Free Republic

The use of handguns as a defense against bears has been shown to be effective 98% of the time. In this study, all cases that can be documented, where a handgun was fired in defense against a bear, are included. This is done by design to guard against selection bias. All cases cite the source for the case information. Unlike other attempts to put a number on how effective handguns, long guns, or bear spray are in defending against bears, every case is described to readers so they can come to their own conclusions. Readers may disregard any incidents at...

The fatal shooting of a male at 1415 West Gulf Bank Road about 12:30 a.m. today (May 9) will be referred to a Harris County grand jury. The identity of the deceased male is pending verification by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. The male shooter, 53, was not injured in the incident. HPD Homicide Division Detectives M. Perez and S. Overstreet reported: HPD patrol officers responded to a shooting at an apartment complex at the above address and were directed to an unresponsive male near a dumpster across the parking lot from one of the apartment buildings. Houston...

David Pugiliese, the reporter on Canadian Forces and military issues, has been following the saga of replacing and destroying the Browning Hi-Power pistols, which have been used by the Canadian military since WWII. Most of the pistols were part of a production run done at the end of the war. The Canadian military has been working on the project for many years. From David Pugiliese, Ottowa Citizen October 13, 2022: At this time the Canadian Forces has 11,896 Browning handguns in its inventory, National Defence spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier told this newspaper. Of those, 1,323 are non-functioning.As the Browning 9mm...

On March 11, 2024, Judge William Q. Hayes of the United States District Court, Southern District of California, granted a summary judgement in the case of Nguyen V. Bonta. The case is a challenge to California’s one gun a month law. Judge Hayes ruled the law violated the text of the Second Amendment and there were no reasonable analogies in the relevant legal history of the United States. Judge Hayes granted one month for an appeal to be filed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case was sent to a three judge panel of the Ninth...

Link to video of arrival of the police and the original comedy skit. On March 12, 2024, Dutch absurdist comedian Hans Teeuwen posted a video mocking the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema. As part of the video, a vaguely pistol-looking object was on a table, at the edge of the screen, next to him.Three hours later, the police were at his door. The came in and confiscated the object, which was still on the table. AmmoLand covered the story. In the AmmoLand article, this correspondent noted the object was most likely a Webley air pistol.Coverage of the incident continues in...

In 2014, John Gookin, Tom Smith, and Alison Williams published a paper in Human-Wildlife Interactions titled: A Device for Refilling Practice Bear Spray Canisters. The paper shows how to build and use the device. This correspondent has long maintained bear spray has a valid place as a means of protection against bears. Bear spray does not appear to be as effective in stopping bear attacks as handguns. This does not mean it is not useful. Bear spray can work effectively as a device to haze bears which are merely curious. Bear spray is generally a better deterrent than shouting or...

Image from wikimedia commons, 1992 LA riots, taken by Ricky Bonilla, cropped and scaled by Dean Weingarten In the tumultuous middle 1960's, the ideologically progressive media came to full power, with a blame America first, globalist, anti-Christian set of assumptions about reality. Their answer to the riots in the cities was to "purchase peace" with money and programs. A primary result of this action was the funneling of enormous amounts of cash to people in the progressive cultural knowledge-elite. They did the studies, ran the think-tanks, and administered the programs. The money flowed through their hands, and a great deal,...

On April 29, 2024, Fox News reported Prosecutors in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, would not re-try border rancher George Allen Kelly. The Fox report has since been verified. From Fox News. com: George Alan Kelly, the Arizona rancher charged with murder in the shooting of a Mexican national on his border property, will not be retried, prosecutors with the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s office said.Kelly underwent a lengthy accusation, arrest, and trial process stretching out for nearly a year and a half. In the end, the local jury could not agree on a verdict. This created a mistrial and the...

A continual debate in the firearms and hunting community is about caliber wars. 9mm v .45. What is the minimum caliber for whitetail deer? What calibers are good for elk? Moose? Grizzly bears? In the research of handguns fired in defense against bears, a surprising conclusion springs forth: Caliber is not as important as we thought. Having a firearm is more important than caliber. There are several reasons why this is so.First, a firearm builds confidence. A person with a firearms has more confidence they can do something instead of nothing. Call it the psychological factor. A firearm gives a...

JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – One suspect has been arrested and two are wanted for breaking into a woman’s home in Jackson. The incident happened on Daniel Circle on Wednesday, May 1. A woman said three young men, who were wearing hoodies, rang her doorbell and asked if she wanted her yard cut. She declined, and the men went to her daughter’s home in the neighborhood. The woman said her daughter was not home at the time of the incident and that the suspects broke into the home. According to the woman, her daughter returned home, and the suspects fired shots...

