The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scrubbed numbers showing upwards of 2.5 million defensive gun uses (DGUs) a year after being pressured by gun control activists, FOX News claimed.
FOX News pointed to email obtained and published by the Reload. Those emails allegedly show that the CDC was pressured to removed links to a summary of studies on DGUs which showed that annual DGUs range between 60,000 and 2.5 million, the latter figure totally eclipsing criminal gun uses.
One of the emails, allegedly sent by Gun Violence Archive executive director Mark Bryant, said “that 2.5 Million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again. It is highly misleading, is used out of context and I honestly believe it has zero value — even as an outlier point in honest DGU discussions.”
Bryant allegedly complained that once the CDC study on DGUs appeared, “gun violence prevention policy … ground to a halt,”
Bryant allegedly complained specifically about Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck’s work, whose work on DGUs was included in the CDC summary.
Kleck’s work, which was academic in nature and which began to be placed in the public eye in the early 1990s, was reaffirmed by Kleck in February 2015.
On February 19, 2015, Breitbart News reported Kleck responded to criticism of his past studies on DGUs by showing why the criticism is wrong and why a minimum of 760,000 DGUs each year is still a viable claim.
According to The Reload, gun control advocates had difficulty reaching people had the CDC who had the power to get the information off the agency’s website. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and the White House reportedly stepped in to put the gun controllers in contact with the right people, after which the information on annual DGUs was removed.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
Fatal shots were fired last month after several young men broke into an Atlanta home on Thanksgiving Day.
Police determined that the suspects attempted to break into a home in the Gresham Park neighborhood of Atlanta. The homeowner exercised his 2nd Amendment rights, firing on the intruders, who appear to have returned fire as well.
A neighbor said that she didn’t realize it was gunfire when she first heard the ruckus.
“I didn’t even think they were gunshots. I thought they were fireworks because there were so many,” she toldFOX 5. “It’s very disturbing to see that.”
Preliminary reports stated that police were called by neighbors when shots were detected. They arrived on the scene and found several males, ages 23, 18, and 15.
All three had sustained gunshot wounds and were rushed to a local hospital, where the 18-year-old, Taneaious McCune, died due to his injuries.
Follow-up reports say another man, 30-year-old Telvin Thomas, showed up at the hospital afterward with similar bullet wounds. It has since been determined that he had also been involved in the break-in.
WSBtvreported on the events and disclosed that police say another group had been found and “were detained on the scene with the help of SWAT officers.” This group appears to have been planning to help with the home invasion.
After reviewing information, the authorities toldWXIA that they deem the homeowner to have fired the shots in an act of self-defense, which “seemed justified.” No charges are likely to be filed against the homeowner.
Rather, the suspects are facing charges of criminal murder for the death of their accomplice.
The following Sunday, just days after the first incident, a candlelight vigil was being held for 18-year-old McCune. During the vigil, more shots rang out.
Police arrived at the scene to find 1 dead and 2 injured, all of them minors.
The perpetrator had left on foot, and according to The Atlanta Journal, detectives are actively working to identify the suspect.
Unfortunately for the people gathered at the vigil, no one stepped up to defend the group from the shooter. Hopefully, after these two events, residents in the neighborhood will take measures to ensure they can adequately protect themselves and their loved ones.
A New York Times conference featured a bank CEO pushing the financial industry to track Americans making purchases at retailers and monitor their “suspicious activity” under the guise of “reducing gun violence.”
Amalgamated Bank CEO Priscilla Sims Brown was the special guest at the Times’ DealBook confab and was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin. He’s the Times’ columnist who previously proposed the gun buying monitoring scheme and spelled out the “next steps” in a column highlighting Sims Brown’s efforts after an international financial standards board adopted her petition to create the tracking codes.
Putting even a little thought to the idea reveals the serious flaws of the plan. Implementing the enormous system to track the private financial transactions will create a myriad of privacy and civil liberty concerns and no doubt is ripe for abuse.
Gun Control Dragnet
Sims Brown lobbied the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to create a gun-related Merchant Category Code (MCC) for credit and debit card companies to use to track cardholders’ purchases of firearms and ammunition. The ISO adopted the proposal and banks are beginning to use them. Listening to Sims Brown forecast what’s ahead, her true gun control aim is revealed. It’s a dragnet for law-abiding Americans.
