, off to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did I go....

Did you know that Josh Sugarmann, of the Violence Policy Center, has a Federal Firearms License? And that the business address is that of The Violence Policy Center? You do now. Also, given the ATF’s recent crack down on FFLs, I wonder when the VPC’s last inspection was? And how many transfers they’ve done. If none, then that could mean they’re not a business and, per ATF, that is bad. If they have, they’re hypocrites. Said FFL exempts them from the DC handgun ban, as well.

Renewing the assault weapons ban ill-conceived An organization called the Million Mom March held a rally in Washington on Mother's Day to urge a renewal of the 1994 assault weapons ban. If you must know, the turnout was about 997,500 short. But the advocates are not easily discouraged. Afterward, they launched a vehicle called the Big Pink Rig on a "Halt the Assault Tour." The bus will crisscross the nation between now and September, when the ban is scheduled to expire. The 1994 law was a monument to President Bill Clinton's distinctive political genius--which generally involved tiny symbolic changes that...