NV:Campus Carry Bill Headed to Carson City

Las Vegas CBS KXNT- As the national debate about gun regulation is revived, a Nevada coalition is preparing to ask state lawmakers to overturn a firearm ban on college campuses, two years after a similar bill failed.

The 2011 effort was prompted by the rape of University of Nevada student Amanda Collins in a campus parking garage. Collins was trained and permitted, but unarmed because she was following the law. The same attacker later raped and killed 19-year-old Brianna Denison at an apartment near the UNR campus.

Collins testified for the bill at legislative hearings, telling lawmakers she believed she could have fended off the attack if she’d been carrying her weapon. The bill was successful in the senate, according to Don Turner, President of the Nevada Firearms Coalition. Turner told KXNT on Thursday that there were also sufficient votes to pass it in the assembly, but it was not allowed to come to a vote.

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YouTube: VIDEO: NRA President’s Report: David Keene on the Push to Protect Our Children

Video that shows the NRA message unfiltered by hostile media. Much different from what you saw on the old media networks.

Video Here

More or fewer guns? The experts are divided

By James Rainey, Los Angeles Times

December 20, 2012, 5:34 p.m. Two governors, a congressman, various state legislators and a host of conservative commentators joined the chief executive of the Gun Owners of America this week in suggesting that the country needs more guns, in the right hands, to prevent mass murders like the one at a Connecticut elementary school.

Such opinions strike many blue-state Americans as absurd. Gun control advocates often cite studies showing higher rates of suicide and homicide in firearms-permissive cultures, with strikingly lower rates in nations with strict controls on weapons.

But there is no scientific consensus on the effect of gun restrictions in America, and many residents of one small Georgia town say their experience bolsters the idea that putting more guns in the hands of the "good guys" will stem gun crimes. Kennesaw, Ga., population 30,175, mandated in 1982 that "every head of household … maintain a firearm together with ammunition."

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Proof the Left Wants All Guns Outlawed

It has been said that to identify a liar, look for contradiction, because it’s hard keeping lies straight.

It’s no revelation that leftists would like to effect gun confiscation (except for themselves and their bodyguards, of course), but they generally maintain plausible deniability so that the world’s Dirty Harry Reids can convince the flyover-country bitter clingers that they believe in the Second Amendment. And they certainly do — the way the Devil believes in God. Nonetheless, leftists sometimes tip their hand, and such is the case with a recent New York Post editorial.

The paper posits the idea that the “application of modern military design to civilian firearms” has produced weapons so dangerous that the Second Amendment is rendered obsolete. Of course, the editors are referring to what are incorrectly called “assault weapons,” such as the AR-15-type rifle Adam Lanza used to do his evil in Newtown. And they take, or at least imply, a position that low-information voters would consider reasonable: They don’t propose to outlaw all guns, just those dreaded “assault weapons” (that aren’t). These, the editors say, are so deadly that it’s “time to get rid of them.”

Now we come to where they betrayed themselves. When describing Lanza’s arsenal earlier in the op-ed, they noted that he had his rifle and, as they put it, “two equally deadly handguns.”

Well, well, if they’re equally deadly, why pick on the AR-15? Some guns must be more equal than others.

If the “assault rifles” (that aren’t) are too deadly to be legal, and the handguns are equally deadly, it follows that the handguns are also too deadly to be legal, no? Or did I just commit the sin of applying white male linear logic?

Actually, the Post’s implicit position is the only consistent one. As the editors correctly point out — and I’ll give them a smidgeon of credit for understanding that the AR-15 is not a machine gun — the rifle fires only one round with each trigger pull. In other words, its function is semi-automatic, just like that of the handguns. (This is why it’s not actually an assault weapon, which would have a “special fire” feature allowing it to be operated fully automatic, semi-automatic, or in three-shot bursts.)

Semi-automatic — just like most guns owned in the United States today.

