The Federalist

After 17 people were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February, more women have been taking classes to learn how to carry a concealed handgun.

In a statement released Monday, the National Carry Academy says the number of women taking concealed-carry courses has spiked by 24 percent since the February 14 shooting. In an interview with The Federalist, NCA CEO Chris Schutrop said an increasing number of women have been arming themselves over the past three years, but the Parkland shooting especially hit a nerve among women.

“There’s a greater chance they can protect themselves if they are carrying a firearm and are trained to use it,” Schutrop said. “It’s a tangible way that they can make a difference to help others and help themselves.”

Since the Parkland shooting, the number of concealed-carry permits issued through NCA has increased by 120 percent among both men and women. In the past, men typically received a majority (66 percent) of these permits, but now about half of the enrollees are women.

When four men tried to break into a woman’s home in Keithville, Louisiana, last Friday, she grabbed her gun and met them at the back door. The unidentified homeowner told police the four suspects fled when they caught sight of her handgun.

A neighbor also told police the neighbor had seen several men wearing hoodies hiding in the bushes outside of the home and on the back porch.

Police apprehended four suspects fleeing the scene in an SUV and found several backpacks with masks and a large knife as well as marijuana. The suspects — Jacorey Fuller, 20; Andre Ealy, 20; Tristen Bradley, 20; and Micah Eugene, 24 — were arrested and charged with burglary and with possessing marijuana and burglary tools, according to KTBS.com. 

A 17-year-old girl defended herself with her dad’s gun from a wanted car thief who broke into her home while she slept Monday morning.

When Kimber Wood of Spokane County, Washington awoke, it was to the sound of someone breaking into her home. Luckily, her parents had warned her there was a suspected car thief on the loose in their area, so she had slept with her dad’s gun under her pillow, KHQ reports.

Police say they initially saw a stolen car early Monday morning, but that the suspect evaded authorities and fled on foot. KHQ reported the incident on “The Wake Up Show,” which Kimber’s parents saw before they left for work.

With the gun in hand, the teen hid behind her makeup vanity, waiting for the intruder to come closer. When the man approached her, she pointed the gun at him and demanded that he leave.

“Who are you?” she said. “Get the (expletive) out of my house!”

The suspect fled her home, stealing her boyfriend’s ATV on the way out. Kimber told KHQ she fired a shot at the ground as he ran. The suspect is still at large.

An Oklahoma man used a revolver to stop a neighbor from killing his three-month-old twin children last Friday.

Leland Foster was allegedly trying to drown his twin babies, one boy and one girl, in the bathtub of his Ada, Oklahoma home after threatening their mother with a knife. Then his neighbor intervened, according to KOFR-TV. 

A 12-year-old girl who was living in the house ran to seek help from her neighbor, Cash Freeman, who saved the babies’ lives by shooting Foster twice in the back with a revolver, which killed him.

Foster has a violent criminal record. In 2011, he pled guilty to domestic abuse by strangulation and arson in the first degree.

Freeman told reporters he’s worried he might get into trouble for saving the babies’ lives. According to KOFR, Ada police said the incident would go before the district attorney, who will decide if the homicide was justified. Police said they questioned Freeman just after the incident and released him.

The babies were flown to a nearby hospital and have since been released.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that support for an assault weapons ban is dropping. Fifty-three percent of Americans who were surveyed say they oppose such a ban, the highest amount of opposition to the ban ever recorded. Only 45 percent thought banning assault weapons was a good idea—a significant drop from the 56 percent who supported it in 2013 and 80 percent who supported it in 1994.

Not long ago, after the mass shooting in Sandy Hook, President Obama issued an executive order that lifted the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) ban on researching gun violence. Despite this, some say the CDC has still not touched gun violence because Congress has blocked funding for this.

Another day, another series of embarrassing errors and obfuscations by gun controllers who are ignorant of how guns, and the laws that seek to control them, actually work.

I’m not one to make light of mass shootings, and I shouldn’t have to say that I deplore violence. But that’s undoubtedly the charge that will be hurled at me when I say that I can’t stand the latest PSA from Everytown for Gun Safety.

In a recent interview for Hollywood Elsewhere, Kurt Russell shut down a reporter’s argument in favor of gun control.

An American Civil Liberties Union leader has doubled down after catching heat for his comments about Donald Trump.

Every time there is a shooting, liberals react defensively and push more gun control. Without fail, their misleading, dramatic rhetoric has the opposite effect in real life: More people purchase firearms.

Gun deaths are down. Gun crimes are down. And progressives still want to take your guns. To aid that purpose, and also because they think it will give Democrats a boost during election season, they are pushing legislation that would allow the Justice Department to forbid the sale or transfer of firearms to, they say, terrorists. Or maybe just to suspected terrorists. Or maybe to people on the federal no-fly list. Or maybe to all of these people. The Democrats have not been clear about just who would be prevented from purchasing firearms under the proposed law.

If the performance of these gunmaker stocks is any indication, President Barack Obama might be the greatest gun salesman in American history.

When we discussed it yesterday morning on Face the Nation, the exact content of President Obama’s speech last night was not clear. It was still possible it could represent a marked change in strategy on the part of the White House, given that a steady drumbeat of criticism from fellow Democrats had put their approach to dealing with ISIS in its weakest political positioning yet. The intelligence community has been increasingly clear that, contra the evidence in prior fudged reports, ISIS is not contained.

I have no idea what an editorial board meeting of The New York Times looks like, but I sometimes picture it as a gathering of the titular Dead Poets Society from the rather overrated 1989 Robin Williams movie: a bunch of mostly confused people discussing things they don’t really understand, all the while believing that they are doing something subversive.

The New York Times published an editorial on its front page for the first time since 1920. Entitled “End the Gun Epidemic in America,” its placement and strong language reflect the editors’ outrage over the recent mass shootings and their sense of urgency that something needs to be done.

Having overwhelmingly lost the public debate about whether the Obama administration’s Syrian refugee screening policy should be enhanced, Democrats have retreated to more comfortable rhetorical ground: demanding more gun control.