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This topic interests me because it is a big question that will effect our country greatly. I know that many pick a side on this topic and stick to it no matter what happens. The two sides in this situation are; we should keep our second amendment to bear arms or, we should take away the second amendment. Both sides having justification for their beliefs. I have more of neutral view on this topic however, I tend to agree more with keeping the second amendment.

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This source is heavily biased towards the right side. This source wants self defense to be more protected under the constitution opposed to how you need to fight in court for the right to it. This source wants to persuade you to keep gun laws the way they are and to make it easier to fight a self defense case in court. This source also promotes the red side of the argument making it a very clear bias.

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The jury is still out as I write this; I wish I could be confident that our justice system will provide what it promises and that the unjustly accused will leave the courthouse wearing a smile instead of handcuffs. Kyle Rittenhouse, who went into the void created by the cowardly leftist officials who refused to protect decent citizens from the militarized wing of the Democrat Party, might well be convicted. He got dragged through a legal nightmare, and if that's all that happens to him, then that's the best-case scenario. Us lawyers understand that evidence and law are not what determine jury verdicts; they are merely factors in a much bigger picture. Instead of facing life in prison, Kyle ought to get a medal for taking out several degenerates, including a promising potential Lincoln Project intern.

If you are looking for justice, you won't necessarily find it in a courthouse.

The motive behind the atrocious shredding of our social contract represented by these charges and the lying prosecutors is clear. The idea is to neutralize citizen pushback against leftist stormtroopers, to make us afraid to do what we have an inalienable right to do and defend ourselves. Right now, no matter how clearly justified you are, no matter that the rap sheet of the scumbag you defended yourself against includes burglary, domestic violence, and/or the anal rape of little boys, you must weigh the potential of losing your livelihood and freedom against defending yourself and others. At best, you might face years of legal nightmares (criminal and civil) and media crucifixion.

This is exactly what they want, and the purpose is to stop you from exercising your right to self-defense. But there is no reason that anyone in one of the free red states should ever have to worry that saving your own or others' lives will ruin yours. The criminals and rioters started this. We have a right to finish it and then to go on with our lives thereafter in peace.

Where Republicans are in power, they must act decisively to lift the fear from citizens and put it back on the criminals, where it belongs. If the GOP can't do this, if they can't or won't secure our ability to not be murdered, what the hell use are they?

The folks we elect need to act, and there are many reforms begging to be enacted. In listing them, I consulted America's self-defense guru, attorney Andrew F. Branca, whose Rittenhouse coverage has been sensational (you can get a free copy of his book, "The Law of Self Defense," here: http://lawofselfdefense.com/freebook).

The first thing our red lawmakers must do is clearly articulate the principle that self-defense is a right and a responsibility and that it is not some sort of outlier exception to the rule but, instead, a part of the basic foundation of our society. This should be achieved by a statute that unequivocally requires that the law be interpreted to make it hard for leftist prosecutors to undermine claims of self-defense. Such laws that weigh the scale in favor of outcomes in accord with public policy are common. A model statute might read: "It is the policy of the great State of [INSERT NAME OF NON-BLUE STATE HELLHOLE HERE] that the right of citizens to defend themselves from criminals, rioters, and other threats must be protected so that citizens may exercise their right without fear, and all criminal and civil laws shall be liberally construed to vindicate that right."

"Liberally construed" is a legal term of art that does not mean that it should be interpreted like some pinko wants, but rather that any applicable law should be construed to facilitate the stated goal - here, that of ensuring that citizens can cap any criminals threatening them and walk away scot-free.

We need to understand that leftist lawfare considers the process as part of the punishment, and legislators must therefore provide for an expedited pre-trial process to eliminate criminal cases where the state cannot disprove self-defense. This is an important point - self-defense is often merely a defense to a charge, and "the force was not used in self-defense" is not an element of the crime, meaning that in many cases, the state need not disprove self-defense by beyond a reasonable doubt. The accused has to prove a defense.

Nah. The hell with that noise. Make the state disprove a self-defense claim at a special proceeding long before trial, then make the state disprove it again to a jury at trial. Yes, that means two bites at the apple of freedom - the howling leftists correctly assess that we are firmly favoring self-defenders. These self-defense immunity pre-trial hearings exist in some places and are often mislabeled "stand your ground trials," which they are NOT - they are hearings. The burden of proof must be properly set - in the free state of Florida, for example, the state has the burden to disprove self-defense at an immunity hearing by clear and convincing evidence, not merely by the lesser standard of a preponderance on the defense. I'd make the burden beyond a reasonable doubt.

Next, during the court process, we need to make sure some of the basic premises about self-defense are clarified: "A claim arising under the right to self-defense shall not be impeached, limited or challenged by the fact that the person claiming to exercise the right was lawfully present at the site of a riot or tumult, that he traveled any distance to the location where he was lawfully present, or that he was armed, or the type of weapon he used." No, a big, scary AR-15 does not negate your right. Nor does the fact you didn't scamper and hide like a sissy.

