The number of FBI background checks conducted last month for people attempting to purchase firearms shattered the previous all-time record, and experts say the surge in gun sales was directly tied to current events rocking the United States.
&#8220;The new coronavirus pandemic, civil unrest after the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing movement to defund police are bringing in new buyers worried about their personal safety, according to buyers, store owners and gun experts,&#8221; The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/background-checks-a-metric-for-gun-sales-hit-all-time-high/2020/07/01/a5e6fe8c-bbdb-11ea-97c1-6cf116ffe26c_story.html">reported</a>. &#8220;In June, background checks for firearms were up 136%, compared to a year earlier &#8230; background checks in June for civilians seeking a license to carry were the highest since the FBI began conducting checks 20 years ago.&#8221;
FBI statistics that were <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view">released</a> at the start of the month showed that 3,931,607 background checks were processed last month, which is by far the most ever recorded. The previous all-time record was set in March – when parts of the U.S. began going into shutdown over the coronavirus – when 3,740,688 were conducted.
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Firearm sales in June were the highest monthly sales since data collection began in 1998: 3.9M firearms sold. <a href="https://twitter.com/phil_wellesley?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@phil_wellesley</a> and Robin McKnight explore the trend, as well as potential causes and consequences. <a href="https://t.co/X7ZdI0zP3X">https://t.co/X7ZdI0zP3X</a> <a href="https://t.co/WKRchQ07SK">pic.twitter.com/WKRchQ07SK</a>
&mdash; Brookings Econ (@BrookingsEcon) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrookingsEcon/status/1282821114553663493?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Journal reports that dealers estimate that some 40% of sales have been going to first-time buyers, &#8220;an increase over the normal average of about a quarter,&#8221; and are claiming that many of the new buyers &#8220;are people who say they never thought they would own a firearm and were previously critical of those who did.&#8221;
The surge in gun sales comes as the U.S. has experienced a wave of violent riots in response to the death of George Floyd. The riots have spanned from Los Angeles to New York City, and ultimately led to calls from leftist activists and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-ilhan-omar-defund-minneapolis-police-theyre-cancer-we-dont-want-your-damn-reforms">Democrat</a> <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyc-proposed-budget-would-cut-1-billion-from-nypd-aoc-it-isnt-enough">politicians</a> to defund the police. Violent crime has <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/deadly-weekend-in-seattle-chicago-minneapolis-as-new-york-city-reports-uptick-in-shootings">surged</a> in inner cities in the days and weeks following the riots and the demonization of law enforcement officials.
Social media was flooded with images of rioters destroying police cars that were abandoned by law enforcement officials, looters <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/woman-in-l-a-begs-alleged-looters-to-stop-this-is-going-to-get-trump-re-elected">stealing</a> items from stores, and criminals <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/police-officers-hit-by-cars-shot-beaten-in-numerous-cities-on-monday-night-amid-violent-riots">attacking</a> law enforcement officials by hurling objects at them and even running them over.
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POLICE CARS DESTROYED: Rioters destroy a line of police cars, ghost riding them into each other and setting them on fire in West Philadelphia. 
MORE: <a href="https://t.co/Xm93XDEQV4">https://t.co/Xm93XDEQV4</a> <a href="https://t.co/8qcjnBHaHI">pic.twitter.com/8qcjnBHaHI</a>
&mdash; FOX 29 (@FOX29philly) <a href="https://twitter.com/FOX29philly/status/1267186742207164423?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 31, 2020</a></blockquote>
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One gun buyer told the Journal that he was applying for a permit because he feared that law enforcement officials would not be able to protect him, saying, “I don’t want to ever shoot anybody ever. But if I had to duck and shoot back in self-defense, at least I’d have a chance.”
John Kingdon, a registered Democrat who has been a gun control activist in the past, told the paper that he purchased a semi-automatic pistol just a couple of months ago, saying, “If I had a hard time getting police to respond to me when we weren’t in a pandemic, what about now?”
British media personality Piers Morgan, who opposes the Second Amendment, derided the surge in Americans engaging in their constitutionally protected right, writing on Twitter: &#8220;Just when you thought the news couldn&#8217;t [be] more depressing&#8230;8.3 million guns have been sold in the United States since March, meaning 2020 is on course to be the biggest year for gun sales in American history.&#8221;
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BREAKING: Just when you thought the news couldn&#39;t more depressing&#8230;8.3 million guns have been sold in the United States since March, meaning 2020 is on course to be the biggest year for gun sales in American history.
&mdash; Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) <a href="https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1278382083837235211?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
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US-POLITICS-RACISM-JUSTICE-police-minorities

Riots, Violent Crime, ‘Defund Police’ Push Surged In June. Gun Sales Exploded To All-Time High, FBI Data Suggests.

Defund The Police

Guns

Second Amendment

Chicago, in the midst of a dramatic spike in shootings and homicides, has once again had a record-setting weekend of violence, this time involving a rush-hour shootout on a crowded major highway.
&#8220;So far this weekend, 47 people have been shot, seven fatally in violence across the city,&#8221; <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shooting-shootings-this-weekend-violence-how-many-shot-in/6313550/">ABC 7 Chicago</a> reported Sunday. The latest victim, yet again, was a minor &#8212; this time, a 15-year-old boy who was killed in a hail of gunfire on the city&#8217;s southwest side.
&#8220;The teen, identified as Terrance Malden by family, was in the street when a light-colored vehicle pulled up and someone inside fired shots, Chicago police said,&#8221; <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shooting-shootings-this-weekend-violence-how-many-shot-in/6313550/">according to ABC 7</a>. &#8220;Malden was shot in the back. He was transported to the University of Chicago Hospital in critical condition, and later pronounced dead, Chicago police said.&#8221;
A 14-year-old boy was also shot this weekend, on the city&#8217;s west side. He was hit in the abdomen and remains in serious condition.
The violence caps off a weeks-long spike in violence in Chicago, which began just before Memorial Day and has continued unabated, despite the city&#8217;s increased efforts at controlling violence. Each Monday morning, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot delivers a press conference on the state of the city, and the conferences have lately become a grim announcement of that weekend&#8217;s deadly toll.
In July, to date, 32 people have been shot and killed in the city and more than 180 shot and wounded. A number of minors are among the dead, including a 20-month-old boy shot while driving home from the laundromat with his mother.
This weekend&#8217;s violence kicked off with a shocking incident &#8212; a reported gang-related shooting on the city&#8217;s crowded Dan Ryan Expressway during rush hour Friday.
Following an altercation, a &#8220;29-year-old man crashed his vehicle near 79th Street on the Dan Ryan Expressway after he was shot while driving in the first block of East 99th Street,&#8221; <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-79th-street-shooting-20200709-5ydmsg2x35cc5my7ujhb676ivm-story.html">the Chicago Tribune reported Friday</a>. &#8220;The shooting happened about 3 p.m. Thursday in the 100 block of East 99th Street. The man heard shots and felt pain. He then proceeded to enter the expressway and crashed around 79th Street, police said.&#8221;
After crashing his car, the man, holding his wounds, ran through traffic towards a subway station adjacent to the highway. He was eventually apprehended and taken to the University of Chicago hospital.
Police closed two highways to conduct an investigation.
So far, this weekend, Chicago&#8217;s mayor and police chief have been silent on incidents of gun violence. Last week, the mayor, unable to articulate a concrete reason for the spike, blamed lax gun control laws and the coronavirus pandemic. This week, the city has been focused on cracking down on businesses to prevent the spread of the virus and made no announcement about an increase in police presence in targeted neighborhoods.
Chicago, of course, is far from the only city suffering a sudden spike in deadly shootings. Minneapolis, Baltimore, and several other cities are experiencing their own violence spikes.
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chicago pd

Chicago Suffers Another Weekend Of Violence, Including Rush Hour Shooting On Major Highway

