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NY: Murder charge dropped in alleged self-defense road rage slaying of Wallkill grandfather
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Instead, Duke was arraigned on manslaughter and a weapon charge. He pleaded not guilty after a grand jury reviewed the case.
Duke had several family and friends in court. His attorney, Michael Sussman, spoke to News 12 after the arraignment.
�Our understanding is that Mr. Laddy unfortunately behaved in an aggressive manner both previously and at the scene,� said Sussman. �Mr. Duke, who did have a knife for self-protection, utilized it - stabbing him once and killing him.�
Sussman says the district attorney�s office presented new evidence revealing that multiple witnesses stated that the victim initiated the deadly altercation in the town of Wallkill after the two were involved in a car accident on Route 17 on Oct. 20. |
CA: Greenfield police and DA at odds over Greenfield shooting
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"You know, if you're a passenger sitting in a car by yourself and somebody with about a foot-long knife comes up to your car and without your permission opens the door and sticks the knife, you're going to have the right to self-defense. And that is, in short, what's on the video," Bannon said.
Justin Mattke, a Greenfield police seargent, says the DA failed to explain that Cerna antagonized Silva-Marin's party.
The DA says that's untrue. |
PA: Hunters� choice
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Senate candidate Doctor Mehmet Oz is the clear choice for all Pennsylvanians, particularly hunters. As a candidate who owns guns and grew up hunting with his father, Dr. Oz has been a strong proponent of protecting the Second Amendment since day one. Throughout his campaign against John Fetterman, Dr. Oz has put up an impressive fight against senseless firearm control proposals and has promised to protect our constitutional right to bear arms if elected. |
OH: After year in jail, Dayton man found not guilty in death of 61-year-old
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A jury found 31-year-old Aaron Vance not guilty of murder and felonious assault after a trial this week, according to Montgomery County Common Pleas Court records.
�This was a self-defense case. Mr. Vance asserted his right to self defense,� said defense attorney Ben Swift. �He has been in jail over a year. He is relieved the jury decided he acted correctly in this case in order to protect himself, and he is happy to have this matter behind him.� |
CA: Police say man�s death near El Dorado Park may have been self-defense
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A 48-year-old Murrieta man died Wednesday night near El Dorado Park after attacking another man, and police said the slaying may have been self-defense.
Police said the 48-year-old suspect confronted the other man around 10:30 p.m. in the 7400 block of East Willow Street and unexpectedly attacked him with a metallic cable.
The victim�s parent, who called the police, intervened and helped his son subdue the suspect �in an effort to stop the attack,� police said. |
NY: New York Church Challenges State Ban on Firearms in Houses of Worship
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First Liberty Institute and the law firms Clement & Murphy PLLC and Ganguly Brothers PLLC filed a federal lawsuit against the state of New York challenging the state�s prohibition on firearms at houses of worship. The suit was filed on behalf of His Tabernacle Family Church, a nondenominational Christian church in Horseheads, New York, founded by Pastor Micheal Spencer.
You can read the complaint here.
Erin Murphy, Partner at Clement & Murphy said, �No American should be forced to sacrifice one constitutionally protected freedom to enjoy another. Houses of worship have a constitutionally protected freedom to decide for themselves whether to allow otherwise legally possessed firearms into their facilities.� |
Makarov: The Low-Budget and Reliable Soviet Pistol That�s Stood the Test of Time
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Not long after World War II came to an end, the United States and the USSR entered into a Cold War. As a result, both countries began an arms race, with the goal being to produced the most advanced weapons possible. Early on, the Soviet Union developed the Makarov, a pistol that was quickly adopted by countries within the Eastern Bloc. Despite its age, the firearm is still in service across the world, thanks to its reputation for being a fairly reliable weapon. |
NY: At What Point Do New York Voters Say �NO� To Crime & Corrupt Government?
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Moreover, with massive cuts in police funding, cashless bail, and the presence of �non-prosecutors� like the George Soros flunky Alvin Bragg, the need for and right to armed self-defense in New York�especially in New York City�is acute.