The National Instant Background Check System (NICS) numbers for March 2024 are significantly lower than March 2023. Gun sales for March this year, at 1.39 million, are 92% of last year’s, at 1.51 million. They are the lowest sales for March back to 2019. While this shows a drop in sales since the extraordinary sales levels in the election year of 2020, it is a relatively high number.The NICS check numbers are even lower. They are the lowest recorded for March since 2017. There is only a mild link between NICS checks and firearms sales, because NICS checks are used...

On Friday, April 26, 2024, Governor Bill Lee signed the popular school reform bill that would allow a few voluntary, highly regulated school staff to carry concealed firearms to protect the children under their care. The reform bill moves Tennessee from the few states that completely ban school staff from carrying concealed firearms to those states that allow staff to protect their children but with extreme restrictions. Most states have programs that are much less restrictive than the bill signed by Governor Lee. The bill, SB1325/HB1202, was popular in the state legislature, where it was passed with veto-proof majorities. The...

On March 8, 2024, the Florida legislature overwhelmingly voted for the HB0087: Taking of Bears. The Bill restores the ability of people in Florida to protect themselves, their pets, and dwellings from Florida black bears, which were administratively taken from them in 2012. The population of Florida black bears has skyrocketed, along with complaints and damage done by bears, particularly in Northern Florida.Florida legislative procedures require the governor to sign bills (after the legislature adjourns) within 15 days, or they become law without his signature. The timing starts when the governor receives the bill from the legislature.SECTION 8. Executive approval...

The lawsuit by the State of Texas, challenging the federal requirement to pay taxes and register homemade silencers, is moving forward in the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Oral arguments are scheduled for April 29, 2024. The case is now known as Paxton v Dettelbach. On February 24, 2022, Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, filed suit against the acting head of the ATF, then Marvin Richardson. The lawsuit was required by Texas law. HB 957 became law in Texas on September 1, 2021. On July 15, 2022, Paxton, acting for the State of Texas, amended the lawsuit...

The oral arguments in the Paxton v Dettelbach case, will be heard at the Fifth Circuit Courthouse in New Orleans on Wednesday morning at 9:00. Texas AG Ken Paxton is challenging the power of the federal government to tax and require serial numbers on homemade silencers which are made and stay in Texas. The case is bolstered by the Bruen decision at the Supreme Court. Paxton says silencers are protected under the Second Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment, and there is no historical tradition requireing American citizens to serialize and pay a $200 tax to exercise their...

Attempting to quantify the effectiveness of defensive methods for use against bears suffers from significant selection bias. It is impractical to enlist large numbers of volunteers, randomly select half, give half a method of protection, leave the others as a control group, and place both in equal chances of being attacked. Instead, we rely on gathering data from people who were attacked and who had various types of defensive weapons. Obtaining a valid sample is nearly impossible because successful defenses have a strong bias of not being reported. The more spectacularly a defense fails, the more likely it is to...

The phrase “arming teachers” has standard meanings: To provide teachers with arms or to force teachers to carry arms. “Arming teachers” puts teachers in a passive role, with someone else “arming” them. It is being used to oppose a mild gun law reform bill in Tennessee.The phrase is being used in an Orwellian way by those opposed to an armed population. It is used by the left to prevent teachers from being allowed to protect themselves and the children in their care. The phrase “arming teachers” has become equated with removing restrictions on the ability of teachers to arm themselves....

I am doing research on bear attacks. A significant number happen on the Island of Hokkaido in Japan. The number of fatal attacks varies, usually between 0-4 in the last few years. I have numbers for 2018, 2019, and 2020. I need them for 2016, 2017, and 2021. Japanese authorities started tracking bear attacks a number of years ago, so the data is there. Finding it is the problem. Bear attacks in Japan are much better covered there than in the international press. Any help would be appreciated.

The other day, I was speaking to an Australian, attempting to explain to him how American Progressives view simple solutions to rampage school shootings, such as allowing armed military and police veterans to protect schools, as they do in Israel, to be “Off the table.”This hypothetical exchange between a “Naive Progressive” and an “Old Hand Progressive” was the result:Naive Progressive:I am concerned about Trump talking about allowing teachers with police and military experience to be armed to protect schools. Should we get ahead of this by adopting it as our policy, and requiring them to be highly regulated? Then they...

Border rancher George Allen Kelly, 75 years old, was on trial, charged with the death of an illegal alien who had been deported numerous times. The body of Gabriel Cuen Buitimea (48) had been found in the mesquite about 115 yards from the rural home of George Allen Kelly and his wife, Wanda. The husband and wife had retired to Arizona in 2002 after careers as a state fisheries biologist and a school teacher in Lincoln, Montana.On January 30, 2023, George Allen Kelly called Border Patrol and said he heard a shot and that he might have to return fire....