Free Republic

You’d never know it from watching television, but civilians stop more active shooters than police and do so with fewer mistakes, according to new research from the Crime Prevention Research Center, where I serve as president. In non-gun-free zones, where civilians are legally able to carry guns, concealed carry permit holders stopped 51.5% of active shootings, compared to 44.6% stopped by police, CPRC found in a deep dive into active shooter scenarios between 2014-2023. Not only do permit holders succeed in stopping active shooters at a higher rate, but law enforcement officers face significantly greater risks when intervening. Our research...

The data is in, and once again, the Second Amendment proves itself to be the best protection against undeserved violence. The Crime Prevention Research Center brought the receipts. According to the findings of a new study from the CPRC, armed civilians “do a better job” than law enforcement officers to stop active shooters, “with fewer mistakes” to boot. Here’s what John R. Lott, Jr., president of the the CPRC, explained of the findings: In non-gun-free zones, where civilians are legally able to carry guns, concealed carry permit holders stopped 51.5 percent of active shootings, compared to 44.6 percent stopped by...

A look at Bastinelli Knives’ FBag for Cross-Body Carry of a Handgun and a Knife. Story and Photos by P Pawela We first wrote about Bastien Coves and his company Bastinelli Knives back in January 2021. Since then, his popularity as a custom knifemaker has skyrocketed. Coves’s knives have been featured in half a dozen popular action movies, and while that is an intriguing reason to purchase one of his products, I’m more concerned about who uses these knives for real-world purposes. That said, I have confirmation that Bastinelli knives are being used in the intelligence and special operations...

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a decades-old ban on federally licensed firearms dealers selling handguns to people aged 18, 19 and 20 is unconstitutional. In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel on the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals slammed the Biden administration’s attempt to argue that the handgun ban was in line with the “nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” — a test for gun laws set by the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. ... “Ultimately, the text of the Second Amendment includes eighteen-to-twenty-year-old...

A police department in Florida is moving to fire an officer after she accidentally shot a man with his own gun during a routine traffic stop last month. Officer Mindy Cardwell was called to assist with a traffic stop on Dec. 13 along with another cop after Jason Arrington, 39, had been pulled over by an officer for running a red light, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook. Arrington was fully cooperating with all three officers, the body camera footage showed. He had informed the cop who originally pulled him over that he did have a gun holstered in...

Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn introduced a bill Thursday to allow concealed carry license holders to carry their guns in any state. The bill, titled the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, will compel states to recognize concealed carry permits from all states as a valid certification to carry a concealed firearm, according to the bill text. A similar bill was proposed in the House in 2023 by Republican North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson...

A Colorado law that went into effect January 1, 2025, requires guns in vehicles to be kept in locked containers. snip Breitbart News pointed out numerous new gun controls go into effect in California on January 1, 2025, among them a law that requires licensed gun dealers to warn would-be gun purchasers of the alleged dangers of gun ownership. snip California leads the nation in gun control and Colorado has been leaning more and more toward adopting California-style gun controls. Beginning July 1, 2025, Coloradans who want a concealed carry permit will have to take an eight-hour training course as...

If someone has no registered firearms, and so obstensively is not "on the radar", but wishes to carry concealed for strickly self-defense purposes, would obtaining a concealed carry permit be a mistake? In Arizona, concealed carry is allowed without a permit, except in drinking establishments. So that is the only advantage I could see in Arizona. But how about traveling through reciprocal carry states? `

As West Virginia University students begin packing their belongings for the start of the fall semester, pistols and revolvers could be boxed up alongside backpacks, bed sheets and winter coats. That’s because of the state’s new Campus Self-Defense Act, which requires West Virginia’s higher education institutions to allow licensed concealed carry on their campuses, with some exceptions. The law, which went into effect July 1, makes West Virginia the 13th state to require its colleges to allow concealed carry on campus. Institutions such as WVU are now preparing for changes this fall semester as the bulk of their students return...

Campus carry for self-defense will become illegal in Colorado when SB24-131 takes effect on July 1, 2024. On April 20, 2015, Breitbart News noted that campus carry had been the law of the land in Colorado since 2003. There had been no mass shootings, and, apart from one incident in which a Colorado University employee accidentally discharged a gun, there were zero crimes by permit holders during those first 12 years. A Google search conducted on June 24, 2024, found the story had not changed — there have still been no mass shootings on a Colorado college/university campus, and no...

