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The Virginia Beach shooter who killed 12 people and wounded several others in a municipal complex on Friday had submitted his resignation earlier that morning, officials said Sunday. The gunman, identified as 40-year-old DeWayne Craddock, was an engineer with the city's public utilities department for 15 years. In a news conference Sunday morning, Virginia Beach City Manager Dave Hansen described the man’s work performance as “satisfactory” with no ongoing issues of discipline.

HARRISBURG, PA (May 31, 2019) -- Today, the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court issued a significant 53-page majority opinion in the criminal appeal of Commonwealth v. Hicks. Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and Firearms Policy Foundation (FPF) filed an important coalition amicus brief cited by the Court supporting Hicks in December of 2017, alongside Firearms Owners Against Crime (FOAC) and seven Members of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly. The Court’s decision, concurring opinions, and the FPC/FPF amicus brief can be viewed at www.firearmspolicy.org/legal. At issue was whether someone’s carrying of a firearm could be used as reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, and thus justification...

Many Democrats, including most 2020 presidential candidates, were quick to politicize the tragic mass shooting in Virginia Beach to push their gun control agenda, but Second Amendment supporters weren’t about to take any of it lying down. News broke Friday that public utilities department engineer DeWayne Craddock, 40, allegedly used a .45-caliber handgun with a sound suppressor to murder 12 of his former colleagues, but all Democrats needed was news of a mass shooting to echo their calls for gun control.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (Reuters) - The gunman who killed 12 people at a Virginia Beach municipal building before dying in a gun battle with police was identified on Saturday as a disgruntled city engineer and co-worker of most of the victims. All but one of the victims from the mass shooting in the coastal resort community were employed by the city, officials said at a news conference, while the other was a contractor seeking a permit. Four people were wounded. The gunman, DeWayne Craddock, had worked for the city’s public utilities department for about 15 years, Virginia Beach Police Chief...

At least 11 people were killed after a gunman opened fire at a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, police Chief James Cervera told reporters Friday night. The shooter also is dead, Cervera said. The shooter was a public utilities worker, he said.

Why are we trying to be like countries who don't have a 2nd Amendment? What happened in the aftermath of the trajedy that occured in New Zealand only happened because they don't have a constition and they don't have a 2nd Amendment. New Zealand has a tradition of hunting and shooting as sport, but there is no legal provision to own weapons for self-defense. “On 15 March, our history changed forever. Now, our laws will, too,” Ardern said. “We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer...

In a puff piece with much emotion and very little fact, the author of the People article, Michelle Tauber, promotes  public relations expert Shannon Watts as just a “stay at home mom” who saw something that needed doing. The article in People.com has almost nothing of substance in it. It ignores the funding of the organization by anti-gun zealot Michael Bloomberg. It ignores the law. It ignores the Constitution. It ignores just about all facts involving firearms.Here is one of the very few “facts” put forward in the puff piece: As for the idea that reducing gun violence, which...

Republicans have been successfully leveraging the Supreme Court balance of power as a major campaign issue to ignite their base since the 1980s. For Democrats, the 2020 election may mark the first in modern times that they unite around the high court as a driving force in a presidential election. Democratic candidates are increasingly advocating "court packing," that is, upping the number of Supreme Court justices to balance the bench -- or ensure a liberal majority. The idea is unlikely to succeed for historical and practical reasons but its resonance on the campaign trail reflects Democrats' new emphasis on the...

Cheap renewables won’t stop global warming, says Bill Gates “Electricity is just 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Gates. “There is no substitute for how the industrial economy runs today.” When financial analysts proposed rating companies on their CO2 output to drive down emissions, Gates was appalled by the idea that the climate and energy problem would be easy to solve. He asked them: “Do you guys on Wall Street have something in your desks that makes steel? Where is fertilizer, cement, plastic going to come from? Do planes fly through the sky because of some number you put...

The National Rifle Association of America and its associated groups saw a sizable increase of both membership dues and contributions in 2018, according to the group's annual report. The report, which was handed out during the group's latest annual meeting, shows dues went from $128,209,303 in 2017 to $170,391,374 in 2018—an increase of $42,182,071, or 33 percent. It also shows contributions rose from $132,879,299 in 2017 to $165,075,288 in 2018—an increase of $32,195,989 or 24 percent. The rise in dues came ahead of the NRA announcing it had reached 5.5 million members, a record number. Overall, the NRA and its...