But Kathy Hochul perfunctorily dismisses any notion of a natural law right to armed self-defense, even when the U.S. Supreme Court makes abundantly clear to her the right to armed self-defense extends outside the home as well as inside it. Her response to the Bruen rulings makes her antipathy toward the right to armed self-defense crystal clear. |
CA: Pelosi Family Becomes Victim of Own Policies During Break-In
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While Mr. Pelosi chose to not use a firearm for his defense, instead relying on the local police department�s response, that does not mean that many Americans want to experience the same thing. If something goes �bump in the night� as the saying goes, many Americans rely on their firearms as their first line of defense within their homes.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi advocates for many policies that keep firearms out of the hands of average law-abiding citizens. Often times as well, government figures and politicians like the Pelosis rely on private security, federal law enforcement, and local police for their personal defense in lieu of firearms, as they push for public policy that disarms the average American citizen. |
IA: Vote against gun amendment
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On the ballot in Iowa, Iowans have the chance to vote no on a proposed constitutional amendment, also called Public Measure 1.
Public Measure No. 1 does not simply replicate the language of the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. The proposed amendment adds that �any and all restrictions� of the right to bear arms will �be subject to strict scrutiny.� Establishing this stringent standard of judicial review threatens the few public safety measures we have left for firearms in Iowa, threatens any new ones legislators may try to enact, and puts taxpayers on the hook for costly litigation. |
NY: Our conversation with congressional candidate Matt Castelli (D)
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�I�m going to fight to defend our freedoms like a woman�s right to control her own body and her healthcare decisions. And the Second Amendment - I�m going to fight to make sure that we have safety and security for everyone. Yes, that�s funding our law enforcement and securing our border, but it�s also about defending our democracy. Making sure our military and our veterans have the resources they need and making sure we have health security. That comes from access to health care, or job security, and economic security,� said Castelli.
Ed.: More 2A lip service to disguise his gun-grabbing intentions. |
The Shoddy Conclusions of the Man Shaping the Gun-Rights Debate
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Last year, a federal court addressed the question of whether California could ban such guns. The state was one of eight, along with the District of Columbia, that had a prohibition in place. Multiple plaintiffs, including a handful of gun-rights groups, argued that the California statute was useless, relying on the statistical expertise of an economist named John R. Lott, Jr. Lott, who is sixty-four, with wispy gray hair, authoritatively delivers blizzards of empirical conclusions in an unthreatening Midwestern monotone. |
White supremacy, political violence, and firearms
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"The Second Amendment itself does not say much about race," concedes Duke University Professor of Law Darrell Miller. And yet, he says, the right to bear arms has been inextricably bound to racism and white supremacy since its inception and has been used as a tool for political violence for just as long.
"There is a long tradition, going back to the slave codes, of disarming free Blacks and enslaved persons. But equally, there is a long tradition of whites using private personal arms to act as privatized police of Black persons and communities of color in the slave patrol," Miller said during a recent panel discussion hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
Shooting Straight with Sen. Charles Grassley
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A few years back I was led to a little, windowless office beneath the U.S. Capitol Building. I�d heard that senators with enough seniority get these secondary offices where they can wait comfortably for votes up on the floor. To get here, I first had to meet Sen. Chuck Grassley�s (R-Iowa) press-relations person in the Hart Senate Office Building and then go downstairs to take an underground train that only members, staff and their guests may take to the Capitol Building. |
GA: Atlanta zoo backtracks on its gun ban after two months, allows visitors to carry firearms
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An Atlanta zoo backtracked its gun ban amid the threat of legal action from Second Amendment groups and will now allow visitors to carry firearms on its property.
�Zoo Atlanta continues to believe that its decision to prohibit carrying of guns onto Zoo Atlanta grounds is legally supportable and in the best interest of safety. At this time, however, Zoo Atlanta is choosing not to undergo the major distraction and expense of litigation, but will instead give public officials an opportunity to consider and address this issue,� Zoo Atlanta officials said this week in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital. |
Judge Carlton Reeves challenges Clarence Thomas on guns.
