Free Republic

After the three public shootings over the last two weekends in California, Democrats are again clamoring for even more gun control laws. To California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the solution is to ban more places where people can carry permitted concealed handguns. Unfortunately, the proposal has nothing to do with stopping these attacks, and more gun-free zones only encourage these attacks. Other heavily Democratic states such as New York, New Jersey, and Maryland are making similar pushes. Concealed handgun permit holders didn’t commit those or other mass public shootings. Permit holders are also extremely law-abiding, being convicted of firearms-related violations at...

Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to California on Wednesday in the wake of several mass shootings that have shocked the state and the nation — but which defy talking points about gun control or extremism. The Los Angeles Times reports: Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Monterey Park on Wednesday to honor the victims of one of the three mass shootings that have left her home state reeling this week. Harris will lay a wreath at a memorial in honor of the 11 people killed by a gunman at a dance studio during a Lunar New Year celebration...

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) described the Second Amendment as a “suicide pact” in the wake of Saturday’s Monterey Park dance hall attack and made clear he and California lawmakers will continue to work on passing more gun control. Newsom told CBS News, “The Second Amendment’s becoming a suicide pact, it feels like.” He then pivoted and said, “What about our kids, when they’re going to school, what more can we do?”

Ideas that start on the progressive fringes have a way of becoming government policy these days, as President Biden’s $400 billion student loan cancellation shows. Lo, Democrats in Congress are now pressing the President to impose rent control nationwide. The White House is considering a series of executive actions that are ostensibly intended to protect tenants. Rents on average increased 17.6% in 2021 and another 3.8% last year. One culprit was near-zero interest rates while they lasted, which inflated housing prices and made it harder for young people to buy a home. The result: More demand for rental housing. Landlords...

Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr took part in a Biden White House gun control roundtable on Tuesday. Deadline reported that the roundtable was “with senior White House staffers, and that Warriors players Klay Thompson, Moses Moody, and Stephen Curry attended as well. Kerr spoke at Tuesday’s White House Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre’s press conference, saying, “We learned a lot about what this administration is doing to help create a safer environment in our country. That is something that is very close to my heart.”

When historian, author, and conservative commentator Victor Davis Hanson talks, I listen. VDH is one of a select few for whom I have complete respect — as opposed to the political hacks of CNN, Fox News, or anywhere in between, who covet viewers who tune in religiously to be told what they already believe.In a January 5 column, titled The Coup We Never Knew, VDH wrote in the subhead: “We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare to a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup we never knew.”Hanson constructed the column primarily with uncomfortable questions for...

Ahmed says the COVID-19 pandemic showed plenty of young people how quickly their “normal” can be stolen away — so she has prioritized making up for those missed years with exciting experiences and good memories. With all the economic uncertainty going on right now, many young folks may be seeking some sort of control, says Lauryn Williams, a certified financial planner and founder of Worth Winning, a company that helps young professionals organize their finances. She points to stubborn inflation — the consumer price index was a distressing 7.1% in November — and stock market volatility. Americans are facing financial...

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday predicted that Democrats will keep holding on to the Senate through the 2024 presidential elections. “I absolutely do, if we stick to our North Star, which is, help people with things that they need help with,” Schumer told NBC News. Democrats fended off the Republicans’ hoped-for “red wave” during this year’s midterms and bucked the historical precedent of a sitting party losing big in the off-year elections. The party kept the Republicans’ takeover of the House to a minimum and then expanded their majority in the Senate, bumping up their upper chamber...

Less than 1 in 5 Americans in a new poll said they believe GOP control of the House next Congress will change Washington for the better. Eighteen percent of respondents in a Monmouth University Poll released on Wednesday said that Republicans — who are set to take control of the House next month after securing a majority in November’s midterm elections — will produce a positive change in the lower chamber. Another 21 percent said they expect Washington to change for the worse under Republican leadership in the House, and about half — 51 percent — said they don’t expect...