“We’re at the very early stages of this –,” Sims Brown told Sorkin and the audience. “But as this is implemented, those scenarios will be used.”
By “those scenarios,” she means “detection scenarios” in which a particular purchase prompts a bank to file a Suspicious Activity Report to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Here’s how the MCC tracking will reportedly work. Purchases made at retailers selling firearms or ammunition would be assigned the new code for purchases. The MCC won’t identify what is in the customer’s basket, so it could be a total purchase for a firearm and several boxes of ammunition. It could also include a new tent, sleeping bag, propane stove, waders, decoys, blinds and other outdoor gear. The total cost could be flagged as “suspicious” since it might be an outlier on a customer’s purchase history. That doesn’t make it nefarious, though.
Media reported the proposal won’t have its intended effect. “The payment network and its banking partners would have no idea if a gun-store customer is purchasing an automatic rifle or safety equipment,” Bloomberg News reported. Banks aren’t saying what purchases would be “suspicious.”
Just a Steppingstone
The MCC scheme has caught the attention of Congressional gun control politicians. Legislation has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 5764, by Reps. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) and in the U.S. Senate, S. 3117, by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). That legislation, The Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act, would provide banking institutions the cover they need to track purchases by requiring the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to provide “guidance” needed to institute the MCC.
“Financial institutions have a legal obligation… to have programs in place to help detect and report suspicious activity, but they have to know what they are looking for,” Rep. Wexton said.
Rep. Dean has praised the back door gun control effort, too. “Financial institutions already have proven systems in place to identify suspicious behavior and purchasing patterns,” she wrote in a release.
Still no one has offered what “suspicious behavior” or “purchasing patterns” would be flagged. The questions are endless, answers few and the threat to Constitutional rights high.
Trudging Ahead. Trampling Rights.
Sorkin hypes his work in getting the MCC code established. He told the Dealbook audience, “This is an emotional topic for me in many ways… because back in 2018 I started writing about the role of guns in our society… and the role of credit card companies and banks in financing mass shootings.”
Sorkin stated his belief that lawful firearm retail businesses and the already-highly regulated Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) which provide for the legal exercise of the Second Amendment should do their part to create the backdoor database of gun buyers – something Congress is prohibited by law from doing on their own.
“Merchants must start using the code, and not obfuscate transactions by using other classifications,” Sorkin wrote. “Most crucially, the payments industry needs to develop and refine software algorithms for identifying suspicious activity…”
There are those words again – “suspicious activity.”
The suspicion is better reserved for those who would compile lists of Americans lawfully exercising their Constitutional Second Amendment rights. The right to keep and bear arms begins with the ability to make a purchase at the retail counter. Financial industry power players, though, are twisting their roles to facilitate legal transactions into social credit scores that put Americans on secret watch lists.
The financial industry doesn’t need to be suspicious of gun buyers who already are subject to FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications. This move, though, is reason enough for Americans to be suspicious of “woke” banking CEOs doing the bidding of gun control politicians.
Larry Keane is Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs and General Counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association.
——————————————————————————– Does anybody remember voting for this guy? I don’t! Grumpy
Honolulu Police Chief Arther “Joe” Logan has asked residents to call the police if they see another citizen open-carrying. This request, from a live stream for “Spotlight Hawaii,” comes on the heels of the HPD issuing concealed-carry licenses.
According to Logan, dispatched officers will be required to investigate any complaints. Police will need a physical description of the person in question as well as any other detail that can aid in their investigation.
“Obviously, concealed carry and the definition of ‘conceal’ means that you can’t see it or it is unrecognizable to the average person,” said Logan. “If it is noticed and you can see it, I would ask you to call 911.”
Back in June, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on a case known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen that struck down New York’s “may-issue” carry scheme and opened the door for firearm enthusiasts to carry across the country.
However, it has also led to some controversial requirements for those wishing to obtain a permit in Honolulu. An applicant must be able to remove their weapon from the holster and hit a silhouette target, placed at five distances, from nine to 45 feet.
The owner of 808 Gun Club Tom Tomimbang said last month that he is not too concerned about the requirements in an interview with Hawaii News Now.
“Practice, practice, practice, right?” Tomimbang said. “If they do that before they take the actual qualification course, they should be able to do it.”
Chief Logan says this requirement test is not really to prove someone can shoot, but that they can shoot under duress – which is why they added a timed element to the test.
“You might have to learn how to cope with that stress while shooting,” he said.