But consider what that implies. If semi-automatic handguns are too deadly to be in circulation, and most all guns in the United States are semi-automatic and, presumably, equally deadly, then…

So what are we left with? The possible exception of small-caliber, low-power firearms? Maybe not. Sirhan Sirhan murdered Robert F. Kennedy with a .22 revolver.

So what’s the end game, libs? You never do say. You never tell us your vision: How many programs, laws, mandates, and regulations will be enough, nor what should be allowed for self-defense. Bolt and lever-action firearms?

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NRA’s Press Conference of 12/21/12: An almost masterful strike. (Part 1)

Read this, and compare it to the coverage of the event by the media

I caught the press conference live like many people did and by the time it finished I could not stop but smile thinking that the old coots can deliver harm to the politicians and play a mean game of PR chess to the Media and the Opposition.

David Keene set the tone by telling the Media that no questions would be taken after LaPierre’s words and that the NRA would be available for questions starting Monday. This pretty much said to the boys and girls of the press that: 1) We know you don’t like us so fuck you and sit pretty, 2) By Monday, regular people would have time to digests our proposal and 3) We really don’t care what you say and you’ll probably shoot yourself in the foot

I am going to analyze point by point using the transcript of Wayne LaPierre’s speech available at the NRA’s website:

Out of respect for those grieving families, and until the facts are known, the NRA has refrained from comment. While some have tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectfully silent.

I still think too much time passed for the NRA to come out. A week in our modern communications time is forever. The only advantage was that the “conversation” coming from the Opposition was stuck in the forever old talking points. Plus plenty of Gun Rights activists took on the Social Media and the Blogosphere helping to counter the B.B.

Now, we must speak … for the safety of our nation’s children. Because for all the noise and anger directed at us over the past week, no one — nobody — has addressed the most important, pressing and immediate question we face: How do we protect our children right now, starting today, in a way that we know works?

Ouch! Game changer. For the whole week, the only crap we heard and read was the chant “GunControlGunControlGunControlGunControlGunControlGunControlGunControl” but little if nothing on what to do now. Average Mom & Dad are not particularly worried about future discussions in Congress but if they are gonna see the kids again after dropping them in school in the morning.

The only way to answer that question is to face up to the truth. Politicians pass laws for Gun-Free School Zones. They issue press releases bragging about them. They post signs advertising them. And in so doing, they tell every insane killer in America that schools are their safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.…….We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers. Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family — our children — we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it. That must change now!

Two distinct points here: Repetition that the imaginary force field called Gun Free Zones is not working and that politicians were responsible for creating such stupidity and they know it doe not work because instead of trusting their lives to the imaginary force field, they gave armed people taking care of them. To summarize: Politicians have not given 2 craps about your kid’s life since the introduction of the Gun Free Schools program.

The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day……….

This whole paragraph has been reviled in the media. In fact the moment it came out, the Twitter feeds exploded with accusations of Fear-mongering and Paranoia by the NRA. The problem is that they (and everybody else) know damn well another attack like that will happen but having the NRA throw it at their faces was not something they enjoyed.

How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame — from a national media machine that rewards them with the wall-to-wall attention and sense of identity that they crave — while provoking others to try to make their mark?

This is ” Dear Media: We know you don’t like us so fuck you and sit pretty,” Part 2. From now on we can say foam was literally coming from the mouths of almost every journalist in the country that has been covering Sandy Hook or any other school attack or mass killing. A well deserved spanking IMHO and one the Media cannot deny.

Killers, robbers, rapists and drug gang members who have spread like cancer in every community in this country. Meanwhile, federal gun prosecutions have decreased by 40% — to the lowest levels in a decade. So now, due to a declining willingness to prosecute dangerous criminals, violent crime is increasing again for the first time in 19 years!

It is the Executive’s turn to taste some. A direct accusation saying “you talk about “gun violence, but you ain’t doing squat about it!”

In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes — every minute of every day of every month of every year.