Chicago

Shooting

Videos posted on social media show parishioners, both black and white, being harassed and physically assaulted at Grace Baptist Church in Troy, New York.
The protesters, repeatedly shouting &#8220;Black Lives Matter,&#8221; even harassed and blocked churchgoers while they were with their young children, using a megaphone to scream at the families, shaming and threatening their parents with calls to CPS, or Child Protective Services.
The assaults, harassment, and protesting have been occurring since at least the end of June, according to the viral videos posted online. The church has refused to close or back down, directing men from the parish to help escort fellow worshipers inside as they are blocked by BLM protesters.
Grace Baptist Church made headlines last month for giving away an <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/06/29/upstate-new-york-church-faces-backlash-for-ar-15-giveaway/">AR-15</a> as a prize for a church raffle. When the giveaway was first reported, Pastor John Koletas told <a href="https://wnyt.com/troy-new-york-news/gun-giveaway-grace-baptist-church-troy-rensselaer-county/5775568/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">WNYT</a> that the church held it in solidarity with hunters and gun owners who have been &#8220;viciously attacked by anti-Christian socialist policies.&#8221; One local critic told <a href="https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/troy-church-gives-away-ar-15s">WRGB</a> at the time that the giveaway exhibited &#8220;extreme poor taste,&#8221; citing &#8220;all of the shootings going on in all of our communities.&#8221;
However, it&#8217;s unclear if the gun-giveaway is connected to the protests shown in the videos. In the videos, protesters slam the church as &#8220;racist&#8221; but do not appear to mention the AR-15 giveaway.
In one of the videos, protesters storm the church and repeatedly chant &#8220;Black Lives Matter&#8221; and a near-fight breaks out. Additionally, one of the protesters yells at a churchgoer, &#8220;f*** you.&#8221; He responds by saying &#8220;Jesus loves you.&#8221; The protester replies by telling the man Jesus doesn&#8217;t love him.
In other footage, mostly black churchgoers are shamed and screamed at by protesters as they walk into the church. One female protester yells at a black parishioner, &#8220;You should be ashamed, sister.&#8221;
A young white mother with three kids is also harassed as she tries to enter Grace Baptist. The mother is seen trying to console one of her young sons as he is visibly upset and scared, trying to leave the area.
At one encounter, a churchgoer attempts to go up the steps into Grace Baptist but is held back and physically assaulted by protesters. The pastor of the church gets involved to save the man, who is grossly outnumbered.
The pastor was apparently assaulted during the scuffle, as one protester taunts, &#8220;How&#8217;s your head feel, pastor?&#8221; The pastor was also called &#8220;soft&#8221; and a &#8220;p****.&#8221;
&#8220;Stop hiding behind your godd*mn religion,&#8221; another protester shouted. &#8220;This church is racist,&#8221; screamed another.
As for the church, Grace Baptist is not backing down.
A Twitter account for the church posted a video of one of the pastors vowing to continue on, refusing to change his messaging or being scared away by the novel coronavirus or the &#8220;mob.&#8221;
&#8220;We will NEVER apologize to the mob!&#8221; the video, posted on Monday, is captioned (view below).
&#8220;It&#8217;s not my fault for preaching the same thing we&#8217;ve preached for 33 years,&#8221; the pastor says. &#8220;It&#8217;s not my fault everybody wants to put it online, I don&#8217;t care. They can shut us down. I ain&#8217;t changing my preaching because we&#8217;re [online].&#8221;
WATCH the violent protesting, below:
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These young children were more mature than the thugs berating them and their mother as they walked into church. 
Hear as pastor asks them multiple to stop blocking the church entrance. GBC men form a line to protect children. <a href="https://t.co/iZYJaxH1sH">pic.twitter.com/iZYJaxH1sH</a>
&mdash; Grace Baptist Church (@realgbctroyny) <a href="https://twitter.com/realgbctroyny/status/1279151637915992065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
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attendees to Grace Baptist Church in TROY. NY had to be escorted in and out of church today as they were berated by <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BLM?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BLM</a> protestors: take a hard look at this ——&gt; <a href="https://t.co/zWwpilWDy8">pic.twitter.com/zWwpilWDy8</a>
&mdash; Kevin McCashion 🇺🇸 (@Kevin_McCashion) <a href="https://twitter.com/Kevin_McCashion/status/1277418795015995392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
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We will never back down from wickedness in Troy, NY! <a href="https://t.co/g1WYDmebG9">pic.twitter.com/g1WYDmebG9</a>
&mdash; Grace Baptist Church (@realgbctroyny) <a href="https://twitter.com/realgbctroyny/status/1277264052578910216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Christians at Grace Baptist Church in Troy, NY we’re gathering to worship Sunday when BLM stormed their sanctuary and took over their church.
Violent BLM members stopped the service and assaulted the peaceful Christians verbally and physically.
WATCH:<a href="https://t.co/GIwEMOFsBj">pic.twitter.com/GIwEMOFsBj</a>
&mdash; Benny (@bennyjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1280165501642178560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Why is the mob beating church members in Troy, NY for trying to enter church and escort black members through the mob?
“No justice, no peace” “Peaceful protest” <a href="https://t.co/qsE1kUvqnR">pic.twitter.com/qsE1kUvqnR</a>
&mdash; Grace Baptist Church (@realgbctroyny) <a href="https://twitter.com/realgbctroyny/status/1278860285386919936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
WATCH the response from Grace Baptist:
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We will NEVER apologize to the mob! <a href="https://t.co/Vsa6fABoYc">pic.twitter.com/Vsa6fABoYc</a>
&mdash; Grace Baptist Church (@realgbctroyny) <a href="https://twitter.com/realgbctroyny/status/1280177350882230273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Black Lives Matter Protest In New York

WATCH: Protesters Storm Baptist Church, Harass Children, Assault Parishioners: ‘How’s Your Head Feel, Pastor?’

Black Lives Matter

Race

Social Justice

Socialism

Chicago&#8217;s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, had an odd explanation for the gun violence gripping the city Sunday, suggesting that lax gun laws and coronavirus-related lockdowns were largely to blame for the spike in shootings, which has left at least four children dead and dozens of Chicago residents wounded.
Speaking to a press conference, Lightfoot said the violence problem is “complicated,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/with-murders-up-nearly-80-in-chicago-last-month-lori-lightfoot-blames-guns">Washington Examiner</a>.
&#8220;That’s a complicated question,” Lightfoot told media. “We have way too many guns on the streets.”
&#8220;Lightfoot also suggested that the coronavirus shutdowns that kept people inside for months played a role in creating a &#8216;perfect storm&#8217; while also pointing out the death of George Floyd as an event that sparked anger in the community,&#8221; the Examiner reported.
That &#8220;perfect storm&#8221; is responsible for a nearly record-breaking streak of violence in the city. As of late June, &#8220;329 people have been killed in Chicago, an increase of about 34% from the 246 homicides during the same period last year, according to police. Shootings in that period rose by about 42%, from 978 in 2019 to 1,384 in 2020,&#8221; NBC <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-murders-and-shootings-up-overall-crime-down-halfway-through-2020-police-say/2298155/">Chicago reports</a>. Crime, overall, is down by 9%.
There have been only five days in July, but already this month 84 people have been shot and wounded in the city, and 18 have been shot and killed. In just the last three weeks, several children have been murdered by gun violence, one as young as a year old.
Although the Chicago city government pledged to put 1,200 additional officers on the streets through the Fourth of July holiday, at least 16 people were killed – including a 7-year-old girl who was celebrating the holiday at her grandmother&#8217;s house on the city&#8217;s south side – and 63 were wounded. Two incidents of gun violence had more than eight victims, making them &#8220;mass shootings.&#8221;
Lightfoot responded to the weekend&#8217;s violence on social media.
“Tonight, a 7-year-old girl in Austin joined a list of teenagers and children whose hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun,” she tweeted Sunday. “We cannot grow numb to this. We are making progress in slowing shootings, but we have to do better, every single one of us.”
Chicago residents are not strictly prohibited from owning guns, but Illinois requires each gun owner to submit to an intensive background check and obtain a Firearm Owners Identification (or FOID) card before purchasing their first gun. The state prohibits open carry (and concealed carry, in many circumstances), and there are tight restrictions on gun sales in the city.
Neighboring states, like Indiana and Wisconsin, have looser gun laws, and authorities are typically quick to blame a lack of federal oversight in weapons trafficking for the continued gun violence problem inside the city of Chicago. Part of the issue may also lie with the Cook County States Attorney, Kim Foxx, whose &#8220;bail reform&#8221; program has seen violent offenders returned to the streets quickly, often in as little as 24 hours after being arrested, according to the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-guns-cook-county-bonds-20170127-story.html">Chicago Tribune</a>.
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Lori Lightfoot

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Blames Guns, Coronavirus For City’s Spike In Violence