More good news out of the Northern District of Texas. Judge Reed O’Connor has issued a rulling in Mock v. Garland vacating the ATF’s byzantine rule that effectively bans pistol braces. You know…the same pistol braces the ATF had previously said were perfectly fine. Back before the Biden administration waged a war on gun owners, their rights, and companies that make legal products those people want to buy. This comes the same week the decrepit but still rabidly anti-gun president was trundled out of the White House and propped up behind a podium at Everytown’s “Gun Sense University” meeting of...

FARRELL — A “good guy with a gun” reportedly came to the aid of a Farrell police officer during a shootout early Friday morning. “He had a valid concealed-carry permit, he had a gun,” Mercer County District Attorney Peter C. Acker said. “He went to where the police officer was and fired on the suspect.” State police and county district attorney’s office detectives are continuing to investigate the incident, which took place about 12:30 a.m. Friday outside a convenience store along Indiana Avenue in Farrell. Acker said the suspect, identified only as a 49-year-old white man, was undergoing treatment Friday...

Report Highlights: • There are 26 states with permitless concealed carry freedoms • Washington, D.C., has the highest rate of firearm-related homicides even though it has strict carry laws • 83% of states with permitless concealed carry have a homicide rate at or below the national average • 45% of states with no permitless concealed carry laws have homicide rates above the national average • 3 out of 5 of the safest five states in the U.S. have permitless concealed carry • 2 out of 5 of the top five most dangerous states in the U.S. have permitless concealed carry,...

Colorado Democrats are pushing an 11 percent excise tax on gun and ammunition sales, as well as numerous other California-style gun controls. There is a public hearing on the excise tax proposal today, and Colorado Springs firearms instructor Ana Flanell is urging the public to rally against the tax. On Easter Sunday she posted to X: “Join me at the Capitol tomorrow to testify against this “sin” tax. Self-defense is our right and we should not be taxed an outrageous 11% to exercise our Second Amendment rights. I’ve included a screenshot below of what to select when signing up. Let’s...

CHICAGO — Prosecutors say two Chicago men robbed a construction crew, exchanged gunfire with an off-duty sheriff’s deputy at the scene, fled, then returned to fire another shot, only to have one of the victims pull out a gun and open fire on them, too. No injuries were reported. And, according to court records, one of the men was eyed as a suspect in a series of robberies last fall but ended up being charged only with a misdemeanor. He’s also on “first-time weapon offender probation” for a 2022 gun case. The robbery occurred on March 1 in the 11500...

There's only so much outrage left in the tank on a sunny Friday afternoon, but wow this is just insane in the membrane. An independent investigation into the school shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas was commissioned by the city of Uvalde in 2022. Yesterday, the results of the investigation were released to the public during a city council meeting. The gist of the new report is that police on the scene did nothing wrong. Former Austin Police Department detective Jesse Prado examined the actions of each Uvalde police officer as they responded to the deadliest school shooting...

Former NBA star and CNN host Charles Barkley said he would punch any black person he sees wearing former President Donald Trump’s mug shot merchandise, citing recent comments that Trump made at an event aimed at black Republicans. The comments Barkley took issue with were made by Trump at the Black Conservative Federation Honors Gala in South Carolina last month. During his speech, Trump claimed that he had been told his numerous indictments are why he is gaining support among black voters because they see him “being discriminated against.” “First of all, if I see a black person walking around...

On December 20, 2023, US District Judge Cormac J. Carney issued an order granting a preliminary injunction against the defendants (the State of California government). The injunction stopped the state from enforcing the blatantly unconstitutional SB-2 law declaring most of California as “sensitive places” where even licensed concealed carriers were forbidden to carry arms in public. The state asked for an order to stop the injunction from going into effect on December 22, 2023. The stay was granted on December 30, 2023, by an administrative three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. The stay was appealed to the Ninth Circuit three-judge...

In Florida, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has ruled that the federal law prohibiting people from possessing firearms inside post offices is unconstitutional. The ruling is based on the 2022 Supreme Court ruling New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen recognized a person’s right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.The case concerned Emmanuel Ayala, a U.S. Postal Service truck driver, who had a concealed weapons permit and held a Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun in a fanny pack for self-defense. When police tried to stop him, he ran and struggled with officers. While dismissing the...

Ohio has seen a decrease in gun crime across several of its cities since it has allowed individuals to carry a concealed firearm without a permit. Ohio became the 23rd state to allow individuals to carry a firearm without permit in 2022, which was hit with criticisms when the state realized it could not require individuals to "get fingerprinted, pay a fee," or "ask for permission from the local sheriff." Michael Weinman, director of governmental affairs for the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, told Governing in June 2022 that the move was potentially dangerous. "It's still a bad bill. There's...