And here we have the broadside against the Media. Some have decried the bundling of the video game industry with the rest of the media, but they are indeed part of the same people who have no problems both calling us killers and they selling violence while washing their hands in the whole process. Are video games responsible for the violence? In my opinion they do not create killers but the already scrambled in the brain pan may be overly influenced by them. But there is no doubt that Hollywood has a long and wide strip of hypocrisy denouncing violence while making cash fist over hands with it. Pointing out is a way to make them look stupider than usual.

Now, I can imagine the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow morning: “More guns,” you’ll claim, “are the NRA’s answer to everything!” Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the word “gun” automatically become a bad word?

“Dear Media: We know you don’t like us so fuck you and sit pretty, Part 3.” No need to expand much.

A gun in the hands of a Secret Service agent protecting the President isn’t a bad word. A gun in the hands of a soldier protecting the United States isn’t a bad word. And when you hear the glass breaking in your 6 living room at 3 a.m. and call 911, you won’t be able to pray hard enough for a gun in the hands of a good guy to get there fast enough to protect you.

So why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect our President or our country or our police, but bad when it’s used to protect our children in their schools?

“What makes you so special you can have all the security you want, but my babies are supposed to have none?” This one has to hurt. No mater what kind of explanation you can come up with, trying to counter the argument will result in you appearing to be a callous jackass who does not care for kids.

More on the next post. Trying to keep it at a somewhat digestible size.

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Journalists slam NRA throughout press conference

When National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre took the stage on Friday to address the media about last week’s elementary school massacre, he made it clear multiple times that the organization has issues with how the press reports on guns.

At one point, LaPierre said “the media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws and fill the national debate with misinformation and dishonest thinking.”

If the NRA doesn’t like reporters, the feeling is apparently mutual.

As Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, put it:

Reporters on my Twitter feed seem to hate the NRA more than anything else, ever. — Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) December 21, 2012

Here are some of the views expressed by reporters and editors — from news outlets including Talking Points Memo, Politico, The New York Times and The Huffington Post – on Twitter during LaPierre’s speech:

LaPierre as delusional as any dictator. His speech against music videos, hurricanes has the feel of a Castro rant or Mugabe tirade.

— The Huffington Post’s Jason Cherkis (@jasoncherkis) December 21, 2012

In Wayne LaPierre’s defense, tone-deafness is a serious condition that afflicts hundreds of thousands of Americans.

— New York Daily News’ Josh Greenman (@joshgreenman) December 21, 2012

Wayne LaPierre should have just given this speech to an empty chair on a stage

— The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill (@jeremyscahill) December 21, 2012

No two ways about: This is gross, awful, dishonest.

— Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 21, 2012

What is this NRA guy talking about? Blame hurricanes. Blame media. It’s so strange.

— Politico’s Ben White (@morningmoneyben) December 21, 2012

This is nuts.

— Talking Points Memo’s Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 21, 2012

If it wasn’t for all the dead children, the #NRA press conference might have been amusing.

— The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) December 21, 2012

Stallone movie meets Fidel Castro speech

— Politico’s Alex Burns (@aburnspolitico) December 21, 2012

Many of the same reporters were infuriated that the NRA wouldn’t take questions.

It’s amazing how much damage LaPierre is doing to the NRA without even allowing questions.

— The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) December 21, 2012

Reporters should walk out of this press conference right now, if he’s not taking questions. Otherwise, its just a propaganda event. #Newtown

— The Nation’s David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 21, 2012

Trends In Mass Shootings

The trend will be your friend if you are the NRA, Hollywood,or video game manufacturers trying to deflect blame for rising gun violence in America. Per both mass killing expert Alan Fox, there is no particular evidece suggesting we are in the grip of a rising wave of mass shootings. A Mother Jones team has put together their own database of mass shootings since 1980 (timeline) and their chart suggests a similar conclusion.