Last month, a Wisconsin jury convicted Darrell Brooks of first-degree intentional homicide while using a dangerous weapon for driving an SUV into the crowd gathered at a Christmas parade last year in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was found guilty of 70 other counts. He was sentenced to life in prison, as mandated under under Wisconsin law.So a court of law has determined that a car or SUV is a dangerous weapon. It certainly can be, and this is not the first incident of a vehicle being used as a weapon.Earlier this year, a German man drove a car into a group...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Democrats want to pass an omnibus spending bill to cover government spending for the whole next year so that way, they can “avoid the problem” of a House Republican majority under Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) “having any control” over spending legislation and Democrats are helped in their push for an omnibus spending bill by the fact that “Republican hawks on military stuff realize that if we had a CR, a continuing resolution, that would really hurt our troops, our military readiness, etc.” Schumer stated, “Well,...

What is it about a social media app that allows short video sharing that would constitute a national security risk? The answer is not about dog and cat videos, or dancing diatribes or funny, weird or goofy content; nor is the national security risk attached to any data of the app users or content providers. The national security risk is found in the ability to influence public opinion that is not under the control of the United States government, or more specifically the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS). The need for control is a reaction to fear. TikTok, as a...

In a cryptic tweet shared with his 107.9 million followers, the billionaire declared: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” And when asked whether it would have been easier just to start “X” from scratch, he replied: “Twitter probably accelerates X by three to five years, but I could be wrong. “Everything apps” haven’t really made a lasting impression in Western economies yet — but over in China, super apps have taken the economy by storm.

Firearm sales are skyrocketing in Oregon as residents rush to get ahead of Ballot Measure 114’s (BM 114) effective date of December 8, 2022. On December 1, 2022, Breitbart News reported lawsuits were filed against BM 114. For example, the Associated Press noted that the Oregon Firearms Federation, together with “a local sheriff and a gun store owner [are asking] the court to declare the law unconstitutional and issue an injunction to prevent it from going into effect next week.” The Firearms Policy Coalition is also suing in an attempt to stop implementation of the “high capacity” magazine ban contained...

President Joe Biden called for “greater action” on gun control after a Walmart employee with a pistol allegedly killed six people in Chesapeake, Virginia, Tuesday night. Breitbart News reported that six people were shot and killed around 10 p.m. inside the Chesapeake Walmart and an employee of the store was allegedly the gunman. CBS News noted that Chesapeake police chief Mark Solesky indicated the gunman used a pistol. Biden responded to news of the incident by pushing for more gun control.

A Gallup poll reported Monday that support for stricter gun control fell from 66 percent in June to 57 percent near the end of October. The poll was conducted October 3-20 via a random sampling of 1,009 American adults. Gallup found 46 percent of Americans says there is a gun in their home or somewhere on their property while 33 percent said they “personally own a gun.”

The city of Kingston, New York, is ordering landlords to reduce their rent by 15%.Pretty much every economist, even the ones on the left, agree that, in the long run, rent control reduces both the quantity and the quality of rental housing.Rent control is great for people who already have a rent controlled apartment.But it’s horrible for people who are looking for an apartment.The Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck, a housing expert, said that “rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.”That being said, as a person who does not...

The Democratic Party will keep control of the Senate, Decision Desk HQ projects, after a batch of votes coming in from Clark County, Nevada, gave Catherine Cortez Masto the lead she needed to win re-election.That puts the Senate at 50-49 in the Democrats’ favor. The final seat will go to the winner of the run-off between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker in Georgia.Decision Desk HQ projects Democrats retain their majority in the U.S. Senate with at least 50 seats, plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote.Final count pending GA runoff.#DecisionMade: 9:15 pm https://t.co/AOgwtp48Fd pic.twitter.com/kcnm15J0Et— Decision Desk HQ...

Moments after CNN projected Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will keep her Senate seat, the senator's campaign director of communications took to Twitter to say that the first Latina senator has never lost an election. “You know who always said we were going to win this race? Catherine Cortez Masto,” Josh Marcus-Blank, the campaign's communication director, tweeted. “So many people outside Nevada counted her out, but she knows her state, she campaigned everywhere, and she just beat the top Republican recruit in the country to deliver the Senate majority.”Marcus-Blank went on to post, “What did people get wrong about this...

NBC News described gun control as “a winning issue” for Democrats by using exit polls to show that pro-gun control voters side heavily with the Democrats. NBC News reported, “Fifty-six percent of 2022 voters support stricter gun control measures, while 40% oppose them.” They then noted, “Among the proponents of stricter measures, 76% backed Democratic candidates while 22% favored Republicans.”