Chicago Tribune: Lie on a Firearms Background Check? What Have You Got to Lose?
This just in: criminals are going to act criminally . . .
Anyone who wants to buy a gun from a licensed dealer is required to fill out a “Firearms Transaction Record.” It asks various questions to determine if the customer is legally prohibited from getting a gun — because he or she is a felon or a fugitive from justice, received a dishonorable military discharge, has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” and the like. It also notes that the purchase may not be made on behalf of another person.
The application notes that “any false oral or written statement … is a crime punishable as a felony under federal law.” To lie in order to acquire a weapon that you are legally forbidden to have is, as the form notes, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
That’s fair warning to anyone tempted to lie. But a surprising number of people do so anyway. A new report from the federal Government Accountability Office says that last year, 112,000 people tried to buy guns from licensed dealers but were caught giving false information on the form.
Licensed CCer Steps In, Helps LE During Firefight
Do you *always* carry? . . .
A man with a concealed-carry license was commended for coming to the aid of Cicero police who were engaged in a shootout with a man who shot and wounded an officer near the Stevenson Expressway Thursday, authorities said.
Cicero Police Officer Luis Duarte, 31, was shot four times during the encounter near the 4200 block of South Cicero Avenue during the evening rush hour, but it might have been worse if the armed citizen hadn’t stepped in, officials said.
“We were lucky enough to have a citizen on the street there who’s a concealed-carry holder, and he also engaged in gunfire,” Cicero Police Supt. Jerry Chlada Jr. said outside Mount Sinai Hospital, where Duarte was undergoing surgery Thursday night.
Shot Spotter Alert Leads to One Arrest
And it was a negligent discharge . . .
Bakersfield police officers responded to a Shot Spotter alert in the 500 block of East 11th Street at 1:58 a.m. Sunday, according to a police news release.
Officers found nine .40-caliber casings in the front yard of a residence. The homeowner admitted to discharging the firearm into the ground, according to the report. Witnesses said the gunfire was celebratory and police found no victims of a shooting, according to the news release.
Seems legit . . .
What would happen if American police officers carried whistles instead of guns and dressed in old-fashioned blue uniforms instead of outfits that make them look like they are about to ask us how long we’ve had these droids? Would the country descend instantly into a chaos of looting, arson, and mass murder? Or would we just go on with our lives, commuting to jobs, raising children, watching sports, whatever — the same routine, albeit with a little bit less of the low-key anxiety that comes with seeing cops with weapons?
The recent slaying — probably a murder, as it would not appear that the death was accidental — of Botham Shem Jean in Dallas is a tragedy. It is also a perfect illustration of what is wrong with American policing. Jean was allegedly shot in his own apartment by Amber Guyger, a Dallas cop who seems to have entered his dwelling under the mistaken assumption that it was her own. How in the world it was possible for her to persist in this delusion, having presumably ignored the number on the door, after her entrance is difficult to say. Did the man she allegedly killed, reportedly after issuing meaningless “verbal commands” with which he was under no obligation to comply, have the same furniture as her, laid out in the same pattern? Could she have been under the influence of alcohol or some other substance? It’s impossible, for now, to say.
Borrowing strategy from NRA, activists quietly overturn knife restrictions across U.S.
All knife owners owe Doug Rigger a debt of gratitude . . .
(Doug) Ritter, 65, said that knives, like guns, should be considered arms protected by the Second Amendment. He doesn’t support any restriction on knives — not on switchblades or push daggers or even the ballistic knives that shoot like spears from a handle.
That’s become a winning argument. Twenty-one states have repealed or weakened their knife laws since 2010, many of them with bipartisan support, including Colorado, Michigan and Illinois. New York came close to doing the same last year. Ohio could be next. Texas passed its bill last year despite a high-profile stabbing death just days before lawmakers voted. And Knife Rights, with little financial backing, has been working behind the scenes to help make it happen.
