John Bacon and Steve Kiggins, USA TODAY Published 1:55 p.m. ET Dec. 29, 2019 | Updated 8:28 a.m. ET Dec. 30, 2019CLOSEA man pulled out a shotgun inside a North Texas church on Sunday and opened fire, killing two people, authorities said. It could have been far worse.Two congregants, both volunteer members of the church's security…
Key point: Individuals have a historical right to make their own firearms. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, the agency that regulates gun ownership in the United States, recognizes that individuals have a historical right to make their own firearms. While this may have been common in the eighteenth century, it is only…
Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced Monday his “assault weapons” ban will mean AR-15 owners can either register their guns with the government or hand them over. The Virginia Mercury reported Northam spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky used a statement to say, “The governor’s assault weapons ban will include a grandfather clause for individuals who already own assault weapons,…
THE first person charged under Florida's new "red flag" gun law has been found guilty of refusing to give up his weapons. Jerron Smith, 33, had built up an arsenal of weaponry including a glock handgun, a .22 caliber rifle and an AR-15 assault rifle - a favorite of mass shooters. 2 Jerron Smith, 33,…
Key point: The SU-16 is an interesting design, but it fails to do anything better than most of its competitors. Kel-tec’s Sport Utility 16 (SU-16) rifle is an odd compromise. Designed to compete with budget AR-15, the rifle features a highly similar layout to the AR, but an AK-like operating system that uses a long-stroke…
Key Point: For those that want an AR experience in a handgun form, the AR-556 is one firearm to consider. The AR-15 rifle, or ArmaLite Rifle-15, was developed by Eugene Stoner as a potential military firearm. The AR-15, first adopted by the U.S. Air Force and later by the rest of the armed forces, is…
Key point: This new weapon has few real drawbacks and delivers performance at a not unreasonable price. The AR-15 has long been the dominant semi-automatic rifle platform in the U.S., prized for its unparalleled modability and component diversity. The AR-15 platform’s immense popularity has spawned a fiercely competitive consumer market, with firearms manufacturers constantly searching for…
Key Point: A step-by-step process. As I’ve said before, there are a lot of great AR-15s out there at a variety of price points, but maybe you’re like me and you want to get your hands dirty and try your luck at making one of your own. Building a fancy, customized precision sniper rifle is something…
An Indiana teen’s death has been ruled a homicide after her backseat passenger’s AR-15 rifle went off and hit her while she drove, ultimately killing her. Police said that Smith was sitting behind Annalysa McMillan as she drove her car Tuesday in Marion — about 85 miles north of Indianapolis — when his rifle went…
Andrew Bacevich describes how the U.S. learned all the wrong lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War:You won’t hear it from any of the candidates vying to succeed Trump, but we are still haunted by our false conception of the Cold War. On the stump, politicians get…
Washington’s new language museum, Planet Word, will open on May 31st: “The museum will be housed in the historic Franklin School Building, built by architect Adolf Cluss in 1869. History nerds know it as the place where Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever wireless voice transmission in 1880. Visitors to the free museum will encounter…
“All that is constant about the California of my childhood is the rate at which it disappears.”—Joan Didion, “Notes From a Native Daughter”Idaho’s Treasure Valley lies in the western Snake River plain, a stretch of semi-arid land with sagebrush-covered hillsides and green river valleys. My great-great-great-grandparents homesteaded there in the early 20th century. As a…
After celebrating Tuesday’s takeover of Virginia’s legislature and the Kentucky governorship, the liberal establishment appears poised to crush its biggest threat: the surging candidacy of Elizabeth Warren.From the tempo and tenor of the attacks, establishment fears of Warren’s success are real — and understandably so.Two Wednesday polls show Warren running even with Joe Biden nationally.…
"Think Tank Town" panel with (from right) Kelley Vlahos, Carrie Levine, Ben Freeman, Chris Preble and Stephen Wertheim.(Credit Trita Parsi) WASHINGTON — We spent the day taking direct aim at the entrenched foreign policy establishment, which for too long has promoted war over diplomacy at the behest of a powerful military industrial complex, and American…
Dear progressive friends, family, those who have unfriended me in real life and online, deplatformed me, told me I belong to a cult, claimed I’m blind, and everyone who suggested I commit physically impossible acts upon myself:I can’t tweet this as I’ve been life-banned, and while currently my Facebook is open, I’ve been blocked there…