Business software maker Salesforce is telling gun retailers they must stop selling AR-15s if they want to continue using the company’s business applications. The Washington Post reports that Salesforce is a $120 billion San Francisco-based company whose “skyscraper…towers over the city as the tallest building and a major landmark.” They are now telling customers who sell firearms that they are barred from using Salesforce “technology to market products, manage customer service operations and fulfill orders” unless they cease selling AR-15s. Salesforce’s “Acceptable Use Policy” goes beyond a ban on AR-15s, to include any semiautomatic firearms “that have the capacity to...

Sophie Turner was included in the legions of outspoken A-Listers who rallied to criticise the American states of Alabama, Georgia and more in the wake of them passing a near total ban on women accessing an abortion. Two weeks ago, Alabama's senate voted to pass the most restrictive abortion laws in the United States, virtually outlawing a woman's right to an abortion in every circumstance, apart from if the woman's life is in danger. This was then signed by their female governor, Kay Ivey. Turner responded by posting a collage of Republican politicians saying, frankly terrifying, comments about rape. https://www.instagram.com/p/BxiP37rBwAG/?utm_source=ig_embed...

As sure as the Sun rises in the East, Univision senior anchor Jorge Ramos will find a way to renew his all-too-frequent calls for anti-gun legislation. A recent opinion column mashes violence in Mexico with incidents in the United States in order to make the same old points. The column, titled “Run, Hide, or Fight”, rehashes some of the same old tropes that Ramos has been peddling for years. This brief sampling below pretty much sums up the entirety of the column: *In the United States there are said to be more guns than there are people. In some areas...

Every one of the 24 Democratic presidential candidates support more gun control. Front-runner Joe Biden not only oversaw the Obama administration’s gun control proposals, but took credit this month for the 1994 federal Assault Weapon Ban. Even Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, from as gun-friendly a state as there is, vetoed a bill that would have prohibited local governments from implementing various gun control ordinances. He did so just before announcing his presidential run.

Allan Lichtman doesn't mind swimming against the political tide. Lichtman, a professor at American University in Washington, DC, was the most prominent voice predicting Donald Trump's victory in the run-up to the 2016 election. When Trump won, it marked the 9th(!) straight presidential election where Lichtman had correctly predicted the Electoral College winner. (That's all the way back to 1984, for you math wizards.) In short: Lichtman is someone the political world should listen to. So I reached out to him on Tuesday to see what he thought of Trump's current chances at a second term next November. Here's what...

Every presidential primary ends with one winner and a lot of losers. Some might argue that one or two once-little-known candidates who overperform low expectations get to enjoy a form of moral victory. (Ben Carson and Rick Perry might be happy how the 2016 cycle ended, with both taking roles in Trump’s cabinet. Bernie Sanders might be, too.) But running for president and flopping is a deep disappointment, and while the occasional figure can emerge from a failed bid to move on to different victories — Lamar Alexander and Elizabeth Dole became senators, Jerry Brown became governor again, Howard Dean...

If conservatives think dealing with Google is hard from the outside, they should try coping with its “outrage mobs and witch hunts” from the inside, a Google employee writes in an expansive indictment of the tech giant’s corporate culture. Mike Wacker, a Google software engineer and self-identified Republican, took to Medium on Tuesday and posted an expansive and detailed picture of the troubles facing a conservative trying to survive life inside Google. The post does more than give a glimpse into a hostile corporate culture. Wacker drew a connection between the hostility to conservatives he has experienced to the extensive...

Did the Democrats pick the wrong electoral cycle to jump their particular abortion-cheering, fetus-destroying, and sensibility-unsettling shark? For a certain kind of Republican voter, who has problems with Donald Trump’s temperament and with the programmatic agenda of the national Democrats, the decision to vote”‘no” on the Democrats and on their agenda just got a whole lot easier. What 2016 proved is that people will vote for someone they don’t like if the opposition is made to seem even less attractive. That’s precisely what the Left’s new approach to abortion is likely to do. In 2016, Will says, ”[Democrats] produced a...

The recent passage of a law in Alabama that essentially bans all abortions in the state resulted in a barrage of coverage of other abortion restrictions being adopted in conservative areas this year. But as FiveThirtyEight illustrated in a story last week, this is not a new trend — Republican-controlled states have been chipping away at abortion access since the 2010 elections, which swept the GOP into power in state legislatures and governors’ mansions across the country.

MacKenzie Bezos has promised to give at least half of her fortune to charity, just months after finalizing her divorce from the world's richest man. The newly minted billionaire has signed the Giving Pledge, which encourages the world's richest people to dedicate a majority of their wealth to charitable causes, either during their lifetimes or in their wills. The initiative was launched by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010 and has so far attracted the support of 204 individuals and families. MacKenzie Bezos became one of the richest people in the world following her divorce from Amazon...