Two children &#8212; a 7-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy &#8212; were among the more a dozen killed in Chicago this weekend, as the city suffers through its worst streak of gun violence in years.
Of the nearly 70 wounded in the city between Friday night and Sunday morning, nine were minors. Several were shot in two eight-plus victim mass shootings, both on the city&#8217;s south side, <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/7/5/21313171/fourth-july-weekend-chicago-gun-violence-homicide-shooting">according to the Chicago Sun-Times</a>, which has been tracking the city&#8217;s dramatic uptick in gun crime since late May, when Chicago began to release its coronavirus-related lockdown measures.
&#8220;A 14-year-old boy was among four people killed in a shooting that wounded four others Saturday night in Englewood on the South Side,&#8221; the outlet reported Sunday morning. &#8220;They were at a large gathering in the street about 11:35 p.m. in the 6100 block of South Carpenter Street when four males walked up and started shooting, according to Chicago police. The 14-year-old boy was hit in the back and pronounced dead at Comer Children’s Hospital.&#8221;
An 11-year-old and a 15-year-old were also wounded in that shooting, and three men were killed.
The 7-year-old girl, Natalie Wallace, was celebrating the Fourth of July with her family at her grandmother&#8217;s home when, in a similar fashion, &#8220;a vehicle pulled up and three men got out and started shooting indiscriminately,&#8221; according <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-erupts-in-july-4-gunfire-with-girl-7-and-boy-14-among-those-killed">to Fox News</a>.
&#8220;Three men got out of a white car and shot more than 20 rounds in the direction of the people holding the party,&#8221; the Sun-Times added, noting that a 32-year-old man was also injured in the fray.
&#8220;It was a family gathering so there was many kids. There were kids riding on bicycles enjoin the Fourth of July as they have should have been and now this child is gone,&#8221; a Chicago Police Department spokesperson told the local ABC News affiliate, <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shooting-4th-of-july-fourth-shootings/6299274/">ABC7 Chicago</a>.
In just five days, the month of July has seen 18 people shot and killed and more than 80 shot and wounded. Four children under the age of 10 have been killed in as many weeks, one, Sincere Gaston, a 20-month-old boy, was riding home with his mother from the laundromat when their car was ambushed by a gunman and he was killed.
Chicago Police detailed their plan to contain the violence, adding 1,200 officer shifts to the calendar across the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and announced a violence prevention board charged with identifying gun violence &#8220;hotspots&#8221; across the city and to &#8220;coordinate efforts between police and violence prevention group,&#8221; according to ABC7.
&#8220;The best way to reduce violence is to prevent it from happening,&#8221; Chicago police superintendent David Brown said Friday. &#8220;We will be targeting criminal networks that are the pipeline to violence in this city over this 4th of July weekend.&#8221;
&#8220;I will also have officers on foot patrols across our neighborhoods including the walking beat to get to know their neighborhood and residents and protecting them so they can celebrate safely,&#8221; Brown added.
It does not appear the efforts were enough to curb the shooting.
Chicago&#8217;s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, seemed at a loss for words Sunday.
“Tonight, a 7-year-old girl in Austin joined a list of teenagers and children whose hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun,” Lightfoot said on social media. “We cannot grow numb to this. We are making progress in slowing shootings, but we have to do better, every single one of us.”
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2020 Chicago Auto Show Media Preview &#8211; Day 1

Two More Childen Killed In Chicago Violence Spike, City Sees Two Mass Shootings In Under 24 Hours

A Florida sheriff says he will deputize legal gun owners to “to stand in the gap between lawlessness and civility” if violent rioters come to his county.
Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels released a video statement on Tuesday warning that the scenes of violent riots, burning shops and police cars, and toppled statues would not be replicated in Clay County. Daniels said that he and his deputies would defend activists’ right to protest but warned demonstrators against stepping “out from under the protection of the Constitution” to harm the community.
“We’ll be waiting on you and we’ll give you everything you want. All the publicity, all the pain, all the glamour, and glory, for all that five minutes will give you,” Daniels said while standing in front of a line of his deputies. “Is it a threat? Absolutely not, but somebody has to step up in front of the camera and say enough is enough. Tearing up Clay County? That’s not going to be acceptable.”
“If we can’t handle you, you know what I’ll do? I will exercise the power and authority as a sheriff and I will make special deputies of every lawful gun owner in this county, and I’ll deputize them for this one purpose: to stand in the gap between lawlessness and civility. That’s what we’re sworn to do, and that’s what we’re going to do. You’ve been warned,” Daniels concluded.
The sheriff also criticized the media and Black Lives Matter for “making themselves a spectacle” and pushing a divisive and disruptive message that lacks &#8220;God.&#8221;
George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody on May 25 sparked protests against police brutality and perceived systemic racism among police departments across the country, many of which ultimately became riots.
The protests reignited a debate over the place of Confederate monuments and symbols on public property. Rioters have taken advantage of anger against Confederate symbols to justify vandalism and destruction against a wide array of public monuments including those to Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Catholic St. Junipero Serra, and Union general and former President Ulysses S. Grant.
In cities such as Seattle, Washington, D.C., and New York City, activists have set up protest zones meant to bar law enforcement from certain areas. In Seattle, city officials left the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” zone in place for weeks until the area suffered a string of fatal shootings.
<iframe title="Sheriff Daniels speaks on who we are as a people" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/25-10yKyKuI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Read Daniels’ remarks in full:
<blockquote>Hey, folks. Me and the men and women of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office just want to weigh in on what we are seeing going on played out across the media, or mainstream media in this country. Look, folks. Don’t fall victim to subjecting yourself to this conversation that law enforcement is bad, that law enforcement is the enemy of the citizens that we are sworn to protect and serve. We swore and oath, and in that oath we swore to support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the government, and that we are duly qualified under the state’s constitution to hold office. That is for me as a sheriff and for these men and women as deputy sheriffs, and we end that with “so help me, God.” But God is absent from the media’s message or Black Lives Matter or any other group out there that’s making themselves a spectacle, disrupting what we know to be our quality of life in this country. In Clay County, we know we have a great quality of life. We have a great relationship with out community. But across this country, not so much. I just wanted to take a stand with these men and with these women who feel the same way that I do. Lawlessness, that’s unacceptable in this country. Lawlessness, that’s unacceptable in Clay County, and if you threaten to come to Clay County and think that for one second that we’ll bend our backs for you, you’re sadly mistaken. I know what happens when lawlessness prevails. And in this day and time, God is raising up men and women just like the folks you see standing behind me who will have strong backbones and will stand in the gap between lawlessness and the good citizenry that we are sworn to protect and serve. So you can threaten all you want. You can say, ‘Hey, let’s go to Clay County’ or let’s go to some other peaceful county where their problems don’t exist or not so much like across this country, where relationships are great and not strained, and where the people support their sheriff and support the men and women who wear the uniform, and you’ll have something waiting on you that you don’t want. Yes, we’ll protect your constitutional rights as long as you remain under the umbrella of peaceful protest or peaceful march, but the second that you step out from under the protection of the Constitution, we’ll be waiting on you and we’ll give you everything you want. All the publicity, all the pain, all the glamour and glory, for all that five minutes will give you. Is it a threat? Absolutely not, but somebody has to step up in front of the camera and say enough is enough. Tearing up Clay County? That’s not going to be acceptable. And if we can’t handle you, you know what I’ll do? I will exercise the power and authority as a sheriff and I will make special deputies of every lawful gun owner in this county, and I’ll deputize them for this one purpose: to stand in the gap between lawlessness and civility. That’s what we’re sworn to do, and that’s what we’re going to do. You’ve been warned.</blockquote>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Capitol Hill Organized Protest

Florida Sheriff Says He’ll ‘Deputize Every Lawful Gun Owner In The County’ To Control Violent Protests

Florida

Riots

Gun sales have skyrocketed so dramatically that now some gun retailers are claiming they are nearly out of guns and ammunition.
In the wake of violent protests and looting across the nation, gun sales set a record nationwide for the month of June, <a href="https://freebeacon.com/issues/record-setting-gun-sales-could-leave-stores-dry/">The Washington Free Beacon</a> reports. On Wednesday, Small Arms Analytics &amp; Forecasting <a href="http://smallarmsanalytics.com/v1/pr/2020-07-01.pdf">released a study</a> showing over 2.3 million guns were sold in June, an increase of at least 145.3% compared to June 2019, short of the record 2.5 million in March, but far outstripping the estimated 1.7 million guns sold in May and 1.8 million in April.
The study stated, “Likely single handgun sales increased year-over-year by 177.5% whereas single long-gun sales increased year-over-year by 114.3%. All other likely background check-related sales increased year-over-year by 74%. This includes so-called ‘multiple sales’ where the allocation between handguns and long-guns cannot be determined from the data record.”
At the rate guns have sold in 2020, the final total of the year would set a record. Brandon Wexler, owner of Wex Gunworks in Delray Beach, Florida, told the Free Beacon, “Obama was the best gun sales in the country, they claimed. No, COVID-19 is.” He added, “Pretty much everything is out of stock. We have been doing it since the late ‘70s and have never seen literally no supply available. As of last week, at all major distributors you could not get any guns. Everything was literally sold out. Can’t even get hearing protection.”
“Our sales within just a few thousand dollars of doubling in June 2020 as compared to 2019. Popular guns and ammo SKUs have been sold out for some time and now it is becoming a challenge to keep anything in stock that is among the higher demand categories … things like handguns, home defense shotguns, AR/MSRs and the associated ammo, particularly 9mm,&#8221; Rex McClanahan, president of Bud’s Gun Shop echoed.
Windham Taylor, outreach manager for Ammo.com. added, “Things are not slowing down in the ammo world at all. Sales have continued to soar throughout June despite major shortages from nearly all suppliers due to the sustained demand from our customers. We are working hard to keep up with demand and will continue to provide the best customer support possible.&#8221;
McClanahan admitted, “Distributors and manufacturers are all struggling now, several months into this extremely high demand market. The current status of the supply chain is already overwhelmed with both no end to the current demand in sight … and a presidential election coming up in just four months.&#8221;
After the gun sales were reported in May, Mark Oliva, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry&#8217;s trade group, <a href="https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/three-months-6-million-guns-sold/">noted</a>, &#8220;Our recent survey of firearm retailers shows us that 40 percent of these gun buyers are buying a firearm for the first time. Of those first-time gun owners, 40 percent are women and these buyers are overwhelmingly purchasing handguns for personal protection.&#8221; 
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers with the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

