Free Republic

Many readers are interested in how various handgun calibers have performed in defense against bears. This is a complicated subject. Sometimes, any caliber will do. Sometimes, a level of power may be required. Sometimes, a level of accuracy or speed may be required. Many permutations exist. The most important aspect, if a confrontation occurs, is to have a firearm available, easily and quickly accessible. The specific caliber is less important. These updates include all the incidents we have been able to document to the date of the update, after several years of intense searches. We have always asked for examples...

The Florida State Legislature has proposed a Right to Hunt and Fish amendment to the Florida State Constitution. The Amendment will appear on the November 5, 2024 election ballot as Amendment 2. The amendment will require a supermajority of 60% of the vote to approve the measure. The amendment reads as follows: SECTION 28. Fishing, hunting, and the taking of fish and wildlife.—Fishing, hunting, and the taking of fish and wildlife, including by the use of traditional methods, shall be preserved forever as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife. This section does...

The most important aspect, if a confrontation occurs, is to have a firearm available, easily and quickly accessible. The specific caliber is less important. These updates include all the incidents we have been able to document to the date of the update after several years of intense searches. We have always sought examples of failures. We appreciate readers who help us document more cases. Here are all the cases that have been documented where .357 Magnum caliber revolvers were fired in defense against bears. These cases do not include incidents where handguns were used with other lethal means or a...

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a wonderful dissent in the Rahimi case, released on June 21, 2024, almost exactly two years after the clear and well-written Bruen opinion. The Rahimi opinion has been released by the Supreme Court. It is an eight-to-one decision with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting. In spite of the terrible facts and unsympathetic defendant in the case, Rahimi was not a significant win for those who want the American population disarmed. It was a very narrow decision based on the narrow facts of the case, so the opinion, while not wonderful, is not as damaging as some think.The...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A man was shot in the arm Saturday night while trying to steal two cases of beer from a gas station convenience store. Metro police said officers with the Hermitage Precinct responded to reports of a shooting at a Shell gas station located in the 1500 block of Lebanon Pike at around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, June 22. When officers arrived, they found a 26-year-old man – who had been shot in the forearm – walking down the street. The officers tried to talk to him, but he tried to get away. He was eventually stopped and...

In spite of intense pressure from deep green “environmentalist” and “animal rights” groups, Florida Governor DeSantis signed HB 87 on June 21, 2024. If Governor DeSantis had not signed the bill, it would have become law on June 22. HB 87 restores the right of people to protect themselves, their pets, and their homes from destructive, rogue black bears.Animal rights groups wanted to continue a failed policy that demanded people ask permission from a bureaucratic agency before they were “allowed” to shoot a destructive bear.From clickorlando.com:DeSantis signed HB 87, Taking of Bears, which allows people to claim self defense in...

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the City Council respects activists who are Second Amendment supporters. The admission came when City alder Bob Bauman attempted to ban guns near the scheduled Republican National Convention, in violation of state law and the United States and State of Wisconsin constitutions.From wisn.com:Bauman introduced an amendment Friday encouraging the city’s public safety committee to bypass state law and ban guns within the soft perimeter anyway. “We may be sued. I’m not afraid of being sued,” Bauman told his colleagues. Bauman knows his proposal is against the law.From wtmj.com:Milwaukee City Attorney Evan Goyke told WTMJ it would be...

On June 6, 2024, Judge Joseph P. Whyte ordered the convictions of Mark and Patricia McCloskey to be expunged. The McCloskeys gained fame for defending their home in St. Louis, Missouri, from an unruly mob of BLM protestors who threatened them. Disgraced prosecutor Kim Gardner brought the prosecutions against the McCloskeys. Gardner was politically aligned with the BLM protestors. The pistol Patricia McCloskey brandished appears to have been inoperable. When the police impounded the McCloskeys’ guns, it was reported they did not find ammunition for the rifle that was held by Mark McCloskey. The McCloskeys may have been bluffing. Eventually,...

On August 8, 2023, Associate Justice John F. Coffee, in the Lowell District Court of Massachusetts, wrote an opinion that found the charge of carrying a firearm without a license is unconstitutional on its face when applied to non-residents. The opinion was based on the Supreme Court decision of Bruen. The case involves a New Hampshire resident, Dean Donnell, who was charged with carrying a firearm without a license in Massachusetts. Donnell could legally carry a firearm in his home state. The court held the right to carry outside the home was at issue, and the conduct in this case...

Bump stocks are not machine guns. Not only are they not machine guns in the legal definition, but they are significantly different from machine guns in other ways as well.In the recent Supreme Court decision on Garland v Cargill, Justice Clarance Thomas wrote:A semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” as defined by §5845(b) because: (1) it cannot fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger” and (2) even if it could, it would not do so “automatically.” Far left VOX claimed Thomas was lying. From Vox.com:The six Republican justices handed down...