Also, a person using force to defend himself against rioters must be presumed to use it lawfully. And we need to clarify that force may be used to defend property (Branca observes that in Texas, you can defend property - cool). Let's go further and allow the defense of pets. I've had friends whose dogs were attacked by these savages - their dogs, people! Call that the "John Wick Law." Hurt a dog, die like one.

Further: "The jury shall be instructed that unarmed individuals can pose a grave threat to armed individuals, and that a person attempting to take the weapon of the self-defender by force or threat of force shall be presumed to intend to use that weapon upon the self-defender." Try to take a piece? Better make your peace.

Let's also give the jury the full story and require that the entire criminal history of the target be revealed to the jury and that the jury be instructed that this history can be considered on the question of whether the self-defender was threatened. No, the self-defender might not know the history of the target when he fires, but who cares? Justice demands the jury know who got shot since it has a bearing on why he got himself into the position where he needed to get shot.

And we just found out that the prosecutors in the Rittenhouse case were playing games with the evidence, substituting a hi-res version of a video for an unclear one that showed much less. We need a one strike rule for this kind of misconduct - if the DA cheats, the accused walks. Period. And not just in self-defense cases. The last few years have been a huge red pill to conservatives as the authorities have totally squandered any goodwill or deference we might have once had with their shameful attempts to frame political opponents.

A bogus criminal charge by a Soros-owned DA can financially devastate a citizen, so let's make the DA put some municipal skin in the game. Red legislatures must pass laws that ensure that not only does the locality have to pay all the defense costs of an acquitted accused, but the locality must pay his other damages, like lost wages and emotional distress. DAs, go ahead and charge him if you really believe it's not self-defense, but be prepared to put your money where your indictment is.

And in civil cases, that is, lawsuits by scumbags who got shot, we need a threshold motion to dismiss along the lines of the anti-SLAPP motions that protect free speech. The same evidentiary rules as above should apply, and the losing criminal should have to pay attorney's fees to the self-defender.

We need to normalize self-defense, and we need to allocate the fear of violence to where it belongs - the criminals. Get on it, red legislatures!

Conservatives Must Stand Together and Fight. Join Townhall VIP. And Check Out Last Week's Stream of Kurtiousness, This Is a Valid Self-Defense Case. And my podcast, Unredacted.

Lock and load my sixth Kelly Turnbull conservative action thriller, The Split! It shows what happens when America splits into red and blue countries. Get all six bestsellers, includinPeople's's Republic, Indian Country, Wildfire, Collapse, and Crisis!

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Free States Must Defend the Right to Self-Defense

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The jury is still out as I write this; I wish I could be confident that our justice system will provide what it promises and that the unjustly accused will leave the courthouse wearing a smile instead of handcuffs.

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This source is rated center from the all sides websites and I agree with this. It only states facts with nothing opinion related. However, the title is a little weird for an unbiased article. This article quotes Kyle many times, mostly things that he said to news casters. It also states a fact about a shooting of an armed black man. I feel like without saying it, the article has the agenda of conveying that the case is about race without saying it directly.

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Kyle Rittenhouse says his case 'has nothing to do with race'

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Armed with an AR-15 rifle, Mr Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and wounded 27-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz, testifying that he opened fire in self-defence.

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This source is heavily biased to the left side as stated by all sides media. This article is mostly focused on the dangers of 400 millions guns circulating in the US and how relaxed the gun laws are. The main point they want to get across is that gun laws must be more strict. They also talk about how nothing will get done due to the republican Supreme Court appointed by Trump. This article conveys that they want to lower the amount of guns bought, increase background checks and doing these two will decrease shooting and specifically homicide rates.

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Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter.

Over the past decade, amid rising mass shootings and fierce debate over America's gun laws, the claim that "nothing ever changes" became a political cliché. The frustration was aimed in particular at the federal government-foremost at the failure by Congress to mandate a stronger and more comprehensive background-check system for gun buyers, a policy with long-standing bipartisan support among Americans, including gun owners. Much has changed in recent years, in fact, at the state and local levels, where governments adopted hundreds of regulations either tightening or loosening restrictions on firearms, a mix defined largely along partisan lines. From a national perspective, however, the picture has been evolving more recently in some ominous ways.

The US Supreme Court, now tilted decisively to the right with three Trump-appointed justices, will soon rule on a case widely expected to open the floodgates for many more Americans to carry loaded guns whenever and wherever they want. Broad scientific research has long since confirmed that the presence of more guns throughout society correlates with more gun injuries and deaths.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020, gun sales have boomed. "Today, we remain in an unprecedented surge in firearm purchasing that shows no sign of abating and risks becoming part of a new normal for the USA," observes Garen Wintemute, a leading expert on gun-violence research, in an analysis published in early November in the journal of Injury Epidemiology.