US-HEALTH-VIRUS-GUNS

In Wake Of Protests, Gun Sales So High Retailers Running Out Of Guns And Ammo, Report Says

protests

Horace Lorenzo Anderson, the father of a 19-year-old black teen shot and killed inside Seattle&#8217;s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) is speaking out and demanding the city bring in the National Guard to help break up the increasingly violent protest, now in its third week.
Horace Lorenzo Anderson, Jr., was the first person killed in CHOP, more than a week ago, during an outbreak of gun violence inside of the &#8220;autonomous zone.&#8221;
Anderson&#8217;s father, Anderson, Sr., spoke late Monday, after another black teen, this time a 16-year old, was killed in the CHOP over the weekend, and a 14-year-old left wounded.
&#8220;I ain&#8217;t been sleeping. You see my eyes. I&#8217;ve been crying. I&#8217;m trying not to cry on TV,&#8221; Anderson said in the Monday press conference, according to <a href="https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/second-deadly-shooting-prompts-louder-calls-dismantle-seattle-protest-zone/SFVT6IWU2ZBTRE5FGDW7VPKB54/">KIRO Seattle</a>.
&#8220;This doesn&#8217;t look like a protest to me no more,&#8221; said Anderson. &#8220;That just looks like they just took over and said we can take over whenever we want to.&#8221;
Since last week, at least two people have been killed and several others wounded in CHOP gun violence. And although Seattle&#8217;s mayor Jenny Durkan has pledged to bring an end to the demonstration, which is occupying six square blocks of Seattle&#8217;s Capitol Hill neighborhood, including the Seattle Police Department&#8217;s East Precinct, many believe Durkan is sympathetic to the plight of protesters and reticent to use force.
Anderson, to the contrary, says that if the city cannot break up the protest alone, officials should bring in the National Guard.
&#8220;They should deployed them here to say &#8216;Man, it&#8217;s time to go,'&#8221; Anderson said. &#8221; &#8216;It&#8217;s time to move on. And break this up.'&#8221;
Seattle Chief Carmen Best, also present at the press conference, challenged the mayor to assist the police in moving the demonstration out.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to let the detractors and the naysayers and the agitators be the ones that are the voice here,&#8221; she said of the Capitol Hill situation as protesters jeered her from afar. &#8220;There are people who live here. There are multiple people who are being injured and hurt. And we need to do something about it. It is absolutely irresponsible for this discontent to continue.&#8221;
So far, though, KIRO reports, the mayor has done little but issue strongly-worded pleas for protesters to vacate Capitol Hill and promising city social services to those who have nowhere else to go or are suffering from addiction or mental health issues.
A federal lawsuit, filed against the city of Seattle last week by long-term Capitol Hill residents and small business owners, alleges that the city has deliberately allowed CHOP &#8212; and its inherent lawlessness &#8212; to flourish.
For their part, protesters say they have no plans to leave, even though CHOP&#8217;s leadership has called for a transition to &#8220;virtual activism.&#8221; On Friday, the city&#8217;s public works department tried to remove signs marking CHOP&#8217;s borders but were turned away by angry demonstrators who even staged a &#8220;die-in&#8221; to block construction equipment from moving concrete barriers.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers with the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Seattle CHOP

Father Of Black Teen Killed In CHOP: It’s Time To Bring In The National Guard

CHOP

National Guard

Violence

Chicago&#8217;s police chief announced late Monday that the city will deploy 1,200 additional police officers to &#8220;hot zones&#8221; experiencing an increase in violence, in hopes of containing a wave of shootings that has left dozens dead &#8212; including at least 10 children &#8212; and hundreds wounded.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown announced that officers will work additional shifts from Thursday until Sunday and focus on controlling violence on the city&#8217;s south and west sides over the holiday weekend. The department will also be working proactively to control crowds gathering in violent areas before shooting breaks out.
“We’ll be deployed throughout our hotspots, we’ll be working with city services, we’re engaging our violence interrupters, and so it’s a full-court press,” Brown said. “Our endgame is arrests for the precursors to violence, so every day we’re going to be clearing corners.”
Brown blamed the city&#8217;s spike in violence on &#8220;open-air drug markets&#8221; and gangs taking advantage of ongoing anti-racism protests to increase activity, recruiting younger members, and increasing street-level drug operations.
“It’s an evil methodology. It’s why they’re on the corners because it protects the masterminds,” Brown said. “They are there because there’s no opportunity in their neighborhood. They are there because of the failures, and many other social service opportunities are just not available to them, but that’s why they’re there; to feed their families. It’s a bad choice.”
The increase in police presence will require officers to work overtime hours, Brown said. It&#8217;s something that the city has avoided over the last several weekends after forcing cops to work overtime to handle protests and rioting in the wake of George Floyd&#8217;s death on Memorial Day.
Chicago, though, has experienced a shocking increase in gun violence since the city lifted its coronavirus-related lockdown. Beginning in May, when the city set a record for the most people shot in a single weekend since 2016, hundreds of individuals have been shot and dozens have died. Over the course of the last week, six children have been shot and two killed, including a 20-month-old boy and a 10-year-old girl.
The week before, a 3-year-old boy was shot and killed.
Last weekend alone, <a href="https://fox6now.com/2020/06/29/4-children-shot-18-people-dead-47-wounded-in-weekend-violence-in-chicago/">Chicago&#8217;s Fox affiliate reports</a>, 65 people were shot and 18 people were killed. Overall, since January of 2020, 300 people have been killed by gun violence in the city &#8212; a grim milestone that, in 2019, took until August to reach.
Chicago&#8217;s mayor Lori Lightfoot addressed the violence in a press conference Monday afternoon.
“The last two Mondays, I’ve woken up with an incredible sense of dread, incredible feeling of despair, because of the weekend violence,” she said. “This can’t be who we are, as a city.&#8221;
So far, Lightfoot has resisted President Donald Trump&#8217;s offers to allow Federal agencies to assist in Chicago&#8217;s violence control, but that resistance seems to be thawing.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers with the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Chicago Police Will Deploy 1,200 Extra Officers To Control Violence Over July 4th Weekend

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is up to his old tricks again. This time he crashed a gun rights event in Washington, where he posed as a racist country singer, getting some of the crowd to sing along before it reportedly &#8220;turned on him&#8221; and his security whisked him away.
According to <a href="https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/sacha-baron-cohen-prank-rally-who-is-america-1234692557/">Variety</a>, Cohen infiltrated the event &#8220;March for Our Rights 3&#8221; headed by the organization Washington Three Percenters — a pro-gun rights group that has been widely described as an &#8220;anti-government right-wing militia,&#8221; a label the group <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/805949683/-not-a-paramilitary-inside-a-washington-militias-efforts-to-go-mainstream">rejects</a> — where he sang a racist song before the crowd after posing as a country musician.
&#8220;According to social media posts from the event’s organizers, Baron Cohen disguised himself as the leader of a political action committee who wanted to sponsor the rally,&#8221; reported Variety. &#8220;He brought his own security team who prevented organizers from kicking him off stage once he began singing and turning off the power to his microphone.&#8221;
Once the actor took the stage, he performed a song while having members of the crowd repeat the overtly racist lyrics back to him. The song focused on &#8220;injecting Obama, Clinton and Fauci with the &#8216;Wuhan flu&#8217; and chopping up members of the World Health Organization &#8216;like the Saudis do.'&#8221;
“Obama, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu. Hillary Clinton, what we gonna do? Lock her up like we used to do. Fauci don’t know his head from his a**. He must be smoking grass. I ain’t lying, it ain’t no jokes. Corona is a liberal hoax. Dr. Fauci, what we gonna do? Inject him with the Wuhan flu. WHO, what we gonna do? Chop ’em up like the Saudis do,” Baron Cohen sang.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Sacha Baron Cohen infiltrated the Washington militia event in Olympia today.
A last-minute big donor paid to sponsor the event, and hire security &amp; then that security kept the organizers from getting on stage to stop Cohen
&quot;Whatcha gonna do? Chop em up like the Saudis do&quot;.
😂 <a href="https://t.co/qnYMNYLv1l">pic.twitter.com/qnYMNYLv1l</a>
&mdash; Justice for Floyd ➡️ I Can&#39;t Breathe (@InsideASCIF) <a href="https://twitter.com/InsideASCIF/status/1277102477658161153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Exactly what Baron Cohen was performing the prank for has not yet been confirmed. Speculation suggests it may have been for his Showtime program &#8220;Who Is America?&#8221; which has lampooned people to the right-of-center.
In a statement, James Connor Blair, a Councilman in Yelm, Washington, described how the stunt unfolded, ending with Baron Cohen escaping in a private ambulance.
&#8220;Sacha Baron Cohen pulled  A bulls**t stunt at the &#8216;March for Our Rights 3&#8217; event. Disguised as a PAC out of Southern California, paid for the stage set up and musical entertainment,&#8221; said Blair in the statement. &#8220;Came on stage disguised as the lead singer of the last band, singing much of racist, hateful, disgusting as s**t. His security blocked event organizers from getting him off the stage or pulling power from the generator. After the crowd realized what he was saying, and turned on him, his security then rushed the stage and evacuated them to a waiting private ambulance that was contracted to be their escape transport. It was a setup, and smack in the face of the great people who put on this event, including Allen Acosta, Tessa Ashley, and Matt Marshall disgusted with what Sacha did off of the bulls**t stunt.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Holy shit 😂
Sacha Baron Cohen infiltrated the Washington 3% (local rightwing militia) event in Olympia a few minutes ago. A last-minute big donor paid to sponsor the event, and hire security&#8230; And then that security kept the organizers from getting on stage to stop Cohen. 😂 <a href="https://t.co/mllLkKBcpZ">pic.twitter.com/mllLkKBcpZ</a>
&mdash; Spek (@spekulation) <a href="https://twitter.com/spekulation/status/1277022446512570368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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In February, NPR produced a profile piece on the Washington Three Percenters&#8217; &#8220;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/805949683/-not-a-paramilitary-inside-a-washington-militias-efforts-to-go-mainstream">efforts to go mainstream</a>.&#8221; The group, NPR reported, is &#8220;part of the broader &#8216;<a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/glossary-terms/patriot-movement">Patriot Movement</a>,&#8217; an assortment of militias, survivalists and self-described &#8216;<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2019/01/28/toward-a-constitutional-conservatism/">constitutionalist conservatives</a>&#8216; that question the legitimacy of the federal government and seek to limit its powers. Typically, these factions get lumped together under one catchall: anti-government extremists.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re absolutely not a paramilitary. We&#8217;re a nonprofit corporation,&#8221; the group&#8217;s leader, Matt Marshall, told NPR. &#8220;The narrative is, we&#8217;re an all-white man, Christian Dominion-type, crazy, out-there, far-right militia,&#8221; he said. Marshall has &#8220;set about changing that image,&#8221; NPR reported, including by breaking with the national Three Percent organization. &#8220;We&#8217;re stuck in the middle. The true neo-Nazis hate us, which they should because we hate them too,&#8221; Marshall said. &#8220;And the far left, who we don&#8217;t have any problems with, hate us because they believe that we&#8217;re neo-Nazis.&#8221; (<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/14/805949683/-not-a-paramilitary-inside-a-washington-militias-efforts-to-go-mainstream">Read the full NPR profile here</a>.)
This article has been expanded to include excerpts from NPR&#8217;s profile on the group.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.
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NBC&#8217;s &#8220;77th Annual Golden Globe Awards&#8221; &#8211; Red Carpet Arrivals