And for the factually oriented, this paper by criminologist Duwe from 2006 (hat tip to Jesse Walker of Reason) is fascinating. The media loves a narrative, which is why we read and talk about gun killings and exclude mass killings that used fire or bombs. Also, crimes involving strangers in public places are much more dramatic than banger-on-banger shoot-outs (e.g., the St. Valentine's Day massacre) or one monster wiping out the rest of his family, so they draw more coverage.

To be fair, the psychology of that is clear, but let me belabor the obvious: most of us have a pretty good idea whether we are involved with violent criminals or are in a potentially violent and abusive relationship so the idea of getting randomly gunned down in a movie theatre or a restaurant or having the kids shot in school is more personally problematic, and hence more "newsworthy".

Well - this background is interesting but I don't think actual facts will have much of a role to play in Obama's upcoming "conversation", in whch we are all supposed to show fresh thinking. Let me quote him from his press conference:

Over these past five days, a discussion has reemerged as to what we might do not only to deter mass shootings in the future, but to reduce the epidemic of gun violence that plagues this country every single day. And it’s encouraging that people of all different backgrounds and beliefs and political persuasions have been willing to challenge some old assumptions and change longstanding positions.

I doubt whether Obama's final proposals will challenge any assumption he has held over the last twenty years. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, as an example of the fact-free analysis I anticipate from the emotionally based community, this Times guest piece is a laugh riot in which a French professor ruminates about the rising tide of massacres:

Adam Lanza was a young man. Jacob Roberts was a young man. James Holmes is a young man. Seung-Hui Cho was a young man. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were young men.

And a bit later:

Does the heroic young man still make sense today, or has his value already been depleted? ...

There is also the issue of race. Not all of the men I listed in the beginning of this piece are Caucasian. However, take a moment and imagine what the archetypical image of a mass murderer in the United States looks like. Is he white in your mind? This image can only be attributed to the truth of those patterns that have established themselves,

Duwe from 2006 touched on that point - the media does favor a certain narrative:

But as Table 1 shows, the heavily publicized typifying examples used by claimsmakers are hardly representative of mass murder. Indeed, compared to mass killings in general, the 56 cases used as typifying examples were more likely to involve larger body counts, stranger victims, public locations, assault weapon use, workplace violence, interracial victim-offender relationships, older, suicidal offenders, and slightly more likely to involve gun use and white offenders.

I don't want to leap to conclusions but it is possible that the NY Times and other big media are more comfortable with stories involving white shooters (normally the Times avoids reporting the race of an alleged criminal). The Mother Jones team provides an example of this liberal mindset in action as they describe their database of 62 incidents:

Forty four of the killers were white males. Only one of them was a woman.

Sixty-two incidents involving sixty-four killers (Columbine and Westside Middle School involved partners) are in the database. That means there are nineteen non-white male killers. And what is the racial breakdown? Apparently the authors know, and the answer may be available at the website but it is eluding me. They do have pictures of some of the killers, and I see an American Indian (Jeffrey Weise) and more Asians than one would expect from normal crime statistics.

Still, whites represent about two-thirds of the killers despite being more than two-thirds of the population, so some other ethnic groups are over-represented. Yet the authors are not making the breakdown easily available. Hmm...

Are these young men? More Mother Jones:

The average age of the killers was 35...

And where do the killings take place?

Half of the cases involved school or workplace shootings (12 and 19, respectively); the other 31 cases took place in locations including shopping malls, restaurants, government buildings, and military bases.

Well, the French professor has a fascinating theory about a zero-sum world in which the empowerment of blacks and women has left youg white men dispossessed, enraged, and prove to violence. That may not jibe with the trendless nature of mass shootings, the white under-representation among the shooters or the generally declining crime rate over the last twenty years, but hey - she has a piece in the Times and I don't, so go figure.