“A lot of people said it would be impossible to repeal a switchblade law in any state. Insane. Tilting at windmills,” Ritter said. “Turns out they were wrong.”
No Such Thing as a Good Guy with a Gun, According to Vice
The world must be such a grim place for this “journalist”. . .
Protection is one of the most compelling reasons Americans tend to cite when explaining their unique fondness for gun ownership. According to a 2017 Pew survey, 65 percent of male gun owners listed it as a top reason for having one. For women, that percentage rose to 71 percent.
Whether guns are actually effective protection tools has of course been the subject of fierce debate and many studies. In the early 1990s, Florida State University researchers conducted a telephone survey of almost 5,000 households in 48 states. They asked respondents if they or someone in their home had used a gun in self defense in the last five years. Crucially, they specified that the gun didn’t need to be fired to have proved useful in defense—whether of their body or their property. Extrapolating from those responses, the researchers concluded that Americans used guns defensively as many as 2.5 million times a year.
NBC NEWS: More than 20,000 People Die by Gun Suicide Annually
Their numbers aren’t technically wrong but their prevention methodology tends to be poor . . .
Early one evening in February 2014, a man in his 40s walked into Rowdy’s Range & Shooter Supply in St. George, Utah, and asked to rent a gun for target practice. He was sociable and seemed calm as he handed over his driver’s license, went to his assigned lane and began shooting at the target, stopping every so often to chat with off-duty police officers in the lane next to his.
Just before his hour was up, an employee alerted him. The man thanked him, and the worker left. Then, still standing in the practice lane, the man turned the gun on himself and took his own life.
After paramedics took his body away and customers were escorted from the range, the company’s owner, Rowdy Reeve — who opened the range three months earlier with two partners in an industrial park at the edge of the Mojave Desert — began asking himself questions: Was there anything his staff should have noticed about the customer before handing him a gun? Could they have helped him?
Gov. Jay Inslee: Too Virtuous to Sign Award Certificates for Shooting that Include Cops
Inslee has been a thorn in Washington’s side for far too long . . .
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Conflation is a core political tool of the left. Such as, if you’re anti-illegal immigrant, you’re anti-immigrant. If you’re anti-kneeling during the national anthem, you’re a racist. If you’re anti-abortion, you’re a misogynist. Well, another essential tool the left uses is gross exaggeration—yes, the left exaggerates so much I felt an adjective was necessary to get my point across.
Take this “absurd” bit of hyperbole for example. Washington State Governor Jay Inslee recently offered this summary on allowing armed staff to protect students in public schools: “We’re getting these absurd ideas that we want first-graders with Glocks on their hips.” What? Who said that? Not me. Not the NRA. No law-abiding gun rights advocates I know agree with that.
Madden NFL Shooting Survivor Reportedly Killed in Car Crash
If it’s your time…
A survivor of lasts month’s mass shooting at a Madden NFL tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, reportedly died Sunday in a car crash.
Ryen Aleman, 25, lost control of his car just before 4 a.m. on Sunday in Corpus Christi, Texas, KIII-TV reported, citing the state’s Department of Public Safety.
Sedgwick County Deputy Killed in Shooting Sunday
Deputy Robert Kunze, End of Watch
Deputy Kunze was traveling westbound on 21st Street when he arrived around 1:42 p.m. to see the black truck with it’s hood open and another black truck in front of it. The two people who reported the person were in the second vehicle.
Sheriff Easter said Deputy Kunze made contact with the suspect, patted him down and found a .40 caliber handgun. Easter said he put the handgun aside and began to handcuff the suspect when a fight began. Easter said while deputies know Kunze’s service weapon was fired, they are waiting on ballistics information to determine if the .40 caliber handgun was fired.
Easter said Deputy Kunze was shot once in his torso above his vest and the suspect was shot twice – once in his torso and again at his waist.
At 1:48 p.m., Sheriff Easter said Kunze pushed his emergency button to alert others that he was in trouble. Easter said deputies could hear him say he’d been shot.