Sacha Baron Cohen Crashed Pro-Gun Event Posing As Racist Country Singer Before Crowd ‘Turned On Him’

Sacha Baron Cohen

A 1-year-old boy and his mother were among the dozens shot and at least 7 killed in Chicago on Saturday as the city suffers from another weekend of violence &#8212; the latest in a string of deadly weekends.
The pair, <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/06/27/20-month-old-boy-shot-englewood-60th-halsted/">CBS News Chicago reports</a>, were shot while driving home from a local laundromat in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago&#8217;s south side. The boy&#8217;s mother was grazed by a bullet, but the child was shot in the chest and died at a local hospital.
Three other children were among the 46 people shot so far this weekend, <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/28/21305237/chicago-weekend-shootings-gun-violence-june-26-29-2020">according to the Chicago-Sun Times</a>. In addition to the 1-year-old, a 10-year-old girl was killed Friday night when a bullet entered her home on Chicago&#8217;s northwest side, a 17-year-old teen was killed after an altercation on the city&#8217;s west side, and an 8-year-old girl was &#8220;grazed by a bullet&#8221; in her home in Englewood.
The 1-year-old boy is the youngest victim of Chicago&#8217;s early summer violence, but at least two other toddlers, both around 3 years old, were shot in the last week. One of the 3-year-olds was killed. Police have offered a substantial reward for information leading to that boy&#8217;s killer, but so far the Chicago Police Department has not received any credible tips, they say.
A 9-year-old and a 5-year-old are also among the week&#8217;s shooting victims.
Chicago&#8217;s Police Chief of Operations Fred Waller announced the young boy&#8217;s death at a press conference on Saturday.
&#8220;It seems like just yesterday, it was actually last Saturday, I was in front of you all talking about a 3-year-old that was killed in the Austin community, and now, here in Englewood, a 20-month-old was killed,” he said. “This is happening far too often. Too many times children are killed by senseless violence, and not only just children but grown-ups also. When is this going to stop? When are we going to say enough is enough?”
&#8220;This baby, and all of our residents, deserve better,&#8221; Chicago&#8217;s police superintendent, David Brown, added Saturday night.  &#8220;For the sake of Chicago’s children, please come forward to help bring the trigger pullers to justice.&#8221;
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot issued her pleas in a Twitter stream.
&#8220;It&#8217;s on all of us to double down on our all-hands-on-deck public safety efforts with police officers, street outreach teams, trauma support workers, community and faith-based partners. We must ask ourselves: &#8220;What are we each doing to make this a season of bounty, not tragedy?&#8221; she said on social media. &#8220;We all have a role in this fight for the safety of our communities. I ask that anyone with information on these incidents please come forward or submit a tip anonymously at <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" title="http://cpdtip.com" role="link" href="https://t.co/Tt6O9g49ZD?amp=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-focusable="true">http://cpdtip.com</a>.&#8221;
Crime is down overall in the city of Chicago, largely the result of coronavirus-related lockdowns that kept many residents inside from March until May, but shootings are up. The last weekend in May, Chicago saw its bloodiest weekend in years &#8212; the worst since the city hit a crime peak in 2016 &#8212; and just last weekend, more than 100 people were shot. At least 15 people were killed.
Late last week, President Donald Trump warned Chicago&#8217;s city government that he could be forced to intervene if the city cannot quell its streak of gun violence. Lightfoot fired back at the president on Twitter, but that was before the weekend&#8217;s shooting numbers began to materialize.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Three Children, Including 1 Year Old, Killed In Chicago As Violence Spikes In City

Chicago saw a very violent Father&#8217;s Day weekend, with more than 100 people shot and at least 14 killed, including five children, the <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/6/20/21297470/chicago-fathers-day-weekend-shootings-homicide-gun-violence-june-19-22-104-shot">Chicago Sun-Times reports</a>.
The number of shootings makes last weekend the most violent weekend of 2020 for the midwestern metropolis, but hardly its deadliest. The last weekend of May saw more than 20 people killed but only 85 people were shot.
The youngest victim of the weekend&#8217;s violence was just three years old.
&#8220;A 3-year-old boy was fatally wounded when someone opened fire at his father while they were driving in [Chicago&#8217;s Austin neighborhood],&#8221; the Sun-Times says. &#8220;The toddler, identified as Mekay James, was struck in the back about 6:25 p.m. when someone in a blue Honda pulled behind the black SUV the boy’s 27-year-old father was driving in the 600 block of North Central Avenue and fired several rounds, authorities said.&#8221;
The police believe Mekay&#8217;s father was the intended target of the shooting.
Four other minors were killed, including two teenage boys, who were shot in an alley on the city&#8217;s south side, and a teenage girl, who was shot in the neck while sitting in the front room of her home.
In total, 12 minors were among the 104 people shot.
Chicago has seen a marked uptick in violence since allowing coronavirus-related lockdowns to expire and moving into &#8220;Phase 1&#8221; of reopening the city. Parts of the city, though, are seeing some of the worst gun violence in years, with dozens being shot each weekend &#8212; often more than in any year since 2012 when the city reached a peak.
The city&#8217;s police superintendent, David Brown, did his best to address the issue Sunday, promising to quell the rising tide of gun violence &#8212; and particularly gang-related gun violence &#8212; on the city&#8217;s south and west sides.
“Tears are a natural reaction to these tragic stories of violence. But we need to do more than just cry,” Brown said at a press conference, according to <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/06/22/on-violent-weekend-that-saw-3-year-old-3-teens-killed-in-chicago-supt-brown-says-violent-offenders-are-not-being-monitored-and-methods-must-change/">CBS Chicago</a>. “Let’s keep violent offenders in jail longer, and let’s revamp the home monitoring system. It’s not working.”
Meanwhile, though, Chicago has become a target city for the &#8220;Defund the Police&#8221; movement and a number of demonstrations are demanding Chicago&#8217;s mayor Lori Lightfoot shift funding away from the city&#8217;s law enforcement agencies and better finance social services, anti-poverty, and mental health programs. At least two aldermen, members of the Chicago City Council, have proposed near-complete defunding of Chicago&#8217;s cops, <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2020/6/16/21293344/chicago-city-council-defund-police-department-covid-stimulus-funds">per the Sun-Times</a>.
Chicago is not alone in being both a target of anti-police agitators and a hotbed of violence. Minneapolis had a mass shooting over the weekend, which left 1 dead and at least 11 injured. Seattle, home to the &#8220;Capitol Hill Organized Protest,&#8221; or CHOP, also saw a deadly incident of gun violence late last week, followed by two more shootings over the weekend.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Chicago Police