EERIE: Aurora, Colorado is the site of the Columbine killings (strictly speaking, Littleton is close by), the movie theatre shooting of 2012 and the Chuck E. Cheese killings of 1993 (that is on the timeline but not the interactive map). The Chuck E Cheese incident was a workplace killing with four dead; the shooter is on death row and does not fit the racial profile favored by the Times contributor. But geez, Aurora is not even that big a town and it has 5% of all the mass shootings in America over the last thirty years.

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Armed Teacher Pilot Program to Provide Free Training to Educators

DELAWARE, OH - Buckeye Firearms Association (BFA) announced they have launched a pilot program to provide firearm training to teachers free of charge.

The announcement was made at a Town Hall Meeting at Ohio State University Thursday evening where participants debated the gun control issue in light of the recent mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Ken Hanson, BFA's Legal Chair, made the announcement, saying, "Teachers and school board members have been asking us for years about training to prepare for an incident like Sandy Hook. So our educational Foundation will sponsor an Armed Teacher Pilot Program for a comprehensive 3-day training class at Tactical Defense Institute in West Union, Ohio. Based on the response to this pilot program, we will roll out classes to other training facilities."

The program will begin by accepting 24 teachers. All expenses, including class tuition, ammunition, and lodging (which are expected to total approximately $1,000 per teacher), will be paid by Buckeye Firearms Foundation and outside donations. Officials will be invited to attend the class at no cost to help develop appropriate training guidelines.

"The long-term goal is to develop a standard Armed Teacher curriculum and make the training available to any teacher or school official," said Hanson. "To begin, we will use funds from our educational foundation and solicit donations from corporations to pay for the pilot program. Going forward, we will seek funding from a variety of sources to expand the program."

BFA's educational foundation is finalizing details of the Armed Teacher Pilot Program and will announce the first class in early January. Interested educators can submit their name for consideration by using the Contact Form at www.BuckeyeFirearms.org. Identities of participants will be kept strictly confidential.

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TX: Home Intruder Killed by Resident Protecting Woman and Child

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- An intruder was fatally shot by an apartment complex resident near the Texas Southern University campus last night, say police.

It happened around 8:30pm on Wentworth and Ennis in Houston's Third Ward. Police say a man, who is a TSU student, was in an apartment complex with his girlfriend and two-year-old child when he heard a loud noise outside.

When he went to check it out, an armed man forced his way into the apartment.

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Threat to private gun sales might be greater than threat to 'assault weapons'

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, and its reprehensibly cynical exploitation by advocates of forcible citizen disarmament, decent American citizens have been preparing to defend against an all-out onslaught on so-called "assault weapons" and "high capacity" magazines. This is understandable.

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Private sales--the so-called "gun show loophole," despite the fact that even anti-gun groups are no longer trying to hide the fact that they want to ban all private sales, whether at gun shows or not--might be a different story. The guns used in the Connecticut school massacre were not purchased at a gun show, and certainly not purchased without a background check (and the purchaser, Nancy Lanza, would apparently have been very unlikely to be found "unsuitable" to purchase firearms even under the ever more restrictive and intrusive background checks pushed by anti-gun fanatics).

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Worth reading: Gun Registration is Gun Confiscation

Russians demand more liberal gun laws at home following Sandy Hook shooting

A new gun rights movement appears to be stirring in Russia to relax gun laws and enshrine the right to keep and bear arms following the Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

“In this shooting six teachers died, six people who could literally use only their hands to defend children,” said Maria Butina, the founder of Russia’s newest gun rights organization Right to Bear Arms. “The murderer planned this knowing that no one would be armed.”

The Right to Bear Arms was quick to point out that Connecticut has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and that Adam Lanza, the shooter, obtained the weapons illegally and committed the crime in a gun-free zone, taking the same position that many American have, that more gun laws cannot prevent crime.

The organization’s focus isn’t narrowly defined by the shooting, however. They hope to expand on all gun rights and get more people to join their cause.

Butina continued, “What is the right to life, ingrained in our constitution, if you don’t have the right to bear arms?”