FBI background checks on gun buyers during the first three quarters of 2021 were 60 percent higher than the expected level, with 12.5 million "excess" checks among 33.4 million total, according to the analysis. Even those numbers underestimate purchases, Wintemute notes, since they don't account for purchases of multiple firearms in a single transaction, nor for the estimated 20 percent of transactions that don't involve any background checks, such as those between private parties or at gun shows. A least 20 percent of gun purchasers during the pandemic have been first-time buyers, according to multiple surveys included in the analysis, expanding the ranks of the roughly one-third of all Americans who own firearms.
"If that still sounds like unrealistic pessimism, consider what will happen next year when armed voter suppression (surely that's coming) meets armed voter support."
America now has nearly 400 million guns in the hands of citizens, the most of anywhere in the world by far and more than enough to arm every man, woman, and child.But concern about an ever-more locked and loaded nation goes beyond those numbers to include escalating political extremism and rates of homicide in the United States-a convergence of conditions that Wintemute says puts the country "at risk for disaster in the months ahead."

This could include large-scale political violence, he says. "If that still sounds like unrealistic pessimism, consider what will happen next year when armed voter suppression (surely that's coming) meets armed voter support. Perhaps vaccine or mask mandates will trigger more than isolated outbreaks of violence. Or perhaps the flashpoint will be a more focused conflict, such as private enforcement of an abortion ban in Texas or the fight over water rights in the ever-hotter and -dryer West."

Regarding such potential conflict in the West, Wintemute cites far-right political provocateur Ammon Bundy, who made notably stark comments last summer when he suggested to a New York Times reporter that tensions between landowners and the government over water usage in southern Oregon represented an existential threat to farmers and food supplies. "Who cares if there is violence? At least something will be worked out," said Bundy, who led an infamous armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016 and is currently running for governor in Idaho. "'Oh, we don't want violence, we'll just starve to death.' Heaven forbid we talk about violence."

The dangerous combustion of extremist politics has been a primary focus of mine since the 2020 presidential election: In the weeks leading up to the January 6 insurrection, I reported on how a twice-impeached and defiantly exiting Donald Trump came to be viewed by top national security experts as the leader of a domestic terrorism movement. Since then, my Mother Jones colleagues and I have documented how the grim events of January 6 were on the brink of turning far more deadly at the US Capitol, where pro-Trump rioters were armed with guns to a greater extent than is generally understood by the American public.

Wintemute suggests that the current state of crisis can be seen as an opportunity for change. He points to a Biden administration plan to spend $5 billion over eight years on community-based intervention programs to reduce gun violence, and he highlights initiatives by the federal government to battle domestic violent extremism and to disrupt gun trafficking.
It's also worth recalling who benefits from-and who pays the price for-the nation's saturation of guns.
Similarly, constitutional law and gun violence expert Adam Winkler argues that the gun safety movement should shift away from long-running efforts to outlaw assault rifles and large-capacity magazines. "An expansive new interpretation of the Second Amendment by the Supreme Court warrants a reordering of priorities," he writes. "An agenda that focuses on intervention, beefing up gun law enforcement, and better background checks would not only be more likely to survive in the court, it might also do more to reduce gun violence." He notes that while assault rifles "look menacing" and have been used in some of the worst massacres, "most mass shootings are actually committed with handguns."

Another promising solution for preventing mass shootings is the emerging field of behavioral threat assessment, whose interventions using collaborative mental health and law enforcement expertise I first wrote about extensively in 2015. This evolving method and the growth nationwide of threat assessment teams, now mandated for public school systems in more than half a dozen states, is the subject of my forthcoming book, Trigger Points.

It's also worth recalling who benefits from-and who pays the price for-the nation's saturation of guns and their overall lax regulation. As we detailed in a 2016 Mother Jones investigation, the secretive US firearms industry is worth at least $8 billion annually. Profits have been growing again of late for gunmakers and companies with related products: In early November, Vista Outdoor announced a quarterly jump in shooting-sports sales of 49 percent, to $566 million, boosted by 65 percent growth in ammunition sales.

The price for America at large is an order of magnitude greater, as we showed in another investigation in 2015. That begins with the terrible human costs of gun violence, now suffered by more than 150,000 gunshot victims each year, and extends to a staggering economic toll that should worry the staunchest of fiscal conservatives. Even before the most recent era of surging gun sales and gun homicides, the financial cost of gun violence in America, as we documented then, amounted to at least $229 billion. That's billion with a "b"- every single year. It's a price that has continued to rise.

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Gun violence in America could soon get a lot worse

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Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter. Over the past decade, amid rising mass shootings and fierce debate over America's gun laws, the claim that "nothing ever changes" became a political cliché.

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Three Reasons You Should Care About Gun Control

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Three Reasons You Should Care About Gun Control

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Three Reasons You Should Care About Gun Control

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Three Reasons You Should Care About Gun Control

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After researching gun control, I think that it is very important that people care about this topic. This topic will affect you now and your future. The articles that I read had two solutions coming from the right and left sides. The right side wants to leave gun laws the way they are stating things such as "when there's a will there's a way”. They believe that if someone wants a gun they will get it regardless of the legality so it is better to have more people with guns to protect against them. The left side offers the solution of restricting access to guns, meaning more background checks and mental health evaluations before buying guns. I see both of these solutions as good but they could be better. I think a combination of the two would work best. I believe that they should do more mental health and background checks before allowing gun purchases, however, they should still keep guns assessable to those who want them by legal means. This would hopefully appease both sides allowing for the best conclusion to this problem.