104 Shot, 14 Killed In Chicago Weekend Violence; Other ‘Defund The Police’ Target Cities See Major Gun Crime Incidents

That&#8217;s all, folks. The upcoming &#8220;Looney Tunes&#8221; reboot on HBO Max will be implementing a progressive update: stripping the characters Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam of their guns.
&#8220;Warner Bros is stripping Elmer Fudd of his rifle in a new Looney Tunes cartoon series on HBO Max, handicapping the grumpy hunter as he continues his decades-long pursuit of the wise-cracking Bugs Bunny,&#8221; reports <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/06/07/elmer-fudd-stripped-of-rifle-in-new-looney-toons-cartoon-series/">New York Post</a>. &#8220;The change in the latest incarnation of the iconic animated series is a response to the gun violence in the US.&#8221;
The original &#8220;Looney Tunes&#8221; cartoon regularly featured Elmer Fudd hunting Bugs Bunny with a rifle only to be outsmarted by his bag of tricks every time. Beyond Elmer Fudd, the show contained plenty of cartoon violence, from Wile E. Coyote&#8217;s skirmishes with the Road Runner to Speedy Gonzales escaping the clutches of Sylvester the Cat.
Speaking with The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/arts/television/looney-tunes-hbo-max.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">New York Times</a>, executive producer Peter Browngardt said that the show will still feature plenty of cartoon violence sans guns.
“We’re not doing guns,” said Browngardt. “But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All of that was kind of grandfathered in.”
Elmer Fudd will instead hunt Bugs Bunny with a scythe because <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=scythe&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS837US837&amp;sxsrf=ALeKk032dbYtVnbtBPgs-2r4DI8TU3UPNA:1591560817731&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwj9jreJwvDpAhXSrZ4KHfavCYkQ_AUoAXoECBIQAw&amp;biw=1313&amp;bih=674#imgrc=BpFBINZEOuiqHM">that weapon</a> is somehow less scary or threatening than a gun.
However, despite the absence of guns, that does not mean “Looney Tunes” will be losing its edge. After all, this is “Looney Toons,” not Mickey Mouse.
&#8220;The 200 new cartoons, which will feature other Looney Toons ‘stars,’ will still have an edge — Porky Pig sucks the poison out of Daffy Duck’s leg in one skit, Sylvester the Cat is haunted by the ghost of his traditional target, Tweety Bird, and Satan even makes a cameo in one toon,&#8221; reported the New York Post.
Executive producer Peter Browngardt said that some episodes may be a bit too racy for today&#8217;s political climate.
“Some of them have maybe gone a little too far, so they might come out in a different format,” Browngardt told The New York Times. “We’re going through this wave of anti-bullying, everybody needs to be friends, everybody needs to get along. Looney Toons is pretty much the antithesis of that. It’s two characters in conflict, sometimes getting pretty violent.”
The original &#8220;Looney Tunes&#8221; has been subject to criticism throughout the decades for its depiction of racial and ethnic minorities. On the Golden Collection DVDs released between 2003 and 2008, actress Whoopi Goldberg, a longtime fan of the cartoons, said in her introduction to the series that even though those jokes were wrong and offensive, they should not be erased from history.
“Some of the cartoons here reflect some of the prejudices that were commonplace in American society, especially when it came to the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities,&#8221;<a href="https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/first-act-disney-legend-whoopi-goldberg-tells-disney-stop-hiding-history-152327.html"> she said</a>. &#8220;These jokes were wrong then and they are wrong today, but removing these inexcusable images and jokes would be the same as saying they never existed, so they are presented here to accurately reflect a part of our history that cannot and should not be ignored.&#8221;
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Elmer

Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam Will Not Use Guns In ‘Looney Tunes’ Reboot

HBO Max

Hollywood

Looney Tunes

First a pandemic lockdown, then race riots in the streets.
The current state of affairs in America has led to record sales of guns.
Small Arms Analytics &amp; Forecasting (SAAF) &#8220;estimates May 2020 U.S. firearms unit sales at 1,726,053 units, a year-over-year increase of 80.2% from May 2019,&#8221; the private research firm said in a <a href="https://smallarmsanalytics.com/v1/pr/2020-06-02.pdf">press release</a>. &#8220;Likely single handgun sales (1,052,723) increased year-over-year by 94.0% whereas single long-gun sales (535,014) increased year-over-year by 66.3%. All other likely background check-related sales (138,316) increased year-over-year by 48.2%. This includes so-called “multiple” sales where the allocation between handguns and long-guns cannot be determined from the data record.&#8221;
The rise in May followed another surge in April, which rose 71.3% over April 2019, with another 1.7 million firearms purchased. March also saw soaring numbers, 2,583,238 firearms sold — 85.3% more than the previous year, according to SAAF data.
&#8220;Yet again, firearms sales have surged in unprecedented ways,&#8221; said SAAF Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer. &#8220;In May 2020, very nearly two handguns were sold for every long-gun, pushing their ratio new record of 1.97. Traditionally, the ratio increases in the first half of the year before dropping off in the second half. Still, the boom in handgun sales has been particularly noticeable in recent months.”
Gun checks have also been soaring. More than 3 million checks were run through the FBI’s national instant check system in May, a record and 32% above from May 2019. The week of April 13-19 was in the 10 highest weeks since the tracking system was set up in November 1998. During that week in April, the FBI conducted 766,739 checks.
&#8220;This shows us there is continued appetite among Americans to be able to provide for their own safety during times of uncertainty,&#8221; said Mark Oliva, a spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, whose organization found the numbers rose by 69.1% in April. &#8220;These are buyers who have witnessed their governments empty prisons&#8230; Police departments are stretched beyond capacity in many cases. Law-abiding Americans recognize this and exercising their right to own a gun and defend themselves and their loved ones,&#8221; he told <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/gun-sales-coronavirus-spiked-april">Fox Business</a>.
Dana Loesch, former spokesman for the National Rifle Association, told <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/gun-sales-may-record-coronavirus-riots">Fox Business</a> on Tuesday she was “not at all” surprised to hear the numbers.
“When people see the violence that they see on television – and people understand the difference between peaceful protesters and violent rioters – they see, you know, the sunset and then the fires start, and see the assaults and the looting and the breaking and destruction of private property,” Loesch said. “So they look at this and it unnerves them, especially after we&#8217;ve all been locked up for, like, three months.&#8221;
“This is people&#8217;s livelihoods. For some people, their lives are over when they lose their ability to make ends meet,” she said. “These aren&#8217;t rich corporation heads that are feeling the brunt of this.”
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Pointed gun

Gun Sales In May Hit Record — Again

Coronavirus

Economy

Chicago saw its deadliest Memorial Day weekend in years this weekend, even though a coronavirus-related lockdown is still in effect and will continue to be in effect until the end of May.
Gun violence typically ticks up in the city as the weather warms up, and Memorial Day weekend is often the start of a brutal and violent summer, tinged with gang violence on Chicago&#8217;s south and west sides. This year has been no exception; <a href="https://news.wttw.com/2020/04/01/police-homicides-increase-total-crime-down-chicago">according to public television station WTTW</a>, homicides and gun violence are on the upswing in the city, even though most of the city&#8217;s recreational activities are shut down to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus and the city&#8217;s residents are under a strict stay-at-home order.
The <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2020/5/25/21268348/chicago-memorial-day-weekend-shootings-gun-violence-may-22-26">Chicago Sun-Times reports</a> that Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day weekend saw 9 people killed and 27 more injured in a rash of gun violence.
&#8220;Memorial Day weekend has seen at least 36 people shot so far across Chicago, nine of them fatally,&#8221; the Sun-Times reported early Monday. &#8220;The weekend’s death toll has already surpassed last Memorial Day weekend, during which seven people were killed and 34 others were injured.&#8221;
The dead include a 16-year-old named Darnell Fisher, who was shot in the chest and arm while outside Saturday night.
The city, which recently got a new chief of police, says its prepared to take on what is likely to be a violent summer, and &#8220;multiple city agencies Friday announced the opening of a &#8216;Summer Operations Center&#8217; in an effort to curb violence ahead of the holiday weekend.&#8221;
So far, though, despite their efforts, Chicago has seen the most people shot and killed on Memorial Day weekend since the same weekend in 2016, which set a record for violence with nearly 70 people shot, <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-memorial-day-weekend-chicago-shootings-2020-20200525-eczlkv7vhjfuznm4zevwndc3pe-story.html">per the Chicago Tribune</a>.
The weekend&#8217;s incidents are enough to leave Chicago&#8217;s violence prevention advocates concerned that the city is actually dealing with twin pandemics: one of COVID-19 and one of gun violence.
“It’s like a double whammy. We are catching it double. We have the virus and the violence to worry about,” one outreach worker told <a href="https://time.com/5818553/gun-violence-chicago-coronavirus/">TIME Magazine</a>. “It’s just an uphill battle.”
City lockdown orders have done little to curb the violence. In fact, TIME reports, while overall crime has ticked down during the coronavirus pandemic, gun violence has actually ticked up in recent weeks, besting even last year&#8217;s non-lockdown numbers.
&#8220;In the week before the stay-at-home order was announced, 25 shootings were recorded in Chicago,&#8221; the magazine said in late April. &#8220;In the first week since, there were 41 shootings; in the second week, there were 40. (In 2019, the same period — March 30 to April 5 — saw 28 shootings.)&#8221;
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot cautioned on Friday that if conditions in Chicago do not improve, the lockdown will continue past May 28, the deadline given by Illinois&#8217; Democrat governor J.B. Pritzker for the state to move into &#8220;Phase 3,&#8221; where most restaurants and retail outlets can resume service.