The National Instant Background Check System (NICS) numbers are in for May 2024. NICS shows May of 2024 to be the sixth highest number of NICS checks for May in the 25 years recorded. Gun sales are no longer reliably tied to the NICS checks because the checks are used for many other purposes than gun sales. The FBI system shows checks done for various categories of gun sales individually. This allows an estimate of gun sales to be calculated separately from the overall NICS checks.The number of gun sales is an estimate because one NICS check can be used...

On June 7, 2021, Florida Governor DeSantis received HB0087 along with 24 other bills. Because the bill was sent after the Florida legislature had adjourned for the session, Governor DeSantis has 15 days to sign the bill, allow the bill to become law, or veto the bill.The Florida legislature overwhelmingly voted for HB0087 on March 8, 2024. The bill is titled Taking of Bears. It restores the ability of people in Florida to protect themselves, their pets, and their dwellings from black bears without having to ask permission from the Florida state bureaucracy first. The legal ability to defend pets...

On November 8, 2023, the Sierra County Sheriff’s deputies performed a welfare check on 71-year-old Patrice Miller at her home in Downieville, California. At the house rented by Miller, they found a gruesome scene. The door had been broken in, and there was bear scat on the porch. What was left of Miller’s body was inside. The bear had been feeding on it for several days. California has a rapidly growing bear population and rapidly increasing numbers of bear-human conflicts.Downieville is a small village at the confluence of the Yuba and North Downie rivers, 54 miles west of Reno, Nevada....

There have been at least two cases where local judges in Massachusetts have held the license to carry law, which was passed in defiance of the Supreme Court Bruen decision and is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. On May 14, 2024, Judge Kevin J. Finnerty granted a petition against the denial of a Firearm Identification Card (FID). Without an FID, the License to Carry is suspended.On May 20, 2024, Judge William P. Hadley ordered Police Chief David Pratt to issue Randy Westbrook a License to Carry (LTC).The two cases are discussed in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly:Smith noted that Fall River District...

Recent research shows a significant correlation between the possession of guns and a man’s satisfaction with his sexual equipment.A common fantasy thrown at male gun owners is they are using guns as “compensation” for an undersized penis or sexual disfunction. This speculation has long been a staple of those seeking to discredit the ownership of firearms. This earlier paper gives an overview of the psychosexual insult and its use.In 2016, an editorial in HuffPost argued that “the compulsion to own firearms stems from an unconscious need to compensate for a deep-seated psychological sense of insecurity and inadequacy in terms of...

On June 8, 2023, a year ago, Gavin Newsom, Governor of California and continuous supporter of ever-more laws restricting gun ownership and use, proposed an Article V convention of the states to amend the United States Constitution. The new amendment would allow for more restrictions on who may own firearms and what type they are allowed to own. Since the convention and amendment were proposed, no other state has passed a resolution to support Governor Newsom’s effort.The initial proposition did not propose language for the Article V convention. It listed several possible restrictions without statutory language. Resolution 7 was passed...

On June 6, 2024, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed a lawsuit against Steven Little in his official capacity as Acting Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), demanding the Court temporarily and permanently enjoin enforcement of Wis. Admin. Code § NR 20.05(2). Wis. Admin. Code § NR 20.05(2): “No person may…[p]ossess or control any firearm, gun or similar device at any time while on the waters, banks or shores that might be used for the purpose of fishing.”The DNR regulation bans possession of firearms in a wide variety of locations and activities. It directly violates...

On June 3rd, 2024, an anti-gun organization known as Humanium Metal was destroying firearms at a Maine police department at Old Orchard Beach. The firearms had been collected as part of a push by the disarmament group the Maine Gun Safety Coalition. In the process of destruction, one of the firearms discharged. Fortunately, only two cars were hit by the projectile. It does not appear any person was injured. From themainwire.com: One of Maine’s primary gun control advocate groups, the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, oversaw a gun-giveback program on Saturday at local police departments throughout southern Maine. Despite the focus...

Montana’s office of governor, lieutenant governor, and the U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by Senator Jon Tester are up for election in 2024. Montana is considered a Republican stronghold. The Republican primary for governor totaled 78,667 votes. The Democrat primary for governor totaled 54,402 votes. Democratic Party Senator Tester has become an anomaly among statewide elected positions in Montana.Republican Governor Greg Gianforte is popular. He is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment in his words and actions and is almost certainly going to win.Ryan Busse, the Democratic candidate for governor, was an executive at Kimber. He wrote a book...

On May 3, 2024, Deputy Eddie Duran shot and killed Senior Airman Roger Fortson when Fortson answered the deputy’s demand for entry on a domestic violence call. The initial review of the body cam video was discussed on AmmoLand. The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) has completed its administrative internal affairs investigation into the shooting. The findings of the investigation were released on May 30, 2024. On May 31, the Sheriff’s office announced Deputy Eddie Duran had violated the Sheriff’s Office policy and had been terminated (fired) from his position. From the Okaloosa Sheriff’s Facebook page:SHALIMAR, Fla. (May 31, 2024)...