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CA:Simulated gun stops an intruder

Good defense 12:40 a.m. Dec. 12, 7000 block of Atascadero Ave. A resident said her husband was simulating a gun and had an intruder detained. Officers arrived and arrested a man for first-degree burglary.

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I would rather not bluff in a life and death situation, but it worked.

AL:Calera police: Shots fired during home invasion

CALERA, AL (WBRC) -

Calera police are investigating a home invasion in which shots were fired Thursday morning.

Calera Police Chief Sean Lemley says two armed Hispanic males broke into a home in the 300 block of Pilgreen Drive just before 9 a.m. A Hispanic family of four, including a couple and two children ages 9 years old and four months, were inside at the time of the invasion.

Police say the victim was also armed and fired three or four shots during the home invasion. The family is OK and no one was hurt, officials say.

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Piers Morgan and Christiane Amanpour cannot stand truth

From my appearance last night on CNN.

LOTT: Every place that guns have been banned, murder rates have gone up. You cannot point to one place, whether it's Chicago or whether it's D.C. or whether it's been England of whether it's been Jamaica or Ireland.

MORGAN: I'm sorry, but that's just a complete lie. It's a complete lie. The gun murder rate in Britain is 35 a year, average. You need to stop repeating a blatant lie, about what happens in other countries. [cross talk] No, you're not going to get away with this. You lied about it the other day. Thirty-five gun murders a year in Britain, eleven to twelve thousand in America. Stop lying, because what you say drives Americans to defend themselves.

Lots of charts and facts here

GA:Home invasion suspect killed in gunfight at DeKalb apartment complex

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A home invasion robbery suspect died overnight when he jumped out a second-floor apartment window, apparently after his intended victims opened fire on the alleged intruders.

The incident happened at an apartment complex on Lancashire Circle near Stone Mountain.

Channel 2 Action News reported that a couple with two small children live in the apartment, and exchanged gunfire with the suspects.

One of the suspects jumped out a second-story window to escape the gunfire, and hit a tree before falling to the ground and dying, according to Channel 2.

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In Texas, a town where the teachers carry guns

In the tiny Texas town of Harrold, children and their parents don't give much thought to safety at the community's lone school — mostly because some of the teachers are carrying concealed weapons.

"We don't have money for a security guard, but this is a better solution," Superintendent David Thweatt said. "A shooter could take out a guard or officer with a visible, holstered weapon, but our teachers have master's degrees, are older and have had extensive training. And their guns are hidden. We can protect our children."

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10 Best Personal Defense Stories of 2012

When push comes to shove, a gun owner will not hesitate to use lethal force in dealing with a threat, but in doing so, it’s imperative for the gun owner to be well-trained in personal defense tactics and firearm use. That’s where we come in. Personal Defense TV host Richard Nance’s blog, Defend Thyself, provides plenty of know-how to deal with a threat to you or your family drawing from real-life scenarios. With 2013 just around the corner, we’ve rounded up the top 10 personal defense storylines of the year, from the weird to the heroic, and we hope to impart some knowledge to you, the readers, as we head into the new year.

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1 of 3 intruders slain in W. Pa. home invasion

Police say a homeowner has slain one of three men who forced their way into his family's home in suburban Pittsburgh, but authorities haven't revealed how the intruder was killed or why they believe he was three in the first place.

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Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine calls for arming school employees

Various Ohio media are reporting that advocates who've long been calling for arming our teachers to deter mass murderers and to stop them if they can, have a new ally: Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R).

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PA:Local residents rushing to get license to carry permits in record numbers

Following the school shooting in Connecticut last Friday, area residents are rushing to arm themselves. Conceal carry permits applications are skyrocketing.

On Monday, the first business day after the school shooting in Connecticut, a to that point record number of licenses to carry a firearm were applied for in Lancaster County as people look for a way to protect themselves and their families.

“Because it’s a right I have and I can do what I can to protect myself and my family,” stated Mike Wynn, who applied for a carry permit.

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