Chicago Sees Deadliest Memorial Day Weekend In Years Amid Coronavirus Lockdown

Shannon Watts, founder of anti-gun rights group Moms Demand Action, shared a photo last week in an attempt to hurt the campaign of Nick Frietas, a Republican running for congress in Virginia.
The Washington Free Beacon <a href="https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/gun-control-activist-deploys-fake-photo-to-attack-va-republican/">reported</a> that Watts posted a tweet with the photo on Thursday, but has since deleted the image after it was proven to be a fake.
“Freitas, an Army veteran, is running to unseat freshman representative Abigail Spanberger (D., Va.), who is backed by prominent gun-control groups, including Moms Demand Action. Watts, who founded the group in 2012, falsely accused Freitas of promoting a t-shirt that bears the Moms Demand Action logo, but features stick figures engaged in various acts of sexual congress and depravity. The Thursday tweet, which Watts has since deleted, included a fundraising plea in support of Spanberger,” the Free Beacon reported.
Freitas called out Watts, saying she engaged in the “politics of slander” to help her preferred candidate.
&#8220;Not only is this ‘tweet&#8217; verifiably fake, but she used it to slander my wife,&#8221; Freitas tweeted in response. &#8220;If they can&#8217;t win on issues, they engage in the politics of slander + personal destruction.&#8221; He went on to ask Spanberger if she stood behind the &#8220;lies your allies @MomsDemand are spreading to raise money for you.&#8221;
The T-Shirt Watts alleged Freitas wore in the photo does exist, but it was designed in April 2019, while the photo shared by Watts was allegedly taken on August 30, 2016, the Free Beacon reported. The shirt was created by Jill McDaniel, who founded the Second Amendment rights group Mom-At-Arms.
“According to founder Jill McDaniel, the group looked to ‘troll’ Watts by sharing photos of the shirts paired with messages of support toward Moms Demand Action. The tactic proved successful—both Watts and Democratic Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto liked and retweeted posts featuring the shirt in August and November 2019, respectively,” the Free Beacon reported.
The outlet further reported that in “December 2019, Moms Demand Action sent Mom-At-Arms&#8217;s t-shirt vendor a cease and desist letter for trademark infringement,” but “McDaniel said her group did not make the shirt available for purchase to the public and donated all profits made from the shirt, a total of $10.49, to the Virginia Citizens Defense League.”
Freitas, a former Green Beret and current Virginia delegate, is looking to unseat Spanberger, who defeated Rep. Dave Brat in 2018, becoming the first Democrat to hold the seat since 1971.
“Her seat is now a top target for Republicans looking to gain control of the House. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report changed its rating of the race from ‘lean Democratic’ to ‘toss-up’ in February, citing Freitas&#8217;s candidacy and Spanberger&#8217;s vote to impeach President Donald Trump,” the Free Beacon reported.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Shannon Watts

Gun-Control Activist Posted Photo Of Republican Candidate Wearing Offensive Shirt. The Photo Was Fake.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week that, in the wake of the largest mass shooting in Canada&#8217;s history, the Liberal government would be unilaterally outlawing at least 1,500 &#8220;assault-style&#8221; firearms, &#8220;effective immediately,&#8221; including, it now seems, shotguns, hunting rifles, airsoft guns, and even gun-related websites.
Assault weapons have been banned in Canada since the late 1970s, but back in late April, a Nova Scotia man, disguised as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, went on a thirty-mile rampage using &#8220;assault-style&#8221; weapons to murder at least 22 people, including his longtime girlfriend.
In a speech last week, Trudeau &#8220;announced the ban of over 1,500 models and variants of assault-style firearms, including two guns used by the gunman as well as the AR-15 and other weapons that have been used in a number of mass shootings in the United States,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2020/05/in-the-aftermath-of-shooting-that-kills-22-canada-bans-sale-of-assault-style-weapons.html">Associated Press</a>.
Canada has no Second Amendment, so the government can ban weapons without running afoul of enumerated Constitutional rights. But it seems Canadian government officials weren&#8217;t particularly clear &#8212; or were intentionally vague &#8212; about the definition of an &#8220;assault weapon&#8221; and, according to <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/read-the-full-list-of-military-style-guns-now-banned-in-canada#comments-area">a list published Monday</a>, the list of banned guns includes 10- and 12-gauge shotguns &#8212; a necessity for hunting in many of Canada&#8217;s more remote locales &#8212; hunting rifles, a BB gun, and even the website AR15.com.
&#8220;The Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA) and the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (CSSA) said their legal experts have concluded Public Safety Minister Bill Blair &#8216;banned almost every modern 12-gauge and 10-gauge shotgun in Canada with removable chokes because they exceed the maximum bore diameter of 20 mm,'&#8221; Canadian conservative website, the <a href="https://www.westernstandardonline.com/2020/05/gun-groups-warn-liberals-have-made-common-hunting-rifles-illegal/">Western Standard reported</a>.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister Bill Blair looked Canadian gun owners in the eye last Friday and said they would not take guns suitable for hunting away from us,” CSAAA said in a statement, adding that millions of these &#8220;common hunting firearms&#8221; are in Canadian homes, making hunters &#8212; including hunters who must kill animals to survive &#8212; criminals under Canadian law.
The group also said that &#8220;many large bore hunting rifles – some more than 100 years old and valued at more than $100,000 have become prohibited,&#8221; even none of the guns in question are &#8220;semi-automatic,&#8221; or &#8220;military style.&#8221;
The list also bans <a href="https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Arfcom-banned-in-Canada/5-2323970/?fbclid=IwAR1Xn9Iy5sNZQCQIiPeCEryZLA23ubH8MLqSoLrqakCm2xX4Xq7Z25bnV8M">AR15.com</a>, a gun owners&#8217; forum, and airsoft rifles that bear a strong resemblance to &#8220;military style&#8221; weapons, including the <a href="https://twitter.com/donkeychucker2/status/1257493807265992707">Blackwater BW-15 Carbine, a BB gun</a>.
To be fair, the list also bans missile launchers, rocket launchers, and any military style artillery, in case those weren&#8217;t already illegal under Canadian law.
It took no more than two days for Canada&#8217;s gun laws to target the wrong person, as well. A woman, dressed up as a Stormtrooper for a Star Wars-themed &#8220;May the 4th&#8221; promotion, was tackled to the ground and arrested over her toy blaster gun after an onlooker reported a person with a &#8220;weapon&#8221; to local law enforcement. <a href="https://globalnews.ca/video/6908239/woman-in-star-wars-stormtrooper-costume-arrested-by-lethbridge-police-on-may-4th">GlobalNews.ca</a> reports that the Alberta government is looking into whether the police, in that case, used excessive force.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

shotgun

Canada’s New Assault Weapons Ban Also Bans Shotguns, Hunting Rifles, BB Guns, And A Website

