Free Republic

The man in the green hoodie wanted to show off his knife. The weapon he flicked open was a large foldaway with a curved blade, illegal in New York City, no matter its length; the setting for his performance was the uptown D train, going express from Columbus Circle to 125th Street. There was a full moon in the sky, and underground, as so often now, there were disturbances: fights broke out, insults were hurled, the air was thick with barely suppressed violence. Protests earlier that day had brought part of the metropolis to a standstill. A group of demonstrators,...

Crime rates are falling, the mainstream press reports. Despite what it calls the “widespread national perception that law-breaking and violence are on the rise,” NBC News maintains that the opposite is true: “Americans believe crime rates are worsening, but they are mistaken.” A Washington Post column by Philip Bump echoes that assertion and opines, “This is not the narrative that has dominated on the right.” Bump adds, “Fox News coverage has consistently focused on crime in urban areas,” in part because the network’s “audience (understandably) associates cities with Democratic leadership, because cities are more heavily non-White.” The best available statistics,...

President Biden on Thursday announced a slew of new gun control measures after a recent pair of high-profile mass shootings, and insisted the Second Amendment doesn’t grant an absolute right to own guns. Biden presented the executive actions in the Rose Garden, joined by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Vice President Kamala Harris. “No amendment to the Constitution is absolute,” Biden maintained, pointing to the famous Supreme Court ruling that you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater as part of the First Amendment’s free speech clause.

The 21st Century is inching ever closer towards chaos… and the time to get out of the big city is upon us. With economic conditions, growing crises, desperate populations looking to scratch by, and more hatred and division than at any previous point in American history, the city has become a dangerous and unruly setting – and finding yourseld in one that is falling apart could be the worst mistake you ever make. People are living in bigger urban zones than ever before… these megacities are the hotspots of global activity. But many are also proving to be the most...

America does not really have a "gun violence" problem.  America has a violent urban black culture problem.  If you want to look at the numbers more closely, you can add in a violent illegal immigrant problem. There is a common theme that has become an Internet cliché when a young black man is shot and killed in the middle of a violent crime. "He was such a nice boy." "He was turning his life around." "He was an aspiring rap star." "They didn't have to shoot him." It is refreshing when the mother of a young black man shot...

By John F. Di Leo - Reflections on the latest tax hike request from the City of Chicago... Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has asked for a massive tax increase. No surprise there. Massive tax increases have been the stock-in-trade of the Democratic Party for a century, so it barely merits comment nowadays. It’s what you expect when you elect Democrats (the sad thing is that you expect an equal level of opposition to taxes when you elect Republicans, but contrary to the laws of physics, such an equal and opposite reaction rarely appears). The oddity of this new one –...

Something changed in America in the summer of 2014. A criminal, as low a lowlife as a man can be, knocked down a store proprietor and robbed his shop for drug supplies, sauntered down the middle of the street, attacked a policeman, and died in the struggle… exactly as it often goes, when a violent thug attacks a policeman (that’s one of the main reasons that, traditionally, criminals don’t attack policemen!). … And instead of America uniting in sudden recognition of the dangerous job of the modern big city policemen, America was divided, as an incomprehensible movement developed around the...

Nine shot one dead in Detroit and 7 shot in West Philadelphia. No Confederate Flag in sight.

A cyclist who had his front teeth shattered after an attack by teenagers while riding through Portland, Oregon will soon be speaking clearly again thanks to a generous dentist. Andy Sweeney, 20, was intentionally struck with a traffic cone last weekend and a photo of his cracked-tooth grin quickly went viral. Instead of being an embarrassment, the photo became the key to fixing his smile after a fundraising effort and a kindly dentist came to his aid. ‘Some kids threw a traffic cone at me while I was riding my bike down MLK,’ Sweeney wrote next to the aftermath photo...

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Matthew Quain still struggles to piece together what happened after a trip to the grocery store nearly turned deadly. He remembers a group of loitering young people, a dimly lit street - then nothing. The next thing he knew he was waking up with blood pouring out of his head. The 51-year-old pizza kitchen worker's surreal experience happened just before midnight earlier this year, when he became another victim of what is generally known as "Knockout King" or simply "Knock Out," a so-called game of unprovoked violence that targets random victims.

Milwaukee police arrested 14,000 people, snagged 200 guns and grabbed 37 pounds of cocaine - all in just three months this summer. Despite such seemingly impressive numbers, crime continues to surge, fueled by what Police Chief Nannette Hegerty calls a "societal crisis" unfolding in neighborhoods gripped by unstable families, few jobs, rampant drug use, teen pregnancy, and topped with a significant dose of anger and hopelessness, the chief said. Faced with such challenges, police can't do it all, she said. "This is a problem bigger than law enforcement," Hegerty said Wednesday. "I think we have a societal crisis." More evidence...

“The news for New York City is spectacular," New York’s Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told a City Hall press conference on May 24. He and New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly [Email him] were claiming credit for new FBI crime stats showing major crimes—murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, car theft, larceny and arson—dropping 5.8% in the city in 2003. New York’s crime rate now ranks it 211th of the 230 U.S. cities with 100,000-plus population—behind Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas. Unfortunately, there must have been at least one skeptic at the press conference. Hizzoner reportedly “bristled” at suggestions that...

<p>Longtime Mississippi stage actress Lydy Caldwell, mother of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley, died today after being assaulted during a break-in at her northeast Jackson home.</p> <p>Police arrested a suspect in her death shortly after 8 a.m. and charged him with capital murder.</p>