Currently, there are around 600 pending applications for CCW licenses on Oahu, and they are being processed in the order in which they were received.
Aside from the requirement test, these 90-day applications require applicants to undergo background checks, mental health evaluations, and live-fire training before the HPD issues the certification – similar to a driver’s license with a picture included.
Gun carriers who get caught in public without their license will face a misdemeanor criminal offense.
Chief Logan has declared that he will not wait on the city of Oahu to complete action on Bill 57, which would limit concealed carriers from possessing a weapon on public transit, at schools, or in the voting booth.
Furthermore, the bill would also prevent carrying in Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, the Hawaii Children’s Discovery Center, the Honolulu Aquarium and the Honolulu Zoo. Those permitted to concealed-carry would also be required to stand 100 feet away from the outer edge of groups of 25 or more who are participating in “first amendment expressive activities.”
State Legislature is expected to discuss adopting statewide standards for carrying restrictions by location in January. Meanwhile, Bill 57 passed the initial reading at a November 29th city council meeting. The bill is required to be voted on twice more before it can be implemented.
Logan has been making the rounds with members of the city council to ensure the language of the bill is clear for citizens and law enforcement alike. He wants everyone to understand what to do in confusing situations where a legal carrier is forced to pick up their child from school last minute. According to Logan, these murky circumstances need some elaboration.
“The way the language of the law is written is really going to impact how we enforce, ” Logan said. “It’s something we need to figure out.”
Logan says that with officers putting their lives in danger, a clearly worded ordinance or law is expected to protect them.
“It becomes a little difficult for us on an enforcement level, ” said Logan. “We’re already asking our officers to do a lot.”
A Nevada woman took away a carjacker’s gun in Las Vegas, tried to flee, then ended up shooting the carjacker dead when he tackled her from behind, according to police.
FOX News reports that the incident occurred November 19, 2022, but a police report was just released, providing details.
FOX 5 notes that the woman and a friend pulled up outside a residence where a party was scheduled to occur. The woman and her friend were early, so they sat in the car to wait for the party to start.
While they waited, two men with guns allegedly approached their vehicle, and one of the men grabbed her shirt and pulled her out of the car.
The man then got into her car and put his gun down in his lap. The woman grabbed the gun and took off running.
The police report indicates the suspect chased the woman and tackled her, at which point she shot the suspect in the head, fatally wounding him.
The second carjacking suspect allegedly opened fire on the woman, so she fled into a nearby backyard and hid.
The second carjacking suspect, Jaylin Morrison, was arrested on December 2, 2022.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range
Disney CEO Bob Iger attended a Sandy Hook Promise Benefit and referenced people in influential positions and suggested that those who shape culture “have an extra responsibility” to push gun control.
Sandy Hook Promise is the group with to whom country singer Tim McGraw donated concert proceeds for a gun control fundraiser in July 2015.
On April 16, 2015, Breitbart News pointed to McGraw’s planned participation in the fundraiser and he responded to the coverage by telling MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, “I lead my life leading with my heart, I do the things that I can do and support the causes that I support, try to help in the areas where I can help, and I do that with my heart. If I have a decision to lead with my head or my heart, I’m going to lead with my heart every time.”
The Hollywood Reporternoted that Iger, Barack Obama, and actor Matthew McConaughey all gathered in New York Tuesday, where they honored the work of Sandy Hook Promise and continued the push for more gun control.
Iger said, “As a grandfather, as a father, as CEO of The Walt Disney Company, I believe there is no greater or more important task than ensuring the safety and well-being of our children.”
He added, “Those of us who are in positions to affect change, whether it’s by influencing laws of shaping culture or supporting organizations on the frontlines, I think we have an extra responsibility.”
Obama also made comments, lamenting the failure to pass Second Amendment restrictions wanted by the gun control lobby:
Perhaps the most bitter disappointment of my time in office, the closest I came to being cynical, was the utter failure of Congress to respond in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings. To see almost the entire GOP, but also a decent number of Democrats equivocate and hem and haw and filibuster and ultimately bend yet again to pressure from the gun lobby.
Universal background check legislation was the key proposal pushed under the Obama administration following the attack on Sandy Hook. It failed as an emphasis was placed on the fact that the Sandy Hook attacker used stolen guns, thereby eliminating any benefit of the passage of more point-of-sale gun controls.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