Canada

Gun Control

Gun Laws

Justin Trudeau

In a video that has gone viral, police in Lethbridge, Alberta, can be seen converging on, surrounding, with weapons drawn, and handcuffing a woman dressed as a stormtrooper in celebration of May the Fourth after they received multiple &#8220;firearms&#8221; complaints over the woman&#8217;s obviously fake, plastic Star Wars blaster. Video of the arrest shows the woman crying hysterically while her boss tells police, &#8220;It&#8217;s a plastic gun!&#8221;
A &#8220;May the Fourth Be With You&#8221; promo by Coco Vanilla Galactic Cantina quickly escalated into an alarming situation, owner Bradley Whalen told <a href="https://lethbridgenewsnow.com/2020/05/04/star-wars-day-promotion-goes-awry-after-lps-arrests-employee-in-stormtrooper-costume/">Lethbridge News Now</a> on Monday.
&#8220;We had music playing in the parking lot, we had one of our staff dress up as a stormtrooper kind of waving to people walking up and down the road, we had people stopping by and getting pictures with the stormtrooper, we put a couple of promotions on in the restaurant to entice people to come,&#8221; Whalen told the outlet.
One of Whalen&#8217;s female employees got into full costume that morning with the plan to promote the restaurant and interact with passersby. One of those potential costumers filmed his interaction with the employee &#8212; then ended up catching the stunning police response to the harmless promotional stunt.
<div class="wpb_column vc_column_container ">
Whalen told LNN that he believes that some residents must have somehow mistaken the employee&#8217;s plastic blaster for a real gun and contacted police, a suspicion confirmed by Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) Inspector Jason Walper, who told LNN that the department received two &#8220;firearms&#8221; complaints directing them to the block where the stormtrooper-dressed employee was marching around.
The incident comes a few weeks after 22 people were killed in a mass shooting in Nova Scotia, prompting an <a href="https://abc7news.com/canada-mass-shootings-assault-weapons-rifle/6142967/">&#8220;assault-style weapons&#8221; ban</a> in the country.
&#8220;At approximately 11:20 am, three police cruisers arrived and a truck followed shortly after,&#8221; LNN reports.
“Police officers had guns drawn, pointed at my employee,&#8221; Whalen told LNN. &#8220;They were yelling at her to put the gun down so she threw the plastic gun on the ground. At that point in time when I came out, she was on her knees kneeling down on the ground. The police had already checked and seen that the gun was plastic so they already knew that there wasn’t an issue or a risk there.”
Though video shows that the &#8220;stormtrooper&#8221; indeed dropped her plastic blaster, Walper claims that she &#8220;did not comply with the police verbal directions,&#8221; only finally complying &#8220;after multiple repeated orders given by the police officers.”
“She kept yelling at them that she couldn’t kneel down because, in that stormtrooper costume, you can’t even sit down in it, like it’s impossible to sit down,&#8221; the restaurant owner told LNN. &#8220;She kept telling them that she couldn’t get down is what she explained to me after we talked to her. It wasn’t a matter of her not wanting to cooperate. She dropped the gun when they told her to and just forcing her, making her get down on the ground after they determined that she wasn’t a risk and that the gun wasn’t even a real gun, it was a plastic Star Wars blaster.”
The video shows the employee getting on her knees, at which point, the officer &#8220;pushed the individual down to the ground,&#8221; as Walper admitted, and handcuffed her.
&#8220;As a result of being pushed to the ground, the employee had a bloodied nose,&#8221; LNN reports. &#8220;Neither Whalen nor Walper could confirm if she had suffered any other injuries.&#8221;
The video captures the employee crying loudly as she is lying on the ground being handcuffed. LNN cites evidence of &#8220;blood stains on the concrete.&#8221;
Video of the incident has been posted on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=106&amp;v=zE0VEHkBtIA&amp;feature=emb_logo">YouTube</a> and spread on Twitter (warning: language):
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Unbelievable, just got video of this. *What the hell happened to common sense: Girl dressed up as a stormtrooper on may4th facing 3 cops with weapons drawn. You can hear her sobbing. I USED TO dress up with the 501st. Probably not anymore <a href="https://twitter.com/KinelRyan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KinelRyan</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DDayCobra?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DDayCobra</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FandomMenace?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FandomMenace</a> <a href="https://t.co/x2HrNLMtOL">https://t.co/x2HrNLMtOL</a> <a href="https://t.co/YrS9bBFJVn">pic.twitter.com/YrS9bBFJVn</a>
&mdash; X E V I U S S 💬 (@xeviuss) <a href="https://twitter.com/xeviuss/status/1257564952874774531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2020</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.  
</div>

Stormtrooper

WATCH: Canadian Police, Weapons Drawn, Arrest Woman In Stormtrooper Costume. She Had Plastic Blaster.

Star Wars

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is banning &#8220;military-grade assault weapons&#8221; after the country’s deadliest mass shooting last week.
A gunman disguised as a law enforcement officer killed 22 people in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia on April 19. The shooter was armed with two rifles and several handguns, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Darren Campbell said according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/canada-assault-weapons-ban-trudeau-nova-scotia-shooting">The Guardian</a>.
&#8220;These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time. There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada,&#8221; Trudeau said. &#8220;Effective immediately, it is no longer permitted to buy, sell, transport, import or use military-grade assault weapons in this country.&#8221;
Just one of the guns possessed by the shooter could be described as a &#8220;military-grade assault weapons,&#8221; according to Campbell. Law enforcement also said the new ban would likely not have stopped the shooter from getting the weapons, which he had likely obtained illegally from the United States and Canada.
Trudea said that gun owners would have two years to comply with the new law and that he would push parliament to approve a gun buyback program, a form of gun confiscation, to remove weapons outlawed under the law from Canadian society, according to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bj9y/canada-trudeau-just-banned-1500-military-grade-assault-style-weapons">Vice</a>.
Canada’s opposition party, led by MP Andrew Scheer, slammed the prime minister, accusing him of using a tragedy to support his agenda of gun control.
&#8220;Justin Trudeau is using the current pandemic and the immediate emotion of the horrific attack in Nova Scotia to push the Liberals’ ideological agenda to make major firearms policy changes. That is wrong,&#8221; Scheer said in a statement.
The Conservative leader said that Trudeau was attempting to override Parliaments authority with unilateral executive action, and the prime minister should wait until the current pandemic is dealt with and the RMCP has completed its investigation into the shooting before more action is taken.
&#8220;As the RCMP has made clear, the NS shooter did not have a firearms license, so all of his guns were illegal. Taking firearms away from law-abiding citizens does nothing to stop dangerous criminals who obtain their guns illegally,&#8221; Scheer said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Trudeau is using the current pandemic and the horrific attack in Nova Scotia to push his ideological agenda and make major firearms policy changes. That is wrong. The majority of gun crimes are committed with illegally obtained firearms. Nothing he announced addresses this. <a href="https://t.co/iolFcLWjwZ">pic.twitter.com/iolFcLWjwZ</a>
&mdash; Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewScheer/status/1256265627037315084?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Trudeau has led the Liberal party pushing for tougher gun restriction since his first campaign for prime minister in 2015. Then, he promised to enact tougher restrictions on what type of firearms are legal to own. In the most recent election in 2019, Trudeau escalated his rhetoric and promised to ban &#8220;military-style assault weapons.&#8221;
&#8220;As long as Canadians are losing their loved ones to gun violence, not enough has changed,&#8221; Trudeau said in September. &#8220;We know you do not need a military-grade assault weapon, one designed to kill the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time, to take down a deer.&#8221;
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Trudeau Bans ‘Military-Grade Assault Weapons’ After Mass Shooting, Pushes Confiscation

A federal judge has blocked a California law that required law-abiding residents to go through a background check every time they purchased ammunition.
The Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/da939b10185f662e536ec96dc6156aa2">reported</a> that U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled against the state of California on Thursday, taking the state to task for its “onerous and convoluted” regulations that violated residents’ Second Amendment rights.
“The experiment has been tried. The casualties have been counted. California’s new ammunition background check law misfires and the Second Amendment rights of California citizens have been gravely injured,” Benitez wrote in his 120-page opinion.
“Criminals, tyrants, and terrorists don’t do background checks,” he added. “The background check experiment defies common sense while unduly and severely burdening the Second Amendment rights of every responsible, gun-owning citizen desiring to lawfully buy ammunition.”
Benitez explained that even though the law was supposed to stop criminals from buying ammunition, it denied ammo to law-abiding gun owners 16% of the time. Also, the judge wrote, the state ban on importing ammo from other states violated federal interstate commerce laws, the AP reported. The law, Benitez argued, kept out-of-state sellers from reaching California’s market, which violates federal law.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, argued in an earlier court filing that the background checks on ammo had successfully stopped more than 750 people from illegally purchasing ammunition between July 2019 and January 2020. The state also argued that the background checks took about five minutes to complete.
“There is no substantial impediment,” the state argued, according to the AP. “Ammunition purchasers must pass an eligibility check that, in the vast majority of cases, delays a purchase by a few minutes.”
Each time a person bought ammo, they were also required to pay a $1 fee, a nice little boost for state coffers. The law also allowed people to purchase more expensive long-term licenses for ammo if they met certain conditions, such as not having certain criminal convictions or mental health issues.
The law was challenged by the California Rifle &amp; Pistol Association, which asked Benitez to halt the law that required background checks and other restriction on ammunition.
“The law’s red tape and state database errors made it impossible for hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Californians to purchase ammunition for sport or self-defense,” Chuck Michel, the association’s general counsel, told the AP. “The court found that the flimsy reasons offered by the government to justify these constitutional infringements were inadequate.”
Michel said he expects the state to appeal the ruling. The state attorney general’s office told the AP is was reviewing the decision and would not say at that time whether it definitely planned to appeal or try to stay the order.
The California Rifle &amp; Pistol Association were not the only ones named as plaintiffs. Out-of-state ammunition sellers and California residents, such as Olympian Kim Rhode, who has six Olympic medals for shooting competitions, also joined the fight.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> subscriber</a>.

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Menu

Guns

Riots, Violent Crime, ‘Defund Police’ Push Surged In June. Gun Sales Exploded To All-Time High, FBI Data Suggests.

Chicago Suffers Another Weekend Of Violence, Including Rush Hour Shooting On Major Highway

WATCH: Protesters Storm Baptist Church, Harass Children, Assault Parishioners: ‘How’s Your Head Feel, Pastor?’

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Florida Sheriff Says He’ll ‘Deputize Every Lawful Gun Owner In The County’ To Control Violent Protests

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Father Of Black Teen Killed In CHOP: It’s Time To Bring In The National Guard

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