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Last Thursday, Judge Carlton Reeves of the Southern District of Mississippi charted a different course: He proposed appointing a historian to help him �identify and sift through authoritative sources on founding-era firearms restrictions� to decide the constitutionality of a federal law barring felons from possessing firearms. His proposal is the first positive development in Second Amendment law since the Bruen revolution. At worst, it will demonstrate the absurdity and impossibility of Thomas� command. At best, it will restore sanity to an area of jurisprudence that is going completely off the rails. |
Alex Jones Claims Sandy Hook Families Pressured Him to Renounce Guns
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Conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder Alex Jones claimed that lawyers representing Sandy Hook families pressured him to denounce the Second Amendment, granting the right to bear arms, in exchange for dropping allegations made against him.
"...the groups that sued me in these kangaroo courts told me in mediation, they said 'we want you to come out against the Second Amendment and we'll drop all this,'" he said during a clip, from his Infowars broadcast, that was posted on Twitter on Thursday by account user David Edwards. |
HI: County Council passes first reading of gun bill with a few amendments
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The Hawaiʻi County Council spent nearly three hours Wednesday hearing additional testimony from both sides of the gun control debate and discussing amendment after amendment to the second draft of Bill 220.
The bill details the proposed �sensitive places� where carrying a licensed firearm, concealed or not, would be prohibited on the Big Island.
After making five changes to the second draft, the County Council passed it by a vote of 7 to 1, with Councilman Matt Kaneali�i-Kleinfelder voting no and Vice Chairman Aaron Chung absent at the time of the vote. |
MD: Safety of children: More important than right to own an AR-15 rifle
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In the most indecent, tone-deaf display of political pandering I�ve ever seen, Mike Hough raffled off an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to raise money for his 2018 Maryland Senate re-election bid. The prize included 250 rounds of ammunition, and he raised $3,975.
Hough�s craven political stunt was utterly disrespectful to families who have lost children and loved ones to gun violence. He claimed that Americans have �God-given� Second Amendment rights. Whether you believe that or not, I am positive that God would rather we hug our kids when they get home from school than we own a gun.
Ed.: Given that most religions portray God as all-knowing, I suspect God is aware that one can both hug their kids *and* own a gun to protect them. |
DE: Delaware Officials Sued Over Age-Based Firearm Restrictions
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Delaware officials have been sued over a new state law prohibiting, in most circumstances, individuals under 21 from purchasing, owning or otherwise possessing most firearms.
The Delaware State Sportsmen�s Association and the Bridgeville Rifle and Pistol Club, Ltd., along with Gavin J. Birney, an 18-year-old who is a member of both organizations, filed the lawsuit in Chancery Court on Wednesday.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim that HB 451, signed by Governor John Carney (D) on June 30, violates Second Amendment and equal protection guarantees, as well as Article I, Section 20, of the Delaware Constitution. |
What is the Legal Definition of Firearm, Receiver, Frame
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When discussing or debating any topic, especially one as contentious as guns, it is essential that the people engaged in discussion use agreed upon terms. We can't properly convey all we want to say to someone who speaks an unfamiliar language. In this way, our discussions will be futile if we can't agree on the definitions of the very things we are talking about. For that reason, I think it's important to look at the legal definition of terms like: firearm, receiver, frame, and (PFM) privately made firearm. |
The Right�s Favorite Gun Researcher
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In 1957, the small-arms manufacturer Armalite created the AR-15 � short for Armalite Rifle � at the invitation of the U.S. Army, which was seeking an effective lightweight combat weapon. When the Department of Defense reviewed a version of the rifle in 1962, during the early stages of the Vietnam War, its report stated that the gun�s �lethality� and �reliability� were �particularly impressive.� From 49 feet away, it noted, an Army Ranger fired a round into a Vietcong soldier�s head and �took it completely off.� |
Dems finally passed gun legislation. And they haven�t paid an electoral price for it.
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For decades, votes on gun safety bills were seen as being among the riskiest for frontline lawmakers. Back a bill restricting gun access, the assumption went, and look out when you�re up for reelection.
That apparently is no longer the case.
Days away from the midterm elections and just months after President Joe Biden signed the first gun safety bill into law in nearly 30 years, no one who voted for that measure � Democrat or Republican � appears to be paying a political price. Nor are they suffering for the bipartisan confirmation of the first director of the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms since 2013. |
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