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Bloomberg’s “Scientists” Hoping to “Disprove” Your Fundamental Rights

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Bloomberg’s “Scientists” Hoping to “Disprove” Your Fundamental Rights

On October 15, a group of researchers at the Michael Bloomberg funded Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research did what they are paid to do: deliver “evidence” to support the necessity of banning guns. This time, they went after firearms on college campuses. Spoiler alert: they determined “the research” showed it’s a bad idea.

There are plenty of sound reasons to criticize the findings of the report from a scholarly point of view. You can read about some of them at this link, among other places.

But the question all gun owners must ask themselves in response to this or any similar effort (and there will be many more to come) is simply this: will your surrender your freedom because a group of people with fancy academic titles behind their names insist on it?

One of the most famous quotes on the law comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote: “The life of the law has not been logic – it has been experience. … The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics.”

This helps explain why law students study case law, rather than just read books summarizing events, trends, or statistical sampling. Each case involves an actual dispute between real people arising in the real world. And each case is resolved individually, on its own merits. Together, they help form a body of law by which an entire people are governed.

The Second Amendment is a prime example of how experience drives legal precepts. Its proponents understood, many of them by first-hand experience, the essential lesson that a people could never be truly free if they had to depend on others to protect their very lives.

That lesson is as applicable today as it was in 1792. For all that military and law enforcement forces do to protect the nation on a grand scale, they won’t be there when the prowler shows up at your house at 3:00 a.m. or when a college student is accosted in a parking garage after an evening class.

But because they cannot alter essential human nature and experience, nor suppress the instinctual drive of every living being to self-defense, gun control proponents continually try to refocus the debate. They tell stories about victims who law-abiding gun owners didn’t harm. And they write “reports” concluding your gun won’t protect you when you need it.

Yet even their own statistics show that people do defend themselves with guns. 

Each one of those people has a unique story, like the stories told in law school case books. And each one of the lives saved by a defensive gun used mattered.

Let’s be clear: antigun researchers are not seeking to discover the truth. They are seeking to support the policy goals of the antigun individuals and organizations that fund them.

But whatever they claim the “research” tells us about guns, you have a fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms to protect yourself and your loved ones. That right is not dependent on anyone’s academic efforts, and it does not yield to them. 

There is an entire industry devoted to undermining the Second Amendment, with branches in academia, politics, entertainment, law, and science. It wants to ban firearms. It assumes it will eventually succeed.

So hold fast to your rights. Hold fast to your guns. Because whatever they try to tell you, your life matters, too.

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Major Digital Currency’s Terms of Use Prohibit Firearm and Ammunition Sales

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Monday, October 20, 2025

Major Digital Currency’s Terms of Use Prohibit Firearm and Ammunition Sales

So much of the energy surrounding the digital currency space has been aimed at bringing forth a new liberty. 

North Carolina: Update on Permitless Carry

Friday, October 24, 2025

North Carolina: Update on Permitless Carry

Last week the North Carolina General Assembly briefly returned from recess and re-referred Senate Bill 50, Freedom to Carry NC, to the House Rules Committee.

Urban Crime Spike “the Most Overlooked U.S. Crime Story in Recent Years”

News  

Monday, October 20, 2025

Urban Crime Spike “the Most Overlooked U.S. Crime Story in Recent Years”

It was a standard talking point of the Biden White House that violent crime had dropped by record levels under the Biden-Harris administration, attributed in part to its support of gun control measures.

NRA Files Lawsuit Challenging California’s Glock Ban

Monday, October 13, 2025

NRA Files Lawsuit Challenging California’s Glock Ban

Today, the National Rifle Association—along with Firearms Policy Coalition, Second Amendment Foundation, Poway Weapons & Gear, and two NRA members—filed a lawsuit challenging California’s Glock ban.

David Hogg: “The Grift that Keeps on Grifting”

News  

Monday, October 20, 2025

David Hogg: “The Grift that Keeps on Grifting”

At this point, anybody who reads NRA-ILA’s Grassroots Alerts even sporadically is well aware of the shameless, anti-gun self-promoter David Hogg. 

California: Governor Newsom Signs Gun Control Bills Into Law

Monday, October 13, 2025

California: Governor Newsom Signs Gun Control Bills Into Law

For someone who has claimed to be"...deeply mindful and respectful of the Second Amendment and people’s Constitutional rights,” Governor Gavin Newsom has once again proven that actions speak louder than words.

Virginia: Wytheville Town Council to Vote on Gun Control Ordinance on Monday

Friday, October 24, 2025

Virginia: Wytheville Town Council to Vote on Gun Control Ordinance on Monday

On Monday, October 27, the Wytheville Town Council is scheduled to vote on a gun control ordinance that would expand “gun-free zones” by prohibiting firearms in Wytheville government buildings, public parks, and community and recreation ...

NRA-ILA Files Reply Brief Pressing the U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Its Challenge to the NFA’s Restrictions on Short-Barreled Rifles

Thursday, October 23, 2025

NRA-ILA Files Reply Brief Pressing the U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Its Challenge to the NFA’s Restrictions on Short-Barreled Rifles

Today, the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) filed a Reply Brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a challenge to the National Firearms Act of 1934’s restrictions on short-barreled rifles in a ...

Canada’s Gun Grab: Amnesty Expiration Approaches as Top Officials Sow Confusion

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Monday, September 22, 2025

Canada’s Gun Grab: Amnesty Expiration Approaches as Top Officials Sow Confusion

Canada’s Liberal government has consistently and misleadingly used “buyback” to describe the 2020 mandatory “assault weapon” confiscation law, in an attempt to make the scheme appear less hostile to property rights and Canada’s responsible gun ...

Canada’s Public Safety Minister on Gun Ban & Confiscation: “Don’t Ask Me to Explain the Logic”

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Monday, September 29, 2025

Canada’s Public Safety Minister on Gun Ban & Confiscation: “Don’t Ask Me to Explain the Logic”

There have been multiple developments on the Canadian gun grab and ban in the last few days, but the most astounding has got to be a leaked bombshell recording of the Liberal Public Safety Minister, ...

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NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.