gun control
May 15, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Desperate to deflect attention from Minnesota’s fraud scandals, the state’s Democrats have seized on gun control as a political lifeline, much as they did with abortion in 2022. Despite having passed an anti-gun package when they had complete control over state government in 2023, the Democrats have come up with a new bill that, among other things, would ban sales of “assault weapons,” i.e., semiautomatic rifles (and some pistols) with
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March 12, 2026 — Scott Johnson
I am sorry to report that state senator Matt Klein represents my district in the Minnesota legislature and now seeks a promotion to fill Rep. Angie Craig’s congressional seat, where he would represent my congressional district. It’s not the Peter Principle in action. It’s Minnesota’s Only the Wrong Survive varation on it. With Klein sponsoring a home-invasion bill to infringe Minnesotans’ Second Amendment rights, I feel like the kind of
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September 29, 2025 — Scott Johnson
In August 2024 the Minneapolis Star Tribune renamed itself the Minnesota Star Tribune. It now fancies itself a statewide organ rather than the mouthpiece of the Twin Cities left. It nevertheless toes the party line of whatever the left is touting in Hennepin County (Minneapolis and inner ring suburbs) and across the river at the state capitol in St. Paul. Let us take as an example this past weekend’s headline
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September 18, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I wrote critically of former Star Tribune reporter and current Star Tribune editorial board member in “Some dare call it smugness.” In her current column, Olson toes the DFL line on the Annunciation Church shooting in toto: “Should the next school shooter be able to use an assault rifle? Republicans seem to think so.” Murderer Robin (formerly Robert) Westman did not use an “assault rifle” in the shooting. The party
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September 2, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Governor Walz announced this morning that he will call a special session of the legislature to address “gun violence” with the usual Democrat nonsolutions, including an “assault weapons” ban. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as an “assault weapon,” but Democrats will insist there is. Would such a ban have done anything to prevent Robin Westman’s shooting spree at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis last week? It’s probably
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August 30, 2025 — John Hinderaker
This is truly ghoulish: Minnesota Democrats are fundraising off Robin Westman’s murderous spree: Note the suggestion that “Minnesota Republicans…may refuse to take action, even now.” As though it were self-evident that Westman’s murders require banning a particular type of firearm, one of several, I believe, that he used. Governor Tim Walz has said that he is considering calling a special session to enact more gun control legislation, including an “assault
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August 28, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Many of our readers will remember the funeral that the Democratic Party staged for Paul Wellstone after he died in a plane crash shortly before the 2002 election. Democrats from around the country attended, and the event quickly became a political rally. It was televised nationally, and most viewers were repelled by the crass partisanship on display. Wellstone’s campaign manager apologized, but the damage was done, and days after the
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August 28, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The hapless mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, says it’s time to act. From The Hill newspaper, Minneapolis ‘united in grief,’ will be ‘united in action,’ mayor says. The grief, of course, is a reference to yesterday’s horrific Catholic school/church shooting in Minneapolis. But the action? Frey said early Thursday that people with “severe” mental health issues should not be able to have access to guns. Let’s back up. The perpetrator
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July 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker
This graphic recently came across my Instagram feed: Is that true? Yes, if gun deaths are homicides. In the most recent year available, there were 17,927 firearm homicides in the U.S. Meanwhile, there were 43,700 deaths in Europe caused by heat. (Vastly more deaths are caused by cold.) So: Europe should undertake an emergency effort to install universal air conditioning. If it saves just one life, it will be worth
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September 5, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
In Germany in 2023 there were 13,844, “knife crime” incidents and last month a Syrian “soldier of the Islamic State” stabbed three people to death and wounded eight others at a “Diversity Festival” in Solingen. That got the attention of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who seeks to reduce the length of knives people are allowed to carry from 4.7 inches to 2.4 inches. Chancellor Scholz may be unaware that Theodoric the
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June 15, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Liberals like to talk about the rule of law, but they don’t really believe in it. They usually think that laws are general guideposts that point in a broad direction. It is up to liberal judges to exercise those mandates in accord with their policy preferences. The “bump stock” case that the Supreme Court decided yesterday is a case in point. I had never heard of a bump stock until
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June 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Hunter Biden had essentially no defense to the felony gun charges of which we was convicted today. To the extent he had one, it was represented by the presence of Jill Biden sitting in court behind him. Hunter had only the Biden defense: I am Biden. Hear me roar. Don’t screw with me. It has proved a strong and malleable defense, but it came up short today. Given the brevity
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February 15, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
“We do have three persons detained and under investigation for today’s incident,” Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves told reporters Wednesday. According to Graves, “bad actors” had caused the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ rally, and unidentified “officials” said they did not believe the motive was terrorism. (Word starting to dribble out today that the shooting may have been “a personal matter,” which is a euphemism for “gang-related.”) Fox
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December 22, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley
In the course of writing Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon encountered Mohammed, who pursued the Jews with “implacable hatred” to the end of his life. The historian also called out Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogoth king who invaded Italy in 488 AD and “condescended to disarm the unwarlike natives of Italy, interdicting all weapons of offence, and excepting only a small knife for domestic use.” Call
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September 10, 2023 — Scott Johnson
While we’ve had our guard up against the return of the Branch Covidians, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has shown us a new frontier in the malign uses of public health “emergencies.” Grisham has suspended laws that allow open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days after declaring a public health emergency (I’m borrowing the formulation of Jonathan Turley, who explains what it’s all about in
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June 10, 2023 — Steven Hayward
There’s long been reason to believe Gov. Gavin Newsom is nearly as dumb as his “frenemy” Kamala Harris, but this week gives some of the best proof yet: he has departed from Progressive orthodoxy in the dumbest way possible. You may have heard that he has proposed a constitutional amendment to allow for “common sense” gun control, such as background checks, bans on so-called “assault weapons,” and waiting periods for
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April 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I wrote about the use the Biden White House has found in the expulsion of two Democrats from the Tennessee House in “Number 1 fan of the men from TN.” How many ways could they get their hustle on? That was the question. Herewith a footnote. Politico Playbook purports to take us behind the scenes of Vice President Harris’s hop on the Nashville bandwagon last week. The Playbook reporters are
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