12/09/2016

A partial list of defensive gun uses by people legally carrying concealed handguns

If you are interested in a list of people who have used legally carried concealed handguns to stop crime, the Crime Prevention Research Center has a list of cases available here.  

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Debating Campus Carry in the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)


Dr. John Lott debated Ohio State Rep. Kristin Boggs (D) about whether college campuses should be gun-free zones in the pages of the Columbus Dispatch.  Rep. Boggs' piece is available here.  Dr. Lott's is here:
Ohio State University is still reeling from the attack last week. A terrorist followed the Islamic State playbook as he drove his car into a crowd of students and slashed others with a knife — 12 people were injured. Fortunately, a campus police officer was able to shoot the attacker in a record time of less than two minutes. 
University President Michael Drake took this as evidence that only campus police should be armed on campus. Police are very important, but they virtually always arrive after the attack has occurred and they have an extremely difficult job stopping terrorists — having a uniform is often akin to wearing a neon sign saying "shoot me first." 
This latest attack raises a fundamental question: Would you feel safer posting a sign announcing your home is a gun-free zone? Criminals don’t obey these signs. In fact, to criminals, gun-free zones look like easy targets. So why do we display these signs in public places? 
Some in the Ohio legislature are considering whether to lift the statewide ban on permitted concealed handguns at universities. Opponents’ fears over this are exactly the same as their fears about the original permitted concealed-handgun law, and they are just as wrong. 
Today, 12 states have laws mandating that public college campuses allow permitted concealed handguns. An additional 21 states leave it up to the university. Prior to the early 1990s, states allowing concealed handguns didn’t have legal restrictions, and there weren’t any problems on school property.
Permit holders are extremely law-abiding, committing any type of firearms-related violation at at a rate of just thousandths of one percentage point, and most violations are trivial. A study by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that college-age permit holders in Michigan, Nevada, and Texas are at least as responsible as older permit holders. . . .
The rest of the piece is available here

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12/06/2016

While the media is focusing on the single Trump elector who says that he will not vote for Trump, what about all the faithless Clinton Electors?

UPDATE: Apparently as of 12/13/2016 only one Republican elector is planning on being unfaithful to Trump, so why isn't the story about Clinton facing the loss of even more electors?

ORIGINAL: Before the election two Clinton Electors refused to support Hillary Clinton.  All the focus is now on Trump elector, Christopher Suprun.  From Vox on November 6th:
Robert Satiacum, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, told the Seattle Times that he will refuse to support Clinton no matter what. A second elector from Washington state, Bret Chiafalo, is saying that he may or may not follow his state’s results.  
“No, no, no on Hillary. Absolutely not. No way,” said Satiacum in a telephone interview with the newspaper, which reached him as he was protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. “I hope it comes down to a swing vote and it’s me. ... Good. She ain’t getting it. Maybe it’ll wake this country up.” 
Satiacum and Chiafalo are Democratic elector candidates, meaning they’ll be responsible for casting two Electoral College votes for Washington if Clinton wins the state. While they could face criminal charges for defying the state’s election results, Satiacum and Chiafalo can still, bizarrely, use their Electoral College votes to support whomever they personally choose. . . .
More recently, P. Bret Chiafalo,  has reiterated his opposition to Clinton.  From Politico:
P. Bret Chiafalo, a Washington State elector who has already declared his opposition to Hillary Clinton 
A third Democrat elector from Washington state has made a similar pledge: Levi Guerra
Washington elector refuses to vote for Clinton in attempt to keep Trump out of White House
There are also four such faithless electors from Colorado, though these electors are only doing this to try to stop Trump, not because they are upset with Clinton.
Polly Baca, a former state senator from Colorado, . . . . Bob Nemanich, a high school math teacher from Colorado Springs, Jerad Sutton of Greeley, also a math teacher, and Micheal Baca, a 24-year-old grad student who is not related to Polly Baca. . . . . .

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Reddit CEO Steve Huffman caught editing users’ comments, he rewrote posts, replacing his name with others in Trump discussion



Will Reddit recover?  While the computer industry is covering this story, relatively few of the major mainstream media have covered it. From The Washington Examiner: 
The CEO of Reddit [Steve Huffman] has admitted that he edited comments in a pro-Trump discussion board, saying he "messed with" some of the comments "for about an hour," and has apologized. 
The Reddit users, known as "redditors," were already seething this week when the site that describes itself as "the front page of the Internet" banned the "Pizzagate" discussion board, where a conspiracy theory was being floated about Hillary Clinton running a pedophilia ring. Pizzagate went down due to a violation of "content policy" after users began posting the personal information of real people who were tied into the theory, like a pizza restaurant owner in Washington, after which they reportedly received death threats. . . . .
But redditors using the popular pro-Trump subreddit called "r/The_Donald" seemed particularly upset with what they viewed as unnecessary censorship, and slung a flurry of disparaging comments in Huffman's direction. Examples of the insults included "fuck u/spez," a play off his Reddit username u/spez. Others called him a "cuck," which is a word, popularized in the alt-right, that accuses one of showing weakness and which has racist undertones. . . . .

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